Volume 155, No. 183 covering the 1st Session of the 111th Congress (2009 - 2010) was published by the Congressional Record.
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.
“THE UNITED STATES--A LEADER IN ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND CLEAN ENERGY JOB CREATION” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H13608-H13613 on Dec. 8, 2009.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE UNITED STATES--A LEADER IN ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND CLEAN ENERGY JOB
CREATION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, without question, we are now engaged in an historic debate, and that debate is over the question of whether the United States is going to become a leader and not a laggard on the question of climate change and energy independence and clean energy job creation in our country.
What is happening on the Republican side is that they have decided to engage in a phony debate--in a debate about science, which is, in fact, not debatable, in a debate about whether the United States should be the leader in green job creation and energy independence, which should not be debatable. So let's begin first with the science.
The science is quite clear. Over the last 130 years, there has been a tracking of the temperature of the planet. It is clear that we have now entered, as the world has industrialized, a period of rapid warming of the planet. In fact, since 2001, 9 of the 10 warmest years in the history of our country have been recorded. Nine of the 10 warmest years in the record. So this trend line, this rapid warming of our planet, is something which, of course, is of great concern because glaciers melt. The Arctic ice cap melts. The deserts in Africa, in Asia begin to widen. Water evaporates. The world, as a result, sees fundamental changes in the way in which it operates. So this undeniable increase in warming due to the CO2, the greenhouse gases which are going up into the atmosphere, is something which we really don't have an ability to debate.
What the Republicans have done is they have taken a couple of emails from some scientists who had a fight scientifically over whether or not they would be properly characterized at some point in the past, and they have taken that as an entree to question the consensus that has been reached by the National Academy of Sciences of every country in the world. It's kind of their death panel equivalent for the climate debate, for the energy debate. How can we find something that's irrelevant--minor--and elevate it to the point where it obscures the need for us to really debate the big issues that are in front of us?
So this warming trend is absolutely indisputable. What they contend is that, at this point, it really hasn't spiked that much higher in the last 10 years. It has stayed at this relatively high, historical plateau. So their concern is that there needs to be a reevaluation as to whether or not the planet is actually warming.
It's kind of like saying to a mother, Well, you know, the average temperature is 98.6 for all human beings, and little Joey's temperature is now up to 100.6, 2 degrees higher, but it has only been there for the last 10 days, so don't worry about it. That's the new normal for his temperature, 100.6. Who as a parent would ever accept a 2-degree increase in temperature for 10 days as being the new normal?
Well, that's what they're saying about the temperature of the planet. The planet is running a fever. There are no emergency rooms for planets. We must engage in preventative care; but what they are saying is that this new temperature is the new normal, the new temperature for the planet, even though we can see the beginnings of the catastrophic consequences of having that temperature at such a high level.
So this debate does turn on science. Ours is irrefutable. No one denies even on their side that the temperatures have risen dramatically. They don't debate that. They don't debate that the Arctic ice cover is eroding rapidly. They don't deny that there has been a 30 percent increase in the acidification of our oceans. They don't deny that it has become 6 degrees warmer in Alaska during the winter over the last 50 years. None of this do they deny, but what they really are trying to do is to stop any legislative attempt, any international attempt to put together a set of solutions for these problems. That's really at the heart of this matter.
So, as we move forward, the issue for us is: How do we deal with it? Well, you know, I thought I would think through some analogy that we could use, and what I thought about was baseball.
In baseball, going back to 1920 when Babe Ruth was playing, the average number of players in the Major Leagues who hit more than 40 home runs in a season was 3.3 players. That goes all the way from 1920 up until very recently. So that covers Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays. That's why they were so famous. Anyone who could hit more than 40 home runs was very famous.
