The Green New Deal

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, as we celebrate Women's History Month, I am proud to spotlight Wyoming's great history and achievements for women's equality.

Wyoming is the ``Equality State''--the first State to give women the right to vote and hold public office. We actually did it before statehood. Long before statehood, in 1869, the Wyoming Territory was the first to grant women the right to vote.

Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie became the first woman in the United States to vote in a general election in 1870, and Wyoming insisted on protecting women's right to vote as a precondition for even joining the Union in 1890.

Now, that is not all. The first elected woman Governor in the United States, Nellie Taylor Ross, was Wyoming's 14th Governor.

Wyoming women continue to hold key elected offices today, with strong leaders like U.S. Representative Liz Cheney.

The State owes a debt of gratitude to all of these extraordinary women leaders.

The Green New Deal

Now I would like to turn to this week's debate over the Democrats' so-called Green New Deal.

The Green New Deal isn't about protecting our environment. It is about increasing the size and scope of the Federal Government.

Every Democrat Senator running for President supports the Green New Deal. They have cosponsored it--each and every one of them, every single one.

By cosponsoring the Green New Deal, these Senators have shown Americans what they actually do support as candidates and as an agenda for America, and that is massively increasing the size of government.

This year the Federal Government is projected to spend over $4 trillion. That amount includes everything--Social Security, national defense, Medicare, all of it. If we were to pass the Green New Deal, it would cost up to $93 trillion over the next 10 years. That is $9.3 trillion a year--more than double what our government currently spends.

So, you see, the Green New Deal would massively expand the Federal Government, and that is exactly what Democrat Senators running for President want and plan to do, if elected. Don't be confused by Senate Democrats' ducking this vote on the Green New Deal. This is where Democrats would take our country if they were to retake the White House.

The Green New Deal would bankrupt our Nation, would wreak havoc, and would wreck the economy.

Republicans' pro-growth, pro-jobs policies have strengthened the economy and improved the lives of American families in their everyday lives at home. Because of tax relief, millions of families have more money now in their pockets to decide what to spend, what to save, and what to invest.

The Green New Deal plan would eliminate fossil fuels by requiring 100 percent renewable, carbon-free energy in just 10 years. Talk about having extra money in your pocket to fill your gas tank, but just putting gas in the car would be extremely difficult if the Green New Deal were to come to pass.

On the issue of climate change, climate change is real, but the Green New Deal is unrealistic. While it is important, in 2017 wind and solar energy generated just 8 percent of our electricity. Should we have more? Yes, but 8 percent of what we need is certainly inadequate.

Affordable and reliable fossil fuels, like coal and natural gas, power three out of five U.S. homes and businesses. Excluding fossil fuels would snuff out the bright lights of Americans' prosperity. It would threaten national security. It would threaten jobs. It would threaten our independence from foreign energy, and all Americans' higher standard of living.

What Democrats are proposing is essentially a pipe dream. It is no surprise that Democrats have yet to provide a cost estimate. They don't want Americans to know that the Green New Deal could cost up to $93 trillion over the next 10 years. That is roughly $65,000 each and every year for each and every family in America.

The Nation is already over $22 trillion in debt. So how are they planning to pay for this? By doing what they often plan to do--raising taxes.

Paying for a $93 trillion bill would empty just about every Americans' savings account in the country, and let's not forget that the Green New Deal would not actually solve the problems they are trying to solve. Really, the proposal amounts to unrealistic economic disarmament.

Plus, U.S. economic decline would harm the environment. That is what we are hearing from the Green New Deal. It would be unilateral harm to our economy and no improvement to the overall global climate. They want it done immediately. They want it done drastically. It is a level of alarm that is not in any way called for.

When you think about the American economy and what we are able to do in this country, it is a strong economy that allows for a clean environment. The stronger the economy, often the cleaner the environment is. That is certainly the case here, when you compare us around the world to other countries and their economies and their environments.

The label ``Made in America'' means more than just the country of origin. It means the better the environment. We are being asked to destroy--that is what the Democrats are asking us to do with this Green New Deal--our strong, growing, and improving economy and allow the largest polluters in the world to grow at our expense.

Right now, 13 percent of emissions comes from the United States, but 33 percent comes from China and from India, and emissions in the United States have been declining over the last dozen years, while they continue to go up in China and India and in other locations around the world.

Why do Democrats want to do this? Well, they would like to engineer a big government takeover--or, I should say, as they say, transformation--of the U.S. economy.

There is a real solution that will not wreck our economy, will not hurt our Nation, will not hurt people's jobs, and will not hurt American families. The solution is not taxation. It is not regulation. It is innovation. Republicans continue to work, and we do it in a bipartisan way to advance innovative strategies for reducing carbon emissions.

First, we are working to promote carbon capture, and then using that carbon and sequestering it, taking it away. That means taking carbon out of the atmosphere and using it productively. We can use it for medical projects, construction projects, and for extracting oil. You can push the carbon dioxide into the ground in the area of oil wells and get out more oil, as a result, leaving the carbon dioxide underground.

Last year, the Senate passed the bipartisan FUTURE Act. It was signed into law, and it expands tax credits for carbon capture facilities.

Now we are advancing the bipartisan USE IT Act, which will help to turn carbon that has been captured into valuable products.

A second way Republicans are working in a bipartisan way to reduce emissions is by supporting nuclear power. Nuclear power generates about 60 percent--60 percent--of American-produced carbon-free energy. By far, that is the largest source of American carbon-free energy. It is much more than double solar and wind power combined.

In late December, we passed the bipartisan Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act. This legislation had Republican and Democratic support and was signed into law by President Trump. This law will help innovators develop advanced nuclear reactors that are safer, cleaner, and more versatile. That is what we need to do. It is simplifying the process on the front end for the innovators to build state-of-the-art nuclear reactors. These advanced reactors are going to power the next generation of nuclear plants. We need them to expand the use of carbon- free energy. We also need to maintain our existing nuclear powerplants, and Congress needs to address how we manage nuclear waste. Nuclear power is an area with broad bipartisan support. We must continue to work together on nuclear power.

A third approach that Republicans are taking to reduce emissions is increasing the use of renewable energy. Republicans have repeatedly passed tax incentives to promote clean energy. These include tax credits for wind and solar panels, as well as incentives for biodiesel and compressed natural gas.

We know all these innovative strategies work. We see it in America's unparalleled success in reducing emissions. This progress is not the result of taxation; it is not the result of regulation; it is the result of American innovation. Our cutting-edge technologies can be adopted globally.

Republicans want to make America's energy as clean as we can, as fast as we can, while investing in promising innovations for the future. Democrats want more government control. That is what they asked for with the Green New Deal--control of our economy and control of our lives, despite the cost to American families and American taxpayers.

Let's continue to pass real climate solutions, not these far-left fantasies. Let's focus on what works for our environment and our economy, not what works for Democrats who are running for President.

Republicans are going to continue to oppose unrealistic, unworkable, and unaffordable proposals like the Green New Deal. It is a big green bomb. The Democrats are ducking it, they are dodging it, and they are now distancing themselves from it by showing up on the floor of the Senate--those who have cosponsored it, those who have gone on TV and on the hustings around the country saying they would support it and be for it--and voting not for it but present. The Democrats are ducking this for a good reason: They know what a disaster it would be for our Nation.

Thank you.

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