Presidential Veto

Floor Speech

Presidential Veto

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as a member of the Senate environmental committee, and also on the Energy Committee, it is my view that the time is long overdue for Congress to go beyond deal-making and politics as usual in addressing the crisis of global warming. The droughts, the floods, and the severe weather disturbances our planet is already experiencing will only get worse, potentially impacting billions of people, if we do not take bold and decisive action in the very near future.

While the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill is a strong step forward--and I applaud both Senators and I applaud Senator BARBARA BOXER for her entire leadership on global warming--it is my view that legislation as currently written does not go anywhere near far enough in creating the policies the scientific community says we must develop in order to avert a planetary catastrophe.

This legislation is also lacking in paving the way for the transformation of our energy system, away from fossil fuels into energy efficiency and sustainable energy technologies.

Here are some of my concerns about the Lieberman-Warner bill. These are concerns I will be working on in the next number of weeks, trying to improve that legislation. First, virtually all the scientific evidence tells us, at the least, we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050, if we stand a chance to reverse global warming. Unfortunately, the Lieberman-Warner bill, as currently written, under the very best projections, provides a 63-percent reduction. In other words, under the best projections, this bill does not go far enough, according to the scientific community, in giving us a chance to reverse global warming. Secondly, this legislation allows major polluters to continue emitting greenhouse gases for free until the year 2036. In fact, old-fashioned, dirty coal-burning plants could still be built during this period. That is wrong. The right to pollute should not be given away for up to 26 years. Further, in calculating emission reductions, this bill relies much too heavily on ``offsets,'' a process which is difficult to verify and which could lead to the underreporting of emission reductions.

Third, this bill provides a massive amount of corporate welfare to industries that have been major emitters of greenhouse gases, while requiring minimal performance standards and accountability for these same industries. According to a recent report published by Friends of the Earth, the auction and allocation processes of the bill could generate up to $3.6 trillion over a 40-year period. While a large fund does exist in the bill for ``low carbon technology,'' there is no guaranteed allocation for such important technologies as wind, solar, geothermal, hydrogen or for energy efficiency. But there is a guaranteed allotment of $324 billion over a 40-year period for the coal industry through an advanced coal sequestration program and $232 billion for advanced technology vehicles.

The time is late. If Congress is serious about preventing irreversible damage to our planet because of global warming, we need to get our act together. We need to move in a bold and focused manner. Not only are the people of our country looking to us to do that, but so are countries all over the world. The good news is, we can do it.

As Members will recall, in 1941, President Roosevelt and the Congress began the process of rearming America to defeat Naziism and Japanese imperialism. Within a few short years, we had transformed our economy and started producing the tanks and bombs and planes and guns needed to defeat Nazism. We did it because of the leadership of Roosevelt and the Congress. In 1961, President Kennedy called upon our Nation to undertake the seemingly impossible task of sending a man to the Moon. Working with Congress, NASA was greatly expanded. The best scientists and engineers in this country and in the world were assembled to focus on the task. Billions of dollars were appropriated and, in 1969, as we all remember with great pride, Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the Moon. We did it. There was a challenge. We stepped up to the plate. We did it.

As a result of global warming, the challenge we face today is no less daunting and no less consequential. Quite the contrary. Now we are fighting for the future of the planet and the well-being of billions of people in every corner of the world. Once again, if we summon the political courage, I have absolutely no doubt the United States of America can lead the world in resolving this very dangerous crisis. We can do it.

In that context, let me take a moment to suggest some ways we can strengthen the Lieberman-Warner bill--and I look forward to working with those Senators and the entire committee--to aggressively reverse global warming. Most importantly, significant resources in this bill must be explicitly allocated for energy efficiency and sustainable energy, the areas where we can get the greatest and quickest bang for the buck. In terms of energy efficiency, my home city of Burlington, VT--and I have the honor of having been mayor of that city from 1981 to 1989--despite strong economic growth, consumes no more electricity today than it did 16 years ago because of a successful citywide effort on the part of our municipally owned electric company to make our homes, offices, schools, and buildings all over the city more energy efficient. That is what we did in Burlington, VT. In California, which has a strong and growing economy, electric consumption per person has remained steady over the last 20 years because of that State's commitment to energy efficiency. In other words, in Burlington, VT, and the State of California--and I am sure in other communities around the country--despite economic growth, the consumption of electricity does not have to go soaring, if we invest in energy efficiency, if we rally the people to not waste energy.

