Climate Security Act

Floor Speech

CLIMATE SECURITY ACT -- (Senate - June 05, 2008)

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I stand this evening to speak about the Boxer substitute to the Warner-Lieberman carbon cap-and-trade bill. I have had an opportunity for several days now to hear discussion from both sides. I think coming from a State such as Alaska where we can see the effects of climate change on the ground in my home State, it is a very important issue for me, and so I feel compelled to share with my colleagues some of my thoughts about what we are seeing up north.

We appreciate that there is not quite a consensus in Alaska about what is causing the change we are seeing. Most Alaskans, however, do seem to agree that something is happening. We are seeing a change in the north, and we have been seeing it for a period of decades. The results are having a significant impact on the lifestyle of Alaskans.

One of the things we are seeing in a northern State, an arctic State such as Alaska is that our winters are warmer. We are seeing breakup come earlier in the spring, although this spring it has been actually extra snowy, so it is tough to say that it is always that way, but we are seeing breakup coming earlier. Our summers seem to be hotter. The storms we are seeing, particularly along the coastline, are stronger. We are seeing a migration. We are seeing wildlife habitation and migration patterns that are different. The oceans, the lakes, the river ice--we are seeing this form later in the year. We are also seeing that it forms and it is weaker than we have seen. It is melting sooner in the spring. We are seeing permafrost thawing in some places. All of this has an impact on hunting, on fishing, on the roads as we travel, certainly, on the construction that is underway in the State, and sometimes on our very way of life.

Last week, the National Science and Technology Council released its latest assessment of what has been happening due to climate change. While this report has already been mentioned by several on this floor already, I wish to concentrate on its findings for Alaska. In that report, it finds that temperatures in the State of Alaska have increased 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit on average, and in the winters, what we are seeing is that the winters are 7 to 10 degrees warmer over the past 50 years. That warming has a number of impacts.

Mr. President, these are important for all Members to hear. When we talk about the ice in the Arctic sea icepack, the pack ice up north has shrunk by an area which is twice the size of Texas. This reduction in the ice has occurred since 1979. So within this time period, about 30 years, we have seen an area shrunk that is twice the size of Texas. Between the years 2005 and 2007, 23 percent more of the ice has melted. More important, what we are seeing is that the thick, multiyear ice has been steadily thinning, having reduced by about 3 feet from 1987 to 1997, which means more of the Beaufort Sea is open by late summer, which increases the danger of the coastal erosion from the storms. More troubling, it helps to warm the water and thus the environment even more.

We have nearly a dozen coastal villages in the State of Alaska that need major assistance. In some cases, it is more than assistance in shoring up an eroding coastline, it is relocation of whole villages to higher ground. This is at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars per village. Ask the residents of villages such as Shishmaref, Kivalina, Unalakleet, and Newtok--to name four--about the changes they have witnessed in the climate over the past two decades. We are seeing that on the coastline.

The report says the permafrost base in Alaska has been thawing at a rate of up to 1.6 inches a year since 1992. This thawing of the permafrost impacts the base for roads, pipelines, houses, sewer lines, and other surface features. We also know our lakes are drying up. This is probably because the permafrost that holds their water is melting.

We know the Alaskan tree line is creeping northward, moving about 6 miles over several decades. The Federal report, while it predicts more summer precipitation in Alaska, also predicts more summer heat. That is increasing the threat of Alaska wildfires, increasing the threat of high stream temperatures that could harm our salmon, and increasing the threat of new types of diseases entering Alaska.

Scientists who have worked on the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believe the ultimate cause is an increase in manmade carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial revolution.

Yet there is also a great deal of natural variation--Mother Nature at play here--which affects the Earth's climate. In April, the Journal of Nature printed a study suggesting that rising atmospheric temperatures are slowly, and perhaps have already stopped, rising--at least temporarily--and may remain that way for up to 7 more years as the natural variation cycle toward colder weather masks the heat.

It may seem counterintuitive to be arguing that climate change is intensifying after a very cold and snowy winter in Alaska. But I look at climate change legislation as an insurance policy, as a policy to take action to cut carbon emissions where we can, without harmful costs to our economy and way of life.

The fact that I am a cosponsor of the Bingaman-Specter carbon cap-and-trade bill is proof that I am willing to take action but not necessarily action at any price. I am not afraid of a cap-and-trade system, but let's make sure we have it right.

I do support the cap-and-trade concept because I believe it offers the opportunity to reduce carbon, at the least cost to society. The signal about future prices sent to electric powerplant operators will hopefully stimulate spending on low- and zero-carbon renewable energy plants now.

A price signal will make gasification technology more attractive as a means of producing petrochemicals for the future. It will spur research and new technology to allow for the commercial-scale plants needed to capture and store carbon underground. I believe a price signal will also generate new technology and new jobs--hopefully, more than will be lost in fossil industries and from an overall slowdown in the economy caused by the potentially high cost of industry buying carbon emissions at auctions and passing the costs on to each one of us.

When you listen to all the suggestions and ideas out there, you may think: What is it I am looking for in a perfect carbon bill? I guess my perfect bill would set a price signal only high enough to encourage technological change but without driving the poor and lower to middle-income Americans into a state where they cannot afford to get to work or they have to make choices between paying the heating bill or setting food on the table.

