Medicaid
Mr. President, last week, hospital leaders from every corner of my State of Illinois came to Washington. What was the reason for the trip? The debate in Washington about the future of Medicaid.
Each and every one of them, from the city of Chicago through the most rural areas in the State, was concerned about the plans by the Republicans in Congress to change the funding for Medicaid. From the South Side of Chicago to Macomb in West Central Illinois, as well as Rockford, 20 miles from the Wisconsin border, and Carbondale, all the way downstate, they came to see me.
These are small, critical access hospitals in rural areas, the safety net hospitals treating the poorest patients and the large teaching hospitals in downtown Chicago. They are all focused on Medicaid.
All of them told me the Medicaid cuts that Republicans have put on the table would be devastating to their hospitals in every corner of my State--devastating to the doctors and nurses that they employ and especially hurtful to the patients and their families.
One told me that it is the only hospital in a 60-mile radius delivering babies. If Republican plans to cut Medicaid go through, this life-or-death care could be out of reach for pregnant mothers.
Another safety net hospital told me they might have to close their doors altogether if the Medicaid cuts happen.
Why? Why would Republicans in Congress even want to jeopardize healthcare and ring alarm bells in hospitals across America? They are trying to ``save $880 billion.''
Well, what is the critical need to save that? To perpetuate the tax breaks of the Trump administration for the wealthiest people in America. Yep, that is the game plan. That is right.
President Trump and his billionaire buddy Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, have asked Republicans in Congress to provide a massive giveaway to the wealthiest Americans, and they want to use Medicaid cuts as the piggy bank.
Let's be clear: This is not a healthcare reform plan to improve our healthcare system or lower costs for families and patients. Nope. Republicans are looking to dismantle the basic Medicaid Program to help the tax cuts for billionaires.
Don't take my word for it. It is not just another political speech. Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued a bombshell report. I am sure the Republicans in charge of the House and Senate didn't anticipate this. The Congressional Budget Office reviewed the Republican plans to cut Medicaid and determined the only way Republicans can ``save money'' is by removing millions of Americans from this health insurance, slashing benefits, or cutting access to doctors, nurses, and dentists.
For weeks, Republicans have been adamant that they are only focused on addressing waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid. Then comes the CBO report.
I want to agree with the basic premise that, if there is inappropriate spending, fix it. But that is not what is happening here, and I think the Republican majority knows it.
The Congressional Budget Office called their bluff and confirmed that these Medicaid cuts proposed by the Republicans are not about waste or efficiency. They are about restricting access to coverage to patients all across the United States, including in my State of Illinois.
Under Republicans' watch, CBO stated that 13.7 million Americans will have their health insurance coverage terminated. Almost 14 million Americans will lose healthcare coverage if the Republicans go forward with their plan. What is the acceptable number of constituents losing health coverage for Republicans?
Nationwide, half of all rural hospitals are already in the red, and more than 300 rural hospitals are facing immediate closure, including 26 in Kansas, 22 in Alabama, 21 in Texas, and 9 in Missouri. How many rural hospitals closing in their States are Republicans willing to accept to help perpetuate tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans?
Let me tell you, as a person from downstate Illinois, rural hospitals are the backbone of the community. Not only are they critical places for emergency medical care, but they are the anchors of the local economy.
Speaking of the economy, one of the ways Republicans plan to cut Medicaid is by imposing burdensome, redtape requirements.
Put paperwork in the path of an individual looking for medical care. Pile it up. Make it hard. Pitched by the Republicans as just simply ``work requirements,'' this policy withholds healthcare for eligible patients until they meet overly complex paperwork requirements. It is a failing strategy.
In the States that have tried the so-called work requirements, there has been no increase in employment. The only impact is with patients who are ruled ineligible and kicked off Medicaid because they were drowning in paperwork. What a way to run a country.
Here is an example: A waitress with diabetes misses a paperwork deadline because the forms were sent to her old address. She loses her Medicaid coverage and can't access her medications and is forced to miss work to deal with it.
One analysis determined that approximately 3 million manufacturing, agricultural, and service sector workers could become uninsured under the simply ``Make sure they are going to work'' plan. Who thinks that is a good idea?
Yesterday, House Republicans spent Mother's Day scheming on how to advance these Medicaid cuts, finally releasing a copy of their legislation so we could see the detail. It is as catastrophic as we feared. It is the largest cut in Medicaid in the Nation's health history, ripping health insurance away from millions of Americans in every single State.
But it is not too late for a few Republicans--and it only takes a few: four in the House, four in the Senate--to step up and say they don't want to be part of this, if they will stand up and say: No, we will not risk the healthcare for millions of Americans as bargaining chips for billionaire tax breaks.
