'Seriously?': Peter Welch Rips Witness Claiming Green Movement Is 'Objectively Assisting China'

Forbes Breaking News

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) asked Capital Research Center President Scott Walter about his claims that the environmental movement is "assisting China."

Transcript

00:00Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Welch came back.

00:04Senator Welch, I didn't see you come back in.

00:09So, Mr. Walter, I favor the provisions of the IRA that are being repealed.

00:26You're aware of what's going on there, right?

00:28To some degree.

00:30All right, I mean, all the people you mentioned, all the folks who you indicted for kind of

00:40using Ted Cruz's language, left-wing radical ideas, how do you distinguish between a person

00:48whose motivation is to be left-wing Chinese sympathizer and people who just disagree with

00:54the fossil fuel industry that climate change, in fact, is real and we have to do something

00:59about it.

01:00Can you explain to me?

01:02Well, at the beginning of my oral testimony there, I made the distinction between whatever

01:06the intentions of various folks may be, they are objectively assisting China in its desire

01:14to compete with the United States.

01:15Like the Hewlett Foundation?

01:18Yes.

01:18Seriously.

01:19Walter Hewlett, his foundation, you think is in bed with the Communist Party?

01:27Well, that's not what I said, is it?

01:29I said that objectively they're aiding the Chinese communists, but I did not say that they themselves

01:36were communists.

01:37Right.

01:37But what you're doing is denying them the ability to make their own judgment about what's good

01:45public policy for the benefit of this country by saying that they're, and this really is

01:52how I hear it, dupes of the Communist Party because what they're doing aligns, you say, with

01:58the communists.

02:00Well, they give a good deal of money, for instance, to the Energy Foundation China that the chairman

02:05has been discussing, which is run by a former Chinese communist official.

02:10So, by virtue, does China have any environmental problems?

02:15It has grave environmental problems, yes.

02:18So, if there are some Chinese that want to deal with their environmental problems, and

02:23we agree that there are environmental problems, and we also know that climate change can't

02:30be solved by one country, and other countries start to do something about it, is that a problem

02:34for you?

02:35Well, I have to say that I'm skeptical that former Chinese communist officials are interested

02:42in doing anything that would harm their country.

02:45Who are some of the other names, I don't have your statement here, that you said are, in effect,

02:51dupes, if I can translate what you're saying, of the Communist Party because their climate agenda,

02:57you say, is being funded by them?

02:59I didn't talk about it being funded by them, and what I did explain for, I mean, they're

03:08very simple things.

03:09Massive U.S. government subsidies for products that use Chinese technology obviously is enhancing

03:18the Chinese economy.

03:19Has the U.S. government, through its tax code, ever provided any incentives and tax preferences

03:27for the fossil fuel industry?

03:30Yes, a great deal.

03:31And you don't have a problem with that?

03:34Well, I'm not an economist qualified to talk about the relative value of the subsidies,

03:39but I don't think that it's remotely deniable that we currently subsidize all sorts of green

03:47technology in which China is leading and therefore helping the Chinese.

03:54So, the fact that we, you know, Senator Durbin here has solar panels, does that make him a

04:00communist sympathizer?

04:02No, I don't think so, any more than my driving to this hearing today makes me a mass murderer

04:07or an accessory to mass murder.

04:09You know, this is the issue I have.

04:17We've got a planet that's melting, all right?

04:20That's my view.

04:21The oil industry doesn't agree with that.

04:23They think everything's fine.

04:25And we went from a policy where it was all of the above to essentially a policy that everything

04:31below is where we're going to get our energy.

04:34And what I'm seeing in the arguments that you are making is you're trying to demean and

04:39disparage and discredit arguments by people who believe that we need a radically different

04:46policy.

04:47policy.

04:48It does allow for the development of clean energy to reduce carbon emissions.

04:54That's what I'm hearing.

04:55And then one of the tools is to vilify folks who have that point of view that they are dupes

05:02of the communist party that's trying to take us down.

05:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:07I yield back.

Category

Transcript

Recommended