The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Infrastructure (Executive Session)” mentioning John Kennedy was published in the Senate section on pages S2268-S2271 on April 28.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Infrastructure
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this body does not have to automatically raise taxes to pay for infrastructure. Now, I know some of my colleagues would disagree with me. Some want to raise the gasoline tax. The President--well, I think he wants to raise every tax known to man and beast to spend on infrastructure and other things. And that is--he is the President. He is an American. He is entitled to his own opinion.
But I don't think we spent nearly enough time looking at our current spending and asking ourselves if we could reprioritize some of the ways that we are spending taxpayer money.
Let me put it another way. No person with even a casual relationship with the Federal budget and/or an IQ above a root vegetable believes that every single penny being spent today in the U.S. Government's budget is being spent efficiently. I mean, it is just not, Mr. President. You know that. You have run a State before. You have put together a budget before. It is not. For example, we waste $144 billion a year, every year, on improper payments. We send checks to people who are not entitled to receive them--for the earned income tax credit, for example. We spend money on people who don't exist or aren't qualified to receive Medicaid. We even send money to dead people, and they cash the checks--or at least their relatives do.
Now, I am not naive. I know that we will never ever--an organization as large as the Federal Government will never be able to avoid a percentage of improper payments. I understand that. But we ought to at least try, particularly on sending the checks to dead people. Even if we could reduce that $144 billion by 10 percent or 20 percent or 25 percent, we are talking about a very large amount of recurring revenue.
A very simple solution--I suggested this to the White House, which hasn't responded--we have passed legislation in this body, as you know, to try to stop sending checks to dead people. There is just one problem: It was made effective 3 years from now. I had to agree to it in conference to get the bill passed. There is no good reason for it other than some lobbyists insisted on it.
President Biden right now, I think, could pick up at least $10 billion, maybe more--we are not sure how much--by just saying: Effective immediately, my administration is no longer going to send checks to dead people. I mean, who is going to get mad? Who supports sending money to dead people? The American people don't.
No. 2, we could repurpose the money--a lot of the money that we have already appropriated. I have lost count on how much money we have appropriated for coronavirus--not just on public health but also for our economy. Look, I voted for many of the bills. I didn't vote for the last one because I felt the last one was unnecessary, it was too expensive, and it really wasn't about the coronavirus.
But I think all fairminded people can agree right now on two things: No. 1, a lot of the money we appropriated in the last coronavirus bill has not been spent, and No. 2, we are no longer in an economic crisis. The main crisis we have right now is that our small business women and small business men can't find workers.
So we are currently not in an economic crisis, and I think we can go back and take some of that money--and my State, Louisiana is going to take--some aspects of my State government--it will take them 10 years to spend all the money we sent to them in the last bill. I can tell you, given the option in my State, they are going to choose to spend that money on infrastructure and not on what Congress sent them the money to spend it on.
No. 3, there is a very interesting study by the CBO taking the years--I think it was 2013 to 2017. The CBO took the entire Federal nonmilitary workforce, on which we spend $220 billion a year because we have to have workers, and they took every job in the Federal Government and compared it to every equivalent job in the private sector. It was a massive study. So it is apples to apples. The CBO found that the Federal Government, on average, pays a Federal worker 17 percent more annually than we pay the same worker in the private sector.
Now, I won't begrudge anybody a living, but what if we could reduce that to 15 percent or 12 percent? What if we could just not automatically fill every vacancy? What if we actually stopped and asked ourselves, if this position has been vacant for 8 months, maybe we don't need it. I think there are enormous savings to be had.
The final thing I will point out: Doing is better than having. Doing is better than having. You are happier when you have earned something than when somebody has just given it to you.
We are the most generous Nation in all of human history. The American people spend about $1 trillion a year helping our neighbors and some folks who are not our neighbors but are less fortunate than we are. But we spend about $76 billion a year on Medicaid and on food stamps for adults who are able-bodied, who are 55 years of age and younger, and who don't have children. Many of them could work. Now, I know there are obstacles to them being able to work. Maybe they need help looking for a job. Maybe they need employment counseling. Maybe they need help with transportation. But we could save enormous amounts of money, and our citizens, our people, and our neighbors, who are receiving this money, would be better off if they had a job.
We don't have to reinvent the wheel. All we have to do is look to Denmark. Denmark does an extraordinary job. They are very generous in Denmark with their payments for unemployment, but they also have an infrastructure set up in government, which we could do, which works with people to get them a job and to get them off welfare. And Denmark has saved an enormous amount of money. Let me say it again. Doing is better than having.