Medicaid provides health insurance for 1 out of every 4 people in my State of Illinois--3.4 million people, including 1.5 million children. Medicaid pays to deliver half of all the babies in my State--half of them. Two-thirds of the seniors in nursing homes depend on Medicaid. If Medicaid is not helping to pay for that nursing home or care for seniors, what is going to happen to grandma, grandfathers, those that are affected by it? It is the largest funder of opioid addiction treatment.
Remember the image of Elon Musk--the richest man in the world-- laughing gleefully as he danced around a stage with a chain saw in his hand? The richest man in the world was laughing out loud about his chain saw cuts to Medicaid. Well, these cuts are no laughing matter for that rural hospital worried about having to close its mental health services. They are no laughing matter for the pregnant woman forced to drive more than an hour to deliver a baby because the local hospital shuttered its obstetrics unit.
Wipe that smile off your face, Mr. Musk. We are talking about life- and-death healthcare for America's working families.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Ukraine
Madam President, America is an exceptional nation: freedom of religion, freedom of speech and of the press; private property rights; free and fair elections; the rule of law and an independent judiciary. All of these help make us exceptional, but we Americans often take this for granted because these principles, these values, are so ingrained in our way of life. That is who we are. But it also makes it more challenging for us to understand how different other countries may be from us. It shouldn't be a surprise, though, if you think about it. History, culture, economics all matter, but, sadly, this is a lesson that seems like we and others need to learn over and over again.
When it comes to Russia, it is worth recalling Churchill's description of the former Soviet Union. He called it a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, but when it comes to negotiating peace in Ukraine, we might be tempted to assume that Vladimir Putin is working from the same playbook as other stakeholders. But that is simply not the case. The fundamental differences between Russia and the West have become all that much more apparent in the negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. This is precisely what has made it such a difficult challenge to end the war, and that is what makes President Trump's efforts all that much more noble when we consider the monumental task that he is seeking to accomplish.
As I have said before--and I will say it again--I am grateful to President Trump for his leadership and his efforts to end the conflict that has lasted far too long--for more than 3 years now. During his first 100 days, President Trump has done more than President Biden did in 4 years. He has made clear to the Europeans that they need to step up and assume greater ownership of their continental security, and he successfully persuaded them to increase their defense spending and enhance deterrents against future aggression.
The President's representatives have led several rounds of negotiations between the Ukrainians and the Russians--something that President Biden did not even attempt--and President Trump has secured a key critical minerals deal with Ukraine, which will help fund the reconstruction of that country. It will help compensate America for its investments in Ukraine's defense and dissuade future Russian aggression.
But there is one significant obstacle in achieving a lasting end to this conflict, and that, of course, is Vladimir Putin.
Succinctly stated, Vladimir Putin's Russia is a police state. In Russia, people who buck the government mysteriously disappear or fall out of windows to their deaths or are poisoned, imprisoned, or die of suspect causes like Alexei Navalny. In Russia, the government targets religious minorities, imposing fines and criminal charges. In Russia, the government controls the media. Independent media outlets are censored, suppressed, or shuttered if they do not conform to the party line. Under Vladimir Putin, government redistributes private property based on political loyalties, giving rise to the oligarchs that we have heard so much about.
Then there are the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine. Take, for example, the bombing of Ukraine's civilian energy infrastructure during the first winter of Russia's full-scale invasion or consider the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. Thousands of Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion, with many having been adopted into Russian families or sent to camps, where they are subjected to ideological indoctrination designed to erase their Ukrainian identity.
The bombing of Ukraine's power grid, which was part of a state policy of widespread attacks on the civilian population, further illustrates the point.
So the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin is nothing like the United States or Europe, for that matter. Russia, of course, has its own history, culture, and form of government, and I said earlier, it can be easy for the West to assume, as we have done before, that our values are shared by other countries, but that is most decidedly not the case with Putin's Russia. Putin has made his unwillingness to end this unprovoked and barbaric war as plain as day. He has shown no remorse that his country is nearing 1 million casualties. He clearly doesn't care about the Russian people, who have been sacrificed to his fantasy of an empire restored, and his tolerance for casualties appears without limit.
In fact, Putin has done nothing to justify the hope that he might be persuaded to end this war. To the contrary, despite Putin's declared cease-fire over the Easter holiday, Russia then proceeded to launch attacks into Ukraine that killed innocent civilians. More recently, Russia launched two ballistic missiles and 165 drones, wounding 11 people, including 2 children.
