Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Internal Revenue Service Relating to ``Gross Proceeds Reporting By Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales''
Floor Speech
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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, before I begin my remarks, I want to take a few minutes to thank Bob Nelson, the Small Business Administration's District Director for Massachusetts upon his retirement on Monday after 30 years of Federal service.
Bob is a paragon of public service--commuting each day more than 100 miles from Connecticut to Boston to serve Massachusetts' small businesses.
For 26 years, Bob has helped small businesses recover from everything from the economic downturn after 9/11 to the great recession of 2008 to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bob is known for giving small business owners his direct cell phone number so that they never have to go through a moment of uncertainty.
His career is a testament to the impact that steady and passionate public service can have on everyday people and local economies.
Everyone who has worked with Bob respects him; and that goes for me, my staff, and all of the SBA employees that he has worked with over all of the years and the thousands of small businesses that he has helped during those years.
Bob Nelson is a small business champion, and because of him, countless business entrepreneurs and communities are strengthening our Nation, creating jobs, and making our economy the envy of the world.
Thank you, Bob--thank you, Bob--for everything that you have done, for bringing a public servant's heart to your work, and for your many years of service making the Massachusetts Small Business Administration district office the best in the Nation. Climate Change
Mr. President, over the last 2 months, the Trump administration has made one thing painfully clear: They do not have an ``all of the above'' energy strategy. They have an ``oil above all'' energy strategy--oil above the law, above the economy, above the health and wallets of working families in our Nation.
Gas prices are up. Electricity bills are up. Home heating costs are up. Yet instead of investing in working families, Donald Trump is launching a full-scale assault on the very programs designed to bring costs down and create jobs, all while spewing baseless lies that begin in the White House and then spread across his entire administration, but especially focused on his energy policy.
At the Department of Energy, staff have been ordered to draw up a hit list of clean energy programs--programs Congress already funded, programs workers are counting on.
These are not hypothetical investments. These are real dollars that could unleash real jobs and real benefits for communities across the country. And now they are being sacrificed to serve a political agenda that rewards polluters and punishes the public.
Nowhere was this agenda more proudly displayed than at this week's CERAWeek--or as I like to call it, the Olympics of oil--where Energy Secretary Chris Wright gave a speech that would make Big Oil blush. Although, it is more likely that they just turned with a flush because of the incredible way in which they were treated.
Big Oil had a big treat coming from the speech by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Let's take a moment to fact-check Secretary of Energy Chris Wright's Big Oil-sponsored big lies at CERAWeek in Houston.
Chris Wright said:
The previous administration's policy was focused myopically on climate change with people as simply collateral damage.
False. Chris Wright is wrong. When Democrats controlled the White House and Congress, we invested in solutions that centered smart communities and a livable future. Since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022, the clean energy boom has created more than 400,000 new jobs and spurred $420 billion in investments, most of it in red districts; 70 to 80 percent of the funding is in red districts. That is a people-powered economy.
That is an ``all of the above'' strategy. Everyone is included. So if we are talking myopic, look no further than Trump. It is the pot calling the kettle black.
Trump has been exclusively focused on tax breaks for the rich with extensive collateral damage. New reporting shows that more than 50,000 energy jobs have been lost or stalled since Trump was elected and that over $56 billion in U.S. clean energy investments were canceled or stalled in that same time.
If he continues down this road and guts the IRA, he will be driving an estimated 790,000 jobs off a cliff while wiping $160 billion from our economy by 2030 and raising household energy costs by $32 billion over the next decade.
In other words, President Trump and his energy policy are engaging in economic sabotage. So let's continue fact-checking Secretary Wright.
Secretary Wright also said in that speech:
Wind and solar . . . supply roughly 3% of global primary energy.
The truth: Renewables powered 30 percent of the world's electricity in 2023. Got it? Not 3 percent; 30 percent of the world's electricity in 2023. And in the first 9 months of 2024, 96 percent of all new electrical generation capacity installed in the United States was renewable--wind, solar, battery--96 percent of all new electrical generation capacity installed, with the majority actually coming from solar. It is the fastest growing, cheapest energy out there.