Then all of a sudden, beginning about 20 years ago, more and more players started hitting more than 40 home runs. Major League Baseball said, Well, don't worry about it. The players are getting stronger. Don't worry about it. The ballparks must be getting smaller. Now, some people said, Maybe, just maybe, the players are injecting steroids into themselves; but Major League Baseball said, No, no, no--don't worry about it--until finally we reached a point where 10 players were hitting 40 home runs, where 15 players were hitting 40 home runs, where 17 players were hitting 40 home runs. They just weren't breaking Babe Ruth's record. They were blowing that record away. They were just so much stronger.
Then all of a sudden, baseball decided, because of congressional intervention, to start testing for steroids. Guess what happens? After they start testing for steroids, all of a sudden, very quickly--just over the last 3 years--the same average for 40 home run hitters that existed from 1920 has been restored. The American League leader only had 39 home runs this year. I wonder why that happened? Maybe because they tested for the injection of artificial stimulants into baseball players.
Well, the same thing is true when it comes to our planet. When you inject artificial stimulants into the atmosphere, you get warming. You are now playing with Mother Nature. The warming of the planet has dramatic consequences for all of its inhabitants, and we in the United States are not immune to the consequences. We are going to be radically adversely affected by the impact. So what is the solution?
Well, you might remember just about a year and a half ago that President Bush went to Saudi Arabia. At a point when we had gas prices up around $4 a gallon and at a point when our economy was starting to teeter on the brink because of this impact of oil, President Bush went to Saudi Arabia.
President Bush said to the Saudi prince, Please produce another million barrels of oil a day that we could purchase from you. Send us more oil. Have us buy more of your oil at $147 a barrel.
That was a low point in American history. By the way, do you know what the Saudi prince said to President Bush?
The Saudi prince said, I will consider selling more oil to you at
$147 a barrel, but you must first promise me that you will start selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia.
Do you know what President Bush's response was to the Saudi Arabians?
We will start selling nuclear power plants to you.
Now, which country in the world does not need nuclear power for its electricity? Which country in the world has so much sun, so much wind, so much oil, so much gas that to build a nuclear power plant would really be a waste of money? I wonder why the Saudi Arabians would want nuclear power--uranium? plutonium? Yet that is the promise that President Bush made to the Saudi Arabians.
We are in the midst of a debate over climate, in a debate over some emails. Who do you think partnered with these skeptics? Who do you think has partnered with the Republican Party in now questioning the validity of climate change?
{time} 1800
The Saudi Arabians yesterday said, we want an investigation. We want an investigation as to whether or not there really is climate change affecting the planet. Now, I wonder why the Saudi Arabians, the number one producer of oil on the planet, the number one exporter, would start to question climate change, start to try to throw some doubt into whether or not the world should be moving away from imported oil, moving away from this dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
I wonder why they would be the partner with the American Petroleum Institute on this issue, in the same way that maybe you would wonder why the American Tobacco Institute used to question whether or not smoking caused cancer and all of the science which they funded at the American Tobacco Institute as these fumes were being inhaled by people and by children and those families.
Well, now we have a different kind of fume that has been going up from coal-fired plants, from oil that is consumed in our country and around the planet. We know that there is a dangerous warming of our planet, a dangerous impact.
Yet, like the American Tobacco Institute, the American Petroleum Institute says, well, let's question what's going on. The Saudi Arabians say, let's question what's going on. Maybe we don't want to move too fast.
Well, let me tell you something. In 1970, when the United States was just really beginning to get addicted to imported oil, we imported about 20 percent of the oil which we consumed in the United States. Well, today, ladies and gentlemen, we import 57 percent of the oil that we consume, and we import it from very dangerous places in the world.
As a matter of fact, here is an astounding number. One half of our entire trade deficit is from imported oil. Everything else that we import combined is equal to the price we have to pay for oil to bring it into our country. We produce fewer than 8 million barrels of oil a day, we import more than 11 million barrels of oil a day. Over the course of the year, oil accounts for half of our trade deficit.
