Bioeconomy Research and Development Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Madam Speaker, I rise to oppose Representative Steel's amendment.

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Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Representative Steel and I share a lot of the same concerns about China, in fact: its human rights record; unfair competition; its aggression in the South China Sea, for example; its troublesome Belt and Road Initiative. However, this amendment misstates how global climate negotiations work.

The United Nations climate negotiations are designed to have countries submit their own nationally determined climate mitigation goals. They are designed this way to ensure that no one can tell America what our climate policies should be. I would think that my Republican colleagues would understand and support that.

We should be doing everything we can to pressure each country, particularly China, which is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, as the Representative mentioned, to upgrade its commitments and commit to more ambitious nationally determined contributions.

The Biden administration and the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, Secretary John Kerry, have been clear that the People's Republic of China must make stronger commitments to cutting its carbon emissions.

The Government of China has said that they are targeting carbon neutrality before 2060. Well, that is clearly too late. The world needs to reach net zero by 2050 at the latest.

I completely agree that the United States must put pressure on China to reach net zero at a faster pace, but arbitrarily tying it to our timeline isn't the way to do that.
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Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Again, we agree that the United States should do everything possible to put pressure on China to reduce emissions and to combat climate change. However, this is a bad way to do it.

We can treat the climate challenge as an opportunity for America to shine, to rise to the occasion and show the world that they can rely on us, and that includes pressuring other nations to also combat climate change.

Whether my colleagues across the aisle acknowledge it or not, the world is transitioning to renewable energy and electric vehicles.

The choice we face is whether our Nation leads in this century as we did in the last, or whether we allow others to lead instead.

My home State of Texas recognizes this. We may be the fossil fuel capital of the United States, and have been for a long time, but we are also the wind energy capital of the United States.

The task ahead of us is to pressure and verify to ensure China meets its goals. We need to do that bilaterally, and we need to hold China accountable in multilateral forums. This amendment only distracts from that important task, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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