Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140822 : v

CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings August 22, 2014

Finding. It started under george w. Bush and was completed under president obama. There was a National Climate assessment that is required i law every four years. Republicans voted for that in 990. It calls out the dangers of Carbon Pollution and says it will increase ozone and asthma and hospital admissions. Climate change is projected to Harm Human Health by increasing groundlevel ozone. They specifically cite more Carbon Pollution as increasing Global Temperatures and increasing premature deaths and ozone and particle pollution. Is there any one of the four of you that has a problem with that analysis . Ok. Hey agree with that. I want to talk to my friend from alabama. I want to ask you this question. I have respect for your office and your opinion. Isnt it true that alabama lost all recent major Clean Air Act cases . They lost their legal challenge in the Supreme Court. In the White Stallion case they lost to the epa endangerment finding. Isnt that a fact . I dont doubt what youre saying. You dont recall losing those cases . I think youre right. I think that is important. I know you have talked about the impact in florida, you are already seeing. I went in a helicopter over the miami region. When you see how much water is there it takes your breath away. I wonder if you could talk about how local communities are joining together to address the Climate Change. Do they have bipartisan support . The particularly in the south florida area, six counties have basically come together specifically to work on adaptation measures dealing with the problems they are already facing. Saltwater intrusion, the drainage systems, they Impact Todays problem. The Sea Level Rise of eight inches has a significant impact. Because of the level above sea level but also the terrain and the sub surface, this causes a significant issue in that part of the state. We see local governments struggling with the issue and spending significant amounts of money. My sense is that is going to be an expanding issue. It is going to be an expanding problem in the south florida area. In the nearterm. I met with the group in the miami area including scientists, they are concerned about what is happening today and how it will be exaggerated over the next 10 years. They are not talking about longterm. They are talking about 10 years. When it comes to environment we have big differences. When it comes to preparing we have come together. I want to mention that we have taken steps. This is the time for senators questions. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I am frustrated again. I am frustrated at the cartoonist nature of the assertions. Going after strawmen instead of having a detailed, serious discussion. I think senator bosemans comment of the 97 figure really goes to that. 97 to leave in this consensus about Climate Change. It is defined so broadly that all the republican members of this committee would be among the 97 . I hope we can get beyond going after strawmen and having these artoonish conversations. With that theme of science, let e start there. Who has graduate advanced degrees in the Natural Sciences . Et me ask you. One of these areas with cartoonish claims and outlandish claims is about evere weather. What is the historian record of the severity and frequency overall of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, and loods. As you have had in past testimony, the Analysis Shows that these of nonincreased. In terms of major storms. If that is the specific question, there has not been an increase in tornadoes and major storms according to his analysis. That is one of the most common rallying cries about this cartoonish debate. Lets talk about real science. We have a huge issue which is whatever we do, what is the rest of the world doing . These posters illustrate what china is doing. There are other countries that are a factor. With this in mind, will the epa rule as constructed have a significant affect on global average temperatures or sea evel rise . If the United States acts alone it will have a very insignificant effect. That does leave open if this is supposed to be a leadership ction or a scientific. If the nine states acts alone it will be minor. Could i make a comment about Sea Level Rise . Goahead. Time is limited. Most of the comments were about Sea Level Rise. It is wellknown to geologists and that the sea level has been rising since the end of the last ice age. The average estimated rate has been afoot a century. Hat is natural background. It has risen 10 inches in one place since 1930. That is within the natural background. This is on my time. That is completely natural. Lets go on to the other big mpact that we can measure. This is not a theoretical iscussion. Europe has been living this in the last 10 years. It is in the process of essentially reversing course. Europe is facing pain and ease climate rules. Cole returns to german utilities. Soaring energy and housing forces some to turn to food banks. It Renewable Energy in spain. What should we observe and learn from that European Experience . In terms of the treatment in this medical analogy, carbon policy is the equivalent of medieval bloodletting. It has not worked. It is not constraining admissions in world markets. There are two things you have to notice. There is a market developed to argue against taking action ith respect to carbon. There is a market developed for financial trading desks. They want to lobby to undertake this option. It is a strong industry right now. There are Interest Groups pushing for this. This will not work. Thank you mr. Chairman. I want to go to the epa administrators. I have a chart here of u. S. Gdp sense to depression. President johnson signed the first Clean Air Act in 1963. It was amended in 1970, 1977, nd 1990. I