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Floor Speech
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Mr. CARPER. My colleague John Barrasso has just spoken. He and I used to lead the Environment and Public Works Committee. We worked together over the years on a lot of issues. He is good at finding the middle in a bunch of those and I think I am, too, and so is our Presiding Officer.
I want to follow up on the issue of electric vehicles. The reason why there is a strong interest in this country and around the world in electric vehicles is because they don't put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The reason why we are concerned about greenhouse gases coming out of fossil fuel vehicles--it is something like 30 percent of the greenhouse gases in this country being produced by our mobile fleet, our cars, our trucks, our vans--almost all of them are gas- and diesel-driven.
We are seeing a real tick up in the last 3 or 4 years in electric vehicles. There is a lot of interest right now in a combination-- hybrids--where you run for a while--vehicles run for a while on battery and for a while some of these on other sources of fuel. I think we need both of those.
The reason, again, why it is important for us to do something real with respect to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, about 30 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions come from the cars, trucks, and vans we drive--about 30 percent. About another 25 percent comes from the powerplants--coal-fired plants, natural gas-fired plants. That creates the electricity we use in our businesses and our homes. Maybe another 20 percent of our greenhouse gases in this country come from manufacturing plants--steel mills, asphalt plants, that kind of thing.
Should we be concerned about this? Yes. Last year was the hottest year on record on our planet--hottest year. It was the hottest year in the United States, and the expectation is that it is going to continue to worsen as time goes by.
For those of us who live in the coastal communities, there is a great concern in Delaware and all up and down the east coast, gulf coast, and Pacific coast about sea level rise. We see threats to people's homes, their businesses, their jobs. So there is a real incentive to do something about that as well.
One of the things Senator Barrasso and I and John Neely Kennedy, the Senator from Louisiana, have worked on before is one of the major sources of carbon emissions, which, as I mentioned, is our mobile fleet. But another one comes from, believe it or not, refrigerants that are in the air-conditioners, the freezers--the coolants that we have used--something called HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons. There is a need to actually phase those down.
We have new substances that can be used as a refrigerant to address the concerns that we have with HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons.
The two colleagues I just mentioned, we all worked together toward legislation--a treaty called Kigali--the last couple of years to adopt a stepdown plan over 15 years so we reduce about 85 percent of our use of those HFCs.
Why am I interested in HFCs? In terms of the threat they pose to us with respect to climate change, they are 1,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Think about that. HFCs are 1,000 times more potent. That is why we are concerned about doing something, and we are.
Methane. We have way too much methane in our air. And I worked a couple of years ago with my colleague Joe Manchin from West Virginia and others from EPA to come up with a methane emissions reduction program, which is now being implemented.
Why do we care about methane emissions? They are about 85, 90 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to climate change.
There used to be, oh gosh, a criminal. I am trying to think of what his name was. He was up in New York State back during the Depression. He used to rob banks. He used to rob banks. The Presiding Officer may remember this story. He used to rob banks--a lot of them. He finally got caught and was arrested, put on trial. He came before the judge and the judge said to him: Why do you rob banks? He said: Your honor, that is where the money is.
The reason why we go after hydrofluorocarbons, the reason we go after methane and auto emissions is that is where the emissions are. They pose a great threat to our planet.
The young people sitting down here to the right of our Presiding Officer today, they look young, and they are probably all about 15, 16, 17 years old. They are pages. They are from all over the planet. I want to make sure, at the end of the day, they have a planet to grow up on. I want to make sure they will have families of their own and their children and grandchildren will have a planet to grow up on and grow old on. I also want to make sure they have jobs to support themselves and their families.
One of the untold stories about the work that we are doing to reduce these greenhouse gas emissions is we can create jobs while doing that. We can create a lot of jobs in terms of building vehicles, cars, trucks, and vans. We put people to work, believe it or not, using hydrogen. This is something that is especially a bright future in our country.
People are going to hear a lot in the days to come--weeks to come-- something called hydrogen hubs. We could actually use hydrogen to fuel airplanes. We could use hydrogen to fuel buses. We put out a lot of emissions. We could use hydrogen to fuel large trucks--all of that. We could use hydrogen to create electricity in powerplants.
The question is, Are we doing that? We are. We are doing it in a way that creates jobs--a whole lot of jobs. The idea that if we want to reduce emissions, harmful emissions, we will cripple the economy--that is not really true. We can have both. It is like having your cake and eating it too; in this case, having the benefit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating a whole lot of jobs and putting people to work.
