Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include materials on the topic of my Special Order. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to lead a Western Caucus…
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include materials on the topic of my Special Order.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to lead a Western Caucus Special Order to voice our vehement opposition to the Green New Deal before it is put out of its misery by a vote in the U.S. Senate later this week.
With an estimated price tag of $93 trillion over the first 10 years, the Green New Deal costs more than four times the U.S. public debt. The Green New Deal is a Soviet-style takeover of our entire economy that will radically transform America into a country that will be very bleak and unrecognizable from the country that we know and love today.
The proponents of the Green New Deal like to make it out to be a program to improve our environment, but in reality, it is just a socialist experiment on a grand scale.
Included in the Green New Deal is a job guarantee, even if you don't want to work; a housing guarantee; a healthcare guarantee; and an education guarantee. The cost of these guarantees will put a major burden on the American taxpayer, with the healthcare guarantee alone costing taxpayers $32 trillion in the first 10 years.
None of these guarantees have anything to do with improving our environment but, rather, are socialist talking points dating back centuries. In fact, only 15 percent of the estimated cost of the Green New Deal applies to the environment.
Pair this additional tax burden with the cost of complying with all the new one-size-fits-all regulations included in the Green New Deal, which is estimated to cost $650,000 per household over 10 years, and the annually disposable income for an average household just vanishes.
In total, Americans will have to spend $155.5 billion to replace furnaces, $11.9 billion to replace gas dryers, $50 billion to replace water heaters, and $26 billion to replace stoves.
In the words of Michael Zehr from the Consumer Energy Alliance: ``American consumers need practical energy solutions that come from our Nation's existing mix of affordable energy resources. As it stands, the Green New Deal does not offer cost-efficient or sustainable solutions for hardworking families and businesses across our country.''
The Green New Deal is a job killer. The Green New Deal would eliminate 10.3 million jobs in the oil and gas industry, 600,000 jobs in the aviation industry, 1.4 million hydroelectric jobs, 100,000 jobs in nuclear energy, and 50,000 jobs in coal.
Mr. Speaker, while it is important to point out the most obvious and radical policies of the Green New Deal, such as the elimination of conventional energy sources and industries, there are several other policy consequences that should be highlighted.
Mr. Speaker, did you know that, according to the think tank Data Progress, the Green New Deal will reinstate the Obama administration's WOTUS, the waters of the U.S., and the so-called Clean Power Plan rules as part of this terrible policy? These two burdensome regulations in and of themselves did more to strip Americans of their property rights and shackle baseload power than any other regulations before them. Data Progress also reports that the Green New Deal will ban plastic straws and ban hydraulic fracturing.
The democratic socialists pushing the Green New Deal want to get rid of all energy sources except wind, solar, and batteries by 2030. How are we going to do that when wind and solar only produced 7.6 percent of our electricity in 2017? How are we going to domestically produce the critical minerals needed for this endeavor and renewables when democratic socialists and extreme environmentalists vehemently oppose mining?
As for America's farmers, the Green New Deal would also reduce current farming practices and land use by 70 percent by 2050 and ban groundwater irrigation by large-scale agribusiness. For many of my colleagues, that means unemployment for many and a significantly decreased standard of living for all. How are we going to feed ourselves? How are we going to feed the world?
When it comes to the Green New Deal, I think all of us must ask ourselves a simple question: Are we so arrogant to think that Washington, D.C., should control and dictate every aspect of the lives of the American people? My answer to that question is emphatically no. No, we should not. And, no, we will not allow the flawed policies of the Green New Deal to be adopted.
Renewables are playing, and will continue to play, an important role in our energy future, but they cannot exclusively be relied upon to provide all our energy and electrical needs.
Let's deal in reality and put an end to the socialist Green New Deal once and for all.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin).
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Marshall). The gentleman represents many agricultural producers whose livelihoods are greatly threatened by this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I would now like to recognize the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop).
Mr. Bishop is the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee and has been a steadfast leader in opposing the Green New Deal.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's response, and thank him.
I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith).
Mr. Griffith represents the heart of Virginia coal country, an industry that would be eliminated if the Green New Deal would become law.
Sure.
No.
Well, photosynthesis; this is the key component of cellular growth in plants. They take carbon dioxide; they take dirty water; they have sunlight, and it produces oxygen and clean water. That is what we actually get with photosynthesis.