Now, here is another astounding fact. Three percent of the world's reserves of oil are controlled by the United States, but we actually consume 25 percent of the world's oil every day, 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, 25 percent of the consumption.
Now, you keep that going for another 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, you can see what that's going to do to our national security. You can see what that's going to do to our trade deficit. You can see what that's going to do to a new clean-energy jobs revolution.
Those that want this revolution to be stopped, this revolution consisting of wind energy, solar energy, geothermal, biomass, all-
electric vehicles and hybrids, buildings that are twice as efficient so that we don't have to use all that energy. All of the opponents, of course, are going to jump on this very, very, very thin reed and try to use it as a way of undermining our ability to pass historic legislation and the world's ability to come together to create historic international agreements to reduce the amount of fossil fuels that we burn in our atmosphere.
People say, oh, can you do it? Is it possible for the United States? Is it possible for us to lead in this new direction?
Well, I would point back to the 1990s. In the 1990s, we were still living, unfortunately, in this kind of black rotary-dial phone world. We were living in a world where cell phones were about the size of a brick, it cost 50 cents a minute to make a call and people didn't have cell phones in their pocket. We had to change the laws in the United States.
Well, I happened to be the chairman of the Telecommunications Subcommittee at that time. If we wanted an 18-inch satellite dish that people could buy, we had to change the law. If we wanted cell phones that people could have that had data, video, voice, and they paid under 10 cents a minute, we had to change the laws. If we wanted to have broadband in our country, rather than narrow band, if we wanted to have a capacity to have Google, eBay, Hulu, Amazon, Twitter and YouTube, we would have to change the laws.
Now, of course, there were many people, led by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, opposed to the Telecommunications Act. The Chamber of Commerce said, Oh, it will be bad for our country. Can you imagine if we had listened to the Chamber of Commerce and we had not changed our laws? All of these products would have been created--
but not in the United States. We would not have branded it ``Made in the U.S.A.''
We are a technological giant. That's our greatest strength. Our weakness, our greatest weakness, is that we only have 3 percent of the oil reserves in the world, and we allow it to control our destiny.
This revolution, the telecommunications revolution, it created 1.5 to 2 million new jobs. There are people all across our country right now, and we are able to go down and check our BlackBerry, even as they are listening to us here. That's great. That's what we should be looking for.
That's what young people want. That's what ``the green generation'' wants. They are saying, no brainer, why don't we move towards green energy? Why don't we move towards these clean energy jobs, wind, solar, move that way? No, no the opponents are saying. That would be dangerous.
They have got a couple of emails that they believe call into question the entire science of whether or not the planet is warming, whether the glaciers are melting, whether the corals are being destroyed, whether there has been a 30 percent increase in the acidification of our oceans, whether or not there has been a 6-degree warming in Alaska in the winter over the last 50 years.
They are calling it all into question. Of course, they don't have any answers for it. They don't have any way of really explaining it, but they are using it as a deliberate political tactic in order to slow down the legislative and international response to the problem.
The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, 2 days ago said in the opening session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen that the recent incidents of stealing the emails of scientists at the University of East Anglia shows that some would go to the extent of carrying out illegal acts, perhaps in an attempt to discredit the IPCC. But the panel has a record of transparent and objective assessments stretching over 21 years performed by tens of thousands of dedicated scientists from all corners of the globe. I am proud to inform this conference that the findings of the panel are based on measurements made by many independent institutions worldwide that demonstrate significant changes on land, in the atmosphere, the oceans and in the ice-covered areas of the Earth. The internal consistency from multiple lines of evidence strongly supports the work of the scientific community, including those individuals singled out in these email exchanges, many of whom have dedicated their time and effort to develop these findings in teams of lead authors in the series of IPCC assessment reports during the past 21 years.
The IPCC process is designed to ensure consideration of all relevant scientific information from established journals with robust peer-
review processes or from other sources which have undergone robust and independent peer review. The entire report-writing process of the IPCC is subjected to extensive and repeated review by experts as well as by governments.
