Climate Change

Floor Speech

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Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Garamendi for leading us in this Special Order that speaks to an urgency.

More and more, people are beginning to recognize that it is within our responsibility to provide for the stewardship of our Earth, of the environment, and to pass it on to generations coming. As you just acknowledged the birth of a grandson, congratulations to Mr. Garamendi and his wife, Patti. It is important, it is incumbent upon us to do that.

When we see the denial and the disregard--the denial for science, for climate change as a concept; the disregard for the Earth, the environment, and for public health--it is troublesome.

Here we have in recent weeks heard about and presented the U.N. report through the IPCC, the international committee that looks at climate change, and they are indicating that there is precious little time, if any, by which to act--a timeframe that is becoming more and more urgent.

It is so important for us to address the science of this issue, to look at the stats, to look at the data that is compelling, that speaks to everything from public health to job creation to a greening up of our thinking so that our policy and our resource advocacy will go toward what is a crisis situation.

Just very, very recent, we have witnessed a report on the climate that is under the auspices of the Trump administration where they have responded to the United States Global Change Research Program, a Presidential initiative started by President Ronald Reagan that incorporates, I believe, some 13 agencies and their thinking about climate change. Members of his own cabinet are recommending and advising and he is rejecting.

I simply don't understand how we can ask people to utilize their expertise, invest their time and energy into forecasting where we are going to be and where we are, acknowledging where we are, and the work that is needed, and then to walk away from that presentation based on facts and science and data.

You have witnessed at your end of the country what has happened with wildfires. I have seen 500-year storms three or four times over in a decade. So the nomenclature is even off target. We are witnessing tremendous damage, loss of lives, property damage, and farming impacts with very rich soil being washed away, erosion of our coastal zones. What more do we need to have as evidence?

The Department of Defense; the farming community; the business community; States like California, the gentleman's home state; and New York, my home State, get it. We pull out of a Paris accord because we are not going to be part of an international community--the only industrial nation to pull out of that accord?

It is revolting that we will not respond to this issue. As you indicated, we have been talking about this, we have been pushing this leadership since 2010 with the takeover of the House. We began our efforts in 2008 and 2009. We needed to continue to move forward. The efforts to go forward have been thwarted by a resistance to addressing this issue. I find it unacceptable.

As we look upon the next few weeks before we take over with the majority in the House, we need to set a very ambitious tone that will move us forward with a number of issues being addressed under the umbrella of climate change. We have witnessed what has happened out there with the economy. We have calculated the hundreds of billions of dollars that are impacted because of public health costs, the damage to property, and the like.

We need to move forward. We need to do this based on science and factual evidence that is available, that is at our fingertips. The time for denial is over. The time for disregard is over. The time for action is now. And we need to move forward, even asking as ranker on the Environment Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee for hearings in this regard, just hearings so that we can take testimony and advance the cause of the action that is required. Those requests have been falling on deaf ears.

So we need to do better. We need to move forward with a sound plan and to understand that across the country more and more people are expressing their concern about climate change. They are witnessing it in the news every night. These wildfires have been greater in number, in severity. I believe this is probably the worst in history. So we need to do a lot more.

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Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. Coast-to-coast this is an issue. We know that where there are innovative concepts, where there is an embracing of an aggressive agenda like in California, like in New York, there are ways to advance green energy, clean energy, innovation when it comes to efficiency, to make certain that those greenhouse gas emissions are addressed. It is within our control.

So the human activity here, the human element, yes, is driving some of this. I know there are those who say I believe in climate change, but not human-inspired. Whether or not you believe that to be true, is it so bad to make cleaner the air we breathe, safer the water we drink, remediate the soils we require? These are important factors that can grow significant jobs in research, prototype development, and in product design.

So let's move forward. The evidence is compelling. The temperatures have risen some 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1901. That is major change. The warming, in large part, is due to human activity. The continuation of burning fossil fuels, adding to the greenhouse gas emissions out there, is unacceptable.

Sixteen of the last 17 years are the warmest years on record. And there are those saying: Well, it's just a cycle. Well, that is a long stretch of time. There is no sign out there that it is going to stop. There is no pause there as a warning.

Basically, the science that we have today, technology continues to advance in a way that enables us to have shelf-ready opportunity, the cleverness, the intellect that we harvest in this country, the intellect that allows us to design and understand concepts like capturing waste heat so that we can get more energy out of traditional designs, is a way to advance this cause.

The green power that the gentleman just talked about with my fellow colleague from California, Representative McNerney, these are real. They are not pie in the sky. They are happening as we speak. We just have to show the will and break the pattern that has been just too comfortable for us to go forward and say: Oh, well, it is greenhouse gas emissions. And, yes, there is a lot of damage out there, but that should be telling us we are already paying for greenhouse gas emissions, we are already paying for climate change, and we need to change that saga.

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Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, as Mr. Garamendi presented that panel with Make It In America, it reminds me that, as you solve this crisis, as you speak to carbon pollution, you are going across so many policy areas: economic development, transportation, health, job training, certainly science and technology, energy and commerce. All of these disciplines. It just travels across all of these areas of activity because the solution is multifaceted. We need to do that.

I talk to folks who will say: Gee, my newborn, or the youngest of our family, is struggling with asthma. And they are saying: I hear that asthma is up.

I say: Well, have you related it to carbon pollution?

The public health cost, the public health impact here is tremendous. So, as we work on this, we are allowing for policy in so many different areas to take hold so that we can go forward with an inclusivity that allows for a lot of work to be done, which generates jobs, oftentimes with research. And research equals jobs--sound, paying jobs.

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Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, let me just address some of those that aren't as clearly connected.

Mr. Garamendi talks about the need to address public health and to address that bending of the cost curve for healthcare. Well, wellness is an important part. If we can reduce the number of asthma cases, we are doing a big share of the activity that is required.

Also, one would never expect, perhaps, that the Department of Defense would be out front on this issue. Why? Because they see a population boom around the world, and they see eroding land and crop failure because of drought.

Well, they see that as civil unrest. They see it as a situation that can be damaging to the world community. That civil unrest is of great concern to the Department of Defense.

So there are these dynamics that seem so disconnected from this overall topic of carbon pollution. And, yes, when people are faced with that direct question--Where are you on carbon pollution?--of course it is the logical thing: Reduce it. Reduce it.

It doesn't take that much of an effort. It takes the will to go forward and relate to energy efficiency, relate to greening up our policy, relate to renewable energy, battery development as a linchpin that can provide more certainty and predictability. We have it within our capacity, and I am convinced we will move forward as a House come January addressing this issue that has languished for far too long.

Mr. Speaker, I again thank the gentleman for leading us in this discussion this evening. It is critical; it is vitally important; it will save dollars; and it will grow jobs.

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Mr. TONKO. Congratulations.

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