[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 52 (Thursday, March 29, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2220-S2221]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  EPA

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I wish to take some time this evening 
to congratulate our Environmental Protection Agency and to thank them 
for the rule they proposed this week regarding new coal-fired 
powerplants.
  They have taken a certain amount of heat over this rule and have been 
criticized. But I come from Rhode Island, and Rhode Island is a 
downwind State from the coal-fired powerplants of the Midwest. We pay 
the price for the coal power those Midwestern States burn. We pay the 
price in children coming in to our hospitals with asthma attacks. We 
pay the price in ozone levels that are outside our control. We are a 
State that contributes very little in pollution to other States, but we 
are on the receiving end. We are down the gun barrel of the big array 
of coal-fired powerplants in the Midwest.
  They have not only continued to burn dirty coal, they have built 
particularly high stacks so the emissions from that coal plant get 
pushed into the high atmosphere and they move east toward Rhode Island 
in the prevailing winds and we experience that as smog, as ozone, as 
air pollution. So there is an element of deliberateness to this.
  There are places in this country that are in compliance with air 
quality standards because they have put their emissions up high enough 
that it lands somewhere else. Rhode Island is often out of compliance 
with air quality standards, and it is not from emissions in our home 
State. So we hear a lot from the coal-burning polluters about all the 
terrible things the EPA rule is going to cause. It is going to cause 
nothing but good in Rhode Island.
  It is outrageous that on a bright, clear summer day one can be 
driving in to work in Rhode Island and hear over the car radio the 
announcer letting us know that today is going to be a bad air day in 
Rhode Island. We look out the window and it looks absolutely beautiful, 
but it is going to be a bad air day, they tell us. Infants should be 
kept indoors in air-conditioning, seniors should not go outside, people 
with breathing difficulties should stay indoors, and everyone should 
avoid vigorous physical activity because the air quality is too poor. 
That is not a price a carbon polluter in one State should get to 
require the seniors, the children, the families in another State to 
have to pay.
  I am delighted EPA has begun to apply this rule. Unfortunately, it 
only applies to new powerplants. So the existing coal-burning 
powerplants that create so much of this pollution in our State, we are 
going to need to continue to work to crack down on until these States 
are sufficiently responsible in their use of power and in how they burn 
fuel to generate their power that they are not exporting bad air and 
pollution to other States.
  As important as this is to Rhode Island as a downwind State, as 
important it is to protect the lungs of our kids and our families, this 
is also an important step for EPA to have taken because of the global 
problem we have from carbon pollution. The carbon pollution we are 
unleashing as a country--frankly, as a species across the globe--is 
having a dire effect in our atmosphere. It is having a dire effect in 
our oceans. It is truly causing our climate to change and the changes 
are going to be very difficult and very dangerous for our country in 
the future. That is not just my opinion. That is the opinion of our 
military leaders. That is the opinion of our national defense 
intelligence establishment. It is treated as a fact in those 
responsible quarters of our government.
  Unfortunately, here and down there in the House of Representatives, 
there is a campaign of denial that is being propagated that is clearly 
supported by the polluting industries and has the purpose of protecting 
their financial

[[Page S2221]]