Numerous studies tell us that by retrofitting older buildings and by establishing strong energy efficiency standards for new construction, we can cut fuel and electric consumption by at least 40 percent. If we want to save energy, that is how we do it. Those savings will increase with such new technologies as LED light bulbs, which consume 1/10th the electricity of an incandescent bulb, while lasting 20 years. These LED light bulbs are on the verge of getting on the market. We have to facilitate that process and get them all over the country as soon as we possibly can.

In terms of saving energy in transportation, it is beyond my comprehension that we are driving automobiles today which get the same mileage per gallon--25 miles per gallon--as cars in this country did 20 years ago. Think of all the technology, all of the changes. Yet we are driving cars today which get the same mileage per gallon as was the case 20 years ago. That is absurd. If Europe and Japan can average over 44 miles per gallon, we can do at least as well. Simply raising CAFE standards to 40 miles per gallon--less than the Europeans, less than the Japanese--will save more oil than we import from Saudi Arabia. How about that? That makes a lot of sense.

Further, we should also be rebuilding and expanding our decaying rail and subway systems and making sure energy-efficient buses are available in rural America so travelers have an alternative to the automobile. Everybody knows the state of the rail system in America today is absolutely unacceptable, way behind Europe, way behind Japan. Subways in large cities need an enormous amount of work. In rural States such as Vermont, there are communities that have virtually no public transportation at all. We have to address that crisis, if we are serious about global warming.

In terms of sustainable energy, the other area we can make tremendous leaps forward, wind power is now the fastest

growing source of new energy in the world and in the United States, but we have barely begun to tap its potential. In Denmark, for example, 20 percent of the electricity is produced by wind. We, as a Congress, should be supporting wind energy, not only through the creation of large wind farms in the appropriate areas but through the production of small inexpensive wind turbines which can be used in homes and farms all across rural America. These small turbines can produce up to half the electricity an average home consumes and are now--right now, forget the future--reasonably priced. Without Federal tax credits, which are available, without rebates such as what is being done in California today, a 1.8-kilowatt turbine is now being sold for some $12,000, including installation, with a payback of 5 to 6 years. That is a pretty good deal. If you are not worried about global warming, if you are not worried about carbon emissions, it is a good deal because you are going to save money on your electric bill.

The possibilities for solar energy are virtually unlimited. In Germany, a quarter of a million homes are now producing electricity through rooftop photovoltaic units, and the price per kilowatt is rapidly declining. In California, that State is providing strong incentives so 1 million homes will have photovoltaic rooftop units in the next 10 years. But the potential for solar energy goes far beyond rooftop photovoltaic units. Right now in the State of Nevada, a solar plant is generating 56 megawatts of electricity. What we are now beginning to see developed in the Southwestern part of the country are solar plants which are capable of producing enormous amounts of electricity. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy:

Solar energy represents a huge domestic energy resource for the United States, particularly in the Southwest where the deserts have some of the best solar resource levels in the world. For example, an area approximately 12% the size of Nevada (15% of federal lands in Nevada) has the potential to supply all of the electric needs of the United States.

Whether that area can in fact supply all the electric needs of the United States, I don't know. But I have recently, in the last couple weeks, talked to people who are involved in these solar plants. They say in the reasonably near future, they can supply 20 percent of the electricity our country needs. There it is, sitting there, ready to happen. Our job is to facilitate that process and make it happen sooner rather than later.

