Opposing Green New Deal

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRIFFITH. No. The rest of the world will continue to use these sources.

And, in fact, industries that are dependent upon our natural resources--coal, oil, natural gas--well, they will just move to the countries that will let them use it, and it will not have any effect on the environment.

But this really is not a proposal that should be taken seriously. It was clearly thrown together quickly in an attempt to get some press; and, unfortunately, 100 Members of the body decided to sign on to it.

But when you read it, you know it is not there. We have heard all the things that could happen if we take a watered-down version of the Green New Deal. But if we pass the Green New Deal and we actually do what it says, and you read the words, it says, remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It doesn't say, reduce. It doesn't say, remove hazardous greenhouse gases.

So, I would ask my friend who holds a degree in the science field, and with whom we have lots of discussion about science on the floor and at various meetings; what happens if we eliminate the greenhouse gases of water vapor and carbon dioxide; eliminate them, remove them, as the Green New Deal calls for?

What happens if that occurs?

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, and if you eliminate carbon dioxide--the gentleman is correct--we won't have any plants. If we don't have any plants, oxygen plummets in the atmosphere.

And as I told a group of high school students recently, and you know what that means for us?

And all, if not most, life forms that currently rely on either carbon dioxide or oxygen will die and all that will be left are the life forms, the microbial life forms that live near hot vents in the ocean or the edges of volcanoes, because they don't rely on that. The rest of life would be wiped out.

Now, I know that is not what the Democrats meant when they introduced this, but isn't that the scientific conclusion of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere; not reducing, removing? Isn't that correct?

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, and so while I know they weren't thinking about it or they probably didn't mean to go that far, it shows you that even if we modified it, it won't work for the people.

Jobs would be eliminated, jobs will be cut, and we really won't have any impact on the environment unless we go the full bore, in which case, we no longer have air to breathe and we won't have to worry about the global temperature in 20 years or 30 years or 40 years, because none of us will be here.

And it is just fascinating to me how they can get the science so messed up and, yet, lecture to us about the science.

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Mr. GRIFFITH. So when the gentleman started talking about birds, I came back to the mike.

We hope science will solve these problems, and that is why we need to have more research and development on all of this.

Instead of saying, stop everything, we need to do research and development. But isn't there also a problem today with solar and some of the larger solar arrays that they actually fry birds as they fly; whether it be large birds or small birds?

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Mr. GRIFFITH. And so there are lots of things we need to worry about in that regard.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman bringing that up today, because what we want to do is have a balanced approach.

We want renewables. We want all of the above. But we also have to make sure that we are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and in the end, killing off our large predator birds or killing birds with technologies that are not quite ready for prime time.

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Hear, hear, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that we are working on some technology right now that allows us to extract rare earth minerals out of some of our coal deposits to the United States and be able to take some of that business away from the Chinese and bring it back to the United States

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, I just have to bring this up: I was meeting with some folks at Virginia Tech recently who are working on this very area. And as a part of the spinoff of the research and the technology they are doing to refine it and to try to get the other minerals out, they have also found a way of using that same technology to improve the steel industry. And they are now licensing some steel companies in India, which would lower their carbon footprint.

So we have the research into coal that is now going to help the steel industry in an area that doesn't have anywhere near the regulations we have to lower their carbon footprint.

This is the way we should be going in the United States: Use our entrepreneurial spirit; use our research; put some Federal money behind that research, but use our research to find ways to make the environment, worldwide, better instead of proclaiming broad edicts that we are not going to have cows in 10 years, or we are not going to do this in 10 years.

Instead, let's let our research and our entrepreneurial spirit and our ingenuity solve these problems for us and the world.

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