The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“The Green New Deal (Executive Session)” mentioning the Department of Interior was published in the Senate section on pages S1682-S1692 on March 6, 2019.
The Department oversees more than 500 million acres of land. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, said the department has contributed to a growing water crisis and holds many lands which could be better managed.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
The Green New Deal
Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, I rise today to join over 10 colleagues to speak in opposition to the so-called Green New Deal.
Merriam-Webster defines a deal as ``a bargain'' or ``an agreement for mutual advantage.'' By its name, you would think that Americans are going to derive some benefit from it, but this couldn't be further from the truth.
The truth is that this proposal is a raw deal for America, especially our rural communities.
As many of you know, every month I give out a Squeal Award, which draws attention to outrageous examples of wasteful and reckless spending of taxpayer money.
With a $93 trillion--trillion with a ``t''--pricetag, which is roughly $10 trillion more than the entire recorded spending of the U.S. Government since 1789, this month's Squeal Award goes to the Green New Deal, which, again, I think is kind of a raw deal.
Just think about that number--$93 trillion. To fund this radical government takeover, every American family would have to pay about
$65,000 annually. Folks, that is more than most Iowa households bring in in a year.
The ideas presented in the Green New Deal used to garner support only from the furthest fringes of the political left--the furthest fringes. Concepts like rebuilding every building in the country, outlawing fossil fuels, and guaranteed jobs would never have made their way into mainstream discourse just a few years ago. Now our Democratic colleagues are trying to make them mainstream.
In fact, 100 of the 282 Democratic Members of the House and Senate have signed on to support this plan. This is the creep of socialism into America.
If you work in a part of the energy industry that has fallen out of favor, your job has no place in the country. That is what is envisioned by the Democrats.
The Green New Deal states that one of its goals is to meet ``100 percent of the power demand in the U.S. through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources.''
Don't get me wrong, folks--don't get me wrong--increasing our reliance on renewables is a good goal and one that I support, but we have to be realistic about our current energy capabilities and our needs.
Private sector investment and innovation, coupled with government support and incentives, have contributed to significant advances in renewable energy.
I am proud to say that my home State of Iowa is one of the Nation's leaders in renewable energy, with wind providing nearly 40 percent of our electricity. That is more than any other State in the Nation. With more wind coming online, coal went from producing 76 percent of our electricity in 2008 to 45 percent of it in 2017.
I would note that this transition toward renewables happened largely as a result of State policies and community engagement, not heavyhanded government regulation.
Another one of the ``goals'' I find most interesting in this unrealistic proposal is that of providing ``guaranteed jobs.'' What may be lost on the Democrats is that the best guaranteed jobs program is not housed in a government building; it is a strong economy like the one we are living in right now--not one bogged down by job-killing regulations and punitive tax breaks.
If you want proof of this, look no further than Iowa. Our unemployment sits at a low 2.4 percent, and we have over 63,000 job openings and about 40,000 folks looking for work. That is more job openings than there are people actually looking for jobs.
Lastly, I would point out that as a part of this proposal, our Democratic colleagues want to overhaul transportation systems in the United States. If you live in places like New York City, you can walk to a grocery store, but in rural communities like my hometown of Red Oak, IA, it can take you 30 minutes to drive to a Walmart. I am not talking about 30 minutes of driving to a Walmart in city traffic; I am talking about 30 minutes of driving, probably not meeting any cars at all on the road.
Everything from combines to tractors and to the trucks that transport our grains to market would be impacted. The Green New Deal is unrealistic and would unfairly impact rural communities across this country.
Folks, we have a clear choice. We can continue to support rural America and pro-growth economic policies that boost our economy and create jobs or we can allow socialist fantasies like the Green New Deal to creep in, take hold, bankrupt our Nation, and devastate our rural communities.
I yield the floor to my colleague Senator Cornyn.
Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, will the Senator from Iowa yield to a question?
I am interested in whether she believes that climate change is real, caused by humans, and requires Federal action.
Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, I will yield.
I do believe that climate change is real, and we have seen climate change for centuries, Senator Schatz. So, for my colleague from Hawaii, we have seen climate change; there is no doubt about that.
But what I am debating here today and what we are speaking on is right here: $93 trillion, and we want to get rid of all fossil fuels within 10 years, folks--10 years. We can't drive a combine. We can't harvest our food. For heaven's sake, we have to be realistic.
My home State of Iowa has taken advantage of ingenuity and innovation and developed a process where wind energy contributes 40 percent of our electricity.
Now, with the new wind energy field that is being put in by MidAmerican Energy in the western part of the State, where I am from, in the next 2 to 3 years, 80 percent of our electricity will come from wind energy, and it didn't take big government or socialism to put it into place.
So thank you very much.
I yield the floor to Senator Cornyn.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President.
Mr. SCHATZ. Excuse me, Mr. President. May I ask a followup question through the Chair?
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, regular order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa has yielded the floor to Senator Cornyn.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President.
Mr. SCHATZ. I just would like to get clarification. She did say climate change is real, but my question is whether--
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, regular order.
Mr. SCHATZ.--manmade climate change is real, and I did not get an answer.
Mr. CORNYN. Regular order.
Mr. SCHATZ. If she's unwilling to answer that question, I understand.
Mr. CORNYN. Regular order, Mr. President.
Mr. SCHATZ. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, last week, I spoke on the Senate floor about the perils of socialism. I never thought in my entire life that I would have to do something like that, but given the rise of democratic socialists, which obviously is a contradiction in terms, I think it is important to remind the American people about the failures of socialism, as well as radical policies like the ones the Democrats are trying to push off on the American people.
If you want to know what command and control economics is and what it would mean to our freedom and our liberty, all you need to do is look at the Green New Deal. This is really nothing more than an attempt to mask this power grab by the Federal Government in feel-good environmental policy by mixing ideas like Medicare for All and guaranteed jobs and unrealistic economic and environmental policies.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. CORNYN. With net zero emissions--
Mr. SCHUMER. Will my colleague from Texas yield for a question instead of just filibustering what he says?
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I will--
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas has the floor.
Mr. CORNYN.--yield for a question after I conclude my remarks, not to be interrupted.
Mr. SCHUMER. I simply want to ask the Senator--
Mr. CORNYN. Regular order, Mr. President.
Mr. SCHUMER.--if he believes climate change is real--
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas has the floor.
Mr. SCHUMER.--or caused by humans.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President.
Mr. SCHUMER. We know what he is not for. What is he for?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will yield. The Senator from Texas has the floor.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am not for socialism. I am not for Washington, DC, thinking they know better than what my constituents know about.
Mr. SCHUMER. Will the Senator yield for a question and say what he is for?
Mr. CORNYN. I will not yield.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. SCHUMER. Will he yield for a question stating what he is for, not what he's against but what he is for?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will be in order.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas has the floor.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, if the Democratic leader will just be quiet--
Mr. SCHUMER. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. CORNYN. If he will be quiet for a minute, I will tell him what I am for, if he will quit interrupting.
So what this is is an attempt--is purely a power grab here in Washington masked as a feel-good environmental policy, mixing ideas like Medicare for All and guaranteed jobs with wildly unrealistic and radical environmental policies like zero net emissions transportation systems and guaranteed green housing.
Since this resolution was proposed, it has gained the ire of people on both sides of the aisle, something we don't see that often, and something that I don't know that I have ever seen. One of this bill's authors refers to the majority leader's intent to bring this resolution to the floor as sabotage.
Ordinarily, when you introduce an idea to the U.S. Congress, you are begging the majority leader to put it on the floor--the committee chairman to put it through committee so you can advance your idea. When the majority leader said he would do that for the Green New Deal, it was called sabotage.
