Democrats Introduce H.R. 9, the Climate Action Now Act

one of the good morning everyone And I go what it Good morning everyone this is a very special occasion for me because the issue of the climate crisis as you may have known, was the flagship issue of my Speaker. Ship uh when we were in the majority before and working with President Bush as a matter of fact, uh healthcare then emerged and that is part of this, because this is a health issue. It's a public health issue now that we're all gathered I'm honored to be here with our distinguished chairs and climate champions, including our freshman members and and, again, some of the groups who have been demanding climate action now uh the uh we're very honored With our distinguished chair of the select Committee, congresswoman kathy castor of Florida who's been a champion on this issue. Uh even before she came to Congress the American people know uh that the Congress, uh kind of crisis is an existential threat of our generation of our time. A christ men, a crisis manifest at natural disasters of epic proportions uh today the House Democratic majority is honoring the will of the people and taking first strong steps to protect our planet and our future the bill. This It's about jobs, it's about good pain, Green jobs, it's about advancing our economy and our global preeminent ce in Green technology. It's about health. It's about health, public health and clean air and clean water for our children. It's about defending our National security the evidence is clear the National security experts have spoken this is a National security issue and Maria and for many of us it's a moral issue. If you believe it's di do that this is god's creation. This planet, we have a moral responsibility to be good stewards of it, but even if you don't subscribe To that you know we have a moral responsibility to future generations to convey pass on this planet in a responsible, responsible way. The spill is only step one the select Committee on the climate crisis and committees of jurisdiction. We have made this really our caucus has made this. I caucus wide priority the select Committee taking the lead on this, but all of the committees of jurisdiction uh acting upon it and whether it can retain its jobs or health or National security or uh are more responsible For the planet, uh but it is uh a Congress wide initiative. Uh so today we're going to hear from one of the champions of climate action as to what we, where we go from here, uh. I couldn't be more proud of her leadership. She has really been so wise, but also so determined uh to make a difference Congress uh. Madam chair, kathy caster Well, thank you, madam Speaker, and thank you for making the climate crisis one of your flagship issues. Uh in your previous tenure as Speaker and now, when we've moved from uh select Committee on global warming and energy independence, we've lost a lot of time. Uh now we have a climate crisis on our hands and I'm proud to be cheering the select Committee and honored to introduce climate action now H R nine With colleagues and climate leaders here today, speaking as a floridian who boarded up my home with my family and fled as hurricane irma and its destructive winds and threatening storm surge was bearing down on my community, a year and a half ago. I understand that we must act with the urgency we were lucky because we had time to get out of the way, but for too many Americans there is no getting out of the way of the climate crisis, flooding Rains in extreme heat and drought, public health crisis, rising cost and temperatures. This is the climate crisis and when American Cia crisis we respond it was with america's leadership and engagement that the us lead other Nations to climate action in the international Paris climate agreement. The agreement was a breakthrough after years of playing the blame game the United States, China, India and nearly every other country on Earth came up with Plan to address climate change, together and take climate action now and that plan has incredible upsides. We can create millions of good paying clean energy jobs right now. We can save billions and of dollars in energy cost for working people and businesses right now we can finally address decades of environmental injustice, right now and we can respond to the incredible ground swell of activism from young people who are demanding Action now, as well, they are the first generation to grow up in the climate crisis. Now they're demanding a chance to be the generation that solves it. So despite what the President has said, America will not retreat America will not cut and run America will keep its commitments. Climate action now will unleash American ingenuity and innovation to power the future and the speak Right we have a moral obligation to future generations to tackle the climate crisis now we can do this and together we will I'm very proud to introduce now. My partner. My chairman of the energy and Commerce Committee, Frank along okay. Thank you. Thank you, cathy um. I just wanted to take a page from what kathy caster said and talk about my district. My district was most heavily hit by Super storm sandy and I'm telling you there isn't a single mayor County state legislative official and I have a lot of Republicans who are Republican who don't understand that we need to address climate change Because the Sea level rise and the destruction that we had from hurricane or from Super storm sandy, so I was very happy when we took the majority that we were actually able to have hearings in the energy and Commerce Committee on climate change because Republicans refuse to do it for the whole eight years and we've had some we had one on the Paris agreement. We have another one next week coming up on what state and local governments are doing, but the fact of the matter is that state and local governments can't carry this ball alone. I mean this is as Nancy pelosi said, this is an aggregate Of our federal responsibility and our leadership is a country I mean the President, doesn't make any sense at all when he says he wants to withdraw from the Paris agreement because all the other countries now take up that mantle of leadership. That the United States had and it's not just an issue of helping our allies and being the good guys it's also an economic issue. I mean the bottom line is, if we can create jobs when we move towards renewable resources, we can build the