would like a quick answer. Has gdp gone up or down since each of these cleanair act aws . It has gone up. I cant disagree with that. That is fact. The Clean Air Act amendments that we are responsible for were followed by 10 recordsetting years in gdp growth. Interesting. Not a bloodletting. I would not say that. I agree with your chart. It has gone up. Lets keep going. Do you think that finding new ways of dealing with Climate Change could you create jobs in our economy by unleashing innovation in the marketplace . There is no question about it. It will create jobs. I looked on it, we have one industry already that is producing a lot of jobs and that is the Nuclear Energy industry. It releases no Greenhouse Gases while producing power. The 1990 amendments created n enormous number of jobs. Without question jobs will be created. It will impact jobs. I think we have a responsibility focus on how to we provide assistance to those whose jobs are being impacted. Let me move to another example. This is the Regional Initiative across the northeast in terms of the impact that has had in reducing Greenhouse Gases and overlapping with an economy across the northeast that is continued to grow over those years. Since the red g8 was put in place, there has been a 40 reduction in Greenhouse Gases n thosetes on average. In addition, it is help to save consumers money and created jobs. It is generated 750 Million Dollars in economic value in the state of massachusetts alone from 2009 to 2013. I would like to submit all of that Economic Data for the record. Without objection. Maybe you could talk about that, governor. The job creation aspect of this. T is a core argument here. Thank you, senator. I think it is fair to say that there are going to be jobs that will be impacted i whenever decisions we make. We have an obligation to the best we can for those who will be impacted to find other ways of earning a living and recognize that these things are real. One of the things you learn as a governor is you cannot make a decision that has an equal impact on everyone. Some people will not see the same benefit as others. It is your obligation to do what is in the best interest of the greatest number of people and mitigate the downside for those who will be negatively impacted. We see that time again. And we do that in this country. Mr. Thomas, there is an argument for more observation of climate variables. You mentioned sea level and heavy rainfall in your testimony. Sea level rise and rainfall have been measured by scientists for decades. They are not theoretical or models. What are the impacts of those changes. N your own home state. Clearly, south florida is dealing with Sea Level Rise as it impacts salt water intrusion in our coastal area and drainage water. Drainage systems are critical to the overall wellbeing of many of the coastal communities in south florida. The Sea Level Rise is an issue. Just as it is in a number of other states. I know the technological change made the delivery of milk obsolete. There was an absence of jobs were created to revolutionize the way that industry operated. We have to embrace it. The creation is obvious. We keep talking about the Clean Air Act amendments. Only did i vote for them, i was a cosponsor of those. They worked. That was dealing with real pollutants. It was never meant to deal with co2. I think we all understand that. The successes were there. You can use that as an rgument. Senator bozeman has diffused the 97 . He has answered that. I have a question for the three f you. Have to say this. Dr. , youre the only scientist on this panel. I was in copenhagen when this broke. Everything was predicated on the assumption that this was going to be accurate. I was there when im at gate broke. We already are it. They had manipulated reports and covered up errors. They wanted to make their case stronger than it was. The way that was covered up in our media, we have an alarmist biased in our media, it asnt. Throughout the world. The uks telegraph said it was the worst scientific scandal of our generation. It was overpowering. The guardian said it was a major blow. As a scientist, why do you think there are people who still believe that this science that was generated, if you look t my website, i listed hundreds of scientists who disagreed with the ipc see. I have asked myself this question many times. I look at the facts. I checked all the facts. The ipc see report is not onsistent. Why do so many people believe that . I puzzled about that a great eal. What i can say is one of my favorite books was published in 841. We are running out of time. I dont think there is a scientific answer. It is a popular issue. I try to look at the facts. I worked very hard to try and determine the effects of this over my career. I feel this data has changed. It is less of a danger than we hought before. You being the only economist on this panel, when this first started a lot of us were believing it was true. It happened that i chaired this committee. When i found out that they were talking about the cost, the m. I. T. Came out. All of them came to the same conclusion that the cost of this, the cost of cap and trade, would be between 300 billion a year and 400 billion year. I would not be surprised by that. That is consistent. My question is this, those bills, all of them were talking about regulating the emissions of entities that committed 25,000 tons or more. The Clean Air Act regulates 250 ons or more. S an economist, if it is true, what would it cost American People if they were able to successfully regulate the Clean Air Act . Orders of magnitude more. That is a good answer. Thank you. Senator bozeman. Thank you. You addressed arkansas as one of the most of the gold targets. They will be straight state level impacts. How will these impact opportunities for states like arkansas and what that will ean for consumers . To the extent that consumers in these