Since the Green New Deal was rolled out, things in Washington have gotten increasingly wacky and, believe it or not, even crazy.
We recently put a pricetag on the Green New Deal. You heard the Senator from Iowa talk about the $93 trillion. That is so much money that I doubt most of us can wrap our brains around it. It is kind of like when somebody tells you the Earth is 140 million miles from Mars. How do you conceptualize that? You have no point of reference to understand just how far that really is.
Let me put it this way: If you combine the gross domestic product of every single country in 2017--every single country on the planet in 2017--the price of the Green New Deal would be higher than that.
If you total up how much the United States has spent--the U.S. Government, since the Constitution went into effect in 1789, the price of the Green New Deal would still be higher.
If you total the value of 1 year's worth of oil and gas production in Texas, it would take almost seven centuries of production to pay for the Green New Deal.
Margaret Thatcher, who had a gift for words, said: ``The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.'' Well, in this case, you don't even have the money to begin with, but that is what this is really about.
This is the antithesis of what our Founders believed in when they founded the United States of America. They believed that checks and balances and separated powers were protections of our individual liberty and our right to make decisions for ourselves and our families.
They viewed the concentration of power that would be necessary to do something like the Green New Deal as the opposite--antagonistic to individual liberty.
Mr. President, things like eradicating air travel clearly aren't the answer, and the Senator from Hawaii would say that wouldn't work very well if you tried to get to Hawaii from Washington, DC.
No matter what your perspectives on energy are or the environment, I think every one of us can single out something we can agree on; that is, smarter policies that will not bankrupt our country.
The solution is not the Green New Deal or another government power grab. It is all about innovation--
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President.
Mr. CORNYN.--the creativity of Americans--
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President.
Mr. CORNYN.--doing research and science to come up with--
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President.
Mr. CORNYN.--innovations.
Mr. MARKEY. Will the Senator yield for a second?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas has the floor. He has declined to yield.
Mr. MARKEY. I would just seek to be recognized and just ask the Senator if the--
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has not yielded.
Mr. MARKEY.--$93 trillion number comes from a Koch brothers-funded organization.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts will suspend.
The Senate will be in order.
The Senator from Texas has the floor.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I notice one thing: When people around here--colleagues across the aisle--don't like what they are hearing, they try to suppress or drown out dissenting voices.
I think the American people need to hear this debate because our ability to innovate is critical to the success of our economy and our competitiveness in the global economy.
Investing in science and technology and increasing our ability to innovate is an important part of keeping our economy strong. Rather than the government's seizing control of nearly every industry, overregulating their activities as you would under the Green New Deal, we should harness the power of the private sector to drive real, affordable solutions, and that is how we find cutting-edge solutions to our biggest challenges.
A lot of folks try to paint with broad strokes about energy. You are either on the side of innovation and new technologies or you are in favor of traditional oil and gas development.
Well, I am proud to come from a State that believes truly in an ``all of the above'' approach. We generate more electricity from wind than any other State in the country, and we believe in all of the above. You don't have to pick one or the other.
Not only do we lead the Nation in oil and gas production, we also lead, as I said, in wind energy production too. We are proof that you can implement policies that get government out of the way and leave industry experts to do their jobs. You can be pro-energy, pro-
innovation, and pro-growth.
The Green New Deal is not the answer to our problems. It is a solution in search of a problem, and it is a naked power grab by Washington, DC, seeking to impose on each and every American how we should run our lives.
It is the opposite of the individual liberties and freedoms that our Founders believed our country would be based on. I hope in the coming months we will take steps to promote freedom and not more government control and ideas that lead to innovation, not socialist policies.
With that, I yield to my friend from Indiana.
Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, my colleague said he would yield to a question after he finished debating. I would like to ask him a question.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I would like to ask my colleague a question. I appreciate that.
Just three: No. 1, does he believe that climate change is real? Does he believe it is caused by humans? And does he believe this body ought to do something about it?
I would appreciate an answer.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I will say to my friend from New York that I know what their talking points are now, but I don't believe what we ought to do about the environment is impose a travesty like the Green New Deal.
This is a government power grab. It is unaffordable. It is unrealistic. And, really, this reflects the most radical ideology and fringe of the Democratic Party today.
I think we should not have a socialist power grab of our entire economy.
Mr. SCHUMER. Will the Senator--Mr. President, will he yield? He didn't really answer my question.
What will he do about climate change? I ask my colleague to please answer not what he is against but what he is for. We have not heard from the other side of the aisle anything they are for about climate change or whether they believe it is real and caused by humans.
I would ask my colleague, once again, not what he is against. We know what he is against. What is he for?
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, there is a great book called
``SuperFreakonomics'' written by some Chicago economists who talk about the threat to the environment of horse manure back when we had horse-
drawn buggies in our cities because the internal combustion engine had not been created. They point out that that environmental hazard went away almost overnight because the internal combustion engine was created.
Likewise, when I was growing up, a scientist named Paul Ehrlich from Stanford wrote a book called ``The Population Bomb.'' He said that millions of people would starve across our country and across the world unless we basically quit having children. What he miscalculated is the impact of a gentleman by the name of Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution that he began due to research and development of an innovative plant gene research.
So we were able to basically defeat the population bomb, and we were able to deal with the environmental hazard of horse manure by innovation. That is what I am for, that is what I said, and that is what I would say again to my friend from New York.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana is recognized.
Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the so-called Green New Deal. This unaffordable, unattainable, and unrealistic proposal is bad for all Americans, but it is especially bad for the people who live in my home State of Indiana.
Indiana is the most manufacturing-intensive State in the country, and my Hoosiers are rightfully proud of that distinction. We make America's planes, our trucks, our recreational vehicles, our boats, and our pipelines. We produce the aluminum and steel that go into those products. We mine the coal that makes it affordable to power all of those factories.
Indiana is home to those respectable, high-paying jobs because of the highly skilled Hoosier workforce, our world-class infrastructure network, and, yes, our low energy costs. But the Green New Deal would crush Indiana's affordable energy prices, forcing the cost of doing business to skyrocket for Hoosier manufacturers and farmers alike and eliminating jobs in the process.
What would this Green New Deal mean for American families?
Over the next decade, the so-called deal would cost up to $65,000 per American household per year. That is roughly 50 percent--47 percent more than the median Hoosier household income.
Yes, America must continue to support an ``all of the above'' energy strategy, and I look forward to working in a bipartisan way to get that done. We must continue to develop renewable energy sources like wind and solar, but we must also continue to utilize our important baseload energy sources--that is your coal, your natural gas, your nuclear power. We simply cannot afford to eliminate these critical sources from our Nation's energy mix, and that is what the Green New Deal would call for.
In Indiana, approximately 92 percent of our electricity is generated by coal and natural gas--92 percent. Wind and solar account for just 6 percent of Indiana's electricity, and they cannot reliably and affordably produce the electricity Indiana needs.
So instead of turning a blind eye to coal and natural gas--energy sources that power America--let's continue to incentivize research and development. Instead of promoting job-killing legislation like the Green New Deal, we should be promoting proposals like the USE IT Act. This is bipartisan legislation put forward by my colleague from Wyoming that would promote carbon capture research and development.
We agree on the need to incentivize market-based carbon capture systems.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, would the Senator from Indiana yield for a question?
Mr. YOUNG. I would like to continue until I complete my remarks. I thank my colleague.
We really need to incentivize market-based carbon capture systems and ensure America can continue to cleanly and affordably produce baseload energy. By my reckoning, this is just one of many areas in which Republicans and Democrats can find common ground and work together to protect God's green Earth.
