Expressing the Sense of Congress That A Carbon Tax Would Be Detrimental to the United States Economy

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, in this very troubling week, when these same Republican enablers here in Congress have endangered our national security by failing to confront Donald Trump's surrender to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, today, we again witness their total indifference to another very serious national security concern. Unfortunately, just as their refusal to stand up to Trump's denial of this ongoing Russian aggression won't make it go away as a grave threat to our democracy, neither will their ignoring the national security challenge of climate change eliminate reality.

In recent years, the war, the challenge, that these Republicans have been most willing to fight is the war on reality. They particularly find troubling any scientific fact that conflicts with their last campaign rally or their rigid ideology.

This Administration actually prohibited the Centers for Disease Control from including, in its budget documents to Congress, the terms ``evidence-based'' or ``science-based.'' They don't want to rely on science as fact. They have questioned and harassed scientists across America so much that you have to begin to wonder whether they still believe in gravity.

Across America, we are seeing, with our own eyes, what they refuse to acknowledge: soaring temperatures, severe and erratic records being set in our weather, massive 100-year floods that seem to recur every 100 months, deep freezes, and ravaging hurricanes that dumped 60 inches of rain in one short period of time on the City of Houston.

Often at the same time that these disasters are occurring in other parts of America we see: record droughts, and wildfires destroying thousands of acres, livelihoods, and homes. All across the country, particularly in the southern States, seldom seen diseases, like West Nile virus and Lyme disease, are afflicting more and more of our neighbors.

During the lifetime of my grandchildren, I know that my home State of Texas, America's number one greenhouse gas polluter, is on schedule to become a very different place, with more of the State looking like the Sonoran Desert. At the same time, our coastal areas, like those that stretch all the way to New England, will find themselves submerged and major metropolitan areas subject to serious harm from storm surges.

Meanwhile, we will see, not in the future, but right now, thousands of premature deaths every year because of air pollutants that are associated with carbon emissions.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, around the world, the very severe impact of climate change has already been identified as a major contributing factor to the disaster in Syria, conflict in Africa, and what is becoming a growing number of climate refugees. Trump's own Defense Secretary has acknowledged the need to address climate change and the impact on our military.

The Scientific American has reported that climate change presents a significant and direct risk to the U.S. military, its readiness, operations, and strategy.

We must treat this as a national security threat. When you have a security threat, you don't just rely on one weapon. A carbon tax that is revenue neutral, that does not take any new tax revenue than the tax it replaces, is one of the tools that should not be rejected without even having a hearing to evaluate it.

The likelihood of a carbon tax in our future will not be changed by this silly resolution. But as Republicans continue to reject all ways, any ways, of addressing the climate change national security challenge, the future of our planet and our families remains endangered every bit as much as they endanger us by yielding to Vladimir Putin.

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