Mr. Speaker, it absolutely would be correct.
Absolutely.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. In fact, the gentleman brings up a great point.
There is an article by Michael Shellenberger and it is, ``Why Renewables Can't Save the Planet.'' In this discussion--it is a wonderful article; it is in Quillette--he talks about renewable energy, particularly solar and wind.
They are low density. They don't have what they call basal power. They only produce when the sun is shining and when the wind is blowing. So you need batteries. And as he states so eloquently here, the new renaissance for batteries isn't coming any time soon.
In fact, we see many of the same people who propose the Green New Deal are obstinate in trying to allow mining for these critical and rare earths that are required for battery development.
In fact, over 90 percent of the world's market for critical minerals--or these rare earths--are dictated by China. So they are not going to come any time soon.
And then, let's talk about the ecological damage.
In fact, wind is the largest destroyer of large birds.
Now, small, little birds, cats will take care of, but what ends up happening, raptors--like condors and eagles and hawks--are the ones who are killed most often by these big rotary blades or turbines that turn. These are the birds that are most at peril right now in our world.
So once again, we are dooming the future because we are predominating selection to the government, and that is a sad thing.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
Yes, the gentleman is.
Absolutely.
Mr. Speaker, that is exactly right.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely right. The renewables are very important, because what it allows us to do is take this wonderful wealth that we have of coal and nuclear and oil and gas and hydro, and really extend it into the future, where the best way that we can have an impact on this world is our democracy, our republic, our way of entrepreneurially changing things; not having dictations coming by the Federal Government. It is the entrepreneurial spirit of individuals.
So it is a wonderful aspect to use all the above. And I think that is what everybody would like to see.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is exactly right.
Mr. Speaker, in fact, the gentleman is very astute in regard to the overburden area, where many of these rare earths can be extracted; so we are not dependent upon the whims and wiles of the Chinese Government.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman also brings to my mind another opportunity that we actually see where the pulverization of coal is then injected into spaces within oil; we get a 50 percent additional better burn and a cleaner burn at that.
So once again, the technology is there for all these abundances of wealth that we have in the energy sector.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
You know, when the gentleman talks about rare earths, they sit all over our western frontier.
In fact, in Arizona, they line our deserts.
These are geos, and typically, in the past, to extract those rare earths that are required for these batteries for solar and wind, it is very caustic by utilizing high concentrations of sulfuric acid. But we have got the entrepreneurial spirit of people back in Arizona who are using high concentrations of citric acids, like from limes and lemons, and actually extracting the same rare earths in that aspect.
Once again, the power of those entrepreneurial individuals out there in America are the ones who are changing the dynamics of the way our energy portfolio looks.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) for some additional comments.
Mr. Speaker, I want to engage the gentleman in a colloquy.
The gentleman and I went on a codel over to Europe. We saw Germany, Lithuania, and Norway. We saw the power of the influence that our energy can actually provide, particularly in Lithuania.
Can the gentleman highlight that for us?
That is right.
Well, the first country we visited wa Germany, and they were very proud of what they were getting rid of in coal and nuclear; and yet their baseload was going to be dependent upon Russia, on Nord Stream 1 and 2--absolutely crazy. We want to be less dependent on Russia.
This whole country has gone through this whole Russia this and Russiagate that. So we want to see that dependency being more entrepreneurial, and the United States is perfectly suited for that.
Mr. Speaker, I agree, absolutely.
It also extends even far into our agricultural aspects. Never before in the world have we seen less aspects of poverty. Today the lowest aspects around the world are poverty; and at the same time, we see the lowest incidence of hunger. How is that possible? It is the entrepreneurial farmer. We reproduce more that we can supply around the world.
And what do they need? They need abundant energy. They need abundant water. All of these things are plausible because, once again, it is the entrepreneur who actually solves these problems, not the government.
If the government can give all, it can take all; and it has done so, whether it be the Soviet Union, whether it be Mao's China, or whether it be the Venezuela experiment that is going dramatically wrong today. It never works because you eventually run out of everybody else's money.
Mr. Speaker, once again, a lot of our proponents backstab us by saying: Listen, we lack a vision.
America's energy renaissance is the backbone of our economy. We just talked about it. It is a story of freedom, prosperity, and opportunity.