Indiana is an environmentally conscientious State. We continue to expand solar and wind production each year. We love to protect our important natural resources, such as the Indiana Dunes and Hoosier National Forest, but we cannot support a proposal like the Green New Deal that would endanger tens of thousands of Hoosier jobs. The Green New Deal is widely out of touch with Indiana's priorities. Hoosiers know a bad deal when they see one. This is a bad deal.
My fellow Hoosiers are greatly concerned that this radical proposal will cause utility bills to skyrocket and force Indiana factories to shutter. For these reasons, I am a resounding no on the Green New Deal. I stand with Hoosier farmers, I stand with Hoosier manufacturers, and I stand with Hoosier families in opposing this $93 trillion deal.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, will the Senator from Indiana yield for a question?
Mr. YOUNG. I will.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, does the Senator believe climate change is real, and will he stand with the scientific community, which believes unanimously or almost completely unanimously that climate change is real and that human activity caused it?
Mr. YOUNG. Well, that is an easy one. I thank my good colleague. I have publicly said for a long period of time--and you can check my record--that I believe the climate is changing. I believe that all flora, fauna, and human beings have some impact on that. I also fervently believe that we can protect our environment without wrecking our economy. We can do that through energy efficiency initiatives, investment in energy R&D, carbon capture and sequestration, and adoption of free market principles.
I read a very impactful book, in response to my good colleague, early on in my adulthood, and I recommend it to him. It is titled ``Ecocide in the USSR,'' and it explains how centrally planned economies and fatal, conceit-like efforts to engineer a better environment centrally, to plan an economy centrally, end up decimating our natural environment. That continues to have an impact on how I look at these issues. Perhaps we will find an opportunity to work together, though, and find some common ground. It won't be on the Green New Deal.
I yield back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I come to the floor to join my colleagues in expressing concern over the maybe well-intended but poorly constructed policy in the Green New Deal.
First, I want to start by saying I have no intention of yielding until the end of my remarks, but the one question I would have for people across the aisle is, Do you actually support the Green New Deal? Do you support it in the form it has been proposed? I can't imagine that you do because you understand the math, you understand the challenges, and you understand the reality that $65,000 a year is the median household income in North Carolina.
So what we are talking about--the cost of the bill over 10 years is roughly what the average North Carolinian family makes. We know that is not sustainable. We know it is not sustainable to have our electric bills increase by $3,800 a year. We know it is not sustainable to go beyond just the energy components of the Green New Deal to other aspects of the Green New Deal that just don't make sense.
So $93 trillion is not something I can get my head wrapped around. I know that is the number we are talking about. But I think we can get to the household impact and recognize that it is not sustainable, right? So why are we having this discussion?
Mr. MARKEY. Would the Senator yield and tell us--
Mr. TILLIS. I do not yield.
Mr. BARRASSO. Regular order.
Mr. MARKEY--where he got that bogus number of $93 trillion? That is a completely made-up number by the Koch brothers.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The Senator from Massachusetts will suspend. The Senate is out of order.
The Senator from North Carolina has the floor.
Mr. TILLIS. Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina has made it very clear that he will not yield until he is finished.
Mr. TILLIS. I will state for any other Members who come in that I have no intention of yielding. And in my time, in the 4 years I have been here, it has never occurred to me to interrupt in the way that we have been interrupted here, but maybe that actually gets to the point. This bill, as proposed, doesn't work.
I want to go back and tell you, as a Member of the North Carolina House, when I was in the minority as a Republican, I supported the renewable portfolio standard. I went to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and said: What you are proposing is not sustainable. Let's work together and do something different. And we did. That gave rise to almost 13 percent of all the energy generated in North Carolina today being generated from renewable sources. It gave rise to a sustainable electric bill that is one of the most competitive in the country.
What has happened with the Green New Deal is that the people at the extreme are preventing those of us who actually want to make progress from having a reasonable discussion instead of shouting over each other.
I don't care if it is $93 trillion, $43 trillion, or $10 trillion--it is unsustainable. We can sit here and question the sources, but at the end of the day, we all know that this was theater. This was something that people wanted to pitch. They wanted to win an election. But it was a dishonest promise that could never be fulfilled.
If you take a look at the other provisions of this bill--guaranteed jobs. I mean, it is reading like some sort of a socialist manifesto. As somebody who grew up in a trailer park and who didn't get a degree until I was 36 years old, I want an America that gives me an opportunity, not an America that tells me what my job is and how much money I am going to make.
So we have to have a realistic discussion about the Green New Deal. We are pushing people into corners and not having a good discussion about things we should be making progress on.
By the way, just out of levity, we even had some people go so far as to say that maybe we should reduce the number of cows we have on the planet because they create methane gas. I will not get into the gross reasons as to why. So maybe the chicken caucus is in favor of getting rid of cows or eating more cows.
Why don't we lower the temperature, recognize we have a proposal that doesn't work, and recognize it was generally motivated by politics. And when you take such an extreme stand, you should expect the other side to come to the floor, just as we are doing today, and make it real.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, we had a lot of discussion about the energy parts of the Green New Deal, but it goes into lots of other areas. There are many frequently asked questions.
I would say on the energy costs--and President Obama's energy adviser says you couldn't reach the goal--one thing we need to remember on the energy costs is that families pay those utility bills.
We just avoided a clean power regulation that in my State would have doubled the utility bill in 10 or 12 years. During the 3 years or so we were debating that because the court cases kept saying there really is no authority to do this, I kept reminding the people I work for, the next time you write your utility bill, just write out your check one more time, because if this goes into effect, within a decade, that is what you will be doing. See what happens when you pay that bill by writing your check one more time.
Some of the questions on this have been about other things as well. The fact that we love a challenge--this Green New Deal creates that. It talks about Medicare for all. At least in the talking points, it talks about job guarantees for all, a vacation in every job guaranteed by the government, and I think maybe even a vacation in the government program if you choose not to work.
There are lots of things here for people to be concerned about. There are estimates of cost, but even if they were three times the cost, it would be pretty extraordinary. In fact, $36 trillion would rebuild the entire Interstate Highway System every year for 100 years. When you are talking about $93 trillion, $80 trillion is the entire gross domestic product of the world. These are big numbers. It is a big bill.
Surprisingly, a dozen Senators are supporting this bill. They have cosponsored the bill. Whether it is the guaranteed jobs number or the universal healthcare number or the all-renewable electric grid system number or the guaranteed green housing number that individuals would have to comply with, this is an amazing step in a different direction. It is one that the country clearly will not take. It is one that I believe even the sponsors have some concerns about.
We will have a chance to vote on it here in the next few days or weeks, and we will see what the American people have to say about it.
I yield my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I understand that the majority has the floor, and so I will be very brief. I have enormous regard for Senator Blunt and for those who have spoken already. I just want to say that, for the people who say we want to have a discussion about this issue, we are so eager to have a discussion about this issue. I come here every week hoping to have a discussion about this issue, and I would love to have a discussion about this issue. I would love to have hearings in the Environment and Public Works Committee about a climate bill.
I would love to have people working together to solve this problem. I will say that Senator Schatz and I have a piece of climate legislation that is not this one, but it does have the support of seven Republican former chairs of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, six current and former Republican Congressmen, four former Republican EPA Administrators and Secretaries of Treasury and State, two former Republican chairs of the Federal Reserve, and one former Republican CBO Director. A Republican congressman referred to that bill as not just an olive branch reaching out to Republicans but an olive limb reaching out to Republicans.
I hope we can emerge from this with a real conversation about real bills, and in the context of that, we will be very interested to know what the Republican proposal is to deal with climate change.
I yield the floor.
I thank the Presiding Officer, and I appreciate the courtesy of my distinguished colleagues.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleague from Iowa for organizing this discussion on the Green New Deal resolution.
