Consumer First Energy Act of 2008--Motion to Proceed--Continued
Floor Speech
CONSUMERS FIRST ENERGY ACT OF 2008--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued -- (Senate - June 05, 2008)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DOMENICI. I am sorry, but it gets difficult to keep track of the time. I thank the Senate for permitting me to speak a few moments today.
We are just 3 full days into the Boxer bill, and several important questions have arisen. Unfortunately, the majority leader has filled the tree. That sounds like something you do around Christmastime, but that is not what it is. It means last night the majority leader decided this bill, when we return to it--if we do, which I don't think we will--would not be amendable. He has put amendments in every place you could amend so you cannot amend any further. So we would not have a chance to fix this.
So everybody will understand, 3 days for a bill such as this in the Senate is unheard of. This Senator is serving his 36th year and happens to be fortunate that I was here when the Clean Air Act of America was passed. It was a new regime for trying to clean our air. We were on the floor of the Senate, with Ed Muskie as chairman, for 5 weeks. Over 160 amendments were brought up, and over 100 were approved, or voted on. That is debating a bill--not 3 days.
As we consider this bill, we have to ask ourselves if a cap-and-trade regime is our only option, or even our best option, for reaching the bipartisan goal of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. The Congressional Budget Director recently testified before the Committee on Finance and the Committee on Energy that a carbon tax would be five times more efficient, that a rigid cap-and-trade regime would, conversely, be only one-fifth as effective as a carbon tax. So, obviously, we have set about to do something far more difficult than directly attacking the problem with a carbon tax because we fear it. But the American people should know what we are doing to them, in this roundabout way, is far worse on them, their families, and their future than a carbon tax, which everybody says we should leave alone and forget about.
It is also appropriate to ask how this bill was written and why it has been written several times. The bill leaves us with more questions than answers. One that immediately comes to mind is, why allowances under this bill are not considered property. This bill mandates that entities pay for the allowances.
Then it refuses to extend the rights of ownership to those allowances.
The distinguished junior Senator from Tennessee has spoken eloquently about this whole business of allowances and what is wrong with the way we are treating it. He has mentioned, but I mention again, the bill specifically says they are not property rights. Why do you pay for them? If you pay for them, you think you own them. If you don't own them, they are worth nothing because anybody can do what they like with them if they are in a position of authority and you receive nothing. If you try to sell them and an administrator decides you cannot, you have no rights because you don't own anything.
This bill mandates the entities pay for them and, I repeat, refuses to extend the ownership rights. I don't know why this is written this way, but I hope we will have a chance to consider an amendment. Perhaps the Senator from Tennessee would have joined me in an amendment to strike that provision, but we will not have a chance to do that because the leader has filled the tree.
I repeatedly heard false claims that this bill will create a market-basket approach to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For a marketplace to operate, its participants must own the products they seek to trade. Property is a fundamental right in a well-functioning market. The right of ownership should not rest with the bureaucrats at EPA. It should rest with the purchasers of the allowances.
Additionally, it is not credibly explained how Americans will comply with this bill. There are a number of resources and technologies that can significantly reduce carbon emissions, but often they are not commercially viable or, worse, are blocked from being licensed.
Our Nation currently has 104 nuclear powerplants. According to the EIA, Energy Information Agency, we need to build an additional 264 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2050 to comply with this bill. Another Federal agency found that only 44 gigawatts of nuclear would be built and that our needs would, instead, be largely met by 81 gigawatts of coal with sequestration and 61 gigawatts of renewable power. An MIT study found that we would meet our obligations with 236 gigawatts of coal with sequestration. This technology has potential, but it has not yet been commercially demonstrated.
The point I am making is, some of the assumptions as to how we will reach this goal under this bill are stated by the experts in our country that they cannot be achieved because some of the things they expect to use cannot be used or cannot be done.
In the years ahead, will those who now support this bill strongly advocate the construction of the infrastructure and facilities necessary to comply with it?
More than 20 organizations went on record last November in opposition to the National Interest Electric Transition Corridor. These corridors, established in the Energy Policy Act, which we together wrote and passed on the floor of the Senate, are essential to addressing electric transmission constraints or congestion across the country. But an attitude of ``not in my backyard'' has resulted in vocal opposition in many localities. Yet that would be absolutely necessary for this bill to work.
According to Greenpeace's Web site, carbon capture and sequestration is ``an unproven, expensive, and inefficient technology'' that taxpayers should not be asked to subsidize. But according to EIA, it is not available. The result is almost a doubling of the negative impacts of economic growth.
As recently as 2005, a leading proponent of this bill said in the Senate:
Nuclear power is not the solution to climate change, and it is not clean.