One 54-year-old Kyiv resident, whose car caught fire during the attack, expressed frustration at the lack of progress for peace, saying:
An 18-year-old student said:
President Trump noted in a statement on Truth Social:
The President went on to suggest that Putin may not actually be trying to stop the war. I agree with President Trump. There is no indication he is trying to stop the war. Vladimir Putin is making a grave mistake in stringing the President of the United States and the rest of the world along while innocent lives are being taken.
In order to achieve peace, President Trump needs a good-faith partner both in Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and Russian President Putin. Notably, while Zelenskyy has met with the President several times, most recently at the Vatican, Putin has not. Instead of working for peace, Putin recently threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine in order to bring the war, in his own words, ``to a logical conclusion with the outcome [that] Russia requires.''
How does this relate to President Trump's peace efforts? Well, we should listen to Putin's own words. In a speech he delivered to the Russian Foreign Ministry last year, Putin argued that peace with Ukraine would require a removal of Ukrainian troops from the southern and eastern part of that country, the demilitarization and denuclearization of Ukraine, a neutral and non-NATO Ukraine, and the removal of all Western sanctions.
The hard reality is that Putin sees this conflict not just as a war between Russia and Ukraine but as a war between Russia and the West.
In this same speech, he says the West is primarily at fault for the conflict in the world today and that it was the West that incited a Ukrainian coup in 2014 and further unrest in Eastern Ukraine in 2022, which necessitated Russian military action to liberate the people of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. Putin says that the war would have ended long ago, in March 2022, had it not been for the West's supplying Ukraine with weapons and political support and extending the conflict.
Likewise, Putin sees Ukraine's prospective association with NATO or European peacekeeping forces an inherit extension of Western imperialism, which he cannot tolerate. He even goes as far as to say that Russia could not accept a cease-fire since it would give time for Ukraine to rearm.
Finally, Putin shares a vision for a multipolar world to counter what he perceives as Western imperialism and Russia's efforts to use security and economic agreements toward these ends.
In sum, Putin does not see this negotiation as a means to bringing about an end to the conflict in Ukraine; he sees it as a key piece to a larger war against the West. In essence, this negotiation is much bigger than Russia and Ukraine. We need to listen to what Putin says but also watch what he does as he attempts to stall peace negotiations while attempting to achieve his larger aims.
Putin's invasion of Ukraine just over 3 years ago is an obvious violation of another international agreement that Russia was a party to--the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Under this agreement, Ukraine willingly gave up its arsenal of nuclear weapons--the third largest in the world--in exchange for security assurances by Russia and other signatories. Russia went on then to violate the Budapest Memorandum in 2014 when it invaded Crimea and annexed the Crimea Peninsula. Then, as we all know, Russia violated the Memorandum for a second time in February 2022 with its invasion of Ukraine proper.
If Russia were unwilling to honor the commitments enshrined in the Budapest Memorandum in 2014 and 2022, how, then, can Ukraine or the rest of the world, for that matter, be assured that they will honor a peace agreement brokered in 2025?
And, once again, Putin is threatening nuclear war if he does not receive the guarantees of a further demilitarized Ukraine.
But if he thinks these threats are an effective method of intimidating the United States and President Trump, he is mistaken. President Trump has made very clear that he will not allow Russia to continue doing what he calls ``tapping us along.''
Putin may well have been able to dupe Obama. He may have been able to intimidate Biden. But any attempt to fool or strong-arm President Trump will not succeed. If Putin thinks he is going to pull the wool over his eyes or box him into a corner, Putin is in for a very rude shock.
I yield the floor.
Energy (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, today, Donald Trump's Department of Energy announced the largest deregulatory effort in the Department of Energy's history, with 47 regulations in the Department of Energy slashed in one fell swoop in the name of freedom on the same day that the House Ways and Means Committee proposed to slash clean energy tax credits and just a few days after the House Energy and Commerce Committee proposed to destroy critical programs that reduce hazardous air pollution in exchange for fast-tracking dirty fossil fuels.
This isn't one big beautiful bill, as Donald Trump calls it; it is a big billionaire bailout--that is what this whole thing is about--and the only freedom this announcement guarantees is the freedom to pollute, overcharge, and mislead the American people.
So let's be clear. These attacks are not common sense. These attacks on energy policy--on the environmental policy of the United States--is not common sense; it is nonsense which they are trying to sell. They are not about choice; they are about giving fossil fuel corporations and manufacturers a license to pollute on the one hand and to be profiteers on the other. This is not deregulation; it is the desecration of decades of bipartisan progress on public health and on the truth.
