Bipartisan Sportsmen's Act of 2014 - Continued
Floor Speech
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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Senator Manchin and I come from very different parts of the country. We are the Ocean State, he is the Mountain State. We both came here today to say that climate change is real, that human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels, are causing dramatic changes to the Earth's atmosphere and oceans, and to seek responsible solutions that will ensure reliable, sustainable energy for the United States and protect our local communities and economies from the worst effects of a changing climate, recognizing, as we must, that fossil fuels will be part of America's fuel mix for decades.
The recent National Climate Assessment showed many effects of climate change are already being seen across the United States. In my home State of Rhode Island, we have Narragansett Bay, more than 3 degrees warmer in the winter than it was 50 years ago. Measurements at the Newport tide gauge show that as the seawater warms and expands, the sea level is up almost 10 inches against our shores since the 1930s.
Extreme weather depends a lot on natural variability, but climate change increases the odds that heat waves and heavy rain bursts will occur. As the climate has warmed, some types of extreme weather have become more frequent and severe. Here on this chart we see that in the northeast, up here, the area which includes both Rhode Island and West Virginia, between 1958 and 2010, the amount of rain coming in those big downpours has gone up by 70 percent.
Let's remember how climate change affects the economy and jobs. For example, fishermen in Rhode Island have seen their winter flounder catch from Narragansett Bay nearly disappear in the recent decades as the bay has warmed. These are not distant climate model projections, this is now. This is happening to Rhode Island.
The people of West Virginia have Senator Manchin fighting for them every day in Washington. I know he believes that we need to find economically responsible answers to environmental problems. I am proud to stand with him today as his friend and colleague.
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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I agree with my friend from West Virginia that we must address climate change in a way that protects jobs in all sectors and ensures grid stability.
Fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas are indeed going to be an important part of America's energy mix for decades. So we need to invest, as Senator Manchin has suggested, in reducing the carbon pollution we generate from these sources.
We also need to adapt our power infrastructure to withstand the effects of climate change. Extreme weather has become the main cause of blackouts in the United States.
The President's Council of Economic Advisers and the Department of Energy counted 679 widespread outages between 2003 and 2012 due to severe weather. Fifty-eight percent of power outages since 2002 and 87 percent of outages affecting 50,000 or more customers were caused by severe weather such as thunderstorms, hurricanes, and blizzards. The average annual cost of power outages caused by severe weather is between $18 billion and $33 billion per year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration compiled data that is plotted on this chart showing that weather-related power outages are already on the rise since just the early nineties.
Addressing climate change is also important to grid stability.
We also should expand and modernize our electric grid. A smarter grid will make it easier to respond to and recover from extreme weather events, will boost efficiency within the system, will help lower utility bills, and will bring more renewable energy online.
In both our States, Senator Manchin and I realize it is in America's interest to be leaders in the research, development, and deployment of energy efficiency tools; in cleaner fossil fuel research; and in renewable energy technologies--particularly ones we can export. I know Senator Manchin has some of these technologies being rolled out in his State.
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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Efficiency is something we take seriously in Rhode Island as well.
In 2013 the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy ranked Rhode Island as the sixth most energy efficient State in the country. The Energy Information Administration in 2011 ranked Rhode Island the lowest in energy consumption--which, as the Presiding Officer from the small State of Delaware can understand, we have a bit of an unfair advantage--but we were also the sixth lowest in total energy costs per capita. We do our part to save energy, avoid emissions, lower costs, and reduce the demand and stress on the electric grid.
Rhode Island and eight other States participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative--we call it ``Reggi''--which caps carbon emissions and sells permits to emit greenhouse gases to powerplants. One of the ways Rhode Island has been able to drive down our energy consumption and our utility bills is by investing the money generated through RGGI into energy efficiency. Rhode Island invests over 91 percent of its RGGI proceeds in energy efficiency projects and improvements, helping residents save money on their utility bills and making small businesses more competitive.
Rhode Island is also poised to gain scores of jobs from the development of offshore wind. I think we have the advantage on West Virginia in offshore wind. Our private developer of offshore wind, Deepwater Wind, has received its first major environmental permit to begin deployment in the Block Island wind farm area.
The price of wind energy has decreased over 90 percent since the early 1980s and is now competitive in the energy markets. I am working to make wind energy more a part of our energy portfolio.
At the Federal level, our energy policy must use the best science available to improve the way we use fossil fuels, and our Tax Code should help address climate change while leveling the playing field for various energy sources.
I believe carbon-driven climate change hurts our economy, damages our infrastructure, and harms public health. Yet those costs are not factored into the cost of fossil fuels. That means the cost of the pollution has been borne by the public. I believe we should adopt a carbon fee to correct this market failure and return all its revenue to the American people--what Republican supporters of a carbon fee call revenue neutral.
On a smaller scale, Congress can also extend the renewable energy tax credits and other measures that are supported by Members on both sides of the aisle, helping renewable energy in West Virginia and a bipartisan array of States.
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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I agree with the distinguished Senator from West Virginia that the Department of Energy's advanced fossil projects loan guarantee program has not yet lived up to, at this time, its potential.
I will work with him to push the administration to accelerate its use.
I wish to close my share of this colloquy by noting something very basic; that is, that America has long stood before the world as an exceptional country and deservedly so. America proved the case for popular sovereignty with no need of kings or crowns. America took our balanced market capitalism and rose to international economic dominance. America has long been the vanguard of civil and human rights for our people and around the globe. When American military power must be used, we don't conquer and rule. We come home. This exceptional nature confers upon us a responsibility to lead, to be an example, to be, as President Reagan said, ``a shining city on a hill.''
Our generation will be judged by whether we were responsible about climate change, whether we listened, and whether we led.
Senator Manchin and I are both committed to the idea that American innovation can create the clean energy technologies of the future, so that when it comes to addressing the biggest problems facing our world, the United States should be out front, and we are committed to working together to find responsible solutions to the climate crisis.
We also realize we have different perspectives on what those solutions should look like. I live in a State that is harmed by carbon pollution, and Senator Manchin is from a State that sees economic benefit from coal. We believe we could both learn more about those different perspectives. So I am committing to travel with Senator Manchin to West Virginia to see the coal plants that power many parts of our country and meet the people there working to curb pollution and improve efficiency, and I invite Senator Manchin to Rhode Island to see how climate change is taking its toll on our shorelines and marine industries.
America is still a beacon to the world because ultimately we have the ability to work through disagreements to common ground on a shared platform of fact. With the commitment of serious leaders such as Senator Manchin, I am confident we can move forward to an energy future that preserves the economy and quality of life in West Virginia, in Rhode Island, and for all Americans.
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