The public doesn't usually pay a whole lot of attention to nonbinding resolutions here in the Congress, but that is not the case with this one. The sponsors of the Green New Deal in the House and the Senate certainly deserve recognition for the profile they managed to create so quickly. Of course, that is a double-edged sword because now people are beginning to pay attention to what is actually in the Green New Deal.
Leader McConnell has proposed bringing the resolution to the floor, which has created, in my view, sort of a baffling response. The planned sponsors are claiming that a vote is ``cynical'' and meant to
``disrupt'' their ``movement.'' You and I both know that every Member of this body would clamor to have their bills brought up for floor consideration. Most of us here live in the land of realistic and practical solutions.
The Green New Deal is very vague, but it does include enough detail to know that it proposes radical solutions that, in my view, are neither practical nor realistic. It is a wish list dressed up as environmental policy.
We knew it was going to be expensive. We knew the goal was to eliminate coal and gas industries, along with a lot of other good-
paying jobs that they support in energy States like mine. This isn't the first salvo in the war on coal, for sure. We knew all the economic harm they would be proposing, but this is a massive shift to the left that goes far beyond anything the Democrats have proposed before. This plan doesn't stop at eliminating the use of coal and natural gas for electricity. The plan also ends nuclear electricity and severely curtails the commercial air industry.
The environmental and energy components of this proposal are estimated to cost $8.3 to $12.3 trillion over the next decade, which averages out to about $52,000 to $71,000 for every American household.
We will be left with possibly an energy grid that lacks affordability and reliability to make the American manufacturers competitive around the globe and meet the basic needs of our families. Right now, coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy account for 83 percent of all the electricity produced in the United States. It is neither practical nor realistic to believe that we could phase all of that capacity out without some catastrophic consequences.
Unbelievably, this is just one piece of the Green New Deal. The sticker shock continues with tens of trillions of dollars to fund guaranteed jobs for people unwilling to work, eliminate private healthcare for 170 Americans in favor of a government-run system, replace or retrofit all housing stock for environmental compliance, and guaranteeing it to every American and putting food on everyone's table. Altogether, it could cost possibly $93 trillion over a 10-year period of time. We could liquidate all the wealth in the entire country and maybe just cover that tab, but we wouldn't have anything left.
The Green New Deal sponsors claim the government will be making investments. They claim that the returns will pay for everything and make a profit for the people. Is this realistic or practical?
I think not. And if it fails, then what do we do?
Some say the Green New Deal, even if it is a disaster of a policy that would destroy our economy, at least has Congress finally talking about climate change. This is what we heard from my colleague. We serve on the EPW Committee together. It is a huge disservice, I think, to us. We have been working in a bipartisan fashion to deliver real solutions since before anyone had ever heard of the Green New Deal.
In the EPW Committee, Senators from coal States, such as Senator Barrasso from Wyoming, who is here, and Senator Whitehouse from Rhode Island, and Senator Carper, and myself have been working for market-
driven solutions to the challenge of atmospheric CO2.
Members of both parties have worked and will continue to work on these important policies to meaningfully address carbon challenges while also protecting and creating jobs. We do not need a $93 trillion turn that fundamentally alters the foundations of this country. We are capable of making investments in technology and infrastructure to address our Nation's challenges in a commonsense and bipartisan way.
The Green New Deal is not practical. It is not realistic, and it is a bit scary that so many Democrats are embracing it. The American people deserve to know where each of us stands on this policy. That is why we are going to have a vote. I am glad that we will have the opportunity to take a vote on this resolution in the coming months, and I hope that all of my colleagues will join me in opposing this utterly unfathomable and unworkable resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. BRAUN. Mr. President, although I had prepared my remarks to address what many of my colleagues have just covered--and that would be the preposterous proposal of the Green New Deal--I want to take a little different angle.
I think there is a point where so often those of us on the conservative side of the ledger, I think, get overwhelmed by the conversation being dominated by the other side. It is a fertile ground to want to try to use a better environment to parlay that incremental way into more government.
I think what we have here is just like addressing healthcare costs. We had ObamaCare--the Affordable Care Act--which turned out to be the
``Uncomfortable Care Act,'' but there were issues that were valid. In my own company years ago, I was worried about it. I drafted a plan that was proactive, addressed high healthcare costs, and made the pledge that you should never go broke because you get sick or have a bad accident. I crafted a plan through the real world that cut costs, and my employees have not paid a premium increase in 9 years.
I want to talk about the Green New Deal. I am a conservationist, and I am a member of the Nature Conservancy, as a business and an individual. We cannot let the other side co-opt the issue and preempt it because they think the argument is on their side. I am not going to belabor the point that I think it is preposterous. I want to make the point that if you think any of that can be done--whether it is $50 trillion or $93 trillion--keep in mind that we are running nearly trillion-dollar deficits. We are $22 trillion in debt. Does that sound like anything that the Federal Government could actually solve in a sustainable way when we are in a pickle like we are currently in?
Until we change the dynamic here and get individuals who know how to do things where it works, in States like Indiana and in many States, and maybe let States have a bigger hand in the equation, where their budgets are balanced, where they have cash balances, and where it is not a false hope.
Let's look at the particulars of what the Green New Deal is supposed to do in addition to cleaning up our environment, which we have made great strides with. It is being spun as an economic argument. It is the exact opposite of that. I want to challenge folks on our side of the ledger, from the practical side, to where we generally lose out on the general argument, and, incrementally, things change against us over time.
We just had legislation pass in 2017. I want to tell this little story of what we did in our own special way. I am going to challenge enterprisers and I am going to challenge businesses across the country to think about this as a way to avoid that.
In 2017 we had, in my opinion--for enterprisers, small businesses, and farmers; and I have been involved in both--the biggest opportunity that has come along in years. We are keeping more of our own resources and not sending it here to a broken institution that has given us all of these deficits and debt, but we have to do something with it.
Back in January of 2018, my son, who is one of my three kids now in my business, said: Dad, let's take tax reform and share the benefits with employees.
That is a great idea. I didn't think it would have a bigger political meaning until he said: Hey, let's put it in the company memo that it is due to tax reform. We have taken, in my mind, the biggest thing we could do--whether you want to return the dividends into the environment, into higher wages, or into whatever you want to do--and we have had less than a year to run with it. All I know is that like many companies in Indiana, we lowered healthcare costs and flattened them for 9 years. We raised 401(k) benefits. We started quarterly bonuses instead of just annual ones.
We are doing what I think this country needs to do--quit looking to the Federal Government to solve all of our problems, even when they have an argument like that we need to further improve our environment, that we need to avoid what could possibly be a catastrophe down the road, where we do stick our head in the sand.
Don't look to this institution to do it because I don't think you can credibly say that you can do anything in the context of the product that has been delivered over the last decade or two. States, individuals, businesses, organizations--but especially businesses, because we have reaped the benefits, in my opinion, of the biggest legislation that has occurred in decades--must put our money where our mouth is, where my company's is. Invest in your employees and change the system from the bottom up, not from the top down.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, first, I want to thank my colleagues for coming down here and having this important discussion. I want to thank my Democratic colleagues, for whom I have a lot of respect, for being here and having this debate. I am sure it is not going to be the first time that we are going to be doing this on the Green New Deal or other elements of proposals coming from the House or the Senate. This is a big issue happening in the House and what is going to happen over here with some of our colleagues.
I think, in many ways, it is an issue that focuses on the future and where the country is going. As the majority leader recently said in an interview, ``I can pretty safely say this is the first time in my political career that the essence of America is being debated . . . of socialism and democratic capitalism.''
