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SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. Mike Lee warned against "climate alarmism" in his first meeting as a member of the Senate Budget Committee.
The hearing Wednesday titled "Climate Related Economic Risks and their Cost to the Federal Budget and the Global Economy," was the panel's first of the year. Lee, who was removed from the Senate Commerce Committee earlier this year, said he appreciates the opportunity for the new assignment at a time when the federal budget has never been in a "worse state of disrepair."
"Let's not fool ourselves and the American public. Our ballooning deficits and debt have been driven by and will continue to be driven by runaway, profligate spending by the federal government not because of any effects of climate change," the Utah Republican said.
"Fear has become an all-too-prevalent quality in America's political discourse, and, specifically, among those on the left who seek to use climate alarmism to justify a government takeover of our economy and a radical, unrealistic and damaging transition of our energy sector."
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., the committee chairman, said the reason for the hearing and future hearings on the subject is because $10 trillion of the federal debt can be ascribed to "exogenous shocks" to the economy over the past three years.
"It wasn't cheap, but we had to do it," he said right after Lee ended his remarks. "The biggest exogenous shock on the horizon out there is climate upheaval."
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who also serves on the committee, reiterated his call for a tax on carbon emissions as a way to combat global warming.
"I have no question about the impact of climate change. It's going to be significant, devastating in some areas more than others," he said. "The question is whether we're doing things that will actually make a difference and will lead to a different result."
Government, he said, does a lot of feel-good things that have almost no impact on global emissions. China's emissions are greater than the U.S., the EU and Japan combined, he said.
"So we do things here that are very expensive and disruptive to our economy, they don't change what's happening globally. We have to do things that have global impact. So research and technology, and a price on carbon, are the things that would make a difference," Romney said.
What the U.S. can control is the amount of its national debt, adding it has 10 times the impact of climate change, he said.
"And yet we're not willing to look at our entitlement programs to see if we can balance them somehow. I'm not talking about cutting them or taxing them," Romney said. "I'm just saying let's at least come together and work on it. But the parties are afraid to even come together and have a discussion about how can we balance these things."
Last summer, Romney and Lee voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes investing in domestic energy production to curb the effects of climate change and reduce carbon emissions.
Lee said that for the first time since World War II, the national debt has reached 100% of GDP, meaning the federal government currently owes more than it collects in yearly revenue. That number is projected to double to 200% by 2050, when our net interest will be the single largest budget item, exceeding the size of Social Security and Medicare, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Climate change, he said, has not caused the ballooning deficit.
A growing number of Democrats, bureaucrats and private sector business people are making outlandish claims about a "climate apocalypse," he said. They're using it to justify a widespread federal government takeover of the economy and a "radical, damaging and unrealistic" transition of the energy sector, Lee said.
In several tweets before the meeting, Lee said it's time to abandon the call for the elimination of fossil fuels.
"Climate fanaticism has held back humanity long enough. It's time to unshackle ourselves from this false doctrine of collective self-loathing. Fossil fuels matter because they make life possible and enable human flourishing. If you're against them, you're resisting humanity," he tweeted.