Perhaps most significantly, Pacific Gas & Electric, which to my understanding is the largest electric utility in the country based in California, has recently signed a contract with Solel, an Israeli company, to build a 535-megawatt plant in the Mohave Desert. This plant, which should be operating in 4 years--my understanding is they are going to break ground in 2, and it should be operating in 4 years--will have an output equivalent to a small nuclear powerplant and will produce electricity for some 400,000 homes. This is not a small-time operation. The people I talked to involved in this industry say this is the beginning. Think of what we can do if we provided them with the support they need.

Most importantly, people say: Well, that is a good idea, but unfortunately this electricity is going to be sky high, very expensive.

That is not the case. The price of the electricity generated by this plant to be online in 4 years is competitive with other fuels today and will likely be much cheaper than other fuels in the future.

News reports indicate that the 25-year purchase agreement signed by Pacific Gas and Electric with Solel calls for electricity to be initially generated at about 10 cents per kilowatt, with very minimal increases over the next 25 years--minimal increases because this is a process that does not have all that many moving parts. There it is. It needs maintenance. It needs work. But, unlike gas, unlike oil, you are not looking at a volatile market. There is the Sun. It will shine. So we are talking about a price over a 25-year period which probably will end up being less than 15 cents a kilowatt in the year 2035, which I suspect will be not only very competitive, it will be more than competitive.

The potential for solar plants in the Southwest is extremely strong. While there certainly is no magical silver bullet in the production of new, nonpolluting energy sources, experts tell us we can build dozens of plants in the Southwest, and that this one nongreenhouse gas-emitting source could provide a huge amount of the electricity our country needs.

Geothermal energy is another source of sustainable energy that has huge potential. Mr. President, as you know, geothermal energy is the heat from deep inside the Earth. It is free, it is renewable, and it can be used for electricity generation and direct heating. While geothermal is available at some depth everywhere, it is most accessible in Western States where hydrothermal resources are at shallow depths.

Currently, the United States has approximately 2,900 megawatts of installed capacity, which is just 5 percent--5 percent--of the renewable electricity generation in the United States. The installed geothermal capacity is already expected to double in the near term with projects that are under development, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

A recent report for the U.S. Department of Energy by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, suggests that geothermal could provide 100,000 megawatts of new carbon-free electricity at less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour, comparable to costs for clean coal. Drilling technology from the petroleum industry is the key to unlocking this huge potential. Enhanced geothermal systems tap energy from hot impermeable rocks that are between 2 and 6 miles below the Earth's crust.

So geothermal is another opportunity for us as a nation to be producing large amounts of energy in a way that does not emit carbon dioxide and does not create greenhouse gases.

An investment of $1 billion--less than the price of one coal-fired powerplant--could make this resource commercially viable within 15 years. The potential payoff is huge. It is estimated that electricity from geothermal sources can provide 10 percent of the U.S. base-load energy needs in 2050.

In terms of the future--in terms of the future of our planet--the bad news is that scientists are now telling us they have underestimated the speed and destructive aspects of global warming.

As you remember, Mr. President, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with former Vice President Al Gore--many of those scientists are now saying their projections were too conservative, that the planet is warming faster than they had anticipated, and the damage will be greater if we do not move boldly to reverse it. That is the bad news.

There is good news, however. The good news is that, at the end of the day, we know how to reverse global warming. We know what to do. What is lacking now is not the scientific knowledge, though more and more knowledge will come, and it is not the technology, though more and more technology will be developed, and sustainable energy will become less and less expensive. But after all is said and done, we know what we have to do. We know how to make our homes and our transportation systems more energy efficient. We are now making great progress in driving down the cost of nonpolluting, sustainable energy technologies. That is what we are doing.

What is lacking now is the political will--the political will to think outside of the box, the political will to envision a new energy system in America which is not based on fossil fuels, the political will to stand up to powerful special interests that are more concerned about their profits than about the well-being of our planet.

So I think not only the children--the young people of our country and the people all over America--but people throughout the world want this Congress to catch up to where they are. They are far ahead of where we are. I think if we have the courage to do the right thing here, we can reverse global warming. In the process, we can create millions of good-paying jobs, we can help restore our position in the international community as a country that is leading and not following on this issue of huge consequence.

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