states drive energy from lance in those states, they will pay more for their electricity. This is where things get wonky. You will have cross state effects. Will arkansas be able to buy commissions from other states to satisfy their admissions . How will we control that . Other thorough world countries in the know not to even bother to check the validity of the permits they are selling on the markets. We need to deal with these details. Until we sit down and look at these and look at the job losses that are very real, the fed does this at every meeting. They look at economic output. We need to look at this with each and every increase. Just waving your hands and saying it will be find is a level of policy that is orders of magnitude greater than anything we have done before. From my perspective, they arise because of problems in the arket. We have lots of little security crises. None of them affected the economy. We can do this. We can put the economy at risk. I think we need to think about this hard before we just die then. This is why we have a congress and congressional hearings is to go through all that theoretically and make sure that we do it not in haste. You mentioned gravity. In order to make something not be used, you have to raise the price. That is a method of doing it. You mentioned the 30 figure. What with that due to the cost f utilities . It is about five dollars and california is at 11. They are just adding to the cost of energy with no upside benefit. 30 is going to raise prices further. 45 in the northeast was cited today. I would expect that they would go up. Leadership is not just grabbing this failed system out of the e u. Or this ineffective system out of california and popping it down nationwide. Leadership is thinking more deeply about the implementation of carbon policy and coming up with Something Better than the rest of the world has put together so far, implementing it and then having the rest of the world follow. Thats why i cited the National Monetary commission with respect to the federal reserve. We did that. We have the best central bank of the world. Like or hate the details of it. We still lead throughout the world and we owe it to our citizens to put together a very thoughtful approach, to put together a meaningful approach to put together the carbon to help the world while also pricing economic extern nalt thats very real. So doctor, you would be one of the 97 thats talked about and certainly you feel like man is contributing and this and that, but certainly are not one that feels like the mod els are acceptable and i suspect you have many cohorts in the same camp. I think the key thing is science is not a rule by majority method. Thats the important thing. Its discovery. And i would like to quote the inventor of the polio crack sin. He said, i get into a dialogue with nature and put the question to nature not to my colleagues because thats from whence the answer must come and thats what i do i always look at the data. And also Richard Fineman one of the great 20th century quantum fizz sists said science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. So to keep saying its a majority thats not a scientific statement and its not correct. Ive spent 50 years working on Climate Change in a very constructive way. And what i can tell you is that since about 1990 the data has started to move in the other direction away from an important effect by human beings. And thats just what the facts show. Thank you very much. My concern is certainly we need to examine the increased risk of this. But i can tell you theres tremendous increased risk for the men and women sitting back there in the hard working people of arkansas if we are talking about a 45 or much greater probably in our case increase in utility prices as far as jobs. We talk a lot about income disparity in this country. What does that do to working moms, single what does that do to people on fixed incomes . Again, thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you very much, senator bozeman. That will conclude the questioning. Let me just say some final thank yous to our witnesses who are here. I appreciate particularly the efforts of the former administrators. I would ask if mr. Riley and mr. Thomas would answer my question for the record. The record will be kept open for an additional two weeks for anybody who wishes to add material to the record. I will ask unanimous consent to put in a review of the investigations that were prompted by what is called climategate but i contend is more accurately called climategate gate. In my view, the scandal is the phony sandal that was whipped up by scientific work that was then reviewed by i think six different authorities including american investigators, independent investigators, university investigators, and british investigators and every one of which gave a full clean bill of health to the science. So, too, i think that needs to be part of the record if members are going to bring up so called climategate. And then there has been some reference to the projections by the chamber of commerce as to what this proposed e. P. A. Regulation might cost. Some of our colleagues have leapt to cite that report but i think it is important for the hearing that we also include the Washington Post analysis of their claims which earned four pinocchios depending on how far you get from the truth you get more pinocchios relating back to the story of the pinocchio the wooden doll whose nose would grow when he wasnt being truthful. I will include the Washington Post four pinocchio finding about that. Also an organization named politifact which analyzes claims made in the political debate and tries to do a very neutral analysis of their accuracy. And politifact ruled that a false for that report. I think it is in the interest of fairness that those be admitted and i will ask un

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