Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 550

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARSHALL. I think those are great goals. And having children and grandchildren that love the great outdoors, I want to leave this world better than I found it.

But I guess where we disagree is, How are we going to get there? As a family, we have done projects like we planted over 20,000 trees on our land. We have done several water projects where we preserved wetlands. We have eliminated invasive species. We have worked with and invested in Ducks Unlimited, which does some incredible things for the environment.

What is interesting, as we think about what are the biggest impacts on the environment and what the future holds, actually, the No. 1 predictor is the world economy--that if we have a strong world economy, the carbon footprint is going to be less. So we think about: Well, why is that? And we should answer the question: Why is that so? If there is a strong world economy, then the infrastructure can be built for energy production with a smaller carbon footprint.

I think of building pipelines for natural gas, for instance, as opposed to all these countries that are still burning coal, that are burning wood and diesel fuel, heating fuel. I can't even believe that still, in America, we are burning heating fuel because we won't let natural gas pipelines go across certain areas. So a strong world economy is one of the biggest impacts on our environment's future.

And so what impacts the world economy? I think one of the things is energy. The world needs energy that is not only affordable, but it needs to be reliable and clean. It has to be all those things. And we can do that. But if you have energy production that is not affordable, that is not reliable, then people aren't going to use it, and countries aren't going to use it.

So we need this bridge. We need this bridge, and I think the solution long term is probably some form of nuclear energy. I think it is probably small modular reactors, which have zero carbon footprint. They are walkaway safe. They are not quite ready for prime time, but we are getting closer every year. And I think, within 5 to 10 years, we will have these small modular reactors powering communities and powering data centers and all those great things.

I think we have to keep in mind that it is so expensive to transport electricity. If you transport natural gas to make energy, it is a tenth of the cost that it is to transport electricity. So, again, we have to think about the equation as well as clean, but we also need to think about affordable and reliable.

I think the challenge for those of us who are actually scientists is to go back and think about all the predictions that have never, never come true from the climate alarmists. In 2013, Peter Wadhams said we would be ice free by 2015. In 2007, the IPCC said the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035; it was later retracted. In 2019, everyone's climate alarmist favorite, AOC, said the world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address the climate change. We are not quite to 2031, but we are getting there.

It doesn't do any good to be an alarmist. We need a practical approach to our environment--a practical, pragmatic, economical approach--and I look forward to the day when my friends across the aisle want to sit down with Republicans and have a real conversation about how we get there.

And, again, I am just committed to leaving this world cleaner, healthier, and safer. I don't believe that we can go along with my colleague from Rhode Island's resolution here, and for that reason I object.

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