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.
“TREATY DOCUMENT NO. 117-1” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S5047-S5048 on Sept. 27.
More than half of the Agency's employees are engineers, scientists and protection specialists. The Climate Reality Project, a global climate activist organization, accused Agency leadership in the last five years of undermining its main mission.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TREATY DOCUMENT NO. 117-1
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I wish to commend the adoption of the resolution of ratification with respect to Treaty Document No. 117-1, amendment to the Montreal Protocol. Adopting the Kigali Amendment, as it is better known, will formalize the U.S. commitment to phase down the use of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, under the global climate treaty. These industrial chemicals commonly found in air conditioners and refrigerators, insulating foams, and pharmaceutical inhalers are potent greenhouse gases. This historic achievement is the latest in a series by a Congress that will be remembered for its unprecedented action to combat climate change and future-proof our economy.
Fittingly, last week was Climate Week NYC, an event that has taken place every year in New York City since 2009. The summit takes place alongside the UN General Assembly and brings together international leaders from business, government, and civil society to showcase global climate action.
A working paper on HFCs produced for the New Climate Economy by Nathan Borgford-Parnell, Maxime Beaugrand, Stephen O. Anderson, and Durwood Zaelke of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, highlights HFC phasedown as one of the greatest opportunities to mitigate climate change quickly.
Specifically, reducing HFC use in line with the Kigali Amendment to Montreal Protocol could avoid 0.5 degree Celsius--0.9 degree Fahrenheit--of warming by 2100. That will go a long way toward limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius under the Paris Agreement and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. U.S. adoption of the resolution, which has been ratified by 137 countries, contributes to delivering on that commitment and cements the consensus on climate ambition as a complement to thriving economies.
I would like to reflect on how we arrived at this moment. Under the Montreal Protocol, participating countries agreed to replace ozone-depleting products, such as chlorofluorocarbons--CFCs--found in refrigerants, aerosols, and solvents to help address the hole in the ozone layer. As a result, there has been a 97-percent reduction in the global consumption of controlled ozone-depleting substances, with minimal economic disruption.
Hydrofluorocarbons--HFCs--make up the majority of the ozone-friendly products being used today to replace CFCs. HFCs can now be found in nearly every home in the United States, namely in our air conditioners and refrigerators. Although HFCs were developed as an ozone-layer-
preserving alternative to historical refrigerants, they are now known to be highly potent greenhouse gases--hundreds or thousands of times more so than carbon dioxide. This discovery challenged policymakers and manufacturers to keep innovating.
On October 15, 2016, in Kigali, Rwanda, more than 170 countries negotiated an amendment to the Montreal Protocol to include a global phasedown of HFCs. The goal of the Kigali Amendment is to achieve an 80 percent or greater reduction in global HFC consumption and production by 2047.
Five years and three Presidential administrations later, on November 16, 2021, President Biden transmitted the Kigali Amendment to the U.S. Senate, which was referred to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where I am proud to serve. The Foreign Relations Committee voted the Kigali Amendment out of committee by voice vote earlier this year.
Today, U.S. businesses stand to benefit tremendously from the global phase-down in hydrofluorocarbons--HFCs--and, thereby, the ratification of Kigali. This includes chemicals manufacturers such as Honeywell, air-conditioning and refrigeration companies, and major retail companies like Walmart. Honeywell, headquartered in North Carolina, has a safety product manufacturing presence in Silver Spring, MD. I applaud the U.S. businesses at the forefront of innovation and development of commercially viable alternatives to HFCs that have already invested billions of dollars in developing alternatives to HFCs, including in anticipation of U.S. ratification of Kigali. This investment in research and development and new capacity, mainly in the U.S., will advance our ability to produce next-generation refrigerants, insulation materials, aerosols, and solvents here at home, insulating our economy from supply chain disruptions.