There were a total of around 2,500 expert reviewers performing this review process. Consequently, there is full opportunity for experts in the field to draw attention to any piece of published literature and its basic findings that would ensure inclusion of a wide range of views.
The Republicans have been unable to win a debate on clean energy and climate based on the facts, the science or the economics. Now, in a desperate attempt to manipulate the truth, they have joined with Saudi Arabia and ExxonMobil to promote a manufactured scandal about stolen emails, not science, because they can't answer these questions about the warming of the planet, the permafrost being destroyed up in Alaska.
The personal emails in question----
Mr. LINDER. We are prepared to have that debate right now if the gentleman would yield.
Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. The gentleman will have his turn.
The personal emails in question do not in any way disprove or undercut the mountain of scientific evidence on global warming. Now the Republicans are attacking the scientists who have worked decades on this problem, going so far as to accuse them of scientific fascism.
This is an insult to America's best and brightest scientists. The science that we are relying upon is the science of NASA, the science of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Academy of Sciences and our United States military. That is the evidence that we are relying upon. Men and women who had nothing to do with the emails and whose work has shown climate change is real and a danger to public health.
The scientists have used a careful, rigorous and transparent approach to come to consensus that evidence of global warming is unequivocal. The data topics referred to in the emails were all transparent and also debated openly and in public literature at that time.
Additionally, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the AAAS, has reaffirmed its statement that global climate change caused by human activities is now underway and is a growing threat to society.
On December 4, just a couple of days ago, more than 25 leading U.S. scientists sent an open letter. Here is what they said. They said the content of the stolen emails has no impact whatsoever on our overall understanding that human activity is driving dangerous levels of global warming. The letter states, even without including analysis from the UK research center from which the emails were stolen, that the body of evidence underlying our understanding of human-caused global warming remains robust.
The AAAS expressed grave concerns that the illegal release of private emails stolen from the University of East Anglia should not cause policymakers and the public to become confused about the scientific basis of climate change. Similarly, the prestigious British journal Nature published an editorial last week saying that there was no reason for its editors to revisit papers submitted by scientists whose emails were stolen.
The American Meteorological Society has also stated that the emails gave them no reason to revisit its conclusion that human activity is driving climate change.
Bryan Walsh of Time magazine writes in his article, ``The truth is that the emails, while unseemly, do little to change the overwhelming scientific consensus on the reality of manmade climate change.'' The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, in the opening of the U.N. climate change conference, as I just pointed out, made the very same point.
{time} 1815
So the consensus from the scientific community is clear that the Republicans are trying to manufacture an issue to derail legislation. They do not have the information. They do not have the scientific evidence to maintain their points. However, the Saudi Arabians and ExxonMobil, they want to question it. They want to continue business as usual in our country. But the consequences, if we do move forward in their direction, will be further catastrophic consequences for our planet.
The emails do not in any way indicate global warming data is flawed or manipulated. The emails do not in any way undermine the sound science or disprove the unequivocal scientific consensus that global warming is real and caused by manmade carbon pollution. These emails do not show evidence of a conspiracy. The emails do not contain admissions of a global warming hoax. And the emails do not show that data was falsified. The Republicans are cherry-picking key words in emails to try to manufacture a scandal.
Here are two prime examples: one email suggests using a trick. Now, this email was written in 1999, 10 years ago. Since that time the planet has had 9 of the 10 hottest years on record. We have seen category 5 hurricanes like Katrina, record wildfires out West, villages falling into the sea in Alaska, and a 500-year flood in the Midwest, not to mention the disappearance of Arctic Sea ice at a rate far outpacing the climate models. These events are not a trick. They have all found global warming to be a danger to public health and national security. This work is publicly available and fully transparent.
