Ed Markey — Markey: Congress Must Support Clean Energy Jobs

the president the evidence and impacts of climate change are clear they're undeniable scientists can measure the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere they can measure the rising temperatures they can measure the increasing level of the sea they can measure the increase in extreme rainfall all of this increases the risk for extreme weather events that threaten people and the economy and while addressing the challenges of climate change May will take a comprehensive approach we have many of the policies the workforce and the Technologies we need to address the problem already to illustrate that point I want to tell you A Tale of Two tax policies one for wind and solar and one for oil and gas and coal so let's look at the last decade of our Tale of Two tax policies in 2004 we the United States we installed 79 total megawatts of solar in the United States that little teeny 79 back in 2005.

last year we deployed nearly a hundred times seven thousand new megawatts in the year 2014. look at that nearly 100 times more solar well what happened first technology cost plummeted you've heard of a Moore's law for semiconductors it told us that today's iPhones would be more powerful than the last Generations supercomputers we all know Moore's Law we knew that we would move from this pocket phone to an iPhone because the technology keeps getting more powerful well there's a Moore's law for solar as well every time solar panel deployment doubles globally the cost of solar Falls by 18 it's predictable and it's why we're seeing the cost of a solar panel drop 70 percent since the year 2010 and it's why costs will continue to fall next 30 States enacted renewable electricity standards yes now more than half of the states in our country have a standard to get a sizable portion of their electricity from renewable sources and finally and most importantly from a national policy perspective we passed an eight-year extension of the solar investment tax credit in 2008.

we gave this industry and these companies 10t we now have more than 20 000 megawatts of installed solar capacity in the United States more than 60 percent of it was added in just the last two years and we are projected to double that installed solar capacity over the next two years we're forecast to add 8 000 megawatts this year and 12 000 megawatts next year and that is because we put smart tax policies on the books seven years ago so look what happened you go from the beginning of the American Revolution until 2005 we were still only installing 79 megawatts just a little teeny tiny amount of solar energy but then you start putting State renewable electricity Sanders on the books and a new tax policy and it starts to explode a hundred times I a thousand times more solar in America just by the way with all the experts saying this can't happen solar isn't real wind isn't real you you Senators you house members you've got to get real well this is the proof that it was bad policies that had stopped this explosion of these Technologies and by the way the same thing is true fall wind power we are projected to add 9 000 new megawatts of wind power in our country this year and we are projected to add another 8 000 megawatts of of uh wind power next year so you can see what is happening with the combined totals of wind and solar once we put the new policies on the books it was basically an era almost no electricity in the United States operated by wind and solar to next year five to six percent of all the electricity in America will come from wind and solar it's like the explosion of cell phones that turned into smartphones people didn't have anything in their pocket just 20 years ago it was like the wind and solar industry but we changed policies in the United States we said we can do it we can untether ourselves from a telephone line in our living rooms we can let people walk around with their phone and we began to make the same decisions on wind and solar we can untether ourselves from coal generated electricity in the United States that emits greenhouse gases that dangerously warm our planet and we are now doing it and it is accelerating it is accelerating that is the beautiful part of the story and by the end of next year there are going to be 300 000 people employed in the wind and solar industry in the United States right now there are 73 thousand people in the wind energy industry in our country making uh these wind turbines building them steel workers iron workers they're out there doing this work right now and it generates clean renewable non-polluting energy we can't do this we are the United States of America We Are The Innovation Giant on the planet we can solve this problem and what has happened With the Wind industry well a tax break has now expired has the tax break for the oil industry expired oh no breaks for the coal industry expired oh no those tax breaks have been on the books for a hundred years they'll never expire never there's too many people who want to help the fossil fuel industry here in the Senate and over in the House of Representatives but the wind industry the solar industry their tax breaks their tax breaks the ones that are showing the tremendous growth The Innovation the capacity to develop new technologies that we can export around the planet those are the ones that are expiring now if you look at the green generation you you look at young people within our society which technology do they want us to invest in do they want black rotary dial phones and coal burning power plants or do they want the new technologies of the 21st century of their generation do they want the past dirty carbon polluting or do they want future clean energy it's not even close this is a choice which has to be made by this generation the green generation expects us to be the leaders on this now the oil in the gas industry they get 7.5 billion dollars a year in tax breaks now the oil industry they don't need a subsidy to drill for oil any more than a a bird needs a subsidy to fly or a fish needs a subsidy to swim they're going to do it anyway what they do though is they Lobby to take away the tax breaks for solar and win because they know that that will displace them so our goal of course should be to have a massive ramping up of these Energy Technologies I want to hear a credible number the Chinese government while the pope was in town here in Washington announced that China was going to wind and solar and other renewable Technologies by the year 2030 that would equal the total of all electrical generation capacity in the United States of America all coal all natural gas all hydropower all wind also think I think now again I told you earlier that every time there is a global doubling of the deployment of Sola on the planet the price of Solar drops by 18 percent so China is going to be doing that India has now announced last week they are going to have a massive massive increase in their renewable energy resources as well and unfortunately the tax breaks in our own country have already expired or are going to expire for the wind and solar Industries our country we're supposed to be the leader we're supposed to be the technological Giant on this planet so all I can say is if we want the jobs this is the sector where the jobs are being created 300 000 by the end of next year if we want to reduce greenhouse gases this is the sector it can make it possible for the United States to be the leader if we want to be the leaders to ensure that we've on the message that Pope Francis delivered to the Congress just two weeks ago we have to move towards these Technologies the pope asked us to use our technological capacity in order to solve this problem the pope pretty much said three things number one the planet is warming Dangerously the science is clear second thing the pope said the cause of the warming is largely human beings the science is clear and third we have a moral responsibility in order to deal with it so ladies and gentlemen this is a huge day because we're we have members coming out here on the floor to talk about this revolution the solution the way we can deal with this issue in a positive affirmative job creating way we can engage a massive job creation in order to save all of God's creation we can do it but we have to decide that we're going to be the leaders uh in this sector and uh all I can tell you is that uh in the end we're going to win because technology always triumphs always you can hold it back for a while but in the end it's going to ultimately change our world and by the year 2100 people will look back and wonder why we ever did generate electricity by the use of fossil fuels on our planet so I thank you Mr President and I see that uh Senator the shots and Senator Whitehouse have arrived uh and with that I yield back to balance my time