FAA Reauthorization Act of 2007
Floor Speech
FAA REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - May 01, 2008)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am here today to speak on climate change. Before I do that, I commend my colleague, Senator Dorgan, for all of his good work on this oil and gas issue. We have been working together on a number of things he talked about and I do believe that, while I will talk today about the long-term solutions to our energy crisis and the way this can work hand in hand with climate change if we show the kind of leadership we need to show, there are also short-term issues. That means, as he said, cutting down on the speculation, putting things in place, closing down the Enron loophole. In terms of enforcement, to have the Justice Department get some meat on the bone--as a former prosecutor, I know how important that is--and pushing those OPEC nations with which we have business dealings. If we are going to have business dealings with them, then they should not be cutting down or artificially keeping low the production of oil.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I think there are a number of things we can do in the short term, but I am here today to talk about the long-term energy future and climate future for this country.
In 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt invited delegates from the Allied Powers to a remote New Hampshire resort called Bretton Woods to discuss the future of the global economy. Although the world was locked in a terrible war, these leaders had fresh memories of the Great Depression, a worldwide panic that had left the world's major economies in tatters. They wanted their countries to emerge from World War II on a more stable financial footing.
Over the course of 3 weeks, they created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to battle world poverty and to avert currency crises of the sort that had led to the worldwide economic meltdown in the 1920s. It worked. Both the World Bank and the IMF have had their share of controversies in the last decade, but they succeeded in stabilizing the world's financial systems so that in the ensuing six decades there has never been a global financial disaster comparable to the Great Depression.
I draw on this chapter of history because today the world faces another grave international threat that demands imagination and leadership. This time, the threat is environmental. I am speaking, of course, of global climate change.
The heating of the Earth is a threat every bit as grave as the financial catastrophe that threw the developed world into chaos 80 years ago. The science is clear. Global temperatures are up 1 degree in the last century. That doesn't sound like much, 1 degree in the last century. To put it in perspective, they have risen only 5 degrees since the height of the ice age. The Environmental Protection Agency of this country predicts that temperatures could rise another 3 to 7 degrees in the next 100 years. The consequences are frightening: rising ocean levels, which we are already seeing, increased drought, wildfires, and destructive weather patterns.
The Presiding Officer knows from being in the Midwest that our constituents aren't as focused on rising ocean levels. But I can tell you, in Minnesota they are focused on the fact that last year Lake Superior was at the lowest level in 80 years. Why would the oceans be high and Lake Superior be low? That is because Lake Superior, as you know, is a lake, and when the ice that forms on that lake melts quicker, the water evaporates and the water level goes down. Why do we care about that? You think, are you going to swim in that cold lake? A lot of Minnesotans, probably not, but it matters because our barges cannot get through and it has had a severe economic impact for barge traffic and the economy in the Duluth area.
You can see the rising impacts of global warming and what we are seeing across the country: increasing wildfire risk--remember the fires we had this year in California? We had some in northern Minnesota as well--decreasing water availability. That is in 2007. You go up to the 2020s, increased mortality from heat waves, floods, and droughts; in the 2050s, millions more people face flooding. You go up, if we do not do anything, to some profound and very serious consequences.
Two weeks ago, President Bush gave a speech in the Rose Garden to announce a new initiative on global warming. To be perfectly blunt, I really didn't see anything new in the President's announcement and no initiative that had not been discussed before. The President has proposed that we wait until the year 2025 before we even stop the increase in the emissions of greenhouse gases.
He did not call for a cut in emissions that was immediate. He did not call for concrete steps to meet the goals. He said it would be unwise to do it at this time.
I believe Americans are leaders not followers. When the world faces a crisis, they do not wait for someone else to go first. Our country has always stepped in and taken leadership. When we see a problem in our own backyard--and my people in Minnesota see shrinking wetlands and endangered wildlife, they have seen what has been going on with our ski resorts and ice fishing--they do something about it.
Our friends across the seas in Europe have recognized the challenge. They have introduced a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions covering 27 countries. It is a plan covering more than 12,000 industrial sites in 27 countries. And they did it using a concept known as cap and trade.
This was actually started in our country. That is how we reduced acid rain. The European Union did not do everything right. They will be the first to admit that. Their emissions targets were too high. They issued too many carbon permits. But they are getting it back into equilibrium. I believe we are going to learn from what they did, and we will do better when we do it in this country. But the point is, many of these European countries rose to the challenge and took leadership.
Here at home, our country's private investors and business leaders already recognize this challenge. Nationally, venture capital investments in green and clean technologies have increased dramatically. In 2006, venture capital investment in green technologies in the United States reached $2.9 billion, up 78 percent from a year earlier.
Not only is clean technology the fastest growing venture capital sector, it is now the third largest category of venture capital investment. So when we talk about some of the things Senator Dorgan and I have been talking about with energy, and we mentioned wind, we invented a lot of that wind technology in our country. But now we have fallen behind in wind production to other countries that have government policies in place that pushed that investment.
From what I can see, wind is going to bring jobs across our country. So is solar. So is biofuels. All of these things that cut our dependency on foreign oil and invest in the next generation of new technologies, that money is starting to filter into that area. But I think we can do better in our country.
CEOs from major corporations such as DuPont, Duke Energy, and General Electric see the opportunities, and they are making investments of their own. More than 200 major U.S. corporations such as American Electric Power and DuPont have started buying carbon offsets that are now traded on the new Chicago Climate Exchange. You can see the global investments I talked about in renewable technologies that have been increased in wind, in solar, and other kinds of renewable technologies.