Republicans are willing to throw $420 billion in clean energy investments and 400,000 jobs in red and blue States right down the drain. This would be a disaster for our economy and good-paying jobs. What does that look like in action? Well, let's just go through it. Let's go through what they are doing.
By the way, Chris Wright is the Secretary of Energy, and Chris Wright says: Well, I am a reasonable man.
And he seems like a very likable person. But, in fact, Chris Wright is a radical. He is an absolute, outright radical, trying to destroy the clean energy future of the United States. So while he says he believes in all of the above, we know he is an oil man; he is a gas man. He really believes in oil above all, not all of the above. That is for sure.
Chris Wright, with his radical, anti-capitalist attack upon the clean energy future of the United States is absolutely destroying our ability to be able to compete with China in the clean energy sector for the rest of eternity. He is just deciding to completely and totally eviscerate our future, and he does so at the behest of Donald Trump, who is tied to, of course, the oil and gas and coal industry and their profit-making opportunities.
Now, again, Chris Wright, that is where he made his money--oil and gas; so it is kind of natural for him to be a
So let's just take a few of these tax credits which they are destroying, which would create good-paying jobs, which would help to spur our economy. Let's just take a look at a few of them to see what he has orchestrated in the House Ways and Means and House Energy and Commerce Committees.
It would remove the tax credits that a local restaurant can use to lower its electricity bill by putting solar panels on the roof of the restaurant: Gone. Incentives that a local connoisseur could have used to buy electric delivery trucks and install charging stations: Gone. EV battery and offshore wind manufacturing factories that source steel from red States: Gone.
And why is he doing it again? He is doing it to help the oil and gas industry from which he came. He is a radical. He sees the world in the rearview mirror. Let's just stay in the oil and gas era. Let's stay in the coal era. Let's not move to a new innovation economy. Let's not move to a clean energy economy. Let's just stay back in the past. We will let China have the future. We will let Germany have the future. We will let India have the future. But we own the past, says Chris Wright. We own the energy past, and we are going to protect it against any innovation in America that would, in any way, inhibit the ability of the past to continue to reap profits from America.
By the way, one of the things which he killed is my offshore wind- manufacturing bill, which was going to give incentives to companies in the United States to manufacture the offshore wind technologies to be deployed. He killed that. That was going to keep the jobs here. That was going to incentivize American companies to innovate in the manufacture of offshore wind technologies. He wants to kill that because he wants to kill the offshore wind industry.
Why does he want to kill the offshore wind industry? What is Chris Wright's thinking? Here is what he is thinking, and here is what Donald Trump is thinking: Ah, the more you deploy offshore wind, the less gas you need to generate electricity. Since that is where he comes from, that is the past, so he has to protect the past. He is a radical, Chris Wright--just an absolutely rabid radical looking at the rearview mirror at the past; and anything that would interfere with that, including the massive deployment of offshore wind, must be killed. So that is what he has recommended here in the House Ways and Means and the House Energy and Commerce Committees bill.
But that is not all. That is not all that Chris Wright is engaging in, that Republicans are engaging in, that Donald Trump is engaging in.
They are also cutting billions in historic investments from the Inflation Reduction Act, in environmental justice, in air pollution reduction programs. Even in schools--even where kids are exposed to the pollution--they are removing any of the protections against kids breathing in this dangerous asthma-inducing air that has been polluted by oil and gas and coal. That includes $20 billion in the climate bank, the green bank, which Chris Van Hollen and I secured in the Inflation Reduction Act. Also, it is called the Inflation Reduction Act because Joe Manchin, who voted for it, did not want it to be called the biggest climate bill or the biggest clean energy bill in the history of the world. OK? But that is what it is. It is the biggest clean energy bill in history. What McKinsey has analyzed is that the $20 billion green bank will unleash $250 billion worth of private sector investment in clean energy technologies.
Well, if you are Chris Wright, you have to kill that. You can't allow for a massive revolution in clean energy to come out of the green energy bank. So Chris Wright--Mr. Radical, Reactionary, ``Look at the World in the Rearview Mirror'' Secretary of Energy--has killed that too--at Donald Trump's behest, by the way. At Donald Trump's behest.
Again, he looks like a very nice man, but that is not what the job of the Secretary of Energy requires. It requires vision. It requires looking ahead, leading the way, having America be competitive with the Chinese in new technology. We are in a big battle with China over trade. Well, we won't have anything to send to them in clean energy. It is going to be a one-way street--a one-way street coming from them to us--after they finish off our clean energy industry, which is what they are trying to do. In the same way, they have made massive cuts to the National Institutes of Health. Research in Alzheimer's and cancer and diabetes and other diseases is going to finish off our ability to be competitive in biotech. This is the next step: Let's finish off the clean energy industry as well.