OK. Let's have that debate. We are having that debate. What is the essence of America? I believe it is freedom and liberty. That is what we are founded on, and that is what I think proposals like the Green New Deal would undermine. To be clear, some people are joking about it--like banning hamburgers or airplanes or returning to the horse and buggy, but I actually think there are many people who are looking at this very seriously, and so we should.
Some of these kinds of ideas can be funny until they are not funny. What we are trying to do here is to talk about this proposal in a serious manner. In my State, the great State of Alaska, this is a deadly serious matter. There is so much that is in this idea, the Green New Deal--government takeover, healthcare, free housing, and free food, and the list goes on and on. The costs, as have been pointed out, are very high.
Today what I want to do is to talk about one aspect that would be particularly detrimental to my State and to many other States--my colleagues from West Virginia and North Dakota are here on the floor--and that is this proposal to ban hydrocarbons produced in America within a decade. This is not a joke.
There are many Members in this body--some are on the floor right now, and some are in the House--who think this is a serious proposal and would like to do it. I want to talk about that. I want to stipulate that I am certainly somebody who is in favor of ``all of the above'' energy. The fact that America is now producing more oil, more gas, and more renewables than any other country in the world is good for all of us, Democrats and Republicans.
My colleague from Rhode Island is here. He and I have worked on a whole host of issues together involving oceans. I think the technological advances with regard to hundreds of years of supplies of natural gas with technology and with renewables provide huge opportunities for Democrats and Republicans to work together to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. This is enormous. We are just scratching the surface.
I look forward to working with him and the Senator from Massachusetts on these kinds of ideas because I think they are exciting, and I think, when you are burning natural gas at very high temperatures, you almost have very little greenhouse gas emissions. Combine that with technology and renewables. We have hundreds of years of these supplies. It is a great opportunity, and it is exciting. I want to work with them.
Let me get back to the proposal on the Green New Deal on natural resources.
In my opinion, we do not spend enough time on this floor talking about the positive societal benefits of natural resource development in America--oil, gas, renewables, fisheries. These industries don't just fuel our power generation and transportation and electricity for our homes; these industries literally lift people out of poverty. They lengthen life expectancy. They literally save lives. There is a strong correlation between poverty, the lack of economic opportunity, and the health of our citizens.
I am going to show a few charts here.
This correlation is strong in my State, particularly with our Alaska Native population. In 1954, the Interior Department, with the help of the University of Pittsburgh, conducted a study of the health of Alaska Natives.
Here is a quote from 1954: ``The indigenous people of Native Alaska are the victims of sickness, crippling conditions and premature death to a degree exceeded in very few parts of the world.''
Some of the poorest people on the planet were my constituents in Alaska--in America--in 1954. More than 10 years later, in 1969--just 50 years ago--the situation was still dire.
Here is what Emil Notti, the president of the Alaska Federation of Natives, told Congress 50 years ago, in 1969:
The native people in rural Alaska live in the most miserable homes in the United States. The life expectancy of the average Native Alaskan is 34 years old compared to 69 years old for the rest of the country.
So what happened after that?
We had a big change. We are not there yet, but we had a big change, and I want to explain. This was a chart that was studied just last year in the Journal of Internal Medicine. It is a study that was published in 2018 about the life expectancies of Americans.
Where you see blue and purple is where Americans' life expectancy increased the most. The State with the greatest change in the entire country was in my State. By the way, that is a pretty important statistic--life expectancy. It doesn't get more important than that. Are you living longer? Look what happened in Alaska. The North Slope of Alaska, the Aleutian Islands chain, and the southeast all experienced huge increases in life expectancy from these very low levels, some of the lowest in the world.
Why did that happen?
On the North Slope of Alaska, this Congress passed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act to develop Prudhoe Bay, to develop oil and gas--some of the biggest fields in the world. At the same time, we also had a very large zinc mine that came into production. Because of this body's Magnuson-Stevens Act, we also had a huge increase in our fisheries.
The bottom line is that natural resource development happened in Alaska, in America, and people's lives increased. That is a remarkable thing, and we don't talk about it enough. The average life expectancy increase in Alaska was almost between 8 and 13 years. That is a measure of success because we were developing our resources of oil and gas. That is why I am taking this Green New Deal literally deadly seriously because what we have done in our State and in our country by producing resources is we have created the ability for people to actually live longer, and I challenge my colleagues to come up with a better statistic and a more important statistic than that.
I am going to end with a quote from a gentleman who came down here and testified in front of the Senate, Matthew Rexford--a proud Alaska Native leader from Kaktovik, AK, which is in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He testified that Congress should give his small community the opportunity to develop the resources near his village. We did that in 2017 after a 40-year debate.
He spoke firsthand about his knowledge as to what resource development did for America, for Alaska, and for his community:
The oil and gas industry supports our communities by providing jobs, business opportunities, infrastructure investment. It has built our schools, hospitals. It has moved our people from Third World living conditions to what we expect in America. We refuse to go backward in time.
That is what he said. I believe the Green New Deal--certainly, its ban on hydrocarbon production--would take us back in time. For the sake of Matthew and all of these Alaskans who have done so well by responsibly developing our resources, we are not going to allow that to happen.
I yield the floor to my colleague from North Dakota.
Mr. MARKEY. Will the Senator yield?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will be in order.
Does the Senator from Alaska yield for a question?
Mr. SULLIVAN. I yield my time to the Senator from North Dakota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is not possible.
Mr. MARKEY. Would the Senator from Alaska yield for a question?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I believe I still have the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. No. The Senator from Alaska yielded the floor.
The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
Mr. MARKEY. I thank the Presiding Officer.
Mr. President, I would pose a question to the Senator from Alaska.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts cannot pose a question. He has the floor.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, through the Presiding Officer, I pose a question to the Senator from Alaska.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska does not have the floor. Therefore, he cannot respond.
The Senator from Massachusetts has the floor.
Mr. MARKEY. I thank the Presiding Officer.
I will just make this point through the Presiding Officer, which is that the words ``fossil fuels'' are not in the resolution. No. 2, airplanes are not banned in the resolution. No. 3, there is no guarantee for healthcare for everyone in America in the resolution. No. 4, there is nothing that provides for those who are unwilling to work in the resolution. None of this is true.
We know the Koch brothers paid for this $93 trillion study, and all we are hearing from the Republican side is of a Koch brothers-produced document that is absolutely inaccurate. There is no banning of airplanes. There is no guarantee of Medicare for all. Neither of those is in the resolution. This entire discussion is based upon a completely fraudulent, bogus report that the Koch brothers produced.
What we are trying to say to the other side is we should have a debate about the science, that we should have a debate about the human activity, that we should have a debate about what the solutions are, and that we should bring it out here as a great deliberative body.
Right now, we are debating the Green New Deal, but the Republicans haven't given us any hearings. They have given us no scientists, no witnesses, and no debate. They are just doing this because the Koch brothers have produced a report at a cost of $93 trillion that is completely and totally inaccurate. In fact, with regard to the accusation of the banning of airplanes, PolitiFact has looked at it, examined it, and said it is completely and totally inaccurate.
I think it is difficult to have a debate when the facts here are those which we cannot submit to committees, witnesses, debates. Instead, all we are subjected to is a representation of the Green New Deal that is completely inaccurate. For that matter, the words ``fossil fuels'' don't even appear in the Green New Deal.
This is not right. If the Republicans want to, they should set up a debate. Then we could have it out here on whether the planet is dangerously warming, whether human activity is principally responsible, whether this body should take action in order to deal with that problem, and whether, economically, we can unleash a technological revolution to solve the problem.
