Senator
Sheldon Whitehouse
Coalitions of leading corporate voices--6 major banks and 10 major
food and beverage companies--called on us to join them in backing strong
climate action. I join with them--with scientists and lay people, with military
commanders and faith leaders, with environmentalists and capitalists, with
Democrats and Republicans, all saying it is time to wake up to this crisis.
Yes,
I said “and Republicans.” Outside this Chamber, Republicans are calling for
action on climate. The poll out last week, conducted by three leading
Republican pollsters, showed a majority of Republican voters, including 54
percent of conservative Republicans, agreeing that the climate is changing and
that human activity contributes to the changes we are all seeing.
They
want solutions from us. The same proportion of conservative Republicans--54
percent--would favor a carbon pollution fee on electric utilities, provided the
revenue would then be rebated to consumers.
It
would establish an economy-wide carbon fee on carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gas emissions and then return 100 percent of the money to the
American people.
It
would work. A recent analysis said it would reduce U.S. carbon dioxide
emissions by nearly 50 percent by 2030.
The
revenue would offset annual payroll taxes for every working person by $500,
with a similar benefit to veterans and Social Security recipients. It would
reduce the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 29 percent. It would
return the remaining funds to States to be used locally, for transition costs,
efficiency investments or whatever the States prefer.
With
this bill, I extend to conservatives what my very conservative friend, former
Republican Congressman Bob Inglis, has called not just an olive branch but an
olive limb. Whether you want tax reform, a proper free market for energy or
even to address climate change, please, let's get to work.
To
state the obvious, Congress has been ruled by the lobbyists and political
enforcers for the fossil fuel industry. The fossil fuel industry, with
political threats and very big money and lots of phony front groups, has made
the Republican Party in Congress its political wing.
But
outside this Chamber, where conservatives don't need fossil fuel industry
money, there is considerable conservative support for a carbon fee, from
leading right-of-center economists, conservative think tanks, and former
Republican officials.
President
Nixon's Treasury Secretary, George Shultz; President Reagan's economic adviser,
Art Laffer; President George W. Bush's Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson; and
Bush Council of Economic Advisers Chair, Greg Mankiw, have all advocated for
some form of a carbon fee as the efficient way to correct a market failure--the
market failure where we all have to pick up the costs of carbon pollution for
the fossil fuel industry. No wonder they spend so much money around here.
That
market failure is a sweet deal for the fossil fuel fellas, but it is not good
free market economics.
In
a 2013 New York Times op-ed, former Republican EPA
Administrators Bill Ruckelshaus, Christine Todd Whitman, Lee Thomas, and William
Reilly wrote: “A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best
path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.”
Republicans
in Congress are being squeezed. On one side they see unequivocal scientific
consensus, compelling economic theory, and mounting public opinion--all
pointing toward the need for strong action on climate.
On
the other side, they see rich and powerful polluters who fund their politics
and who make heavy-handed threats against any Republicans who might dare to
cross them.
That
is why it was such glad news when a group of 11 House Republicans, led by
Congressman Chris Gibson of New York, introduced a House resolution committing
to address climate change by promoting ingenuity, innovation, and
exceptionalism.
That
is not a bill yet. We have a ways to go still. But it is another sign that the
“denier castle” is crumbling. First, climate change was a hoax. Then, OK, maybe
it is not a hoax, but it is natural variation. Then, OK, maybe it is real and
humans do cause some of it. But, look, it paused. Then, OK, maybe it didn't
pause. But we really can't do anything about it. And then, OK, we can do
something about climate change, but please stop asking me about it because I am
not a scientist.
And
now this: A resolution by sitting Republican House Members that we need to take
climate action. It has been quite a journey.
The
escape of 11 Republicans from the dark, crumbling ramparts of denier castle
gives dawning hope to Americans that bipartisan action on climate change is
becoming possible, even in Congress.
Last
Thursday, Congressman Gibson and I joined together, bicameral and bipartisan,
to hear from major food and beverage companies how climate change affects their
industry, supply chains, and bottom line. It marked--as far as I can recall--the
first time in years that a sitting Democrat and a sitting Republican Member of
Congress joined in a public event on climate change. I hope that is another
sign that things in this building have begun to shift.