Unfortunately, the investments in the clean energy technologies would have created jobs by the millions. They would have strengthened our energy independence because all of that energy, by definition, is produced here in the United States of America. It is our Sun; it is our wind; it would be our batteries that we could store that electricity with. We don't need the Chinese. We don't need anybody else. We could just do it right here. What could be more conducive to being able to have a headline of energy independence than capturing all of these God- given gifts which we have in our country, destroyed across the board? And they are going to be killing the funding that would save consumers money at the pump by increasing the fuel economy standards of the vehicles which we drive in our country.
The one thing the oil industry hates--I just talked about the natural gas industry. They hate wind and solar and batteries--you know, generating new electricity. What does the oil industry hate? Well, the oil industry hates vehicles that are twice as energy efficient as oil vehicles. Instead of 27 miles a gallon, they get 54 miles a gallon. Instead of 54 miles a gallon, they get 108 miles a gallon, or if it is a plug-in all-electric or a plug-in hybrid, it is pretty much an infinity sign that is next to how efficient that vehicle is and how little oil they need. That is a death star for the oil industry, so they have got to kill the fuel economy standards that make all of the vehicles which we drive more efficient because it is just going to protect the past, which is what Donald Trump is all about. This is some kind of nostalgia he has for 1958, OK? He wants to go back in time, but America can't afford to be looking in the rearview mirror because our European, our Asian, and our South American competitors, they are coming for us.
We are only 5 percent of the world's population, and up until the Trump administration, what has given us our edge is innovation; it is investment in research; it is looking ahead; and it is trying to lead the way. That is where young people in our country want to go, but instead of the dawn of a clean energy future, Republicans are sunsetting incentives that would spur a clean domestic manufacturing for industries inside of the United States.
By the way, let me say it again: In just a very brief period of time--about 3 years since the passage of the biggest climate bill in history--we have created 400,000 new jobs in the clean energy sector in the United States and have already unleashed $400 billion worth of energy investment. So they are committed--the Republicans, and they are proud of it, led by Chris Wright, an oil and gas man--to being the world's laggard, not leader, and to just falling behind everybody in the clean energy sector. That is what their plan is--to destroy everything that has been unleashed in our Nation. We not only won't be the leader in the global economy or the clean energy economy; we are just going to cede the jobs; we are going to cede the progress to our economic rivals, led by the Chinese.
And who is making this worse? Again, it is Energy Secretary Chris
Now he is doubling down with a thoughtless regulatory bonfire, and this deregulatory blitz eliminates standards for everyday appliances in our homes--microwaves, refrigerators, dishwashers, and washing machines.
All the regulations say is make all those devices more energy efficient so you don't have to burn coal in order to have the washing machine work, in order to have the refrigerator work. We are not asking anyone to put a mission to Mars in place. We are not asking for anyone to be a rocket scientist. We are asking for people to make dishwashers more efficient and washing machines more efficient.
Do you know what Chris Wright says? Impossible. Impossible. We can't figure out how to do that, so we are just going to stop all progress that we are making in ensuring that all these electricity-consuming appliances are more efficient.
The less efficient they are, the bigger the electricity bill for every single American. That is their goal. What happens when you have to consume more electricity? You have to pay the natural gas industry for all the extra electricity which is coming into your home. That is the plan.
The oil industry wants automobiles and trucks to be less efficient. The natural gas industry wants all appliances, homes, everything less efficient and not to use wind and solar and battery storage technology. They each have two simple business plans, which Chris Wright, who is one of the most radical people who has ever had a position in the American Government, wants to put in place--the fracker-in-chief.
I am the author of the law that the Department of Energy uses to set the standards for dishwashers and for refrigeration in our country. I put that law on the books in 1987. So far, it has saved the need for somewhere around 200 coal-burning plants to ever be built in the first place because those devices never needed the electricity that otherwise would have been needed if there was less efficiency.
The bill itself, according to experts, has now saved $2 trillion in energy bills since 1987. Can I say that again? I am very proud of this. My bill has helped to save $2 trillion that consumers otherwise would have had to have paid in their electricity bills to have inefficient refrigeration, inefficient dishwashers in the house, inefficient air- conditioning in the house. Two trillion dollars has been saved.
It has also prevented 3 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from going up. That is a law. Greenhouse gas emissions never went up because we made those appliances so much more energy efficient. And it then saved consumers $500 a year because they never had to pay those electricity bills.