Am I saying we could save 100 percent of that $75 billion? No. I don't know how much we could save. Nobody else does either because we have never tried.
Now, in about--I don't know--7 minutes, I have just given you four or five ideas. I am not suggesting that this is anything. I am not pretending that I just discovered gravity or something. This isn't Earth-shaking. I mean, you can find this with just a cursory amount of research. Just call the folks over at the Congressional Budget Office and ask them: What are some ways we can save money in our Federal budget?
I just think we would all feel so much better. I know the American taxpayer would feel a lot better, if just for a little while, as we talk about the importance of infrastructure, true infrastructure--
roads, bridges, broadband--if we just spent a little while, as we talk about infrastructure, on how to pay for it without putting our hand even further, deeper, and more frequently in the taxpayers' pockets, because it can be done. I watched the Presiding Officer do it in Colorado. I have seen too many public officials do it. I think we need to at least try.
With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered
S.J. Res. 14
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of S.J. Res. 14, which we will vote on later today. I want to thank Senator Heinrich, Senator Markey, and Senator King for their leadership on this resolution. And I might be mistaken here, but I understand that when the Presiding Officer was Governor of Colorado, the Presiding Officer might have set the precedent for the creation of this point of view that is expressed in the resolution before us. So the Navy salutes Colorado.
The American people rely on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that our Nation has clean air, clean water, a clean environment, and a safe climate. Unfortunately, in 2020, under the previous administration, the EPA strayed from its mission any number of times.
One of those missteps was that Agency's methane rescission rule, which deregulated methane emissions from the oil and gas industry--our Nation's largest industrial source of this dangerous greenhouse gas. By passing this resolution, Congress, today, will reject and nullify this dangerous rule and restore clean air and climate protections from our Nation's largest sources of methane pollution.
Let me explain what methane is and why it is so harmful to our climate and to our health.
Methane is a super pollutant that damages our lungs and our planet. Compared to carbon dioxide, methane is a small part of our overall greenhouse gas emissions. Having said that, though, scientists tell us that methane is responsible for roughly--get this--one-quarter of the manmade global warming that we are witnessing today. Let me say that again: Methane is responsible for roughly one-quarter of the manmade global warming that we are experiencing and witnessing today.
Over a 20-year period, methane is 84 times more harmful to our climate than carbon dioxide--84 times. For a small molecule, methane punches above its weight when it comes to its contributions to climate change.
The oil and gas industry is our Nation's largest source of methane, responsible for nearly 30 percent of total methane emissions. For comparison, this amount of methane pollution has the same climate effect as the emissions from our Nation's entire fleet of passenger vehicles in a year.
In addition to damaging our climate, methane emissions also contribute to ground-level ozone, known as smog. Breathing in smog harms our lungs, and it aggravates lung diseases like bronchitis and asthma. Exposure to smog has been linked to premature death, and children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to these health risks. If we want to meaningfully tackle the danger to our health and our climate, we need to reduce methane emissions from the entire oil and gas sector.
In 2016, as I was alluding to earlier, the EPA acted to do just that. Building on State actions, such as in Colorado, whose former chief executive is presiding at this moment, the EPA put into place commonsense Clean Air Act regulations that required the oil and gas industry to update its equipment. The rule also required the industry to inspect frequently in order to find and repair leaks and malfunctions that are such a big source of our methane problem.
Based on feedback from the oil and gas industry meeting, these new emission requirements did not place an undue burden on companies or raise costs for consumers. In fact, many oil and gas companies and industry groups supported the measures, and they still do. That is why it was so surprising when, in September of 2020, the EPA issued the final methane rescission rule to roll back what so many believed to be commonsense approaches for reducing methane risks.
While the Trump administration moved forward with this damaging policy, the consequences of climate change were roiling--roiling--our Nation. California, for example, experienced its worst wildfire season on record, with historic forest fires covering an area about the size of the State of Rhode Island. Other Western States--including Oregon, Montana, and Colorado--were ablaze with unprecedented damaging wildfires.
At the same time, other parts of our country were being battered by violent, extreme weather. The people of Iowa experienced one of the most costly thunderstorms in history, with hurricane force winds, causing $7.5 billion in economic damage. It flattened, I am told, over half of that State's corn and soybean crops in one day.
Coastal towns in Southern States like Florida, like Louisiana, and like South Carolina were battered by hurricane after hurricane after hurricane. In the summer of 2020, last summer, we saw the most hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean in recorded history.