For
these big companies, climate change is not a partisan issue. It is not even a
political issue. It is business. It is their reality.
“Climate
really matters to our business,” Kim Nelson of General Mills told us. “We
fundamentally rely on Mother Nature.” The choices we make to protect or forsake
our climate, she said, will be “important to the long-term viability of our
company and our industry.”
Paul
Bakus of Nestle agreed, impressing on us that this is not a hypothetical.
Climate change “is impacting our business today,” he said. His company, Nestle,
cans pumpkins under the Libby's brand. They have seen pumpkin yields crash in
the United States. “We have never seen growing and harvesting conditions like
this in the Midwest,” said Mr. Bakus.
Chief
Sustainability Officer for Mars, Barry Parkin, was more blunt: “We are on a
path to a dangerous place.”
These
companies are reducing carbon emissions and demanding sustainable supply
chains. Mars, for example, recently invested in a 211-megawatt wind power farm
in Texas to offset all of the electricity used by its U.S. operations.
Unilever, in addition to shifting away from fossil fuels toward renewables and
biofuel energy, is also fighting deforestation associated with farming.
Message
No. 1 from these businesses was: This is important.
Message
No. 2 was: They can't do it alone. They need us in government to pay attention.
“Business, government, civil society, and individuals all have a part to play,”
said General Mills.
“We
need governments to be involved,” said Unilever.
Specifically,
the companies want a strong global climate deal at the Paris conference this
December. They released a joint letter pledging to accelerate their own climate
efforts and urging governments to do their part as well. They even took out
full-page ads in the Washington Post. Here it is.
They
had the full text of their letter and the signatures of the 10 CEOs printed in
the Financial Times on the very day of our event.
The
heads of Mars, General Mills, Nestle USA, Unilever, Kellogg Company, New
Belgium Brewing Company, Ben & Jerry's, Cliff Bar, Stonyfield Farm, and
Danone Dairy North America had the following statement in the letter:
Climate
change is bad for farmers and agriculture. Drought, flooding, and hotter
growing conditions threaten the world's food supply and contribute to food
insecurity.
They
also pledged:
We
will: Use our voices to advocate for governments to set clear, achievable,
measurable and enforceable science-based targets for carbon emissions
reductions.
Mr.
President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter from the heads of these 10
major food and beverage companies asking world leaders and the Congress to act
on climate change be printed in the Record.
We
heard a similar appeal from America's largest financial powerhouses last week.
Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells
Fargo released a strong call for governments to come together on a climate
agreement.
Here
is what they wrote:
Policy
frameworks that recognize the costs of carbon are among the many important instruments
needed to provide greater market certainty, accelerate investment, drive
innovation in low carbon energy, and create jobs. ..... While we may compete in
the marketplace, we are aligned on the importance of policies to address the
climate challenge.
These
are serious people running big, successful companies. They don't take climate
change lightly, they don't scoff and neither should we. They are asking that
elected officials find the courage to address climate change. Majorities of
voters of both parties and of Independents are also asking elected
representatives to find the courage to address climate change. That brings us
back to that squeeze I talked about.
If
you are not willing to address carbon pollution and the climate change and
ocean acidification it is causing, I ask my colleagues who are on the ballot in
2016: What are you going to say? What are you going to say to your voters? Are
you going to say it is a hoax? Great. Good luck with that.
Are
you going to say: OK. It is real, it is important, these companies are all
right, but as far as fixing it, well, we have nothing--because right now that
is what they have, nothing.
Maybe
they should just beg: “Please don't ask me about climate change because the big
fossil fuel polluters are paying my party's bills and making mean threats to
me.”
Those
are not a great set of options.
At
some point soon, I tell my friends: Your party's leaders are going to have to
go to the fossil fuel billionaires and say: “Enough. Enough. Let my people go.
We held out for you as long as we could, but now you have to let my people go.
And it has to be soon.”
As
one executive told Congressman Gibson and me quite directly, “The window of
opportunity to act on climate change is closing.”
It
is time to wake up.