So you would think the Secretary of Energy would say: Let's keep moving forward. Let's keep making all of these devices more and more efficient.
But no. He works in natural gas, he works in oil, so his goal is to roll it all back because it harms the business model of the natural gas industry or the oil industry.
Here is the thing: I personally believe in Darwinian paranoia- inducing competition. That is what I believe. I am a capitalist. Let's just have everybody be able to do everything. That is not the socialistic attitude that Chris Wright has. He wants to use socialism to protect the oil and gas industry from real competition.
Is he going to take the tax breaks for the oil and gas industry off the books? Oh, no, he is not taking those tax breaks off the books. Is he going to take off favorable regulatory protections for the oil and gas industry? He is not going to do that. No. No. No.
This is all the old boys' network, the billionaire boys' club network in the energy industry to thwart the movement that young people want toward a future of clean energy, of solar and wind, the all-electric vehicle--the future for our country.
So Chris Wright and Trump want to throw everything out because nothing says ``freedom'' more than smog and higher utility bills. They want us to have the freedom to have more smog. They want us to have the freedom to have more asthma. They want us as a nation to have the freedom to pay higher utility bills for natural gas and generated electricity. That is his idea of freedom--Chris Wright. Again, it just goes back to the bottom line of those companies that he used to run before he just became Secretary of Energy.
Now, I don't mind him saying that he wants to have a new future for our country, but you can't say it simultaneously when you are killing the future.
You are killing it, Chris Wright. You are the worst example of what the Trump administration is bringing to Washington. You are going to make us more dependent on fossil fuels. Consumers will have to pay higher prices. It is going to lead to higher levels of disease in our Nation. We are going to see more storms like Hurricanes Milton and Helene last year, which caused $300 billion worth of damage. We are going to see more fires like those which we saw in L.A., which caused $140 billion worth of damage. Those are just three storms that caused $440 billion worth of damage, those three storms alone.
So you just say: Hey, Chris, Mr. Secretary, what is your answer to that?
Do you know what his answer is? More fossil fuels. Warm up the planet even more. Turn it up a few more degrees. The temperature is too low; let's put the temperature up higher.
What are young people saying? They are saying: Turn the thermostat down. This planet is getting too warm. Just turn it down.
That is renewables. That is the way in which you do it.
We have seen Chris Wright make outlandishly false claims before. Back in March, Chris Wright took the stage in front of oil and gas executives and delivered what might go down as the most egregious fossil-fueled fiction ever spoken at a podium--and that is still saying a lot. It was part sermon, part standup, and part 100 percent spin.
Chris Wright said:
That is his statement.
The Inflation Reduction Act, on the other hand, did create 400,000 clean energy jobs. It unleashed $400 billion worth of investments. That is not collateral damage. That is a climate comeback. That is a middle- class revival in our country. That is 400,000 middle-class jobs in our Nation that the Inflation Reduction Act--also known as the biggest climate bill in our history--has produced. They are committed to stopping it. That is what Republicans are willing to tank with their latest proposal.
Now I am going to give you the killer stats. This is why they have to kill it. Last year in the United States, 94 percent of all new electricity generation capacity installed was wind and solar and batteries. So the natural gas industry is saying: That can't happen. You mean we were left with 6 percent?
Yes, that is right. This thing is moving--wind, solar, and battery storage--for electricity generation in our country. If you do it every year for the next 10 years or the next 25 years, then the natural gas industry just won't be able to compete in the marketplace.
So Adam Smith is spinning in his grave, looking at what Chris Wright is doing today--tampering with the free market, tampering with incentives for the competition to oil and gas, which have received tax breaks for 100 years.
Adam Smith is spinning in his grave, thinking how capitalism is being completely distorted, although he wrote a whole chapter in ``Wealth of Nations,'' and the chapter was just about how much he hated monopolies, how much he hated oligopolies, which are anathema when it comes to competition, when it comes to capitalism. He really wanted Darwinian paranoia-inducing competition--Adam Smith. That is not what Chris Wright wants. That is not what Donald Trump wants. Donald Trump wants to be able to put his thumb on the scale for the oil and gas industry and for the coal industry just to destroy the future competition.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has already cost America more than 50,000 clean energy jobs and over $8 billion in private sector clean energy
Here is what Chris Wright also said:
Chris Wright must have brought a calculator from 2005 because those numbers are just completely wrong. In reality, wind and solar are the fastest growing electricity sources in history. In 2024, as I have already said, they made up over 90 percent of all new electricity generation in the United States.