Despite all of this, the Trump administration took a step to undo one of the key tools available to us to combat methane emissions that contribute greatly to climate change. The methane rescission rule was a stark departure from the widely accepted, science-based, and commonsense view that we should protect people and our planet from the dangers of methane.
In promulgating the methane rescission rule, the Trump administration ignored the global scientific community, including EPA's own Agency scientists, who warned that the extreme weather events of 2020 were just the tip of the iceberg of consequences we can expect if we don't keep global warming below an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius between now and 2040.
The bottom line is that the Trump methane rescission rule would allow more methane pollution, increase public health dangers, and bring us ever closer to the brink of irreversible climate catastrophe. It is this Trump EPA action that my colleagues and I reject today through the resolution before us.
The methane rescission rule stated that methane couldn't be regulated under the Clean Air Act. We reject that. The methane rescission rule stated that EPA couldn't regulate the entire oil and gas sector from wellhead to storage. We reject that. The methane rescission rule stated that greenhouse gasses couldn't be regulated. We reject that. The methane rescission rule also reversed EPA's longstanding position on what is required to regulate a pollutant, making it harder for EPA to implement clean air and climate protections. We reject that as well.
With approval of this resolution, though, EPA can and should still move forward to strengthen methane standards for the oil and gas sector in the future. This effort is also very timely, coming on the heels of President Biden's climate commitment for our Nation to reduce emissions by 50 percent from 2005 levels by the end of this decade--by 2030.
Passing this resolution will be good for our health. Passing this resolution will be good for our planet. And passing this resolution will be good for America's economy. That is why so many States, so many environmental groups, and even a number of significant oil and gas companies support this resolution.
Joining over 60 environmental groups, as well as 20 State attorneys general, seven major oil and gas companies support today's resolution to reinstate requirements to control methane emissions. From the Environmental Defense Fund to Shell, from the League of Conservation Voters to BP, from the Natural Resources Defense Council to Equinor, there is a broad consensus among stakeholders with different interests--different interests--that Congress should reject and nullify the methane rescission rule.
So why do a number of oil and gas companies want Congress to reject the Trump rule, restore existing regulations, and pursue further regulations? They know the best way to boost growth in their sector and across the economy is to keep methane and other climate pollution in check. With unchecked methane releases in its operations, natural gas production and use become part of the climate problem, not a part of the solution as we endeavor to drive toward lower carbon fuels.
Companies know where the global market is heading. They know regulations will support innovation and technology deployment in their industry, bringing down emission reduction costs for everyone.
I sometimes like to quote Albert Einstein, who said, among other things: ``In adversity lies opportunity.'' Think about that: ``In adversity lies opportunity.'' We can see that in the issue of methane pollution and in climate change. It presents plenty of challenges. Yes, that is true. But it also presents a remarkable opportunity. It is an opportunity for us to protect our planet, improve the air that we breathe, and strengthen our economy.
At the same time, the product that the oil and gas industry is capturing can be sold to fuel more homes and businesses across the country. I want to say that again, too. At the same time, the product that the oil and gas industry is capturing can be sold to fuel more homes and businesses across the country. That is why today I will gladly vote for this resolution, which reaffirms that the Clean Air Act requires EPA to take action to protect Americans from dangerous pollution like methane.
In passing this resolution today, Congress is rejecting the Trump rule's baseless interpretation of the Clean Air Act and, in its place, reinstating commonsense methane public health and climate protections across the entire oil and gas sector. We are also clearing a path for additional protections from methane and other hazardous climate pollutants.
As a Senate, we are making our intent clear: The Clean Air Act gives EPA the authority and the mandate to establish methane emissions standards, even stronger than the ones we reinstate with this resolution. This includes all facets of the oil and gas industry now and moving forward, from production to processing and from transmission to storage.
We are saying to EPA loud and clear: It is your mission to protect the environment, to protect human health and public welfare from the dangers of climate pollutants like methane. And there is a lot of work still to do before that mission can be achieved. It is time that we get to that work. We don't have a lot of time to waste.
I have a couple of unanimous consent requests I would like to offer. One is to place supportive materials into the Record. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the Record several of my materials in support of S.J. Res. 14 that is before us today; first, the Biden administration's Statement of Administration Policy supporting passage of the resolution; second, two letters of support for passing this joint resolution--one from the 57 leading environmental and advocacy groups and another, the Shell Oil Company.