Next, skeptical scientists have not been silenced or suppressed. The deniers have not been silenced. In fact, their very research and opinions mentioned in the emails were, in fact, included in the IPCC report. Two of the skeptical papers that the emails suggest should be kept out of the IPCC process are cited and discussed in chapter 3 of the 2007 IPCC Physical Science Basis report. Deniers have testified before Congress literally dozens of times. But the majority of their work has been funded by Big Oil and by other polluters. And let's not forget deniers and skeptics had 8 years of George Bush to help them delay action.
The scientific process has been very robust; but if you want to have a story about emails, then let's talk about the Environmental Protection Agency of George Bush.
After the Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA was rendered in April of 2007, they instructed the Bush administration and its Environmental Protection Agency to make a determination as to whether or not CO2 posed a danger to the health and welfare of the American people. They told them they had to make a finding one way or the other. Well, back in May of 2008, the EPA of George Bush made the decision that CO2 was a danger, and they sent an email over to the White House saying we have found the danger.
But Vice President Cheney found out that an email had been sent and the finding was not going to be finalized until the Bush White House accepted that email.
So what did they do? Vice President Cheney ordered that the email not be received in the White House. No email, which is the consensus of the Environmental Protection Agency of George Bush that CO2 is a danger; we won't accept that email.
Now, there is a scandal. That's a scandal. The American Environmental Protection Agency has made a finding that CO2 is a danger and Vice President Cheney says, We won't accept it. Send the email back because once we get it, we'll have to act on it. There is a scandal. That's the Cheney-Bush years, holding hands with the Saudi Prince. Please send us more oil, denying the science that their own EPA had developed saying that CO2 is a danger to the health and welfare of our country. That is what is the real scandal, that they were denying science. They were denying the evaluation made by thousands of scientists not only in our own country but around the world.
And who are these scientists? They're the people that work at NASA. They're the people who work at NOAA. They're the people who work at the Navy Department, in the Army, in the Marines, in the Air Force. These are the people that have gathered this information. Our submarine crews who have been in Polaris submarines going under the Arctic to measure the depth of the ice, these are the people whose information is now being called into question by the Republicans.
These are the people whose email going into the White House was rejected by Dick Cheney. No, we don't want to act. We're going to finish out all 8 years of the Bush-Cheney era without ever having done anything about climate change.
This scientific process is very robust. The emails show without question that scientists are human. The power of the scientific process, however, has always been its ability to overcome human bias. That is the case with climate science as well. Despite the revelation that a few climate scientists may have considered acting inappropriately, there is virtually no evidence that anything was done that in any way would affect the final conclusion that was reached that this is a real danger to our planet.
The burden of proof here is all wrong. The climate deniers should be trying to explain why the tens of thousands of scientists who say global warming is unequivocal are wrong, why they think global warming isn't happening. And they can't do it. They cannot take on these tens of thousands of scientists around the world. So instead they're trying to create a mini-contretemps, something that makes it look like there's a real debate.
Yes, it's between Democrats and Republicans, but it's really between scientists at a 98 percent level and everyone else. But they're trying to take the 1 percent, 2 percent and make it out like there's an evenhanded debate. That's what the American Tobacco Institute used to do. The American Tobacco Institute used to find a couple of scientists that said, Don't worry about smoking, there's still no conclusive evidence that it's harmful to your lungs.
By the way, my father, smoking two packs of Camels a day, he used to say to my brothers and my mother and I, Don't worry about my smoking; okay? Two packs of Camels won't kill me. Until finally that little spot showed up on his lung and took my father. It still didn't convince, of course, the American Tobacco Institute. It didn't convince those people who were in scientific denial that these fumes that were being inhaled could lead to the death of people any more than the science which is overwhelmingly conclusive that the glaciers are melting, the Arctic ice cover is shrinking, the permafrost being exposed up in Alaska, the villages falling into the ocean beginning with Shishmaref, the village up in Alaska, because of that dramatic warming; that it had nothing to do, of course, they say, with the science--kind of like the American Tobacco Institute.