wind turbines and build the solar panels and you know and Our economy is an economic issue, as well as the health and safety issue and for us to abdicate our leadership makes no sense. So basically, what kathy is bill is doing is saying no, we are gonna take the mantle of leadership we're, not going to withdraw from the Paris agreement um and we are going to do whatever we can to say to the President look you say you're, not you're gonna withdraw from Paris. What is your plan. How are we going to address these climate issues. You know we refused to The notion that this is not something that needs to be address so, Mr President, we're saying to you with this legislation we're not withdrawing from Paris. We wanna know what your plan is and, if you don't have one, then we're gonna move forward on their own and come up with things that we can do here in the Congress and in the energy and Commerce Committee to address um climate change uh in various ways um so with that I just wanted to uh say I'm I I started out with you as an energy and Commerce member now I'm turning it over to and everybody thinks He's the chairman of foreign Affairs, but he's also uh very strong member of the energy and Commerce Committee elliott ankle Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh I wanna thank all of you for being here today is one of specially thank our Speaker who's made this a front and Center it's just so important to the New York city. Metropolitan area of course also suffered with hurricane Super storm standing which some people call the perfect storm, but we, having that going to have a lot of perfect storms if we sit into a lot of uh, a thumbs and do nothing about it for the next several years uh before we had the election uh, I got together all the members the Democratic The foreign Affairs Committee to see what priority would be in the new Congress and overwhelmingly number one was global warming. Global climate change. We feel so strongly about it on a global level so was chairman of the foreign Affairs Committee. I view climate change is a threat to global security and to our country's future and also believe that the United States is strongest on the global stage when we are working shoulder to shoulder with our Partners around the world and that's why the Paris agreement was such a defining moment for the future of our planet. The countries of the world came together to face this global crisis and in times like these the world, usually looks to the United States for leadership, then came along President trump instead of leading he was drew retreating from the world stage. It's really absolutely shameful. We are already seeing the consequences of inaction natural disasters fam ins instability, human suffering. So addressing climate change is a critical foreign policy priority and it's up to Congress to And we will lead that's why next week we'll be holding a hearing on the dangers of climate change to our National security in the foreign Affairs Committee and today's legislation sends a message. Loud and clear to the President and the entire world. We aren't backing down the climate and action now act keeps the United States in the Paris climate accord renewing our countries pledge to address climate change head on it's not Smart policy it's a moral obligation to our children and our grandchildren and generations to come. We have to get to the day when we can look at ourselves in the mirror and know we did everything we could to save our planet. So, madam Speaker, thank you. Today's bill gets us one step closer to that and you can count on all of us here today to keep up this momentum in the months to come. Thank you and it's now my pleasure to call on my colleague Eddie bernice Johnson Bernice Johnson Thank you very much and good morning this is an important subject. Obviously, and it's not an exaggeration to say that climate change is one of the greatest challenges confronting our nation. On the science Committee, we have already heard from scientists about the reality of human induced climate change and its impacts. Those impacts affect tonight con a me, a National secure And our quality of life, the increase frequency of extreme weather events in recent years is just one reminder of the growing cost of inaction on addressing climate change. The Paris agreement was a significant step forward and bring in the international community together to address climate change and I was proud that the United States played a critical role in forging the agreement under the Obama administration and we had American citizens who pledged millions of dollars and research To support this agreement, the agreement also helped to capitalize private sector involvement and seeking innovative energy technologies and other means to reduce our carbon footprint and the science Committee will be examining those approaches and weeks and months to come. I have had many visitors from the private sector community ceos the ceo of exxon Mobile as a matter of fact, has come to say That will ready to do collaboration, a large research lab and New Jersey that we plan to visit is awaiting a visit. The trump administration's decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement is both misguided and ill advised rather than pretend that the human induced climate change doesn't exist. We need to do all that we can to work to meet the goals of the Paris Which this bill specifies and I know that the members here share that commitment today. I thank you for being here and now I will call on the member of the science space and technology committed. Mr kasten Thank you very much. Chairwoman Johnson pleasure to serve on your Committee and I'm delighted to have started with um. I think, to climate hearings to start off our cycle. I'm thankful to be here with Speaker pelosi and um your castro introduced hr nine the climate action now act. I came to Congress after working for 16 years as a clean energy executive. If I learned one thing from my time in the energy sector is that there are no economic and there are no technical barriers to lowering Co to anything, we do to lower C O, two means we're going to burn less fuel, which means we're gonna save money. This is not a cost To be fair, this is an this is an investment opportunity that we should be forced to miss out on. We have the tools we have the ability. What we lack is leadership. Instead of rising to this challenge. President