Listen to this--this is scary for the oil and gas industry--96 percent of all new electricity generation installed worldwide last year was wind and solar and battery--96 percent globally, wind and solar.
He is saying: Oh, it is just such a small part.
No, it is not, and it is going to grow and grow and grow and grow. That is what is putting the fear into the hearts of the oil and gas industry. They have got to stop it, so they have ordered the House Republicans to kill it in the Ways and Means Committee, kill it in the Energy and Commerce Committee, and then they want to send it over here so that Republicans can rubberstamp this decision to kill the future. I guess that is inaccurate. It is not the future; it is right now. It is over 90 percent of the United States and 96 percent globally, last year, the installation of new electricity generation capacity.
So they are desperate, totally desperate. They wish they had killed the Affordable Care Act 10 years ago because now they don't have the nerve to try to kill the Affordable Care Act because now people already are benefiting from those changes. They are trying to kill this, kill it right now, kill it before it gets more momentum and destroys the business model of 100 years of the oil, gas, and coal industry.
By the way, in the United States alone, we added 50 gigawatts of new solar in 2024. Think of it like this: In 2009, we only had 2,000 megawatts of solar from the beginning of time until 2009. Last year, 50,000 new gigawatts of solar was installed in our country. If it was 50,000 next year and the year after and the year after, when 10 years is done, you will have a half a million new gigawatts of solar.
So the oil and gas industry is listening to Donald Trump, who said: If you raise $1 billion for me--he said this last April in the middle of his campaign--I will kill the clean energy revolution. I will kill it.
So this is just pay to play.
Here is an industry that is growing, creating new jobs hand-over- fist, just growing at a faster rate than the economy itself--growing way faster than the economy itself--and what we now see are the fossil fuel apologists saying that new solar just doesn't work when, in fact, new solar is now cheaper than simply operating an existing coal plant. Offshore wind is half the cost of building a new gas plant. That is what offshore wind amounts to--half the price.
They have to kill it. It is too efficient. It is too clean. It doesn't pollute. It doesn't cause asthma. They have to kill it now, says Chris Wright, says the oil and gas industry.
Chris Wright also said:
That is just not true. In fact, the States with the most wind and solar--Iowa, South Dakota, Texas--also have lower electricity rates than other parts of the country.
Clean energy isn't just clean; it is cheap. If Republicans really cared about communities, they would stop exporting our liquefied natural gas, which drives up prices at home. So let's stop these fossil fuel companies from gouging families with price spikes and pretending that pollution is patriotism.
The administration has made its tradeoff clear: your future for their profit. That is Trump's ``art of the deal.'' They get to be rich, and young people don't have a future when it comes to clean energy or protecting against climate change. That is the ``art of the deal.'' It is an intergenerational deal. The older generation gets all the money, and the next generations take all the risk. That is his deal, and he is expecting everyone to respond like a candidate on ``The Apprentice.''
Well, they are not going to. Young people are going to rise up. The word is going to get out. This is very dangerous, what he is doing.
said Chris Wright--
That is Chris Wright. This is kind of radical, irrational, nonfact- based but, ultimately, Trumpian-at-its-soul policies that Chris Wright has to defend. Now, you would hope that he knows better, but I think it is different. I think that what Chris Wright has is a remarkable ability to harness voluminous amounts of information to defend a knowingly erroneous premise, and that erroneous premise is that wind and solar and batteries aren't working right now. So he has to just tell lies about it, plain and simple. Lie, lie, lie.
And I get it. This is a religious war, pitting economic stimulus policies that drove investment in the free market against their religion of pure Trumpism; pitting corporate profits against breathable air, drinkable water, and a habitable planet.
Do you place your alms at the foot of an effigy for Harold Hamm? Well, Republicans do. He is the biggest natural gas guy in the country, and he said he would raise the money for Donald Trump.
Here is the real gospel. Clean energy is not polarizing; it is popular in the polls. Not only do people like it, 70 percent of registered voters support the biggest climate bill in history, with over 70 percent of registered voters saying the United States needs to use more renewable energy than it does today. That is not religion; that is stimulus in solar panels. And again, it is the public saying: Move to the future, move away from oil and gas.
If we want to talk about sacrifice, it is our communities that are sacrificing their lungs to pollution, their homes to floods, their paychecks to fossil fuel price spikes, all for the religion of climate denialism.
I think all these guys, they must have gotten their climate degree from Trump University--I think, Chris Wright and all of them inside of his administration--because it is just the opposite of what is happening out there. The planet is dangerously warming.
