Rep. Scott Peters Publishes Collection Of Climate Change Bills In 'Playbook'

Speaker 1: 00:00 Concerns among Americans over climate change have surged to record levels and annual. We'll pull by Yale University released in January, found 73% of Americans except the climate change caused by humans is happening in 72% said it's personally important to them. This follows a year of devastating wildfires, storms, and grave predictions by climate scientists. All of this is roiling our politics, especially among Democrats. There's the green new deal, a resolution calling for widespread action to mitigate climate change and now a climate playbook put forth by congressman Scott Peters. Joining me via Skype as part of our coverage from the KPBS climate change desk is democratic representative Scott Peters of San Diego. Welcome to midday addition. Thanks mark. Thanks for having me. We'll start with the climate playbook. What is it the, why'd you put it together? Who's it aimed at? Speaker 2: 00:51 It's aimed at the climate challenge. What we, you know, we've been seeing is that there's a renewed vigor in a climate action in Washington. It comes from a lot of people running on the issue and winning. It comes from a democratic majority. What people will be open now to more solutions. But, um, we're off to kind of a slow start. And we were starting to talk about a green new deal, which is an aspirational idea. If we pass the green new deal today, tomorrow would, we would be looking for what actions we would take to implement that. And that's what the playbook is, is it's a set of bills that have been in existence in this congress over the last congress from the senator of the House that deal with all aspects of climate change, from, uh, from mitigation to resilience to energy efficiency, to clean vehicles. Uh, and we wanted to collect them and make sure that people knew they were out there and that that was stuff we'd get to work on right now. Speaker 1: 01:46 All right. And there's dozens of bills included here, most proposed by Democrats. So I'm are bipartisan characterize this proposal legislation, uh, how's it organized in the climate playbook? What ways do they go about mitigating global warming? Speaker 2: 02:00 You know, I tried to break it up into different areas. So one is carbon pricing, which is one of the more difficult issues. One is energy efficiency, which is where there's a lot of bipartisan agreement, a lot of opportunity. Uh, there's sections on resiliency, on agriculture, on carbon capture. Uh, there are a lot of ideas that, that a lot of us have been working on for a long time. We don't have to start from zero. So what this is, is it opens up to other legislators, to academics and to the public and to activists, the ability to look and see what's out there, to evaluate what's out there and see, um, uh, you know, what we would like to get behind, what we'd like to act on and also to identify if there's gaps and we need to address. And I think, um, so I think the exercise has been good. And now let's get to work. Speaker 1: 02:43 And what's the state of these bills? Are they mostly an idea form any, a new, a near final form? Speaker 2: 02:49 All, they're all in various states. Um, you know, we've passed the HR nine, which is a request for president Trump to come up with his approach to climate and how we would achieve the Paris targets if we were still in. Um, other bills have just been introduced, other bills were introduced in the last congress and have yet to be introduced in this congress. Uh, but the important things, I couldn't find a compendium any place you could go find an index of what was out there. So we had to create this and now everyone's able to, to just look at the list. Uh, see I think what, what makes the most difference to them and um, and maybe co sponsor them and, and get them to the committees. Speaker 1: 03:30 And uh, which in your mind does show the most promise among these bills, which might have the most popular support across the political section? Speaker 2: 03:39 It's hard to say exactly. I think, you know, obviously things like energy efficiency in public buildings is a, is a, is an easier thing. Pricing. Carbon is a more difficult thing, but I would say we are in a different position than we were even in the last congress. Republicans have stopped saying, I have stopped denying the existence of climate change in Congress. The administrator of the EPA came to our committee this week said he recognizes the climate's changing. That and that human activity is a big driver of it. So we're past that. Uh, we've seen also people get elected who run on climate change. We always knew that, that voters were sympathetic to it, but they had not previously voted on the issue. It looks like they're voting on it. And so, um, I think we should be open to the possibility that a lot of things will happen. Speaker 2: 04:27 Uh, finally, one of the most conservative members of Congress, Matt Gates, who's been a big Trump backer and someone who's vexed Democrats, he came out with his own, uh, green real deal. Again, a request for proposals on what to do about climate. He's from Florida. He recognizes that when in, when the streets of Miami are wet on sunny days, um, it has to do with climate. And then we have to act. So I'm not handicapping against any of these bills. I think they're all great opportunities. There's a lot of great ideas. Um, the hard thing will be, you know, let's, let's get to work in and actually start passing stuff, but we don't have to be arguing about ourselves about the need to do it anymore. Speaker 1: 05:06 But you've got a Donald Trump, he's mock the green new deal resolution. These a sibling, a panel of notable climate change deniers to attack climate scientists. Once a u s out of the Paris climate accord doesn't believe in the dire warning from scientists on the looming climate catastrophe just this week. He's pushing the fast track, new oil, gas drilling. Uh, how can bills become law with Trump and still some other republicans in denial? Speaker 2: 05:29 Well, it clearly you've identified the major obstacle, but I don't think there's any reason for us to wait to get to work in Congress. And you know, I think a lot of these things don't have to be controversial and possibly if you have republicans on them, maybe Donald Trump would, uh, would, um, you know, even support them. But remember that the legislative process takes a long time. And I think the mistake for us would be to wait to do anything for two years and in the hopes, some, um, that we'll, you know, we'll win the presidential election if all we do is, is get through a lot of bills, do a lot of legislation, refine it, get it passed in the congress, maybe get some sentence support, um, in the next two years, that will be enough work. And I hope that the president will, will be agreeable. And if it's not, I hope we frankly hope we have a new president, um, in, in two years. Um, but there's no reason to wait as the point if this is an existential crisis, which we all believe it is. If we have 10 years to act, uh, we should start acting now. And that's the point of putting all these bills out there. Speaker 1: 06:30 Uh, I did want to talk about the politics a little bit. You've got some San Diego environmental groups, they criticize you for not supporting the green new deal, not crazy about your playbook. What's your response to that? Speaker 2: 06:41 Well I think they should take another look at it. You know, if we pass the green new deal, um, today, tomorrow we would be looking for how to implement it. And we would look to this playbook for, for the ideas that we would want to implement. That the things that are laid out into the topics that are laid out in the green new deal are the same ones addressed by the climate playbook. The, the green new deal is a aspirational, um, as an aspirational statement of what we have to do about climate. And that's great. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think, you know, it's weakness is that it's, it's general and it's been defined for us politically by Republicans. That's why Mitch Mcconnell wants a vote on it. Um, this is not inconsistent with the green new deal because if you pass the green new deal, this is what you would do to, to, um, to take action. I think we, uh, we can all agree on this stuff. So I, I, I think that, um, that whether you're an activist or, or a a scientist or a legislator or there's a lot in here to look at and deliberate on and we'll hope to take action on. Speaker 1: 07:43 Democrats seem to own this issue now presents opportunity and challenge. How did Democrats Cole us around specific plans in a way that can be sold or the public? Speaker 2: 07:52 Um, now the challenge is not to find more Democrats. It's to find Republicans that we know that, um, the rest of the country's not like California. I could tell you that that's, uh, that's pretty evident to me when I get off the plane. Uh, but for climate action to happen and for it to pass and for it to last, it's got to be bipartisan. So that's why I think we should be working on each of these bills. What if we have bipartisan support? We should be pushing that we should be hitting a lot of singles right now and getting to work on saving this planet. And to the extent we can find Republicans to work with us, um, that's going to make it make that, um, that, uh, achievement, much more realistic. Speaker 1: 08:32 I've been speaking with Congressman Scott Peters, Democrat of San Diego. Thanks, congressman. Thanks very much, mark. Speaker 2: 08:50 Yeah.