Big Oil isn't just losing its monopoly; it simply cannot compete. The natural gas industry, they are petrified. Can you imagine if you are saying: Well, we are the only way in the future in which you can have predictable electricity which is generated; natural gas is the answer-- when in 2024, 96 percent of all new electrical-generating capacity was wind and solar and battery storage technology?
If you knew that, for 10 years in a row, the natural gas industry is facing an existential moment, that is what they are afraid of. They are afraid of competition. They are afraid of alternative energy sources. Oil, gas, and coal, they got a tax break for 100 years from the Federal Government, and they were able to squash all of the competition over all of those years.
But when finally we leveled the playing field and the alternatives show out that are nonpolluting, that don't have any greenhouse gases to go up into the planet, that don't warm the planet, all of a sudden, we are hearing: The Secretary of Energy in the Trump administration is lying about that? Because they have to lie. Otherwise, they would have to explain why they are planning on killing hundreds of thousands of new jobs in these industries, which are absolutely bursting at the seams.
But, wait, there is more. Here is what else Secretary Wright said at the SARA conference down in Texas:
The last administration recklessly pursued policies that were certain to drive up electricity prices.
Once again, false. False. The fact, however, is that onshore wind is the cheapest source of new electricity in America. It has been for nearly a decade. It beats fossil fuels even without subsidies and costs half as much as new natural gas on average.
Again, existential threat to the natural gas industry--onshore wind beat it in the marketplace every day for 10 years in a row.
So what is Secretary Wright saying? He is saying he is going to lead the effort to kill it and to kill solar--to kill all of it. And building new solar? Well, it is cheaper than running existing coal or building new gas projects in the United States. Solar is winning in the marketplace, and it is frightening to the natural gas industry--just absolutely frightening. It is fossil fuel volatility that has hammered families at the pump and on their power bills, with fossil fuel exports going to the highest bidder abroad. Now, in my home State of Massachusetts, many gas bills are double what they were last year. That is unacceptable.
Let's keep going with the fact checks.
In a pathetic attempt to justify the benefits of deadly pollution, Secretary of Energy Wright said:
We've raised atmospheric CO
Then he said:
Everything in life involves trade-offs.
Well, let me be clear. In the United States, climate-fueled disasters already kill more than 1,300 people every year. More CO
So let's talk about the real tradeoffs. Clean air traded for asthma. Safe homes traded for billion-dollar climate disasters. Lower bills traded for Big Oil windfall profits. This administration has made its tradeoff clear: your future for their profit. That is Trump's art of the deal, and what a great deal for the oil, gas, and coal industry. All they have to do is just raise money for Donald Trump, and in return, they kill the competitors which are killing the oil, gas, and coal industry in the market.
Adam Smith is spinning in his grave so fast that he would actually qualify for a tax break under an IRA. That is how much they are lying about the marketplace and how it is responding to finally the incentives that are there to compete against oil, gas, and coal, which brings us to the Environmental Protection Agency because what is a fossil-fueled agenda without a full-on assault on the very Agency tasked with protecting our air and our water and our climate?
Two weeks ago, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that he is taking more than 30 actions to unravel our bedrock environmental safeguards in a nauseating attempt to shock and awe us into submission. These are the regulations that keep our air breathable and our water drinkable. These are the standards that keep us healthy instead of sick. And all so that their Big Oil BFFs can make a few more big bucks while the rest of us will foot the bill with our health conditions that will be created by these fossil fuels, these pollutants going up into the atmosphere.
These rollbacks are not a revolution for American progress and energy; they are a return to the same, tired fossil-fueled program of the past. For starters, they are attempting to eliminate EPA's authority to regulate dangerous greenhouse gases based on the threat they pose to public health or welfare--known as the endangerment finding.
