SCHATZ. Mr. President, I want to talk a little about the
particulars of the Clean Power Plan and address some of the questions
that have been raised by some of the opponents.
I think the first premise has to be that carbon is an airborne
pollutant; that the Clean Air Act doesn't just give the EPA the
authority to regulate airborne pollutants, it actually requires that
all airborne pollutants that can cause a public health risk get
regulated. That is the basis of the Supreme Court decision. This
doesn't give the EPA the discretion--this doesn't give the Obama
administration the discretion to regulate carbon pollution, it requires
that they do so. So the only question is not a legal one. The legal one
has been settled. The EPA is required to regulate pollution under the
Clean Air Act. The only question remaining is, Is carbon a pollutant? I
don't think there is anybody credible in this Chamber who thinks carbon
is not a pollutant.
Look, I think we are actually making progress. Over the last 6 to 12
months, we have seen a sea change among Republican Members of Congress
who are increasingly concerned, I think, about being on the wrong side
of history, about being on the wrong side of science, about being on
the wrong side of a whole generation of young voters--Republican,
Democratic, and Independent--who understands this is one of the great
challenges of our generation. So we are seeing some movement. We are
seeing some openness to at least concede that this problem, in fact,
exists.
We have this incredible law in the Clean Air Act. We don't need to
pass a new law. Of course, Senator Whitehouse and I have been working
very hard with Senator Boxer and others on a carbon fee, but we also
have the tools at our disposal to regulate carbon pollution. Like
methane and other airborne pollutants, it is causing environmental and
health damage.
The Clean Power Plan is very simple. It is treating this as though it
is the pollutant that it is. Originally, I think there were some
legitimate concerns about how this thing was going to get administered.
I will give a ``for example.''
If you are in a very small rural State and you are going to regulate
not a State's total carbon emissions but an individual powerplant's
carbon emissions, that is a very tough sell. There are instances where,
because of legacy infrastructure, because of distance--for instance, in
Hawaii we have remote and relatively small islands. So it is very
difficult to ask the island of Lanai, which is running on diesel-fired
generators, or the island of Molokai, to, at an individual powerplant
level, reduce carbon emissions. That is tough. They can make
improvements in efficiency, but they may not be able to meet the
standard. So the idea is to allow all of it to aggregate.
What Hawaii did, we have a Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative,
recognizing that there are going to be some places that will have
incredible challenges economically and in terms of the financing of the
projects, incredible challenges complying at the micro level, at the
site level, at the power generation level, but if we provide
flexibility to States--and I know in California with the Cap-and-Trade
Program and the Northeast with the RGGI Program, there is a flexibility
regionally or within States of energy systems to say that as long as
you, in the aggregate, are making sufficient progress, we are going to
allow you to figure out how to make that progress on your own. So we
anticipate these rules will provide sufficient flexibility to allow
economies to thrive.
I will make one final point on this before hearing from the great
Senator from California; that is, all of the hue and cry, all of the
panic, all of the heartburn about what is going to happen to our
economy doesn't have to be an abstract question anymore. We have States
currently exceeding the anticipated thresholds in the clean
powerplants. So we don't have to imagine what is going to happen to
various economies if we comply because we have States such as
California, we have the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative.
Two years ago, I was on the floor talking about the Hawaii Clean
Energy Initiative with a 40-percent renewable portfolio standard, and
the legislature in the last 3 or 4 months just passed the first 100
percent clean energy statute in the United States. Our unemployment
rate is 4 percent, and we have exceeded our previous goals. California,
with its Cap-and-Trade Program, and all the hue and cry and panic about
what would happen to our economy--California is booming. Hawaii is
doing well. People still have their economic challenges, but it is not
because of our desire to drive an innovation economy and to try to
solve this great challenge of our time.
We can create clean energy jobs. We can innovate into the future.
America has an incredible opportunity to lead in this space. I am so
pleased to be part of that innovation and part of that leadership. We
are putting our marker down as a country. We understand this is going
to take a global effort, but now America has the credibility to lead on
climate.
Mr. President, I yield the floor to the great Senator from
California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