We have got a response that is massively capturing a private sector investment all across our country to deploy the renewable energy resources that reduce greenhouse gases. Yet--again, I am going to come back to Chris Wright--he claims:
This is Chris Wright--
Is he talking about the 450,000 asthma deaths every year worldwide? Let me say that again. Is he talking about the 450,000 people who die from asthma every year globally or the billions in extreme weather and climate change-related damage every year? That disease sounds pretty damaging.
The cure? Well, regulations that this administration is going to try to roll back right now. They are going to try to roll back the protections that are now in place to reduce dramatically the number of people who die from asthma. And the rest of the world, of course, is also deploying the cure--the renewable energy technologies.
So is there too little mercury up in the air? Are there too few air toxics up in the air right now, so that Chris Wright says we need more of them? We need more of them in the lungs of young people? We need more of them in the lungs of young mothers, pregnant women across our country and across the planet?
I don't hear anyone calling for more mercury, more toxics in the air. And if the regulations stayed in place, it would save 11,000 deaths every year.
And speaking of interest groups, let us not pretend this administration is for the people. The only group Trump has ever prioritized is the fossil fuel elite.
So now we come back to Chris Wright again, who is bringing that same attitude toward governing. And he just doesn't get the attention he deserves for the malevolent way in which he is trying to destroy the clean energy future of our country. Today's energy regulatory rollback--today--is a kamikaze mission against clean energy, against efficiency, against accountability. And the Republicans are more than happy to sign our planet's death sentence. That is what they are doing. That is what their plan is this year on the floor of the Senate and in the rollback of all the regulations that have been promulgated over the years at the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency--a death sentence for the planet.
We are talking about rescinding energy and water conservation standards for dozens of products that most Americans have in their homes--microwaves, faucets--that save billions of dollars and billions of gallons of water annually.
And what are we going to get instead? What is Chris Wright promising? What is Donald Trump promising us? A rule book written by and for fossil fuel companies. That is what we are going to have--fossil fuel profiteers. No science. No data. Just the same old special interests pushing the same old lies.
So when Chris Wright and Republicans say they want to cut redtape, what he really means is cut clean air, cut consumer savings, cut climate future, cut clean water, cut safe lands. Cut, cut, cut.
So let's call this what it is: the Trump deregulation doctrine. If it saves money, repeal it. If it protects public health, gut it. If it curbs emissions, cancel it. And if it benefits the American people, sabotage it. This isn't a regulatory review; it is a regulatory revenge tour. And it is not just about energy efficiency; it is about justice-- because it is frontline communities, the poorest communities, Black and Brown communities, poor communities already overburdened by asthma, heat, and energy insecurity who are going to pay a disproportionate price because of what Trump is doing, because of what Chris Wright is doing.
It is almost unconscionable what Chris Wright is attempting to perpetrate upon the poorest, the most vulnerable in our society, but he is doing it all because they are not rich enough--the oil barons, the natural gas barons, the coal barons. They are not rich enough. We have to have more people die. We have to have more people get sick.
Madam American, Mr. American, the American people deserve better than this. They deserve an Energy Secretary who believes in science, who tells the truth, who doesn't measure progress in barrels sold or rules repealed.
We should be investing in the future, not dismantling the future. We should be building cleaner, safer, and more affordable systems, not resurrecting pollution in the name of profit.
So to Chris Wright and Donald Trump, I say: We will fight you in the courts. We will fight you in the States. We will fight you on the floor of this Chamber--because every rule you tear down, we are going to rebuild stronger. Every lie you tell, we are going to counter with the truth. And every time you try to sell out the American people to pad a corporate balance sheet so that the rich become even richer, we will be back there to push against you, to protect the American public, to attempt to protect those who are most vulnerable in our society.
So you are not going to back down; we are not going to back down. This is a fight for the future. This is a fight for the planet. They are trying to write the death certificate of the planet right now, and we are not going to let them get away with it. They are in for a historic resistance coming up from the streets of our country because this is too important just to be another source of revenue for the tax breaks for the already too rich in our society.
Let me just finish with this. The three richest guys in America who sat behind Donald Trump at the inauguration, they control more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of our population combined. Do they really need more? Do oil and gas barons really need more? Does it have to come at the expense of the future of all the young people in our country? Does it have to come at the expense of the health of everyone in our Nation? Aren't we better than this? Aren't we really the innovation country?
So that would be my message: You are in for a fight. It is a fight for the future against those who want to pull us back toward a past which ultimately has created the issues, the problems, the risks that we are confronted with today.
So with that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
(Mr. MORENO assumed the Chair.)
(Mr. SCHMITT assumed the Chair.)
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