These letters demonstrate the breadth of support for regulating this harmful pollutant and rejecting the methane rescission rule.
I ask unanimous consent for these to be inserted into the Record as appropriate
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Statement of Administration Policy
S.J. Res. 14--A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``Oil and
Natural Gas Sector: Emission Standards for New, Reconstructed, and
Modified Sources Review''
(Sen. Heinrich, D-NM, and 23 cosponsors)
The Administration supports passage of S.J. Res. 14, a joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval of the rule ``Oil and Natural Gas Sector: Emission Standards for New, Reconstructed, and Modified Sources Review,'' published at 85 Fed. Reg. 57018 (September 14, 2020). This action would ensure that this rule, which eliminated pollution standards for methane emissions from the oil and gas sector and eliminated all emission standards for the transmission and storage segments of that sector, will have no force or effect and reinstate the pollution reduction requirements established under the Clean Air Act in 2012 and 2016.
Addressing methane leaks through detection and repair by using already cost-effective technologies can spur the creation of good-paying jobs fixing leaking equipment and pipelines--all while minimizing waste and reducing this powerful source of pollution. Today, the oil and gas sector is the largest industrial source of methane emissions--a potent climate-disrupting greenhouse gas that is responsible for approximately one-third of the global warming and the resulting climate disruption we are already experiencing from climate change. In order to effectively mitigate climate change, addressing methane pollution from this and other sectors is an urgent and essential step.
Every American has a fundamental right to breathe clean air and drink clean water. These methane emissions--leaking during oil and gas production, transmission, and distribution activities--also contribute to the formation of smog, or ground-level ozone, which is harmful to both human health and agriculture. Oil and gas production is also a significant emitter of carcinogenic and smog-forming volatile organic compounds into frontline communities. These communities, as well as children, the elderly, outdoor workers, and individuals with respiratory conditions, are at higher risk of experiencing harmful health outcomes due to exposure to such pollution. Oil and gas pollution can also be carried by the wind and intensify air pollution problems in communities along that path, including across state boundaries.
The Clean Air Act authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect Americans from dangerous air pollution, including methane and volatile organic compounds. Nonetheless, the rule that this resolution disapproves of took four harmful actions that increased the amount of harmful pollution to which Americans are exposed: (1) the elimination of pollution standards for methane emissions from the oil and gas sector; (2) the elimination of all air pollution standards for the transmission and storage segments of the oil and gas sector; (3) removal of the predicate that establishes EPA's obligation to address the extensive methane pollution emitted by existing sources; and (4) establishment of a new, non-statutory requirement that EPA make an additional, pollutant-specific finding of significant contribution to endangerment before addressing harmful air pollution from a sector already regulated under the Clean Air Act. All four of these actions would be reversed by the passage and signature of the resolution.
S.J. Res. 14 will restore robust Clean Air Act pollution standards for this sector, protecting American communities. The resolution will also clear the pathway for EPA to evaluate opportunities to promulgate even stronger standards under section 111 of the Clean Air Act to address dangerous methane and other pollution from both new and existing sources across the oil and gas sector. The Administration looks forward to working with the Congress to restore these critically important pollution standards.
____
April 26, 2021.Hon. Nancy Pelosi,Speaker, House of Representatives,Washington, DC.Hon. Kevin McCarthy,Minority Leader, House of Representatives,Washington, DC.Hon. Charles Schumer,Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,Washington. DC.Hon. Mitch McConnell,Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,Washington, DC.
Dear Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Schumer, Minority Leader McCarthy, and Minority Leader McConnell: On behalf of our collective millions of members and supporters, we write to express our full support of Senate Joint Resolution (S.J. Res.) 14 and House Joint Resolution (H.J. Res. 34), providing for congressional disapproval of recent executive action to roll back the 2016 methane and volatile organic compound standards. We urge Congress to swiftly vote to pass this resolution, an action which would allow the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to accelerate strengthening safeguards against methane and other pollution.
As you know, methane is a potent pollutant that is responsible for around 25 percent of the impacts of climate change we are experiencing today. In 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established regulations to tackle methane and other dangerous emissions from new and modified sources within the oil and gas sector, which is the largest industrial source of methane pollution. This action took concrete steps to implement science-based standards to combat previously unchecked emissions. The oil and gas sector is likewise a significant source of smog-forming volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants in communities across the nation.