After decades of reliance on other countries to meet our energy needs, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that America will export more energy than it imports, starting in 2020. We are no longer dependent on foreign sources like Russia and Saudi Arabia.
The innovations of technology improvements associated with fracking and horizontal drilling have allowed shale resources, previously deemed uneconomical, to be developed and are the main reason the U.S. was the world leader in carbon emissions reductions.
We have got to say it again. As Ranking Member Bishop said, reductions in 2015, 2016, and 2017--that is right, fracking that is demonized by environmental extremists without justification, has proven to be the best energy solution for our environment.
Abundant oil and natural gas has reduced electricity bills, kept prices low, and provided the largest share of U.S. electric power generation in recent years. The oil and gas industry supports more than 10.3 million jobs and nearly 8 percent of our economy.
The United States is now the top energy producer, and the American Dream is thriving. January 2019 saw the 100th consecutive month of positive job growth in America, the longest period of continuous job growth on record. The U.S. job market is strong, and in December, employers posted 7.3 million open jobs--once again, a new record.
Members of the Congressional Western Caucus support personal responsibility and less government intervention in our daily lives and freedoms. They defend property rights and believe that private ownership of property is a fundamental right in America. Our vision encourages innovation and less burdensome mandates.
People want clean water. People want clean air, and they are striving for that. The people who depend on the land to provide security for their families and communities understand their resources the best. States and municipalities are better suited to deal with the local issues than distant, out-of-touch Washington bureaucrats.
The caucus seeks to promote access to our Nation's energy and resources potential, while pursuing a true all-of-the-above energy approach that aims to ensure that the U.S. is the global energy leader. We know how to do this best. We ought to be doing it right.
Our vision utilizes the current energy renaissance and the American energy dominance policy currently being implemented by the Trump administration in the State of Texas. Texas leads the country in wind production.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Texas had more generating capacity than any other State last year and more installed wind power capacity than all but five countries in the world.
Once again, think that through. Texas was the fifth largest in the world in power production by wind. The country's only large clean- capture coal facility is found in Texas. The Petra Nova facility is the only carbon capture and storage coal-fired plant in the United States, and it is only one of two facilities that utilizes that technology in the world.
Once again, American entrepreneurs are at it again, making things better, making things more achievable. Coal generates baseload power that prevents rolling blackouts when renewables fall short in extreme weather. Most people don't understand that.
Alternative or intermittent power is when the wind doesn't blow and the Sun doesn't shine. In fact, you heard President Trump at one of his speeches talk about: Hey, honey, I would like to watch television. Is the wind blowing?
If you didn't have baseload power and the wind wasn't blowing, you couldn't watch television. So what baseload is, it runs 24/7. That is called hydroelectric. That is called natural gas. That is called oil and coal. That is also nuclear, one of the largest density energy productions all around, and we, once again, could not do it without it.
According to the third quarter 2018 report from the Solar Energy Industries Association, Texas is poised to become a nationwide leader in solar energy, with more than 4 gigawatts of capacity expected to be installed over the next 5 years.
Now, think about this. Texas is the fifth largest in both solar and wind, once again, having a plethora of our baseload energy in oil and gas and coal. There are two operating nuclear power plants in Texas, and my home State of Arizona has the largest nuclear power plant.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration previously reported that Texas is among the top 10 States with the greatest nuclear power generation capacity in the country.
Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Western Caucus' alternative vision to the vision currently being pursued by the Trump administration and the great State of Texas are concurrent. They are opposite of the Green New Deal. That is a pipe dream. If we go down this Green New Deal path, the United States will be walking in its own green mile.
Now, Mr. Speaker, many of my constituents continue to ask me: What is actually in the Green New Deal?
Confusion has arisen, given that it is light on details and Members ran from the summary document put out by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez' office.
One significant piece of information that my constituents asked me about is whether the Green New Deal includes a jobs guarantee for everyone in the United States, including those who are unwilling to work.
As part of the frequently asked questions document that was released with legislation, it was stated that economic security would be provided for those who ``are unwilling to work.'' Many of my constituents just can't believe that that is actually in there and an objective of the people pushing the Green New Deal.
Staff have since retracted Representative Ocasio-Cortez' frequently asked questions document.
But the message I hope the American people hear is: We know the motives behind the Green New Deal and we know how its proponents plan to carry out its objectives. From ending airplane travel to shuttering down all nuclear power, hydropower, and even getting rid of all natural gas, some people, unfortunately, on the other side of the aisle are threatening our way of life and the American economy.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the links for the two most frequently asked questions documents, which I have in my hand, that were released by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez's office to the press and posted on her website.