My perfect carbon bill would ``front-load'' the research and technology costs, with the Federal Government picking up a large share of that initial tab, until we perfect that new technology that permits the new energy sources to come on line at only slightly higher costs--prices high enough to encourage energy efficiency and conservation but not so high as to fundamentally alter American society.

My perfect carbon bill would set up clear procedures to help finance that new technology and development. Senator Domenici has proposed a clean energy bank concept. This is not included in this measure, but it helps to set up those procedures that can allow us to move this technology forward.

It would encourage all low- and zero-carbon technology, especially nuclear power, which is the only technology we have today at scale that can provide baseload power economically without carbon.

A perfect carbon bill, for me, would set the guidelines for carbon reductions but only standards that we have the technology to meet. It would not set unreasonable, early guidelines simply to punish the carbon emitters. It would have a workable ``safety valve'' to ease the regulations, if technology cannot come through quickly enough with means for our society to meet the lower carbon standards at a reasonable price. This is where--when you look at the Bingaman-Specter bill and the safety valve they have incorporated in that legislation--it provides for a level of assurance in terms of how bad is the situation going to be in terms of the cost and the impact to the industry. You kind of want to know how bad the bad is going to be so you have a level of certainty.

My perfect bill would generate enough revenue to help States and local governments deal with the costs of adaptation. If the scientists are right on this, the carbon that we have and are going to continue to release into the atmosphere until the new technology can come on line is going to continue to increase for a number of years. There will be costs that come with that.

In Alaska, the University of Alaska's Institute of Social and Economic Research has estimated that Alaska's governmental infrastructure--the roads, villages, ports, runways, and the schools--are already facing about $3 billion of damage due to coastal erosion and melting permafrost. They anticipate that tally, that cost, will rise to $80 billion by 2080, just for the governmental structures. Only the Federal Government has the resources to meet those types of costs.

I believe the substitute we have before us is making a major mistake in cutting the funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program and in cutting funding for the State-Federal weatherization programs that promote energy conservation. When you look at the current substitute--and I have issues in many areas--these two are ones I am not able to reconcile why, as we are trying to help people around the country deal with high energy costs, we would remove funding for LIHEAP and the weatherization programs.

I am also concerned that the substitute's cost-containment mechanisms are not flexible enough to keep companies from having to bid up the price of auction allowances. That will hurt average Americans who cannot afford the current price of energy, much less the future price of energy.

People around the country are hurting when they go to the pump, when they heat their homes, when they have to fill up with home heating fuel. We don't need to be adding more to their costs unnecessarily.

Regardless, for any climate bill we enact to make a difference, it is going to require that China, which has overtaken America as the world's leading carbon emitter, and India, along with the developing world, participate too. If they are not participating and working with us, the U.S. economy is going to become less competitive, and we will have spent money without any necessary benefits to the global environment. So we have to be in partnership on this initiative.

Already on the floor, we have heard about the varying computer models. They are all over the board. They say the average American will pay either $446, $739 or $1,957 more per household for energy in 2020 or $1,257, $4,377 or $6,750 more come 2030 or 2050. You look at it, and you are almost embarrassed to tell your constituent the range is somewhere between $446 per household by 2020 or close to $2,000 per household. We don't know. We simply don't know. My constituents say: Lisa, you have to do better than that. You have to give me some idea because, right now, in Aniak, that village's people are paying $5.53 for their gasoline. It went up this week because the spring barge came in. I am going to say to them we have this legislation that will help reduce emissions in this country, we think, if other nations participate, but I don't know how much it will cost you or how high gas is going to go in Aniak. Right now, you are paying $6.50 for diesel. I have to be able to provide more to my constituents than that.

What is important is for the Senate to take its time to understand what the Boxer substitute would do and, perhaps, think more about what would work at the least cost and would actually make a difference in the world's climate. The more I look at it, the more I think the original Bingaman-Specter bill, with changes, is worthy of renewed consideration.

I said in a speech last week at home in Alaska that never before have Members of Congress been asked to take action on a bill that could have such a profound effect on our country, with so much difference of opinion about how much this bill is going to cost, and whether it will actually be worth the amount the American consumer will pay because of it. We have to be able to demonstrate that these are the ranges and this is the benefit so Americans can understand what we are doing.

How much this bill will cost Americans is purely dependent upon the forecasts, and the Congressional Research Service said in testimony before the Energy Committee a couple weeks ago that all these forecasts should be viewed with ``attentive skepticism,'' especially in the outyears. That is an interesting way to put it. But whether this bill will cost $3.3 trillion until 2050, as the bill's sponsor said last week, or more than twice that amount that other models predict, we know this bill will be the most expensive and complex measure ever before considered by any government on the planet.

I do know that, even though my constituents want us to do something in Congress, they are going to want it to be something that works. I don't want to support a bill until I am convinced that measure offers the best possible chance of protecting against climate change impacts but at the least possible cost, while still stimulating new technology--which will make the difference--that is the ultimate solution to carbon emission reductions.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source