Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am back again, thee and me once again together, to discuss climate change as unprecedented wildfires scorch the west coast and a deadly hurricane season turns in the Atlantic and Americans cry out for action. Powerful players outside this Chamber hear that cry, including, recently, over 200 CEOs of major American corporations who form the Business Roundtable. Here are some of the 200 companies represented by those CEOs. As I discussed last week, the Business Roundtable just earlier this month called for science-based climate policy to reduce carbon pollution, consistent with the Paris Agreement, and specifically endorsed carbon pricing--from Verizon, to Chevron, to Apple, to Wells Fargo, to McKinsey, to American Airlines, to Amazon, to Pfizer, to Ford. It is quite the who's-who of corporate America. So why, you might ask, did the Business Roundtable do this when normally business lobbyists are up here telling us to get out of their way? The answer is economics 101. Pollution is the textbook example of market failure. A factory dumps toxic pollution into a river, and anyone living downstream bears the costs of that pollution. They can't use their well, perhaps. Their property values decrease. They may even get sick. It is basic economic theory that polluters ought to bear those costs, called negative externalities--the downstream costs, if you will.…”