This finding came from a Supreme Court ruling in my very own home State, which brought the case to the Supreme Court--Massachusetts v. EPA--in 2007, which said something we all know: Greenhouse gases pose an ``actual'' and ``imminent'' threat to people everywhere.
And it doesn't stop there. They are hoping to roll back air quality standards for particulate matter pollution that are projected to avoid 4,500 premature deaths and 800,000 cases of asthma over just 6 years. That is all going to get wiped out if they have their way.
We are going to fight them, by the way. We are going to fight them every single step of the way on this dangerous, health-endangering strategy which they are seeking to put on the books.
They are aiming to gut wastewater regulations so coal plants can contaminate the water we drink from and swim in. They are trying to pump the brakes on clean car and truck regulations that reduce harmful air pollutants and save families money at the pump. The list goes on and on.
They are dismantling the Federal Government before our very eyes. This isn't about efficiency; this is about sacrificing the health of our communities for the health of their pocketbooks.
And just like Energy Secretary Chris Wright's speech, we know it is a lie. They aren't making America great again; they are selling America to the highest bidder--to the oil and gas and coal industry. That is what they are doing. They are just selling us out. We must continue to speak up for the truth and continue to fight.
The natural gas industry--they are threatened by a wind and solar and battery revolution that will generate the electricity we need in our country. Natural gas doesn't like it. They want to kill it.
The oil industry--we put 70 percent of all the oil we consume into gasoline tanks. They don't want to see the all-electric vehicle revolution continue to grow exponentially. They are going to try to kill that, too, so that we do not have that reduction in the amount of oil we put into the cars we drive around our country that spew that pollution up into the sky.
So the oil and gas industry--they go to the White House, they go to Donald Trump, they go to Mar-a-Lago in order to get the protection they need against competition, the protection they need against clean energy, the protection they need against the creation of a million new clean energy jobs in our country that should be our future. And it is what young people want more than anything else. They want that revolution. They are the Green New Deal revolution. That is what they want. They want to see it happen.
Because it is happening, oil and gas are having, unfortunately, this White House, Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright, his entire Cabinet, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin--all of them just dismantle all of the protections which have been put on the books over a generation.
This is a historic moment, and all we can say to you, oil, gas, and coal; all we can say to you, Trump White House, is that we are going to fight. We are not going away.
There is a young generation out there that is rising up, and they are not happy with what is happening in this White House. They do not want to see their future sold for campaign contributions from polluters in our country.
So we are ready to fight, and we are going to align ourselves with the young people in our country that want a different future, a better future, a clean future, and that is what we are going to get because we will not lose.
I can't thank Senator Whitehouse enough for being our leader on the Environment and Public Works Committee and for bringing us out here this evening to have this incredibly important, historic discussion about the direction of our Nation.
Thank you.
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Mr. MARKEY. I would love to have a conversation with the Senator from Rhode Island.
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Mr. MARKEY. I think it is the most well-financed lobbying effort in Washington, DC. I think they have had an ownership of this building for a hundred years, and they are afraid it is about to slip away. Would the gentleman from Rhode Island agree with me?
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Mr. MARKEY. You know, the Senator from Rhode Island is wise and precise in his analysis of the agenda of these companies.
The Senator from Rhode Island and I have for 12 years led the effort, along with the Senator from Connecticut, to have offshore wind all along the Atlantic coast, and the Biden administration put in place a plan to deploy 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind.
What Donald Trump, what Chris Wright, the Secretary of Energy, and the Secretary of Interior are now planning is to kill that entire revolution capturing the winds that blew the Pilgrims to our shores, capturing the wind that had the whaling crews go out in order to fuel the energy of the 19th century. But when it wants to be used for the energy of the 21st century, the oil and gas and coal industry say: Absolutely not. We can't allow that to happen.
Why can't they allow it to happen? Because it would replace natural gas- generated electricity that pollutes, it would just transform the way in which electricity powers our businesses and powers our homes all across the east coast of the United States, and we could wave goodbye to that natural gas-fossil fuel polluting future for the 21st century.