A company subsidizes a project that reduces greenhouse gas pollution, building a wind turbine, for example, then recoups its investments by selling that offset to another company on the Chicago Exchange. The Chicago Exchange is new, but it reports that it kept 10 million tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere over the last 4 years.
Meanwhile our Nation's Governors and mayors have also stepped up to the challenge. Governors in five Western States, including California and Arizona, have announced they will work together to reduce greenhouse gasses by setting regional targets for lower emissions and establishing a regional cap-and-trade system for buying and selling greenhouse gas credits.
California alone plans to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by the year 2020. The Western Greenhouse Gas Initiative builds on other regional initiatives, especially the landmark New England Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, with seven Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic States that have also agreed to a regional cap-and-trade system set to take effect next year. You can see all of the States that have been involved.
In my home State of Minnesota, we have one of the most aggressive renewable electric portfolio standards in the country; a 25-percent reduction. We did this on a bipartisan basis. We did it with the support of ExelEnergy, our biggest electricity company. We did it the way we do things in Minnesota, with a focus on results and getting things done--Leadership.
There is also the U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement. More than 400 mayors representing over 59 million Americans have pledged to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas reduction goals in their own communities. Among the signatories to this agreement are cities in my home State of Minnesota: Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester, and Duluth.
I admire these States and communities that have signed onto this agreement for their initiatives and what they are
doing. They should be an inspiration for this Congress for national action. There is a famous phrase, ``the laboratories of democracy.'' That is what Justice Brandeis said in one of his most famous opinions when he described the special role of States in the Federal system.
He said:
It is one of the happy incidents of the Federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.
But Brandeis did not mean this would serve as an excuse for inaction by the Federal Government. We have States all over this country, Governors, legislatures that have been brave, that have been courageous in taking action on climate change. But never, when Justice Brandeis talked about the one courageous State going above the norm, doing something different, did he mean there should be inaction by the Federal Government. Good ideas and successful innovations are supposed to emerge from the laboratory and serve as a model for national policy in action. That is now our responsibility in Congress.
In about 1 month we will have the chance to take up that responsibility. We will have the opportunity to vote in the Chamber on landmark climate change legislation, the Lieberman-Warner bill. I thank my colleagues, Senator Warner and Senator Lieberman, for their hard work on this bill. I thank our chairwoman, Senator Boxer for her leadership as it moves forward. At this very moment we are listening to Members make changes to the bill, doing everything we can to make the bill as strong as possible.
The truth is, we can no longer delay. I have been to Greenland and have seen those humongous icebergs melting in the ocean, and I have seen the effect of this in my own State.
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates if we start today and cut emissions by just 4 percent a year, we could achieve an 80-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But if we wait just 10 years, we would have to double that annual rate of reduction.
This is forward-looking, bipartisan legislation. It is comprehensive, and it is carefully tailored. It is our opportunity to show the leadership for which Americans have always been known.
I pledged last week I was going come to the Senate floor and give a speech about this legislation on different aspects of why it is so important to move forward and to show leadership on climate change. Today, I think it is obvious that as we face these long-term consequences of doing nothing with our energy policy, when it comes to electricity or oil, this is our chance. This climate change legislation will play a major role in developing the new technologies we need.
Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I will yield.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Minnesota talked about the importance of renewable energy, which I certainly agree with her. Is it the case with renewable energy that we have done a pretty pathetic job as a country to incentivize renewable energy?
In 1916, we put in place tax incentives to produce oil and gas. They have been in place permanently for almost a century now, tax incentives to produce oil and gas. By contrast, with wind and solar and renewable energy, we put them in place in 1992 short term incentives. We have extended them short term five times and have let them expire three times. It has been a pathetic response to renewables.
The current tax incentives expire at the end of this year, and I have introduced legislation to extend the production tax credit for 10 years. I believe our country ought to say to the world and to investors: Here is where America is headed for a decade. Count on it. Believe in it. Renewables, solar, wind, and so on need a clear signal for investment. You can count on these investments because this is where America is going.
Is it not the case, I would ask the Senator from Minnesota, that we have not nearly done the job in incentivizing renewables and establishing a national policy. Does she agree?
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Senator Dorgan, that is completely accurate. When you look at what we have done with oil companies, with the giveaways that we had for years and years and years, this Senate was one vote short of blocking a filibuster. We tried to change that, tried to take some of those oil giveaways and put them in the hands--we see record profits from the oil companies--put them in the hands of some of these renewables producers.
We were one vote short, but we have another opportunity. That is what the Senator from North Dakota is talking about, extending the tax credits for wind energy, solar, geothermal, and other kinds of renewables.
We did it in the last bill we passed through this Senate. We were able to, with some of the economic work we did with the mortgage crisis, extend that tax credit for 1 year. But we would like to do it for longer. Senator Dorgan has a bill for 10 years. I have a bipartisan bill with Senators SNOWE and CANTWELL expanding it for 5 years. The problem is, it has been a game of red light, green light. It goes on again, off again. It is hard to follow that investment, to follow in the way that we would like and the way that happens in other countries because they never know. You can show, 8 months before these tax credits go off, that the investment decreases.
This is no way to run a national energy policy. It is no way to run a national environmental policy. And that is why today I spoke about the leadership and the potential for leadership in this country.
We once put a man on the Moon. With that came not just winning the race against Russia, with it came all kinds of technology: the CAT scan, the space sticks that my family would take on camping trips in the 1970s. With that came technology. That is what we are trying to do with this bill.
I yield the floor.
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