In the waning days of the previous administration, EPA finalized a rule that eliminated safeguards that protect our climate and communities from oil and gas pollution and attempted to erect barriers to the promulgation of future standards. Many oil and gas operators, natural gas users like utilities, states, and environmental and health groups support federal standards to regulate methane emissions. Many environmental and health groups, state and local governments, utilities and other gas purchasers, oil and gas operators, and even the American Petroleum Institute (API), have expressed support for federal rules to curb the oil and gas industry's wasteful methane releases--wasted gas worth $2.4 billion, which could be used to heat approximately 12.5 million homes in a year. Adopting S.J. Res. 14 and H.J. Res. 34 will reinstate pollution protections and clear the path for EPA to move forward with widely-supported, sensible safeguards for methane and other pollution from oil and gas production.
We must take early action to reduce harmful methane emissions as a necessary step to combating the climate crisis. Regulation of dangerous methane emissions is critical to lowering the magnitude of warming we will experience around 2050. We need leaders who will fight for a healthier future and seek ambitious next-generation standards for new and existing oil and gas facilities. S.J. Res. 14 provides the EPA with a clean slate to get back to a regulatory process that makes scientific sense and gets our goal of ambitious methane emissions reductions back on track, while advancing our collective climate and environmental justice goals.
Sincerely,
Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Brighter Green,
Center for Civic Policy, Center for Human Rights and
Environment, Chapel Hill Organization for Clean Energy,
Citizens Caring for the Future, Citizens' Environmental
Coalition, Clean Air Council, Clean Air Task Force,
Clean Water Action, Climate Advocates Voces Unidas,
Climate Law & Policy Project, Conservation Colorado,
Conservation Voters New Mexico, Dakota Resource
Council.
Defend Our Future, Earth Action, Inc., Earthjustice,
Earthworks, Empire State Consumer Project,
Environmental Defense Fund, Fort Berthold POWER,
Franciscan Action Network, Grand Canyon Trust,
GreenLatinos, Health Action New Mexico, Hispanic Access
Foundation, Interfaith Power & Light, League of
Conservation Voters, League of Oil and Gas Impacted
Coloradans, Moms Clean Air Force, National Organization for Women, National Parks Conservation Association.
Natural Resources Defense Council, New Mexico Interfaith
Power and Light, New Mexico Sportsmen, Partnership for
Responsible Business, Powder River Basin Resource
Council, ProgressNow Colorado, Project CoffeeHouse,
Protect All Children's Environment, Public Citizen,
Rachel Carson Council, Responsible Drilling Alliance,
Rio Grande Indivisible.
Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, Santa Fe Green Chamber of
Commerce, Sciencecorps, Sierra Club, The Evangelical
Environmental Network, The Greater Prince William
Climate Action Network, The Ohio Environmental Council,
The Wilderness Society, Waterkeeper Alliance, Western
Colorado Alliance, Western Organization of Resource
Councils, Young Evangelicals for Climate Action.
____
Shell Oil Company,
Houston, TX, April 22, 2021.Hon. Tom Carper,Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.Hon. Shelley Moore Capito,Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Environment and Public
Works, Washington, DC.Hon. Frank Pallone,Chairman, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Washington,
DC.Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers,Ranking Member, House Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Capito, Chairman Pallone, and Ranking Member Rodgers: Shell supports passage of a proposed joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to rescind the 2020 rule ``Oil and Natural Gas Sector: Emission Standards for New, Reconstructed and Modified Sources Review'' and reinstate the direct regulation of methane emissions from new and modified sources established by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2016.
Beginning in 2015, Shell worked with EPA and industry peers to develop a workable approach to regulating methane from onshore oil and gas sources. Shell was the first oil major to signal support for the rule. Beginning in 2017, Shell urged the Trump Administration to make desired refinements to the regulation, but to maintain the direct regulation of methane from onshore sources established by the previous Administration.
The efficient regulation of methane from onshore oil and gas production makes good business sense, as methane captured is methane sold, advances the energy transition and expands the role of natural gas as a transition fuel. The 2016 rule sparked innovation, contributing to the development of more efficient and affordable pneumatics, better cameras and new airborne imagery, tools that help us better understand and control methane leaks from our assets.
I have appreciated the leadership of those in Congress working to advance this joint resolution. I have attached an oped in support of the resolution published last week in the Houston Chronicle.
Sincerely,
Gretchen Watkins,
President.
Mr. CARPER. Now, Mr. President, I will yield the floor, but before I do, I want to salute you for your role in an earlier day, in an earlier place, your State of Colorado, for helping get this started. We are in your debt. Good work. God bless.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Rosen). The Senator from Iowa
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