That is what we should be debating out here this afternoon, not a whole group of bogus facts that have been produced by the Koch brothers, have been paid for by the Koch brothers, and that are being repeated over and over again on the other side without any Republican saying he actually believes the planet is dangerously warming, that he actually agrees with the U.N.'s scientists who say it is an existential threat to us, that he actually agrees it is largely caused by human activity, and that we, the greatest deliberative body in the world, should have a robust debate. If the Republicans believe it is serious, they should present their own plan for debate on the Senate floor.
Mr. SCHUMER. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MARKEY. I yield to the leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we thank our friends on the other side of the aisle for helping to make our case.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator asking a question?
Mr. SCHUMER. Yes, I am asking a question.
If the Senator from Massachusetts has the floor, I ask a question of the Senator from Massachusetts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Massachusetts yield for a question?
Mr. MARKEY. I yield to the leader for a question.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we have been making the case for the last several weeks that our Republican colleagues love to get up and rant about what they are against even though they exaggerate and tell mistruths about the bill Senator Markey has sponsored. Yet we have been asking repeatedly, haven't we, three questions: Do you believe climate change is real? Do you believe it is caused by human activity? Most importantly, what would you do about it?
Here we have had an hour of debate, haven't we, with our Republican colleagues, and there have been a lot of mistruths and a lot of ``here is what we are against'' but not one single thing they are for.
So isn't it true, my friend from Massachusetts, that they have helped to make our case? We are glad they are finally talking about climate change, but we have to do something about it. Isn't it true we haven't heard a single positive response about what they would do?
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, the leader has put his finger right on it.
We want a debate. We want to see their plan. We want to know if they agree with the science of the entire United Nations and 13 of our own Federal Agencies that produced an identical report at the end of 2018--
that being, it is dangerous and a great threat to our country, and we have to do something about it.
So where is the Republicans' plan? What is their answer? Of course, they don't have one. They want to bring out the Green New Deal with no hearings, no witnesses, and no science when they should be bringing out their own plan.
The leader is right. It is just, basically, a condition they have, and the number they are using--the $93 trillion in terms of the cost of the Green New Deal--is a Koch brothers-produced number. It is their group that put it together. So how could we possibly be having a serious debate about something the Koch brothers have produced, in terms of dealing with global warming, since they are central players in this dangerous warming of our planet?
I yield to the leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I pose a second question.
Isn't it true that our Republican colleagues have been in the majority for 5 years and that during that time, more and more Americans believe global warming is a serious problem? I think it is above two-
thirds. It is at 70 percent. It is a significant percentage of Republicans and a majority of Democrats and Independents. Isn't it true that in those 5 years, the Republican leader, our friend, hasn't brought a single piece of legislation to the floor that would deal with climate change in any way? Is that correct?
Mr. MARKEY. The leader is correct. No solutions, 5 years, and it is more dangerously warm on the planet. Four hundred billion dollars' worth of damage was done to our country in the last 2 years. We had fires out in the West, flooding, $400 billion worth of damage--and the consensus among scientists is that it is only going to grow worse as each year goes by--and still no answers. Nothing on the floor from the Republicans, nothing that would deal with the problem, and no admission that it is caused by human beings and that we can do something about it.
Mr. SCHUMER. Finally, we have not heard a single answer from any of the Senators on the floor or any who spoke about what their plan is.
So I would ask you to repeat and ask them three questions that they still haven't answered--simple questions with no predisposed answers.
A, do any of our Republican colleagues--this is a question--believe climate change is real?
Mr. MARKEY. We don't know the answer.
Mr. SCHUMER. Second, do any of our Republican colleagues over there believe it is caused by human activity?
Mr. MARKEY. We don't know the answer.
Mr. SCHUMER. And C, do they have any plan, proposal, suggestion as to how we deal with the issue?
Mr. MARKEY. We don't know the answer.
Mr. SCHUMER. And I would ask my colleague to ask our Republican friends--if they have an answer to any of those questions, to yield the floor to them.
Mr. MARKEY. And I would be glad to yield the floor to any of them who would be willing to be recognized, but, through the leader, the problem is that they keep talking about a $93 trillion cost, which is a report from the American Action Forum, a partisan, rightwing group funded by the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove as a sister group to his Crossroads USA 501(c)(3). That is what we are now debating out here on the floor, and not the science.
Mr. SCHUMER. Can you ask them to not repeat the same talking points about what they are against and finally say something about what they are for?
Mr. MARKEY. I would yield to any of my friends on the other side of the aisle who have concrete, positive proposals for dealing with the crisis of climate change in our country and on the planet.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to come to the floor to answer those specific questions, and I would point to an op-ed that I wrote for the New York Times last year. Perhaps the Senator from New York doesn't read his hometown newspaper, but there is an editorial in the New York Times of December 18: ``Cut Carbon Through Innovation, Not Regulation.'' It is a plan. Cut carbon through innovation, not regulation.
The question is, Do we believe the climate is changing? Do humans have an impact? The answer is yes to both. As a matter of fact, I wrote:
[The] climate is changing, and we, collectively, have a responsibility to do something about it.
It is right here in the New York Times from December 18.
Second, the United States and the world will continue to rely on affordable and abundant fossil fuels, including coal, to power our economies for decades to come.
We need to also rely on innovation, not new taxes, not punishing global agreements. That is the ultimate solution.
I will point out that this is something that I had written and submitted and published long before the so-called Green New Deal was ever introduced into Congress either in the House or in the Senate.
I go on to say:
People across the world are rejecting the idea that carbon taxes and raising the cost of energy is the answer to lowering emissions.
Because we know, as I go on:
In France, the government just suspended a planned fuel tax increase after some of its citizens took to the streets in protest.
It was every story on the news.
And in the United States, the results of [the] November elections showed that these plans and other government interventions are just as unpopular.
Voters in Washington State rejected the creation of an expensive tax on carbon emissions. In Colorado, a ballot measure to severely restrict drilling was defeated. And in Arizona, voters rejected a mandate to make the state's utilities much more dependent on renewable energy by 2030--regardless of the cost to consumers.
I would point out that all three of those States elected liberal Democrats to Congress on election night.
In further answer to that question, I would point to USA TODAY, March 4, 2019. Today is the 6th, so we are talking Monday. Today is Wednesday. This is this week's paper, front page:
To a warming planet's rescue: Carbon Capture.
To the rescue of a warming planet.
In the race against climate change, scientists are looking for ways to pull CO2 out of the Earth's atmosphere and store it away.
And what they point to is bipartisan legislation passed by this body, passed by the House, and signed into law by President Trump focusing on carbon capture and sequestration. It talks about a program called 45Q. That is the FUTURE Act. One of the cosponsors from the other side of the aisle is on the floor right now. His name is mentioned, my name is mentioned in finding the solution.
There are Republican solutions and ideas that are focused on innovation, not regulation, not taxation, focused on freedom and the innovation that we have had.
So I just come to tell you, Mr. President, that there are solutions, and the Republicans will continue to offer them. We had a hearing most recently just last week on something called the USE IT Act--again, to capture carbon and to sequester it. We have been working on new-age nuclear power, working with leaders around the world. We passed that, and it was signed into law--an innovation bill for nuclear power, new-
age nuclear power that will be in small reactors, safer reactors, cheaper to use, no carbon whatsoever.
So there are absolute solutions, and Republicans are going to continue to come to the floor, but we are not going to support something that would bankrupt the country, something that would raise the cost of energy for families, something that would drive people to the point of having to spend money they don't have, having our country borrow money we don't have, all at a time when you say, what is the cause? There are suggestions and numbers that have been raised. I haven't heard any numbers from the other side of the aisle.