trump ran away from it. Instead of harnessing American ingenuity. What companies like ours have done this administration walked away from the Paris agreement. American leadership is not about counting to despots it's not about declaring phony emergencies to build unnecessary walls. It's not about ignoring the single most serious threat to the existence of human life on Earth from Norman The cold war, American leadership has been about identifying longterm existential threats to the entire population and then leading the rest of the world to mobilize around a shared set of goals and values. That's what we need H R nine challenges the trump administration to step up and show us their plan for combating climate change. I'm proud to be a member of the select Committee where we're gonna help shape this chamber's vision of how to transition to a low and ultimately zero carbon economy the climate action I was the first step of many. We will need, but it is an important one and I'm proud to help this leader. This effort under the strong Democratic House leaders and uh with that I'd like to turn it over to my friend, my colleague and fellow clean energy nerd congressman level Thank you, everybody. Thank you to Speaker. Pelosi thank you to uh share caster like Sean. I'm incredibly honored to be on the select Committee. Uh I'm standing here today because I saw what this administration was doing to reverse our progress on climate change. Uh embracing fossil fuel lobbyists and letting corporate polluters run free and I decided that I personally had to do more so I decided to run for Congress as a clean energy advocate and I spoke Quickly about the need to embrace science and the scientific consensus that climate change is happening. That it is driven by human activity and that if we do nothing, the consequences for our planet will be catastrophic. Never let anyone tell you that you can't protect the environment and grow the economy at the same time, we're doing it in the state of California where we've lead and we can lead and Washington as well, if we're embracing science and reality about our environment and our economy and the clean energy jobs of the future where I was uh very Privilege to work in that industry for about 15 years. I'm very proud in the work that we did to grow a more sustainable economy and in my southern California district as is the case across this country, were experiencing more extreme heat waves longer. Droughts. More intense wildfires rising Sea levels and unprecedented coastal erosion. We must not wait to act ultimately this is about the planet that will leave behind for future generations. My wife and I have six year old and a five year old at home and we've got to support challenges and we've got to support solutions that are up to the challenges that we face. Uh where, again we embrace the science and the evidence and allow that to drive the policy there's. So much more. We must do to combat the climate crisis, but hr nine is a down payment. This is a step in the right direction towards setting that foundation for action on climate once again. Thank you. I'm so grateful to turn it over now to another wonderful freshman uh. My friend from boulder Colorado jonah goose Well, thank you. Representative. Levin my good friend and colleague uh they're wonderful freshman serving on the select Committee and I want to thank madam Speaker and and chairwoman castor for your leadership with respect to the select Committee and of course, introducing this important bill uh inconvenience today on such an important issue uh. You know I think I don't know that I could say it any better than the Speaker did that climate change fundamentally is an existential threat that we must begin tackling head on immediately the science is perfectly clear. We have a very short runway to avoid very catastrophic consequences for our planet and this moment really does require bold action now from the Congress We've already seen the devastating effects of climate change on our coasts, our forest, our farmland and our communities in Colorado is representative levin mentioned I represent the city of boulder city of Fort collins in my district over 50 percent of the area that I represent is public lands and so my constituents are certainly already feeling the significant impacts of this crisis, including increased flooding and erosion rising temperatures and faster snow melt uh. You know, like representative, living uh I'm, a father as well, and my wife and I have a six month Daughter natalie and so much of the work we do in Congress. I see through the prism of being a father and thinking about the world that she will inherit our duty to her. Our duty to the rest of humanity really is to do everything in our power to leave this world better than how we found it and to ensure that our next generation that my daughter's generation receives the planet better than the one we ourselves received and our actions as a nation right now are currently not living up to this duty the administration's To withdraw from the Paris climate accords and halt progress being made forward is severely detrimental to our planet and the next generation we're the only country to reject this global pact. We can and we must do better now is not the time for ignorance. It is not the time for short cuts. It is the time for action. We must act and we must act on climate now and so I again want to thank the Speaker. I want to thank the distinguished colleagues that are gathered here today and will turn it to our wonderful chair, woman of the select Committee uh to close thank you again So as you can see, the it's not just the entire House Democratic caucus but it's these talented smart young members, uh that have been chosen to lead on the select Committee on the climate crisis. Uh. I wanna thank again uh Speaker pelosi it's no coincidence that you're also a mother uh in a grandmother and understand this moral obligation. We have to future generations in this planet. I also want to All the colleagues who are in attendance today uh from the select Committee on the climate crisis, we also have a dom, a kitchen, a Virginia and julia brownlee from California. Uh we're eager to get to work, but the first order of business will be H R nine climate action now that will be marked up in the committees of jurisdiction over the coming weeks and then brought to the floor for passage. Thank you all for being here today