Hire More Heroes Act of 2015--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, we are at a crossroads. We have a catastrophe that is looming for our planet. We have the world looking at the United States wondering if we are going to lead. We have the Pope coming to the United States and speaking out on this issue. We have the world gathering in Paris this November, this December, discussing this issue because it is now the focal point of the world; that is, the danger of ever-escalating, dangerous climate change, the warming of our planet, and the catastrophic consequences of the warming of our planet.

The tides are rising. Snows are melting. In other places, the snows are greater than they have ever been before. Climate change--dangerous climate change--that is what is happening.

What is the response from the Republican side of the aisle? We hear nothing. We hear denial. We hear essentially an argument that it is not our responsibility to deal with it, but the Pope is asking us to be the leader. The world is asking us to be the leader. The young people in our country, the green generation, are asking us to be the leader.

The United States is a technological giant. We have the capacity to invent the technologies that are going to radically reduce greenhouse gases, not only in our own country but around the world: new renewable energy technologies, new battery technologies, and new ways of generating electricity in the 21st century. We do not have to be tied to 19th century technologies--oil and coal. It is the 21st century.

In our country, in 2015 and 2016, we are going to generate 40,000 new megawatts of wind and solar. We ask, Well, what does that translate into? What are 40,000 megawatts? If we think of all the nuclear powerplants that have been constructed in our country over the last 70 years, we now have 100,000 megawatts of electricity coming from nuclear power. In these 2 years, 2015 to 2016, we are going to add 40,000 in wind and solar. The experts did not think this was possible 10 years ago. The experts would have said: Oh, wind and solar, that is nice, but it can't replace the coal that has always been relied upon to provide our electricity going back to the 19th century. Impossible, they said. No. This new generation is rising up. And what is doing it? Well, we have put tax breaks on the books now for wind and solar. We are giving them the same breaks we always gave oil, we always gave coal. But what do we hear from the Republican Party? Should we eliminate the coal and oil tax breaks? Oh, no. You can't touch those. But when we say, well, let's renew the tax breaks for wind and solar, they say it is time for us to now allow these new industries to go it alone. That has been the problem all along; there isn't a level playing field. What we have done over the last 7 years is create a level playing field, so the new energy technologies can compete against these old tax breaks for coal and oil that have been on the books for generations. We can do it. We can solve this problem, but we can't create an unlevel playing field.

The same thing is true with automotive technologies. All of that CO

2 coming out of automobiles, coming out of trucks, people said we just have to live with it. The average for vehicles that ordinary families drove in our country just 6 years ago was 25 miles a gallon, essentially the same as 1975. The green generation, the young people in our country, say let's do better, let's invent new technologies. Let's have electric cars. Let's have plug-in hybrids. Let's have a generation of hybrids. No, says the industry. It is too difficult. We can't figure it out. It will cripple our industry.

We pass new laws here on the Senate floor and on the House floor. What has happened? We have a revolution in automotive technology. We now have people driving around in computers on wheels. The dashboard looks like it is a spaceship. The cars are infinitely more efficient, and we are heading toward 54.5 miles per gallon. What did the experts say 10 years ago? Impossible. We cannot do it. These are the same people who said to President Kennedy that we cannot put a man on the moon in 8 years. President Kennedy said: ``We choose to go to the moon ..... and do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.'' We are the United States of America. We will invent the new propulsion systems. We will invent the new methods. We will invent all of the things we need so that America dominates the Soviet Union and not the opposite.

The whole world is looking at this generation, this Senate. We have a plan. President Obama has a plan to control emissions coming out of the powerplants of our country. Our plan is one that moves toward renewable energy and away from these smokestacks of CO2 going up into the atmosphere and creating a blanket that holds in the heat and continues to dangerously warm the planet. That is what the greenhouse effect is. It holds in the heat, all of this pollution.

When we move toward solar, when we move toward wind, when we move toward geothermal, when we move toward all the new technologies, the CO2 is cut radically and the planet is able to breathe, and breathe in a way that says to generations to come that we will have left this planet better than it was before.

That is what the Pope is going to come and talk to us about--dangerous climate change. That is what the Pope is going to come and ask the United States--to be the leader and not the lagger, to not allow the deniers of climate change to dominate our debate in the United States of America, to not allow the technologies of the 19th century dictate to the 21st century.

Just 18 years ago, a small percentage of all Americans had a wireless device in their pocket. Do you want to know why? The experts said it was impossible; you can't do it. Today everyone is walking around with one of these in their pocket, including 700 million people in Africa. We can do it.

In Kenya and in Ethiopia, they are moving toward geothermal, solar, and wind. They are skipping the landline delivery of telecommunication service in favor of wireless, and they are also skipping the landline system of generational electricity and moving to renewables. They are not relying on coal. They are moving on to the new. You can't eliminate it totally. You need some coal. You need some oil. But we can continue to reduce it year after year.

What is the plan we hear from the Republican Party? How do we reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we are going to be sending into the atmosphere? What is their plan? They say they don't like President Obama's plan. Where is their plan? What are they going to do? What are they going to tell the green generation--all these pages on the floor representing tens of millions across our country? They are asking the question: Where is the plan? How do we do this? How do we solve the problem? How do we invent the new technologies, as we did with wireless technology, and spread it across the planet? How do we do it for climate change as well? That is going to be the essential debate.

Shruggy says: I am not happy; I am sad.

Where is the Republican emoji? Where is the one who says: We can do it; we are America.

We are not going to allow the rest of the world to have a problem from which the United States is going to exempt itself because it is the only country that is denying climate change. The Senate has a great responsibility. We have an opportunity to be the global leader. We can save all of creation while engaging in massive job creation here in America. We now have 100,000 clean energy jobs in Massachusetts. It is a big job creator. It is an employer of Americans all across our country.

We have a chance to do something special. We can begin this transition in a much more serious way--away from coal, away from oil, and toward this renewable solar era of the 21st century.

Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

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