But the overwhelming consensus not only of our scientists but of the world is that these fumes that are being inhaled by our planet are making our planet sick.
So that's our choice. It's to make them explain why the Arctic has lost an ice cover three times the size of Texas compared to just a couple of decades ago; why Alaskan winters are 6.3 degrees warmer now than they were 50 years ago; why the ocean waters are 30 percent more acidic than they were in pre-industrial times; why this summer, the ocean was the warmest in NOAA's 130-year record.
The year 2000 was the 15th warmest year in NASA's record; 2001 is tied for the eighth warmest; 2002 is tied for the third warmest; 2003 is the sixth warmest; 2004 is tied for the eighth warmest; 2005 is the warmest year on NASA's record; 2006 is the seventh warmest year ever recorded; 2007 is the second warmest ever recorded; 2008 is the 10th warmest ever recorded; and just today we learned that 2009 is projected to be the fifth warmest year on record. All of it leading inevitably, inexorably towards catastrophic conditions for our planet.
Well, as this science was being developed, the Republicans did not decide to accept it. Dick Cheney said, Keep that email out of the White House. I don't care what my own EPA says. I don't care what the scientists hired by the Bush administration said about global warming, that email telling us that it is a danger to our planet, to our country, because that's the finding they had to make. The finding the EPA had to make was not a danger to the world, a danger to the United States of America. And that email, that scientific email, was summarily rejected by Dick Cheney because once they accepted it, they would then have the political and moral responsibility to ensure that something had to be done about it.
So there was no open and free discussion inside the Bush administration on that science. There was no roundtable with Dick Cheney sitting in the middle of it saying, Well, let's now debate the science. Oh, no. No free and open discussion of science. No free and open discussion of how the Vice President is going to reject out of hand the consensus of the entire EPA of his administration in the 8th year of the Bush administration. So it wasn't as though there were a bunch of Clinton holdovers at this point. This was a decision made by the Bush administration and its EPA, and it was rejected without so much as a debate by Dick Cheney and the White House.
So all of this, unfortunately, is being covered by the media as though it's kind of an evenhanded discussion here that's going on: 99, 98 percent of all scientists on one side, 1 percent on the other side. No, let's just make it even-steven, which is kind of how the tobacco debate was handled for a generation.
Well, there are two sides to the story, you know. Either tobacco and its inhalation into the lungs of human beings causes cancer or it doesn't. There are a couple of scientists over here that the American Tobacco Institute has and there's every other scientist in the world, every doctor, every physician.
So this is a huge moment for us as a country. We have two pathways that we can go down. We can continue to beg for oil from other countries. We continue to spew these greenhouse gases up into our atmosphere. Or we can say to America it is time for an oil change. It is time to move to an agenda of wind, of solar, of green buildings, of plug-in hybrids, a new era where we become the technological giant that we should be; that we do in the energy field what we did in the technology sector; that we overhaul our relationship with these technologies so we can overhaul our relationship with other countries in the world and create the 2 million jobs here in our country.
{time} 1830
And that's really what is at stake because China right now is moving towards becoming number one in the world in wind, in solar, in all of these technologies.
So if you listen to the dissenters here, they're willing for us to move from an era where it's made by OPEC to an era made in China without ever having had a ``Made in America'' period. These jobs in wind, in solar, green buildings, plug-in hybrids, they should be American jobs. They should be the future for our country. They should be the next manufacturing sector. They should be what Google and eBay and Amazon and YouTube all represented in terms of the changing of our national view as to how we worked in our country. That is our challenge.
This is actually a good debate to have because it gets right to the heart of the matter, a green job revolution, backing out imported oil and saving the planet in the bargain, or engaging in a debate over a few emails. By the way, the emails were ultimately included in the report of the U.N.--included, not excluded. Included.
