Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am very pleased to come to the floor today after my chairman on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Boxer, and offer an alternative view to that expressed by my distinguished colleagues who are supporting the Keystone XL Pipeline. In my view, that pipeline takes us in the wrong direction, from an energy point of view, and it supports the wrong kind of energy.

If we look at the growth of green and renewable energy, there are actually more jobs in clean, green, and renewable energy than there are in the oil industry. I had that question reviewed by Politifact, and I got a ``true'' on it. The energy jobs of the future are going to be in clean, green, renewable, sustainable energy, and this takes us in exactly the wrong direction.

Moreover, they are temporary jobs. I think the State Department put the number of final jobs produced by the Keystone Pipeline at between 35 and 50--not thousands, not tens of thousands, but between 35 and 50. What we might as well do is actually go out there and build a pyramid and put tens of thousands of people to work stacking up a pyramid, and we would actually do better because that pyramid wouldn't pollute. Those are the kinds of jobs we are talking about.

We would be far better off investing in clean, green, renewable, sustainable energy technologies and developing those markets which are going to be the competitive markets in the future rather than chasing the tail of fossil fuel technology.

I didn't hear everybody speak the whole time. I had to come over from my office, and I missed that point, and I had to take a call, and I missed that point. I believe I heard seven Senators speak for 45 minutes, and I believe the words ``climate change'' and the words ``carbon pollution'' were never mentioned.

We are going to pipe out the tar sands from Canada, and we are going to add 18.7 million metric tons of additional carbon pollution. That is just from refining the tar sands. We are going to add another 3.5 million metric tons from the electricity required to heat and pump the stuff through the pipeline. The refining cost is the equivalent of 5 million cars out on the road that otherwise wouldn't be there. The electricity cost is another 600,000 cars on the road that wouldn't be there.

We just hit 400 parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For as long as the human species has existed on this planet, we have been in a window of 175 to 300 parts per million. It has been a long and successful run for homo sapiens in that comfortable window of environmental protection. We are out of it. We are out of it for the first time in probably millions of years--at a minimum, 800,000 years, more likely 3 million or more. We are not out of it a little bit--not 301, not 315--but 400 and climbing. This adds to that problem.

It is irresponsible to discuss energy and refuse to discuss climate change, refuse to discuss carbon pollution. But for our friends on the other side and for our friends from the coal- and oil-producing States, carbon pollution and climate change are the Lord Voldemorts of the discussion: It is he who must not be named. They are just going to ignore it, pretend it isn't there at all. That is wildly irresponsible in the environment we are in right now, as we see the effects of climate change occurring on our coasts, in our oceans, in acidification, to our fisheries, to our farms, and to our forests. You really don't have to go very far in this country to find something that is being affected by the changes in our climate from our carbon pollution, and all of that for 50 long-term jobs. I don't think this is the good deal our colleagues suggest.

I will close by saying two things. First, on energy independence, this pipeline connects to Port Arthur, TX, a foreign-trade tax-free zone. That is where it is going to go, and then it is going to be shipped overseas to other countries. This isn't going to protect American energy independence; this is going to protect energy corporation profits. That is what is behind all of this.

We have a supplemental environmental impact statement coming from the State Department. You can believe the people who for some reason can't seem to get the phrase ``climate change'' or ``carbon pollution'' to come out of their mouths or you can believe me. You can believe whomever you want. But from a point of view of being fair to the process, we should probably wait until the State Department has concluded the supplemental environmental impact statement they are now working on before we make too many rash decisions about polluting tar sands oil, investing in that dirty addition to our energy mix, and continuing to suck funding and support away from the energy sources of the future, which are the clean ones and the sustainable ones and the ones that aren't going to keep shoving the carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere over and beyond where it is right now, which is 400, where it hasn't been in millions of years, where it hasn't been in the history of the human species

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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