So I come to the floor to tell you that Republicans have continued to offer solutions, and I have been offering some of these solutions for 10 years. It took us a while to get these into law, but they are working. They are working and have been identified as working. Even President Obama's former Secretary of Energy, Ernie Moniz, who came and testified to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said there are two things that would make a big difference. One is the new-age nuclear work that we are doing, and the other is carbon capture and sequestration. Those are large-scale products that work.
I see other colleagues on the floor. Do I have the floor right now?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming has the floor.
Mr. BARRASSO. Well, as long as I continue to have the floor, I would like to point out that we have a booming economy in this country. In just over a year, tax relief has helped create 3 million new jobs. Manufacturing jobs have increased for 10 straight months. There is the fact that we have more jobs available than there are people looking for jobs. We have a booming economy. I want to do nothing that is going to harm these people all across the country who are working to have an opportunity in such a strong, healthy, growing economy.
This Green New Deal--this Big Government takeover of the economy--it is masked as an environmental proposal. To me, it is radical. The president of the Laborers' International Union of North America calls it a ``bad deal.''
Take a look at America. We are leading the world in reducing carbon dioxide because of the technological and innovative techniques we have had. We know from what we hear about the Green New Deal that it is prohibitively expensive, with predictions of up to $93 trillion. The entire net worth of the United States--of all the homes and all the families and everything--is only $112 trillion, and this alone would cost $93 trillion. You can go by how much it is going to cost each individual family. It is completely unaffordable. It is not something that is workable. But it is so far outside the America mainstream even if it were affordable.
So what we have seen here is the Democrats take another hard left turn. Under this Green New Deal, in just 10 years, the Nation's energy system would undergo a Washington makeover. The Green New Deal would end the use of energy resources that currently provide power for three out of five homes and businesses in the United States. Think about the harm that would cause the economy. This Green New Deal mandates the use of expensive power sources that can't keep the lights on. Wind and solar are important. We need more renewable energy in this country. But right now, wind and solar provide less than 8 percent of our electricity.
Should we increase the use of renewables? Absolutely. But eliminating affordable coal and natural gas would be a costly mistake--and not only that, it is impossible to do. The electric grid can't handle it.
Last month, there was an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled
``The Green New Deal's Impossible Electric Grid,'' written by Robert Blohm of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. He writes that if the electric grid relies solely on renewable energy sources,
``the grid itself may collapse.''
That is not all we lose if the grid collapses. Our transportation system is in the crosshairs. The Green New Deal seeks to transform how Americans travel. It calls for an extensive and expensive national, high-speed rail system to replace air travel.
The State of California attempted to build a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It turns out the price was too high even for California. The Governor, Gavin Newsom, just recently canceled the line between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Why? He said because of the massive cost. But it is all part of the Green New Deal. The question is, If California can't afford to build high-speed rail between two major cities, how can we afford to build a system that crisscrosses the country? We can't.
The Green New Deal doesn't stop at energy and travel; it extends to every building in the country. Homeowners are going to be forced to retrofit their houses, and businesses would have to do the same.
This is what massive government overreach looks like.
The rest of the world is going to continue to pollute even if the country were to adopt something as extreme as the Green New Deal. It would cancel all of the gains we have made in the United States by the fact that our emissions continue to go down. In 2017, we produced just 13 percent of global emissions here in the United States--just 13 percent. China and India together--33 percent. And they are rising over there. Without dramatic changes from India and China, global emissions are going to continue to climb. So even if all the Green New Deal's costly mandates went into effect, with the punishment to our country and our economy, there would still be no real effect on the Earth's temperature.
So, look, it is no surprise that the Democrats are trying to duck this big green bomb. Senate Democrats may even decide to vote present to avoid voting for their own extreme proposal that a dozen of them have either signed on to or cosponsored, including just about every Democratic Senator who is running for President. They have all signed on. They are all cosponsoring it.
This green dream is unreachable, but there is a proven way to reduce our emissions, which is why I talk about what we are wanting to do in a positive way with nuclear energy, with carbon capture, things that have gathered the attention of the New York Times and were on the front page of USA TODAY on Monday.
So we are going to continue to work with the FUTURE Act and with the USE IT Act. The committee is going to continue to work in a bipartisan way because Republicans are committed to finding solutions through innovation, not taxation, not regulation--solutions that do not hurt our strong and healthy, growing economy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CRAMER. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues, first of all, in, yes, opposing this Green New Deal, this joint resolution, that is full of so many dangerous policies and positions. But before I get into my reasons for that, let me also join my colleague from Wyoming in saying I am for the things he is for and even more--carbon capture, utilization, and storage, refined coal, all kinds of ways that we can accomplish the same goals together, with realistic proposals, not fantasies.
Let me also say something that should warm the heart of our colleague from Massachusetts. The Koch brothers strongly opposed my candidacy and my election to the U.S. Senate. I owe them nothing, and I am grateful.
You know, I wasn't always this pessimistic about the possibilities in this Chamber. I believe, in fact, that divided government presents an opportunity for the parties to come together to find common ground and to have legislative victories based on shared goals and shared values. I hope we can get back to that.
I had hoped for it even on controversial issues, like immigration and healthcare, and I certainly hoped for it on energy policy, but when I heard that the Democrats were proposing this Green New Deal, I didn't view it as an opportunity for political gamesmanship. I viewed it as an opportunity to find common ground, to compromise, to find balance, and to negotiate the way that I believe our founders intended it.
I don't think killing innovators with something like a Green New Deal is how we accomplish the goals they say they are for in their Green New Deal.
You can imagine my disappointment when I read the contents of this joint resolution. The Green New Deal is not serious policy. It is a fantasy. I am personally disappointed to see so many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle cosponsor this--especially those who are seeking higher office--and ignore the realities.
Someone earlier mentioned that the Green New Deal never talks about airplanes. No, but it does say that we want to transition to 100-
percent renewable energy by 2030. Well, I don't know how you fly airplanes without having fossil fuels.
As the Presiding Officer may have seen, in my State of North Dakota, we are having a really, really cold winter. In fact, most of the Upper Midwest is. The National Weather Service referred to a stretch of this really cold weather earlier this winter as a polar vortex. We call it winter.
Polar vortex or whatever you want to call it, it has been a rough winter. Rough winters aren't rare or new to us, but this one has been particularly cold. We were well below zero several days in a row. In fact, during the polar vortex, one day the wind chill was well below 50 degrees below. By the way, for those of you from the South, 50 below is below zero--zero. It is a really low number.
But I believe there are some facts that have been left out related to how this will affect human health.
On January 1, in Hettinger, ND, it reached 42 degrees below zero without wind chill. That is real temperature. Again, that has happened in many communities throughout the State.
During these low temperatures, guess what doesn't happen. The wind doesn't blow, and when the wind doesn't blow, windmills stop providing energy, and they actually start consuming it. When I was a regulator, I cited a couple thousand megawatts of wind turbines in North Dakota.
When the energy can't be produced by wind turbines, it turns to gas, and, then, guess what happens. Natural gas providers have to ask their customers to curtail their gas consumption because they need the gas for a more firm supply of electricity that backs up the wind turbines.
Again, I was a utility regulator. I saw this happen a lot, and it happened just a couple of weeks ago in the Midwest.
Can you imagine that when temperatures drop below minus 22 degrees and wind turbines stop working? That means that many North Dakotans, like my mom and my grandchildren, have to rely on intermittent electricity to fill the gap caused by the cutbacks in gas. Do you see the cycle of this? It is a circle. One bad thing leads to another bad thing.
In this situation, it is when--not if--an electric outage occurs during a polar vortex, it would be disastrous for the people of my State and many others. This is a serious health risk, and I do not want my friends and family to ever wonder if they will be able to warm their homes when they need it the most.
