During Wednesday’s Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, President Biden’s Secretary of Energy David Turk struggled to answer Sen. John Kennedy’s (R-La.) questions regarding how many trillions of dollars the U.S. would need to spend in order to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Watch a video of the full exchange between Secretary Turk and Senator Kennedy below:
In the hearing, entitled, “A Review of the FY 2024 Budget Request for the U.S. Department of Energy, including the National Nuclear Security Administration,” Sec. Turk couldn’t say how much American carbon neutrality would cost — or how much it would lower global temperatures.
Sen. Kennedy began his questioning of Turk by asking for the Energy Secretary’s best estimate of how soon the U.S. will be carbon neutral. Turk responded that the U.S. must become carbon neutral by 2050.
Kennedy followed up by asking Turk, “How much will that cost?”
Turk, reluctant to provide an exact figure, responded saying, “The cost that I focus on even more is all the costs that are going to happen if we don’t get our act together.”
After some pressing from Kennedy, Turk finally conceded that the cost of reaching the 2050 carbon neutrality goal would be in the trillions of dollars.
Kennedy then asked for estimates that Turk had seen, to which Turk replied that he did not have those numbers on hand.
Turk went on to claim that the cost of not reaching the 2050 carbon neutrality goal would be “orders of magnitude” higher than the trillions of dollars the U.S. would spend in reaching that goal.
“So you’re advocating that we become carbon neutral but you don’t know how it’s going to cost?” Kennedy asked. “I hope you’re not telling me you have no idea how much it’s going to cost, that creates a whole new host of problems,” added Kennedy.
After suggesting that some of Turk’s colleagues propose a cost of $50 trillion to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, Kennedy asked Turk: “if the U.S. spent $50 trillion to become carbon neutral by 2050, how much is that going to reduce world temperatures?”
Unwilling to provide a definite number or estimate, Turk simply responded by saying, “This is a global problem, so we need to reduce our emissions and we need to do everything we can.”
“How much if we do our part is it going to reduce global temperatures?” Kennedy interjected.
“So we’re 13% of global emissions-” Turk began, before being cut off by Kennedy, saying “You don’t know, do you”
“If you know why won’t you tell me?” “You just want us to spend $50 trillion and you don’t have the slightest idea if it is going to reduce global temperatures,” Kennedy challenged.
Turk, remaining reluctant to answer Kennedy’s question, simply reiterated that “In my heart of hearts, there is no way the world gets it act together on climate change unless the U.S. leads.”
Kennedy rebuked Biden’s Energy Secretary, claiming that Turk either did not have an accurate estimate of how much reaching the administration’s carbon neutrality goal would lower global temperatures, or that he did have this information but was refusing to share it with the committee.
“This isn’t your money or my money, it’s taxpayer money,” Kennedy emphasized, stressing the importance of holding Biden administration officials accountable for their spending.
