Climate Action Now Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DeSAULNIER. Mr. Chairman, I am very glad to follow the previous discussion that was taking place under Mrs. Torres' amendment, having spent a long time in California on air regulation as an appointee to the California Air Resources Board by three Governors--Republicans and Democrats--where we worked in a bipartisan fashion under Federal regulation in the Clean Air Act, and California regulation, first to improve the air quality for Californians, but other States that followed us under the U.S. Clean Air Act, on criteria pollutants, but now to do it on carbon.

So my amendment would direct the administration to work with the National Academy of Sciences to evaluate the negative economic impacts to the United States' global competitiveness and to our workforce by leaving the Paris treaty.

Our experience in California has been, by transitioning to renewables and alternative fuels, one of the best arguments--of course, secondary to saving the planet, in my view--is the economic benefit. So, I hear and I respect some of the conversations and perspectives from people from different parts of the country, but that has not been our experience.

Our experience has been that we passed a bill in 2006 that I was involved with in the legislature that called for the California Air Resources Board to drop CO2 emissions by 2020 to 1990 levels. We were told by industry that there was no way we could do that. We are actually on track to do that.

In fact, the last Governor, Governor Brown, signed legislation to decrease our CO2 levels and, again, directed the California Air Resources Board to implement a strategy to do that in regulations to 40 percent by 2030.

On the renewable side, we went to 33-1/3 percent, a third of our renewables by 2020 on the stationary source side, and the industry came when I was in the legislature and said: We can't do this. We want your help.

We went through with it, and, in fact, we did it. So now there is legislation saying that by 2030, we should decrease it or only have 50 percent renewables.

So what has that done to the economy? Our economy is the fifth largest in the world. We get more venture capital in the United States for renewables and alternative fuels than the total, combined research investment in venture capital in the other 49 States.

We get half of the venture capital in total in the whole country into California, and it continues to provide for transition and new jobs. Many of our workforce are transitioning from fossil fuel to renewables.

When we get mass-produced electric cars--and I am fearful that my grandchildren will drive Chinese electric cars--but we know that our car companies are transitioning and being somewhat successful and we hope that they will continue to be, as General Motors has indicated it would. It is in our best interest to continue this movement.

My hope is that we would work collectively with the people who are being displaced, whether they are coal miners in West Virginia, or refinery workers in the four refineries in my county, to make sure that they don't lose out as the new economy takes over. The world benefits and the economy benefits. So that is the purpose of this amendment.

I do want to say that right now, 3.3 million Americans now work in clean energy jobs; 2.3 million different jobs are energy efficient; and 318,000 jobs are in California. The World Bank has an analysis that says the Paris accord will contribute $23 trillion to the world economy.

So on the basis of that and the fact that there are three times more jobs in the renewable and alternative fuel right now in the world than there are in the fossil fuel industry, I think that my colleagues should support this amendment so that we get the facts from the National Academy of Sciences, and the administration can see that what we are supporting not only benefits the planet and public health, but it benefits the economy and the future of American competitiveness.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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