Even if the Green New Deal were to pass, we could never afford it. You have heard a lot of statements today from Members about the expected cost of up to $93 trillion. You can argue that it is not $93 trillion--that it is only $90 trillion, it is only $80 trillion, or it is only $50 trillion. It is too much. It is unaffordable. And $93 trillion is more than 90 percent of the combined wealth of all--I said
``all''--American households in this country. It would cost every American family as much as $65,000 per year, which, as you know, is more than the average yearly household income.
A tax-and-spend agenda to pay for an energy plan that wouldn't even work flies in the face of one of our Nation's greatest success stories--our domestic energy production.
To a large degree, the U.S. rocket ship economy is being driven by the energy renaissance happening all across our country, like in my State of North Dakota. Our strategy of energy dominance encompasses an
``all of the above'' approach--harnessing wind, oil, natural gas, solar, nuclear, and, yes, coal potential.
Millions of Americans are employed by energy development, and that number is only expected to grow.
In fact, in 2020 the United States will become a net energy exporter for the first time. At the same time, emissions have steadily decreased over the years, and it serves as a very important national security hedge. Why would we halt this positive momentum and stymie promising solutions?
The key to a better energy future is not taxation regulation but innovation and empowerment, as so beautifully articulated by my friend from Wyoming.
Ms. STABENOW. Would my friend from North Dakota pause for a question?
Mr. CRAMER. If these recent polar vortexes and cold winters taught us anything, it is that we have a well-rounded energy policy that encourages the best ideas. We need to be pragmatic and collaborative to find solutions. That is not what defines this Green New Deal. It is unrealistic, unworkable, and unaffordable.
I hope we never become so lopsided that my friends, neighbors, and family back home are unable to turn the heat on when they need it the most.
I yield the floor.
Ms. STABENOW. Will my friend from North Dakota be willing to yield for a question?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, I am grateful for the opportunity to echo my colleagues' concerns about the Green New Deal.
We are here because the majority leader has indicated that the Senate will be considering this misguided proposal in the coming weeks.
You would think our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would be ecstatic about the idea of a Senate vote on a resolution that essentially compasses their party's entire platform. Instead, the minority leader is scrambling to conceive ideas that will give his caucus members cover instead of embracing a plan. I can see why.
The Green New Deal didn't quite receive the celebration Democrats were expecting when it was announced. Its release was greeted with a combination of bewilderment, amusement, and confusion, which gave way to anger and disbelief the more Americans learned about it.
This is understandable. People don't tend to react positively when you threaten to upheave their lives by eliminating their jobs, outlawing their vehicles, and demanding they essentially build their homes to whatever standards Democrats in Washington decide.
If you ask most Americans if government control over almost every aspect of their lives is the direction they want to see the Nation take, the answer is an overwhelming no. Yet that is exactly what the Green New Deal seeks to do under the pretense of ending climate change.
The authors of the Green New Deal and its accompanying memo suggest their plan is the cure for all of society's ills. They cast themselves as saviors who will end global warming, income equality, and depression in one fell swoop. The Green New Deal will guarantee every American free healthcare, college tuition, and a job with a ``family-
sustaining'' wage.
That last part isn't even required to receive the benefits promised by the Green New Deal. If an able-bodied person is unwilling to look for work, the government would provide ``economic security'' under the plan.
What supporters can't say is how they will implement this, what impact it will have on the average American, and where the trillions of dollars it will cost will come from. These details are important when you are asking for support of a plan that is estimated to cost up to
$93 trillion and dramatically expands the Federal Government's reach into the daily lives of every American.
Single moms, seniors, and those living on fixed incomes--the very people whom the Green New Deal supporters purport to help--will be the most negatively impacted by this proposal.
Getting the majority of our Nation's energy from renewable sources is certainly a worthy goal. However, you cannot brand a $93 trillion, all-
encompassing liberal wish list as an energy plan and expect it to be embraced with no questions asked.
Only a fraction of this plan deals with climate change, but its energy mandates are entirely unworkable. The Green New Deal dictates that the Nation will rely 100 percent on renewable power within a decade. Experts say it is impossible to accomplish this by 2050, much less within a constricted 10-year timeline.
The way forward to solve our environmental challenges should be driven by positive incentives, research, and development, not heavyhanded regulation.
The uncomfortable truth for the Green New Deal proponents is that the United States is already leading the charge on reducing carbon emissions. We can continue to build on that progress and encourage change within the international community without mandating a government takeover of nearly every sector of our economy.
As a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I have long advocated for an ``all of the above'' approach to energy security. This strategy includes wind, renewable biomass, hydroelectric and solar power, and it absolutely needs to include the expansion of nuclear power, which the Green New Deal mysteriously leaves out.
These are the right ways to responsibly address our energy needs. The Green New Deal--which makes undeliverable promises, proposes to dramatically drive up costs for every American, and eliminates thousands of jobs in the energy sector--is not the way to go. The Green New Deal will result in a staggering loss of jobs. It redistributes wealth on a scale our Nation has never seen before. It calls for a massive government takeover of our Nation's economy and culture. Worst of all, it hides all of this in a fanciful energy modernization scheme that can't be achieved in the manner it is written.
The Green New Deal is not a serious plan. The Senate should wholeheartedly reject it when it comes before us.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. President, I am here on the floor to ultimately speak regarding Mr. Readler's nomination, but I do want to respond to my colleagues. It is hard to know where we begin because so much is said that doesn't make any sense. It is made up. It is ridiculous.
What I wanted to address as my colleague was speaking was where it said in the Green New Deal that we couldn't have ice cream. I have looked everywhere. I like ice cream, and I was shocked that we weren't going to have ice cream. Sure enough, there is nowhere where it says that they are outlawing ice cream.
For people who like cheeseburgers and milkshakes, I don't see anything in there about that either.
As the lead Democrat in the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, who works with farmers every single day and appreciates the great work they are doing to stop carbon pollution, I would just have to say that it is pretty silly, if it weren't so serious, how the Republican majority and the Republican leader are mocking what is probably the most serious issue of our time.
There are many things that I care about and the people in Michigan care about, but if we don't get a handle on what is happening on this erratic and dangerous weather, it is going to affect every part of our economy and every part of our way of life.
So if the majority leader or others want to say that we are declaring a war to outlaw air travel or the military or ice cream, that is absurd and would be funny if the whole subject weren't so serious.
By the way, in addition to that, the Republican majority leader said that we want to end air travel and cow farts. By the way, just for the record, cows don't fart; they belch.
The fact is that this mocking the serious, serious issue of our time, where we can't get the majority to join us on a simple resolution to say that climate change is real, that it is man-made, and that we need to act and that we have a responsibility to our children and our grandchildren to act. Let's start there.
I don't want to hear that somehow the world is coming to an end if there is a proposal that passes and not have something in its place that addresses what is actually happening in terms of the threats to all of us, our families, our States, and our economy.
This is real. This subject is real. It needs a real discussion. We can have differences. We will have differences on how to address it, and that is fine--but to mock the whole subject of what is happening right before our eyes. We have to make up new names now for weather events in Michigan. Not only do we have polar vortexes where the cold is rolling down because of the warming in the Arctic, but we have cyclone bombs or bomb cyclones--I am not sure which it is--but it is weather, wind events, that come at 60, 80 miles an hour into a community like a cyclone bomb. We are having to make up new terms for what is happening right in front of us.
So I would hope that when it comes to this discussion on what happens with the weather and climate change, that we would put aside the games, stop making stuff up, and have a serious discussion about how we can come together, create new jobs, move the economy, stop carbon pollution, and make sure our kids and grandkids actually have something to be proud of.
