Energy And Water Development And Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for explaining to the public and this body what we are all becoming increasingly aware of. The technology is there. This is no longer pie in the sky. This is not hopeful ecological utopia thinking. This is real stuff. These are real jobs that are being financed by banks and financial institutions. This is already upon us.

I wish to tell the story of Hawaii's clean energy transformation. Of course the clean energy transformation is taking place across the country, but it is especially true in Hawaii. For decades--since the demise of the sugar plantation--Hawaii relied on imports of fossil fuel for our energy needs. As recently as 2010, we derived nearly 90 percent of our electrons from burning oil. In just 4 years we have driven this number down to around 80 percent, and we are on our way to a 100 percent clean energy target.

Hawaii's reliance on imported fuels isn't just bad for the climate, it is also bad economics. We have the highest electricity rates in the country. Our rates are three times higher than the national average. For the privilege of burning LSFO, low sulfur fuel oil, we are paying higher prices than anywhere in the Nation, and so something had to give.

In order to bolster our own energy security and economic prospects, we made the decision to transition away from fossil fuels to solar, wind, and geothermal. Clean energy is Hawaii's future, but it is important to point out that in the beginning we had naysayers on the left, right, and center, much like the current debate in the Congress. There are those who think that what we do in the clean power plan or with the carbon fee will not be nearly enough, and there are those who think that we are doing too much too fast.

I remember having this exact conversation in Hawaii in 2001. In 2001, we started small and passed a voluntary renewable portfolio goal that encouraged utilities--didn't mandate--to generate 9 percent of their electricity from clean energy by the year 2010. The target, frankly, was unambitious. It was voluntary and it was unenforceable, but it was important because it was a start. For some it was little and for others it was too radical, but it was a start. So we kept pushing.

In 2004, we replaced the original goal with a requirement of 20 percent clean energy by 2020. Two years later, we added incentives for compliance and established penalties for noncompliance.

In 2008, Hawaii partnered with the USDOE to identify the technical, regulatory, and financial barriers preventing the State from reaching its clean energy potential. This partnership, the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, was crucial to helping Hawaii realize that a 100 percent clean energy goal was actually realistic.

A year after starting this partnership, the State increased its Clean Energy Standard to 40 percent by 2030, establishing an energy efficiency standard of 30 percent and enshrining into law the requirement to reduce emissions from the power sector by 70 percent by the year 2030.

I want to give context here. People thought this was totally unrealistic and that we would even at the first 2- or 3-year increment already miss our goals, but what happened was the opposite. We started exceeding our interim targets, and then we ratcheted up our goals. Progress toward these goals demonstrated that an even more ambitious, audacious goal of 100-percent clean energy was a real possibility.

So this year Governor Ige in Hawaii signed the law requiring utilities to generate all of their electricity from renewable sources by 2045. We are currently meeting or exceeding our interim targets, thanks in large part to big increases in wind power and in distributed generation, especially solar rooftops.

It is important to say that progress towards our clean energy goals hasn't impeded economic growth. Hawaii's unemployment rate is among the lowest in the Nation and 1.5 percent below the national average.

Strengthening this law required consistent efforts by advocacy groups, businesses, and government agencies to bring about the change. It also showed the importance of taking those first steps down the road to a low-carbon economy. Whether they seem too small to make a difference or too large to be possible, we have to start. Once we do, ambitious goals are more within reach than they may have originally seemed.

Now, Hawaii is blessed in a number of ways, including with ample sunlight, steady winds, and volcanic energy. But Hawaii is not unique in its ability to generate substantial quantities of electricity from clean renewable resources.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory analyzed clean energy potential across the country and found that ``[r]enewable electricity generation from technologies that are commercially available today ..... is more than adequate to supply 80 percent of the total U.S. electricity generation by the year 2050.''

That is with technologies available today. As these technologies improve and the cost of clean energy continues to fall, wind and solar power will be increasingly competitive with electricity generated from fossil fuels in States across the country. As my home State of Hawaii illustrates, we just have to start.

This is a lesson that we must take to the international context as well. As the world meets in Paris later this year, I urge representatives from all countries to think of Hawaii's experience moving towards a zero carbon energy system. The climate negotiations in Paris are shaping up to be at least a moderate success. But whatever agreement emerges from Paris will likely be a political Rorschach test, which is to say that some will say that we are promising too much and others will say that we should be offering more. Whatever one's predisposition about climate, Paris will prove it to the world.

But what truly matters is not exactly what the particulars of each agreement in Paris are but what happens next. It is doing the work. It is power purchase agreements. It is public policy. It is tax incentives. It is permits. It is public utilities commissions. It is actually getting the work done across the country and across the planet.

When something as consequential as climate change is on the table, it is going to require global capital, technological breakthroughs, and political will. That political will will only occur if people understand that, yes, this is a problem. It is real. Yes, it is urgent, and yes, it is caused by humans. But, most importantly, we can, in fact, fix it.

I yield the floor.

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