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Floor Speech

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Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from West Virginia, my native State, for yielding to me. Out of the three Senators in the U.S. Senate from West Virginia, today we are all speaking on this proposal by Senator Cramer.

I rise today in opposition to S.J. Res. 61, a Congressional Review Act resolution that would overturn the Federal Highway Administration's greenhouse gas performance rule. This rule is critical to helping the United States meet our climate goals, and I want to start off by laying out the scale of the challenges we face in addressing climate change and the climate crisis.

All of us know by now that we are confronted almost daily by signs that our planet is literally on fire, and as the days and weeks pass, the urgency to act only grows stronger. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States just experienced the warmest winter on record--not ``one'' of the warmest winters on record but ``the'' warmest winter on record. And last year, 2023, was the world's warmest year on record--not ``one'' of the warmest years on record but ``the.'' This is not a mere coincidence but an unabated body of evidence that shows our planet continues to grow warmer and warmer.

Extreme weather is affecting communities across our Nation, from hurricanes to drought, to flooding made worse by rising sea levels.

Last year, the Environment and Public Works Committee that I am privileged to lead, along with Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, held a hearing where we heard firsthand about the negative impacts of extreme heat on our transportation systems and the punishing effects--truly punishing effects--it could have on the health of our transportation workforce.

The science is clear that greenhouse gas emissions are having a substantial effect on our changing climate.

So where do those emissions come from? Where do they come from? Well, the transportation sector in America is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Let me say that again. The transportation sector is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, accounting for nearly 30 percent of our emissions economywide. The transportation sector is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. After that, another 28 percent comes from our powerplants generating electricity, and yet another 25 percent comes from our manufacturing operations, like cement plants and like steel mills. This means that the cars, the trucks, the buses driven on our highways every day are a major source of the emissions that are warming this planet that we call home.

That is why the Federal Highway Administration's greenhouse gas performance rule is so important and must be upheld by Congress. It is simply not possible to meet our climate goals without addressing emissions from the transportation sector.

For my colleagues who might not be familiar with the Federal Highway Administration's performance measure, I would like to take a couple of minutes to talk about what the rule actually does as well as what it does not do.

First, the rule provides a framework for States and metropolitan planning organizations to measure the amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated by vehicles on our Nation's highways. This rule does so by using longstanding authorities under the National Highway Performance Program, which have existed in statutes since 2012.

Under the National Highway Performance Program, the Federal Highway Administration can enact measures to assess the performance of our Nation's highways, including for environmental sustainability.

The Federal Highway Administration has already enacted performance measures in other areas, including safety and congestion.

During negotiations on the bipartisan infrastructure law, some of us wanted to require the Federal Highway Administration to set a greenhouse gas performance measure. That is what we wanted to do. We couldn't get bipartisan agreement to require a greenhouse gas performance measure. The Federal Highway Administration used the discretionary authority it has had since 2012--for 12 years--to set performance measures relating to the environmental sustainability of our highways.

In addition to measuring emissions, States must also establish targets for reducing those emissions over time. However, the rule does not take a one-size-fits all approach. Instead, it gives each State-- each State--the flexibility to set its own reduction target. Let me say that again. The rule does not take a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, it gives each State the flexibility to set its own reduction target.

It is also important that our colleagues understand that the greenhouse gas rule does not impose any penalties on States that, for whatever reason, are unable to meet their targets that they have set-- not that someone else has set; that they have set. The rule does not require States to transfer highway funding to other modes of transportation or to pay a financial cost if their emissions do not decline in accordance with that State's targets.

That means that under this rule, none of our colleagues' States will see a reduction in the highway funding or any change in the way that highway funds are administered in their States. That bears repeating. This means that under this rule, none of our colleagues' States will see a reduction in their highway funding or any change in the way that highway funds are administered in their States.

In fact, Congress specifically authorized funding the bipartisan infrastructure law to help States meet their emission targets. We established a new Carbon Reduction Formula Program that provides funding to every State for projects that reduce emissions from transportation.

We also provide $7.5 billion--billion with a ``b''--in the bipartisan infrastructure law to build out a national network of electric vehicle charging stations.

Our States are far from being punished. In fact, they have been provided with historic amounts of funding to address climate change.

In closing, let me just say that I believe we have an important choice to make here: Are we going to continue to ignore the significant impact that greenhouse gas emissions are having on our planet or are we going to take reasonable steps, as the Federal Highway Administration has done with this rulemaking, to address the problem head-on?

I hope that our colleagues will join me and others in opposing this Congressional Review Act resolution.

Let me just close with this for another minute, if I could. We have some young peopling sitting up here. They are pages. We call them pages. They are nominated by Senators from all over the country-- Democratic Senators, Republican Senators. They come here to go to school. They haven't graduated from high school yet. They come here to pick up their schoolwork, usually in high school, and maybe stay for 1 year, 1 academic year, and eventually go back home, finish their education, and go on to do amazing things. They are just wonderful young people. I am very proud of them--the ones from Delaware and every other State as well.

They have a bright future. They have a bright future. There are also some incredibly scary threats to that future. One of those is that we live on a planet that is growing hotter, growing hotter, and growing hotter. The question is, Are we going to do anything about it? We are trying very hard to do that.

The good news is, we can do something about it, turn it around, and reverse it in ways that create jobs and economic opportunity. We have adopted those in legislation, in the Inflation Reduction Act, in the bipartisan transportation bill, and the treaty called the Kigali treaty. We have done a lot. The key is not just doing those things but continuing to do those things--continue to do those things.

With that, I hope that our colleagues will join me in opposing this Congressional Review Act resolution.

I say this as one who oftentimes works with folks--both my colleagues from West Virginia--on all kinds of issues. This is just one where we don't see eye to eye. My hope is that our colleagues from both sides of the aisle will vote no.

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