Friends of the Earth, a large environmental group active in 70 countries around the world, describes nuclear power as a ``false solution'' that ``is simply a diversion'' from the progress of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The fact is, nuclear power is our only carbon-free source of baseload generation, and the 104 nuclear reactors now in our country around the Nation displace as much carbon dioxide--just this one source of energy--as nearly all the passenger vehicles on the roads of America. That is a pretty good exchange for 104 nuclear powerplants that are old and doing the job.
The opposition to energy infrastructure that we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions overlooks a fundamental truth that is underscored by nearly every study in this bill. Without these resources and technologies, it will be impossible to meet the targets outlined by this bill. So supporting a cap-and-trade regime is insufficient. The bill's advocates must also pledge to support and work hard for energy infrastructure, which we have just discussed, for years to come.
Perhaps the most important question in considering this bill is whether it will accomplish its stated purpose. Listen carefully. The first stated purpose of this bill is ``to establish the core of a Federal program that will reduce the United States greenhouse gas emissions substantially enough to avert the catastrophic impacts of global climate change.'' First purpose.
The United Nations IPCC--that is the technical hierarchical leader--projects that if the global concentration of greenhouse gas increases by 90 parts per million, global air temperature will rise by roughly 1 degree. These are the projections cited by the advocates of this bill. According to the EPA, however, this legislation would only decrease global concentrations by 7 to 10 parts per million by the year 2050, enough to reduce temperatures by only one-tenth of 1 degree Celsius.
As I stated earlier in this debate, such an increase will fail the test outlined in this bill. Its impact will not be substantial enough to avert a catastrophic impact of global climate change as stated by the proponents of this bill, cited by the advocates of cap and trade, to say it another way.
Their own rhetoric does not match the reality of what this bill would accomplish. The biggest purpose would not even come close to being accomplished. If we did it, it wouldn't come close to what is necessary. I just gave the numbers.
The second stated purpose of this bill is divided into seven subsections. First, it is intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while ``preserving robust growth in the United States economy.'' Economic studies across the board have found that this bill fails in this regard. The studies find that this bill will have a negative impact on gross domestic product, our basic test of collective productivity, in the range of trillions of dollars.
Next, the bill is intended to create new jobs in the United States. Why then is so much attention given to retraining assistance for workers in this bill? A study by the SAIC estimated that 3.5 million jobs would be lost by 2030 as a result of this legislation. And there is no credible study that says this bill, on a net basis, will create jobs in America.
Third, this bill seeks to ``avoid the imposition of hardship on U.S. residents.'' Given the projections of lower economic growth and job losses, this is simply not possible.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico has 3 minutes remaining.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Chair.
The fourth subsection states that this act is intended to ``reduce dependence of the United States on petroleum produced in other countries.'' Last year, I introduced the American Energy Production Act. I plan to offer this as a complete substitute for this bill. There is no one who could doubt that it would do more to reduce our dependence on foreign oil than this bill.
The fifth states that the act will ``impose no net cost on the Federal Government.'' This stated purpose omits the massive cost that consumers and businesses will incur. The number has been placed at $6.7 trillion, which represents an unprecedented transfer of wealth to be carried out at the discretion of the Federal Government. This is the most expensive authorization bill in my 36 years in the Senate.
Sixth, the bill states that it seeks to ``ensure the financial resources provided by the program established by this act for technology deployment are predominantly invested in development, production, and construction of that technology in the United States.'' Why then does the bill include an entire title for international offsets and allowances? That has been stated by the distinguished Senator from Tennessee eloquently.
Further, uncertainties of numerous kinds remain that I am unsure this act is capable of being administered, but I am not sure exactly how that can be done. CBO estimates an increase of $3.7 billion in discretionary spending at EPA between 2009 and 2018 just to administer this bill--$3.7 billion. That is nearly a 50-percent increase compared to their entire current budget.
This bill would require more than 50 new reports and studies, many of which recur on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. It includes directions for 39 new regulations and rulemakings and would establish 56 new program initiatives, funds, and similar Federal entities. This chart behind me shows just how complex this bill would be. I ask that my colleagues look at it because it is accurate.
It should be clear that any reasonable amount of time studying this cap-and-trade proposal leads to more questions than answers. While that may be acceptable for scientific endeavors, it is not a very sound footing for making law.
On a global scale, this bill would provide minimal, if any, environmental benefit by the end of this century. But even to achieve a small reduction here at home, we may subject America's economy, prosperity, and global competitiveness to irreparable harm, while creating greater emissions abroad. The capp-and-trade system envisioned by this bill is simply not the answer we seek for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. I hope in the future we can move this debate in a direction toward solutions.
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