In fact, the United States is already implementing domestic authorities to phase down the use of HFCs in a manner entirely consistent with Kigali, under the American Manufacturing and Innovation--AIM--Act that I am proud to have supported as a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. During the challenging early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the committee gathered information from stakeholders on legislation introduced by Senators Kennedy and Chairman Carper to establish a domestic phasedown of hydrofluorocarbons--HFCs--consistent with the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. We heard from an extraordinary range of industry and environmental stakeholder groups supporting this legislation, particularly those most directly affected.
It was through this process that I learned that a Maryland academic institution had contributed to the consensus around the economic benefits of ratification. INFORUM, or Inter-industry Forecasting at the University of Maryland, produced an analysis cited by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, and many of the firms and industry associations that support the AIM bill. The University of Maryland study found that the phasedown of HFCs will create 33,000 new U.S. manufacturing jobs. When the indirect and induced effects were added to estimate the total impact, the number of jobs gained rose to 150,000.
On December 27, 2020, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 was enacted, which included the American Innovation and Manufacturing--
AIM--Act. The legislative language was nearly identical to the bipartisan legislation introduced by Senators Kennedy and Carper, which had broad bipartisan backing in the Senate, with 16 Republican cosponsors. EPA has already started implementing the AIM Act, with the first regulations issued in October 2021.
Even before the Federal action taken in the last 2 years, States were acting in their interests to reduce HFCs. In November 2020, the Maryland Department of the Environment--MDE--finalized regulations to phase out the use of HFCs and reduce methane emissions to help meet the State's aggressive climate and environmental goals for reducing greenhouse gases.
This sub-national action was designed to help Maryland meet its requirements under the State's emissions reduction target, which was subsequently made even more ambitious when the Climate Solutions Now Act become State law. The act set a new target of net zero by 2045, while continuing to have a net positive effect on the economy and job creation. Maryland participates in the U.S. Climate Alliance and is a member of the multi-State Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative--RGGI.
Maryland is also a leader for green building in the U.S., having been included in the Top 10 States for LEED list every year since 2011. The U.S. Green Buildings Council community has long shown leadership on refrigerants, with key studies issued in the early 2000s probing the balance between ozone layer and global warming.
In fact, since 2010, 63 percent of LEED-certified projects have achieved the enhanced refrigerant management credit, which is intended reduce ozone depletion and support early compliance with the Montreal Protocol while minimizing direct contributions to climate change. Embracing energy efficiency, including through the use of modern refrigerants, across these properties has a tangible impact in their home communities.
The Federal Government given its real estate footprint needs to lead by example. Fortunately, there is major new Federal funding included in the Inflation Reduction Act for the General Services Administration--
GSA--to do just that, including funding to improve the environmental performance of Federal buildings and implement emerging and sustainable technologies.
The next generation of coolant technologies is extremely energy efficient. This means the transition to HFC alternatives will generate billions of dollars in energy savings for American businesses and consumers over the next decade. In total, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency--EPA--has estimated that the economic benefits from implementing the AIM Act alone will be more than $270 billion. Clearly, phasing down HFCs in favor of environmentally safer alternatives and more energy-efficient cooling technologies benefits the climate and the economy.
Nearly 1 year ago, I returned from my trip to Glasgow, Scotland, for COP26, the 2021 United Nations--UN--Climate Change Conference, where the need for concerted action at every level--State and local, national, and international, and nongovernmental--was undeniable.
I was privileged to have 18 Senate colleagues join me to bolster President Biden's agenda and the U.S. leadership role on the world stage. The Glasgow Climate Pact established a clear consensus that all nations need to do much more, immediately, to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures. Thursday's Senate action by a comfortable margin of 69-27 is a signal to the world that together we can protect our economic interests and improve quality of life. While our work to combat the climate crisis is hardly complete, we can build on the momentum generated by this hopeful, strategic victory.
I will conclude by applauding my colleagues for their actions in support of adoption of the Kigali Amendment, and for our years' long efforts along the path to this historic moment.
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