During our debate here in Congress, we had the deniers that were able to sit at the table and to make their points. We heard them, we listened to them, we deliberated, and then we passed the legislation based upon the overwhelming preponderance of scientific evidence.
So that's our challenge. We are either going to help each other on this planet or we are going to hurt each other. We are either going to know each other or we're going to hurt each other. The glaciers melting, the coral reefs dying, the deserts that are being created, the least that we should be able to say to ourselves as a people in the year 2050 is that we tried, we really tried to do something about global warming, about this imported oil, about the need to create a new generation of green jobs in our country. We should try to create a world in 2050 where children have to look to the history books to find that there ever was such a time where America imported 60 percent of its oil, where we allowed the temperature of the planet to warm dangerously, where we missed the opportunity to create 2 million green jobs in our country. That's what this debate is all about. We have enjoyed the benefits of this fossil fuel era, but we have a responsibility to the generations to come to create a new era for them. That's our challenge.
And to have this debate over a couple of emails is really a disservice to the American people and to the planet. This should really be about something that's much bigger, and our country deserves that debate. The world wants us to be the leader. We have dangerously gone down a path of imported oil for too long.
The other major story that we are debating right now is sending another 30,000 young men and women to Afghanistan to join the hundreds of thousands that are already over there. How much more do we need to know? Where do we send them towards? We send them towards the countries with oil; we send them towards the countries that have fundamentalists that are funded by oil money. That's the other major story. It doesn't take a lot to link them together, to make it all part of one big opportunity for our country.
Let's follow the science. Let's follow all of those who have labored to create this understanding of what's happening to our planet, to our country, and end the debate over the emails and begin a real debate about our energy and climate future.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Markey, before you yield back, could you answer a question if you still have time?
Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. I would be glad to yield.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. We have a fundamental difference on the data, which is part of what our Special Order is going to be. We have verifiable data that the temperature has gone down the last 11 years in a row, and yet you alluded to some data points about the hottest years on record and stuff; I mean, how do we reconcile that?
Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. How do I reconcile what?
Mr. BARTON of Texas. We can't both be telling the truth. We can't say the temperature has gone down 11 years in a row and you have data that says 2005 was the second hottest year on record and all of that. I mean, how do we reconcile these data points? I mean, is there a way, a methodology that we can supply our data and you can supply your data and we can try to reconcile them? I mean, the facts ought to be the facts. We can have different opinions, but we ought to agree on what the facts are.
Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. Well, the facts are very clear. The facts are that 9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred in the last 10 years and it has reached a temporary plateau. We are in a recession, and in China and in the United States and in other countries there has been a slower pace of increase in emissions. And by the way, this year it's going back up again, it's going to be the fifth warmest year in history this year.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. Are those data points public?
Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. Yes, they are public. This is the data provided by NASA, which I will provide to you. NASA has been compiling temperatures from the last 130 years, and I will be more than willing to give it to you.
I guess the fundamental question is, as China and India industrialize, as other parts of the world industrialize and start to send up more fossil fuels into the atmosphere, do we believe this trend is likely to stop and abate, or is it likely to exacerbate and continue to skyrocket? I think the evidence, since the beginning of the industrialized period as we have moved from 280 parts per million to 380 parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere, is that the more we add the warmer it gets. And as the 3 or 4 billion people in this developing world begin to want to drive automobiles and have electricity in their homes, it's pretty clear that the trend line is heading upwards. Yes, over the last 10 years it stayed very warm. As I said earlier, it's like a child having the same temperature, 100.6 not 98.6, for about 10 days.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. Well, one of the things that I hope we can agree, we can have different opinions, different views on issues, but between you as chairman of the Climate Committee and Mr. Waxman as chairman of the Energy Committee and Mr. Sensenbrenner, who is your ranking member, and myself, who is the ranking member on Energy, we should be able to get a data set that we both agree is what the facts are, and I would like your cooperation in doing that.
