Transcript of Pelosi Remarks at Moderated Conversation on Climate and Resilience

Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt – Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined Chairwoman Kathy Castor for a moderated conversation with Kathy Baughman McLeod, Director of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, for a discussion on climate and resilience at COP27. Below are the Speaker's opening remarks:

Speaker Pelosi. Well thank you, Kathy. It's wonderful to be here with you at the Rockefeller Adrienne Arsht Center for all – and thank you for what you do in that regard, because the nonprofit sector is so important. No political agenda, just saving the planet For The Children.

Whatever we do is under the guidance of our distinguished Chair of our Select Committee on Climate, Kathy Castor. She has been chairing the Committee and listening to all the – all of the stakeholders, whether it's people of faith, or concerned scientists, whether it's business or labor, environmental, or labor, or business, whether it's farmers, whether it's venture capitalists, you name it, every aspect to listen so that people do not feel that they are left out or not taken into consideration. So when you ask what are we doing, we're doing it in that way. And I salute Kathy for years of listening and putting together a report that was historic. And on that report sprang the legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, which has in it $370 billion to address the climate crisis, For The Children in a fair and just way.

And Kathy will speak more about it, but I want to acknowledge three of our colleagues who are here. Mr. Meeks is the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He has been fighting and trying – and it's a challenge, we haven't succeeded yet – to get the global funding that we need to be good neighbors on this planet. And that is a fight that he has been making. Again, part of the report from the Committee.

Much of the Committee – much of the Committee work depends on tax credits, and the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Richie Neal, is here. And his Committee – Mike Thompson of California – under leadership of our distinguished Chairman, has the bulk of the bill, how we can come together: private sector, public sector, nonprofit sector. And Mr. Espaillat is here, a Member of the Appropriations Committee, from New York, he's been – we've traveled to Puerto Rico after disasters and the rest, about workforce development, and how you – if you're going to reconstruct, or transition, or have resilience, all of it, you have to have a workforce to be able to do it. And so, part of his contribution is that aspect of it. Other Members of our delegation are showing – Pingree, in terms of agriculture and the food issue. Barbara Lee, roaming around here someplace, maybe will arrive, Chair of the Subcommittee on Appropriations that would be funding so much of the global aspects of this.

So I really – it's hard to speak in terms of the midterm elections in this subject, because we have had, shall we say, a disagreement on the subject. When Kathy had her bill on the Floor, our colleague said, ‘Why are we having this discussion? There is no climate crisis. It's all a hoax.' We have to get over that. I place my confidence in their children, who hopefully will teach their parents that this is urgent, long overdue. But again, how we will address it is to get working together.