One more word on hydrogen hubs. The Presiding Officer and I and others have worked on this for a while. The administration has put out some guidance from the Treasury Department on the use of hydrogen to help reduce emissions. As it turns out, I studied economics in school. I got here later on. I spent a lot of time in the Navy, and I know a thing or two about nuclear power. You hear a lot about nuclear power. There is a process called electrolysis where we can use electricity created by nuclear power, which puts out no emissions--no harmful emissions. And there is electricity created by hydro. In Maine, where the Presiding Officer is from, they have a fair amount of electricity that is produced by hydroelectric power. I learned just several years ago that there is a process called electrolysis that uses electricity that comes from nuclear powerplants and electricity that comes from hydroelectric plants and puts out no emissions. And we can use that electricity in conjunction with water, H
Janet Yellen, the Secretary of the Treasury, was before our committee today, before the Finance Committee. I found it a good exchange, with respect to the Treasury Department. They are in the process of writing guidance. Sort of like when we pass a law, the Federal Agency writes a rule or regulation to say what the law is all about now. The folks over at the Treasury Department are trying to write the guidance, if you will. They help guide us as we move to adopt hydrogen more completely. And through the process of electrolysis, we can create it.
So it is acknowledged that we sort of have our differences. Those of us in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, are anxious to make sure we don't leave the opportunity to create hydrogen through electrolysis, using nuclear energy and using the hydropower. And we had a very good exchange, and she did express an openness and a willingness to hear us out and maybe try to find the middle in ways that create jobs, in ways that help preserve this planet so that someday these young pages, when they are old pages and they have children of their own, they will have a planet that they can be proud of and they can live on.
One of my favorite international leaders is the President of France, a guy named Macron. A couple weeks ago, our President gave the State of the Union Address. I thought he gave a really good one. But about 2, 3, maybe 4 years ago, we had another leader who spoke to a joint session of the House and Senate in the House Chamber, and it was the President of France, a fellow named Macron, who was actually a leader--I think a global leader--on climate change and how to deal with that.
And one of the reasons he is interested in this is, the last time I saw and I noticed when they had the Tour de France--I don't know if any of our young people ride bicycles, but the Tour de France is a great bicycle race. About a year or 2 years ago, when they had the Tour de France, they had to call it off in different parts. They couldn't complete the race because the pavement that they were riding their bikes on was melting. It was melting.
This stuff is real. We are not making it up. And the question is: What are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about it in ways that put people to work, keep people working? We can do that.
I drive an EV. For many, many years, I drove a 2001 Chrysler Town and Country minivan for, like, 20 years, and I had 600,000 miles on it. And my wife says I am cheap, and I wouldn't buy a new car. Finally, I did, and I bought an electric vehicle, and I have had it for a couple of years now. And not only do I feel good about it--just recharge this in our garage. We have a place to charge it. And there are other places, these Wawa convenience stores all up and down the east coast. Wawas have charging stations all over the Atlantic coast. Sometimes we use those.
But the thing that is especially attractive about the vehicle that we drive--that I drive--is frankly the maintenance costs are de minimis. It is amazing. We have had it 2 years and spent almost nothing on maintenance costs.
The other thing is they are fun. And I remember when I was a kid, the age of these guys, how much fun it was to get my learner's permit and later on a driver's license and to be able to drive and be on my own. And I feel the same sense of joy in driving today because of what we have with the EV.
So with that having been said, I will close with comments about John Barrasso. I think the world of John; he knows that. And I always look for ways to work with him. He is a strong advocate for nuclear energy, and my hope is that, although there are some things we are going to disagree on, we can agree on something called the ADVANCE Act.
The ADVANCE Act, which has come out of the Environment and Public Works Committee, is sort of the next generation of nuclear powerplants, and nuclear power can be used for a lot of good use, good purposes. We always have to do it in a way that is safe. You always want to make sure that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has the resources that they need to do their jobs, to keep us safe so we can have safe nuclear power.
I am a Navy guy. I spent a lot of years in the Navy in Alaska, before serving in the U.S. Senate, and I used to fly P-3 aircraft missions. We used to fly in and out of the Brunswick Naval Air Station, up in Maine, when the Presiding Officer was Governor of Maine.
But one of the things that Senator Barrasso and I agree on is the need for more nuclear, and we have an opportunity to move forward on small nuclear reactors. And they are safe and provide the electricity that we need in a lot of different ways. And my hope is that we cannot just talk about it to the folks that agree to disagree, but always look for ways to agree to help save our planet and help create a lot of jobs for those who live here.
With that, I yield back. I see our colleague from Texas, Senator Cornyn, has come to the floor, who is the ranking member of the Trade Subcommittee of the Finance Committee, which I am privileged to chair.
I am going to pause for a moment and see if he is ready to take the floor before I yield.
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