Our data sets that I'm going to allude to are different. Now, I know enough to know what I don't know. And I don't know if that's a surface temperature, I don't know if that's a tropospheric temperature in the upper atmosphere, I don't know if that's a local temperature that's some sort of an annual mean. There are all kinds of different ways to describe it and to calculate it, but we ought to agree, as policy leaders, on a way to get a data set that everybody says, then we are going to debate the implications of that data set, whatever it is. And I hope that you and Mr. Waxman----
Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. And I would be more than willing to do that. But then we have to agree whose data are we going to rely upon? I would say that if we don't rely upon NASA's data and NOAA's data, which are the institutions that we historically have relied upon, then we are going to allow a small number of outlying----
Mr. BARTON of Texas. We are going to introduce, in our Special Order, some serious concerns that some of the scientists that maintain these data sets manipulate, change and eliminate for their own conclusions. And again, it's very fair to have an opinion and have a scientific debate, but it shouldn't be fair to manipulate the data in a way that at best is disingenuous, or in some cases deceitful, and I hope you would agree with that.
Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. I completely agree with that. And I think that the incontrovertible evidence of the overwhelming majority of scientists in the world is what is represented by the science that the United Nations and all of the National Academy of Sciences of every country in the world has accepted.
Again, as I point out, even papers mentioned in those emails and the points in them were included in the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of the United Nations. So it was in. It was a minority view, it was not accepted by the overwhelming majority of scientists. And amongst these human beings that are scientists, they did show some very human qualities as they debated the subject, but it never did call into question the fact that human activity was causing the warming of the planet. But the views were included in section three of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report that the United Nations produced.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. I encourage you to listen, and if you wish to stay and maybe participate in our Special Order, you would be welcome.
Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. LANGEVIN. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. I would be glad to yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.
Mr. LANGEVIN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Let me just commend the gentleman from Massachusetts for his incredible work on the issue of addressing global climate change, an issue that I know in many ways has become his life's work for so many years. I deeply appreciate his work here in the Congress, particularly as he leads the committee on the environment and global climate change here in the Congress.
Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to join my colleague, Mr. Markey, and so many others, in addressing this issue of global climate change, particularly during tonight's Special Order hour to recognize the critical negotiations that are beginning to take place at Copenhagen at the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Like so many of us, I am greatly concerned with the permanent damage that we have already inflicted on the planet by failing to curb carbon emissions, but I believe that there is still time to enact meaningful reform that will not only stop the harmful effects of pollution, but will also jump-start our economy with a greater investment and demand for clean energy.
This issue, in terms of addressing global warming, is important for our environment, it's important for our national security, it's important for our economy in creating jobs of the 21st century, and clearly it's so vitally important to the future of our planet.
The predictions of what will happen to our planet if we do not take action on global warming are startling, and often they are even too dire to comprehend. But as a representative of the Ocean State, I simply can't ignore the situation that is facing my State today and in the near future. In my home State, just off our coast, the temperature of Narragansett Bay has risen 2 degrees in the past 30 years, leading to dramatic changes in the fisheries population. In Rhode Island, our economy relies on the fishing industry, and they are being so adversely affected right now because of these issues.
Conservative graphs of our coastal communities in the year 2100 shows cities that are halfway underwater. What happens to the investment that we've made to restore our fisheries, upgrade our ports, and to refurbish our wastewater infrastructure? Well, they will slowly be underwater, and the Federal investments that we made will be gone.
When I listen to my colleagues speak about things like the deficit, they often lament that we are focused on short-term fixes while perpetuating a long-term burden that our grandchildren will have to carry. Well, I agree with them. I don't want the next generation to be burdened with the decisions that we make here today and I don't want to leave them with air they can't breathe, water they can't drink, and destroyed infrastructure up and down the coastline.
We need to address this issue now. I look forward to working with my colleagues on addressing global warming.
I commend the gentleman from Massachusetts again for his extraordinary work on global climate change issues.
____________________
Alerts Sign-up