The first link is: https://westerncaucus.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ green-new-deal-faq_provided_to_npr_v2.pdf
The second link is: https://web.archive.org/web/20190207191119/ https:/ocasio-cortez.house.gov/media/blog-posts/green-new-deal-faq
Mr. Speaker, I want to focus on how the Green New Deal will affect our agriculture industry. It has been the lifeblood of our rural communities the Western Caucus represents, and the Green New Deal stands to decimate it. The Green New Deal is nothing short of an all- out attack on agriculture by the socialist left.
Reading directly from the text of the bill, the Green New Deal seeks to eliminate ``pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible.''
We had a nice conversation with my friend from Virginia (Mr. Griffith). The agriculture industry supports more than 21 million jobs, 11 percent of the U.S. jobs, according to the Farm Bureau. Representative Ocasio-Cortez has attacked agriculture, cows, hamburgers, and factory farming in pushing the Green New Deal. In fact, in the fact sheet released by her office, it mentions a desire to get rid of farting cows.
Ocasio-Cortez doubled down on agriculture, cows, hamburgers, and factory farming in an interview, stating, in the Green New Deal, ``what we talk about is . . . that we need to take a look at factory farming, period. It is wild. . . . Maybe we shouldn't be eating a hamburger for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. . . . We have to take a look at everything.''
Well, Mr. Speaker, the last time I checked, this is a common bodily function of nearly every animal, and eliminating animals for this reason would mean an end to livestock in agriculture.
Land needed for agriculture is also under assault under the Green New Deal. In fact, when it comes to land needed for agriculture, the agriculture, energy, and transportation industries are linked because of land needed to build high-speed rail and solar wind farms.
Farmland will likely need to be seized by the Federal Government in order to build tracks for the high-speed rail and to build wind and solar farms. How does that work going across an ocean, I wonder? Sailboats. That would be fun for those in Guam and Hawaii.
The elimination of farmland in order to build these projects will cost us jobs and put our food supply in jeopardy. As I highlighted, in the world today is the lowest poverty rate, the lowest rate ever of people going unfed. It is unbelievable.
The Green New Deal also aims to ban groundwater mining by large-scale agribusinesses, making irrigation needed to sustain this form of agriculture truly impossible.
According to the think tank Data Progress, the Green New Deal will reinstate the Obama administration's WOTUS rule. This WOTUS rule by the previous administration expanded the definition of navigable waters beyond any reasonable interpretation intended by the Clean Water Act. It attempted to assert national regulatory jurisdiction over areas with even the least of connections to water resources, including man-made conveyances.
Farmers, ranchers, and property owners suffer under this overreaching land and water grab.
WOTUS contradicts the prior Supreme Court rulings and seeks to expand agency control over 60 percent of our country's streams and millions of acres of wetlands that were previously nonjurisdictional, once again empowering the government, not the entrepreneur and not the individual.
Mr. Speaker, clearly, the Green New Deal would impose disastrous consequences on our agricultural sector. Ranchers and farmers would suffer significant harm, and private property rights would become a thing of the past. America's rural communities, where I am from, and agricultural economies, where I am also from, can't afford the Green New Deal. It should be rejected on that basis.
Mr. Speaker, many Democrats are supporting the Green New Deal, so let's take a look. While many of us laugh at some of the policies in the Green New Deal and think they are just ridiculous, we must take them seriously, given the large amount of Democratic support for the Green New Deal. In fact, the Green New Deal currently has 90 House cosponsors and 11 Senate cosponsors, including Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar.
There are 14 Democratic Presidential candidates--14 of the current-- who have endorsed the Green New Deal, including Senators Sanders, Gillibrand, Harris, Warren, Booker, and Klobuchar; former Representative Beto O'Rourke; Washington Governor Jay Inslee; Representative Eric Swalwell; Representative Tulsi Gabbard; former Representative John Delaney; author Marianne Williamson; former HUD Secretary Julio Castro; and South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg. Once again, everybody is supporting something that is not possible.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to now focus on the Green New Deal's effect and how it would affect our transportation system. The Green New Deal calls for the abolition of all gas and diesel engine vehicles and replacing them with electric vehicles, mass transit, and high-speed trains.
