Green Energy As A Solution To Our Many Crises
Floor Speech
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Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the good works of the faith community to protect the integrity of God's creation. As a seminarian, I appreciate the advocacy of people of faith for protecting this earth.
The Catholic Climate Covenant has contacted me about the St. Francis Pledge to Care for Creation and the Poor. Members of the Covenant include Catholic Relief Services, Catholic Charities USA, The Franciscan Action Network, and the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. Religious charities are on the front lines battling poverty around the world. Whether it is a church in Fairfax providing housing to the homeless to prevent hypothermia or an overseas mission to build housing, members of faith-based charities have direct knowledge of the realities of poverty around the world.
The faith community is telling us that climate change poses a dire threat to the world's poor, whether they are residents of New Orleans, Bangladesh, or coastal communities in the Mid Atlantic. Based on the best available scientific data, faith-based charities' concerns are well founded. Experts predict that rising sea levels and increased incidence of severe storms will create 100 million climate refugees in the next hundred years. As former Virginia Senator John Warner noted in his testimony to the Energy and Commerce Committee, this volume of refugees will strain our capacity to respond to national security threats.
We can see these threats right here in the National Capital Region. Neighborhoods in Fairfax County like Huntington and Belleview have experienced unprecedented flooding within the last five years. With their proximity to tidal reaches of the Potomac River, they are threatened by rising sea levels. These older neighborhoods are important because they have maintained a stock of affordable housing that is increasingly scarce in this region. Whether it is in Bangladesh or Belleview, climate change poses a threat to the welfare of working families around the world.
I haven't heard any expression of concern from the minority party about the millions of families that are endangered by climate change. Maybe they assume that these folks are politically powerless, that their loss of homes, land, and livelihoods can be ignored with impunity. But even if one is comfortable with condemning millions of people to refugee status, I would dispute the assumption that such an approach has no financial impact on the rest of us. Here in Northern Virginia, the Army Corps of Engineers is planning multimillion dollar flood prevention systems for low-lying neighborhoods. The cost of these systems will only rise with the level of the sea. Senator Warner noted that we cannot ignore refugees overseas lest we create conditions in which political organizations such as the Taliban will thrive.
The Catholic Climate Covenant and other faith groups remind us that we have a moral responsibility to protect the world's poor. That moral imperative coincides with self interest: If we do not arrest the rising concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere then we will saddle the next generation with ever-rising costs of dealing with climate change and its human costs. Whether those costs come from floodwalls or humanitarian support for refugees, we will not be able to avoid paying the bill. We must act now to reduce greenhouse gas pollution--for the sake of millions whose lives are tied up in the stability of our climate and because inaction will create an insurmountable cost burden for the rest of us.
Mr. Speaker, every challenge presents an opportunity. Sometimes the opportunities are difficult to identify. As we attempt to reduce global warming pollution, we are fortunate to have many models from which we can learn. I would like to focus on the acid rain reduction program that we initiated under the Clean Air Act nearly 20 years ago.
During the 1960s and 1970s, sulphur dioxide pollution was poisoning rivers and streams across America while inflicting damage on infrastructure and some of our most famous public art. This pollution came from some of the same sources that are emitting global warming pollution, including coal-fired power plants. In 1980, polluters released over 17 million tons of sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere. Since implementation of a cap and trade program to reduce acid rain pollution, we have eliminated 8.9 million tons of sulphur dioxide pollution annually, a 50% cut.
When Congress was considering capping acid rain pollution in 1990, polluters claimed that such a cap would drive up electricity prices and cripple the economy. In fact, the acid rain cap and trade program has saved $40 in costs for every dollar spent on pollution controls. This 40-1 cost to benefit ratio saves Americans $119 billion every year. Each dollar that we don't have to spend on premature health problems or damaged infrastructure is another dollar saved or invested. Nor did the acid rain program hurt American energy production. Coal companies installed scrubbers that remove sulphur dioxide as well as other pollution like mercury. Installation of these scrubbers created high paying jobs right here in America, creating new sources of employment for electricians and other skilled tradesmen.
The non-partisan Congressional Research Service has conducted several reports on the efficacy of the acid rain cap and trade program. A recent CRS memo notes that the acid rain reduction program has nearly one hundred percent compliance in pollution reduction and has not experienced any problems with market manipulation.
Today, the minority party claims that we cannot afford to reduce greenhouse gas pollution because it will increase costs and hurt the economy. We've heard all these arguments before, during the acid rain debate in 1990, and they have all been proven false. We have saved money by cutting acid rain pollution, created clean energy jobs, improved public health, and achieved our goals of reducing pollution. Far from being a burden, reduction of acid rain pollution improved our quality of life.
Today we face a different threat: global warming pollution. Unlike in 1990, however, we have a very successful model that we can follow. The American Clean Energy and Security Act emulates many of the successful components of the acid rain reduction program, and offers Congress a proven model of cost-effective pollution reduction.
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