So what is Donald Trump doing? After receiving tens and tens of millions of dollars in contributions from the natural gas industry, led by Harold Hamm, who promised Trump--the No. 1 natural gas guy in America--that he would raise the money for him in the campaign, well, the payoff, the payback is, kill offshore wind.
So they say ``all of the above''--nah, they don't mean ``all of the above.''
Chris Wright, the Secretary of Energy, says: People really don't like wind, so we have to make an exception because people don't like wind.
Do you know who doesn't like wind? The natural gas industry. They hate wind. They hate it because it is the competition, because it is working, because it is cheaper, and because it is also cleaner, in the same way the oil industry hates the all-electric vehicle revolution because it kills oil as a business as we move to a renewable way of generating electricity that then powers the vehicles we have in America.
So the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee as usual has just put his finger right on the problem, and it is the money that is sloshing through Mar-a-Lago and Washington, DC, the White House. It is an absolute disgrace, and I can't thank him enough for bringing this up on the floor for a full exposition.
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Mr. MARKEY. What does that mean by ``downwind,'' just so people can understand it? What do you mean by that?
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Mr. MARKEY. And it blows into the lungs of the people in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
I yield to the Senator from Connecticut.
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Mr. MARKEY. Would the Senator from Connecticut yield?
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Mr. MARKEY. Thank you. What I would like to talk about a little bit, if I could, with you and Senator Whitehouse, is this pollution agenda that they have for us in New England, that they have writ large for the whole country as well.
Let's just take solar energy. In 2009, the total amount of solar ever deployed in the United States was 2,000 megawatts. That was it. In 2024, 40,000 megawatts was deployed. It is scaring the natural gas industry. Combined with battery storage, it is just saying that New England doesn't have to import any more natural gas, any more pollution. Slowly but surely, in other parts of the country, they, too, will deploy wind and solar with batteries and reduce the amount of pollution that is sent up into the atmosphere that blows our way on the east coast from the Midwest.
It actually is more economical for us. It is actually a job creator for us because the jobs are actually in New England, not in other States. We are doing it for ourselves offshore, on the roofs of people's homes, out along the highways as we deploy these renewable energy resources. It is absolutely frightening to them.
In the same way--I will add this number, too--in 2009, there were a grand total of 2,000 total all-electric vehicles in the United States. That was all we had from Henry Ford to 2009, 2,000 all-electric vehicles. Why? Because the auto industry said we can't figure it out. It is just too hard.
Then we put the incentives in place. The battery technologies were given incentives. There were incentives to buy all-electric vehicles. Last year, there were about one and a half million all-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids sold in America, not just 2,000 total sold a year ago.
So the direction is absolutely vertical. It is just taking off exponentially. And, again, with it goes a reduction in greenhouse gases, especially as each year goes by and more and more of those technologies are employed.
I think that what Senator Whitehouse has done on the floor over and over again, just bringing out the fundamental corruption of how policies are made in the energy and environment sector, it just becomes more and more true as we are only 8 weeks into the Trump administration. But we can see that, almost like an Old Testament prophet, Sheldon Whitehouse has been shining a light on this corruption, and now it has all come to pass.
I can't thank the Senator from Connecticut enough for his great leadership on these issues. We kind of consider ourselves to be innovation States. We are going to figure this out. And as we figure it out, it is absolutely frightening to those States that have been producing energy for generations--good for them and good for their citizens--but if we figure it out as well, we should not be stopped any more than we stopped them in the 20th century. We should be allowed to innovate in the 21st century what they are trying to put in place.
The policies purchased from the Trump administration that block us from those issues, which were not just for ourselves, but like many other things invented in New England over the years, we can export them around the world. We can be the world leader in the development of and then export of all these technologies.
I can't thank you enough, Senator Whitehouse, for your great leadership on the floor.
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