Once again, this would require batteries, something that is not coming very soon, particularly with the other side's obstinance in trying to stop mining for these rare earths that are required for these batteries.
In the forum that the Western Caucus held last month, we heard from several witnesses who spoke about the effects of the Green New Deal and how they would have an effect on our transportation infrastructure.
To quote Thomas Pyle: ``The Green New Deal also envisions a massive build-out of high-speed rail across the country. High-speed rail, in order to reach said high speeds, must travel in a virtually straight line. In a wealthy, developed society like the United States, carving these straight lines means taking the homes and land in the path. There is just no way to even contemplate high-speed rail without sweeping use of eminent domain.''
Sweeping eminent domain will be a complete infringement of the property rights of every American citizen and could easily be abused. As we have seen, certain existing high-speed light rail projects such as the bullet train project in California have turned into quagmires that have cost the taxpayers billions of dollars with no return.
One of the main modes of shipping products into our country is by boat. In fact, most of the bulk commodities imported into this country are transported by ship. The large shipping vessels are powered by--you guessed it--diesel-burning engines, which there are currently no replacements for.
Are we just going to scrap one of the main modes of transporting products into this country? If so, what are we going to replace it with?
Along the same lines of ship transportation, what implications does the Green New Deal have for air travel? One would assume it would suffer the same fate.
How would we see our colleagues from Hawaii, Mr. Speaker? For example, the dean of the House, Mr. Young from Alaska, would he have to take a train all the way to Washington, D.C., from Alaska? How would that affect the water, the air, and also the critters along the way?
The airline industry employs 600,000 people. The Green New Deal would destroy these very jobs. The Green New Deal aims to get rid of all combustion engines. This means getting rid of all hotrods, classic cars, big trucks, tractors, large SUVs, and, yes, even mom's van.
Mr. Speaker, the U.S. was the world leader in emissions reductions in 2015, 2016, and 2017. We discussed this earlier. This was the renaissance of oil and gas production and the clean use of that. If we allow American innovation to continue to flourish and to continue to embrace a truly all-of-the-above energy strategy, we will continue to lead the world in emissions reductions without radically changing our way of life, being provocative on how we change
the rest of the world, and we won't get rid of our classic cars.
Mr. Speaker, the Green New Deal is a proposal that should not be taken lightly. The Green New Deal would codify into law a one-size- fits-all government healthcare system, offer free college for all, and create a Federal job guarantee.
According to figures released by the American Action Forum, the Green New Deal would cost every household $600,000 over 10 years.
The Green New Deal will implement the radical socialist utopian idea of Medicare for All, which would cost American taxpayers $36 trillion over a 10-year period. That means it would be Medicare for no one. The cost it would impose on the taxpayers would be so unsustainable that the Medicare for All proposal, once again, would be blamed and be renamed Medicare for None.
The Green New Deal would cause harm to the American worker. This fact is even recognized by the AFL-CIO, which has come out strongly against the Green New Deal. They recognize that the only outcome of this bill is to take away good-paying jobs from their members and cause harm to their families.
The United States is currently undergoing an energy renaissance, as we talked about earlier, with natural gas leading the way. The natural gas industry has brought millions of jobs to this country and helped us reduce our carbon footprint in 3 straight years, starting in 2015.
Science shows that the Green New Deal will have a negligible impact on its stated goal of fighting climate change. In fact, the Green New Deal would actually cause climate change and emissions to worsen as energy production would leave the United States and go to countries like China and India that don't have the same environmental regulations and standards as the United States, producing more emissions in the process than if we did so cleanly and responsibly like we do here in the United States.
This legislation only stands to lower temperatures by 0.137 degrees Celsius by 2100, according to the same metrics used by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
This bill completely ignores the reality that the biggest sources of carbon dioxide are developing countries. The sponsors of the Green New Deal may say that the U.S. can become a leader in exporting new renewable technologies in the developing world, but would a developing nation give up cheap and abundant energy in return for a more expensive form of energy, Mr. Speaker?
In fact, I quoted this Quillette article about how renewables can't fight climate change. Everyone who is engaged in a renewable-type energy sector has seen their energy portfolios go up three times--much more expensive--three times.
Mr. Speaker, the Western Caucus looks forward to contributing to the debate on this important subject, and I yield back the balance of my time.