interests and enabling them to continue to profit from the harm they 
are imposing on our oceans and on our atmosphere.
  It would be nice if the laws of government could supersede the laws 
of nature. It would be nice if we could repeal the laws of physics, the 
laws of chemistry, the laws of biology, but we can't. It is arrogance 
to presume we could. The fact of what the carbon pollution is doing to 
our world can be denied in this Chamber, it can be denied down the hall 
in the House of Representatives all day long and all night long, and it 
is not going to change the result. It is actually only recently that 
there was a denial industry attacking the problem of climate change and 
trying to minimize it, trying to mock it, trying to distract people 
from it.
  In the past, the denial industry was pointed elsewhere. In the past, 
the denial industry was supporting the tobacco companies in convincing 
people it wasn't that bad for them. The science isn't complete yet. 
Don't worry. There is still doubt.
  It deployed itself against lead. When the dangers of lead paint 
became known, the denial industry went to bat for the lead industry. It 
denied that lead was very poisonous, said it only happened to very poor 
people, went through all their rigmarole. The same process: create 
doubt about a scientific concern in order to prevent action being taken 
to protect people. Now they have turned on carbon pollution.
  But before they turned from tobacco and lead to carbon pollution, it 
was pretty well accepted how basic this science is. The first scientist 
to determine that carbon dioxide would have the effect of warming the 
atmosphere if its concentration increased was a scientist named 
Tyndall. I think he was Irish and wrote in England in 1865. Around the 
time of the Civil War, this was discovered.
  By the year I was born, in 1955, there are basic texts that describe 
that the more carbon pollution we put into the air, the more it traps 
heat, the warmer the climate gets.
  It is virtually indisputable what is happening to the oceans. We are 
not talking projections. We are not talking estimates. We are talking 
measurements, and the measurements show the acidity of our oceans and 
the increase in acidification is happening faster than it has in 3 
million years. The extent of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now, 
measured, is outside of a bound that has been maintained on the surface 
of our planet for 800,000 years--8,000 centuries. That is a long time. 
We have only been farming as a species for about 10,000 years. So 
800,000 takes us way back to a very primitive species. Through all that 
time, we have been in this bandwidth of carbon in our atmosphere and 
now we are out of it. We are flying out of it, and it is getting worse 
all the time.
  Instead of taking it seriously in this building, we are listening to 
the siren song of the big-money polluters, as if the laws of 
government, the laws of Congress could repeal the laws of nature that 
we know--the laws of physics, the laws of chemistry, the laws of 
biology that are causing this to happen.
  I appreciate very much the Presiding Officer, the junior Senator from 
Minnesota, having been so energetic and helpful in continuing to bring 
this thought to the Senate floor. I think we had an effective and 
important colloquy on the floor several weeks ago discussing this very 
point. I think it is important that from time to time we stand and 
remind our colleagues that there is a truth to this matter. The truth 
is that we are releasing unprecedented, massive amounts of carbon 
pollution into our atmosphere that, as a matter of science, the laws of 
physics, warm the atmosphere, and that warming atmosphere creates 
dramatic changes in our weather, in our coasts, in our sea levels. Our 
coasts are probably going to be hit the hardest of anyplace, and Rhode 
Island is a coastal State.
  The ocean absorbs the pollution, so the harm is not just in the 
atmosphere and to the climate, it is to the ocean itself as its pH 
level changes from the absorption of carbon. Nobody doubts that the 
ocean absorbs carbon. There is no credible debate on that. You can 
measure the ocean's pH.
  It is important that every once in a while we tell the truth on this 
because the time is coming very close when it will be past the tipping 
point of taking the action we need to take to protect ourselves, 
protect our coasts, our economy, our national security.
  I wanted to take this moment as the week ended to come and share my 
thoughts again on this subject. I will continue to do it from time to 
time because I think it is important that America be a country that 
tells the truth about problems, and I think it is important that Rhode 
Island, as an ocean State, be as protected as we can from the changes 
we see coming.
  The IPCC just reported on the weather effects of climate change and 
said that you cannot assign a particular storm to the effects of 
climate change, but in various areas you can connect the threat to 
climate change with varying degrees of certainty. With respect to the 
threat from sea-level rise and from worsened storms driving that raised 
sea ashore and causing flooding and damage, the certainty range was 90 
to 100 percent. If we are not going to listen to warnings that the 
scientists now tell us are 90 to 100 percent certain, we are really 
making a grievous mistake.
  I will conclude by thanking the Presiding Officer again for his 
support and help. I hope the time comes when this body can actually 
treat this problem in a serious and sober way and the dark hand of the 
polluting industry tapping on our shoulders and whispering in our ears 
and telling us what we can and cannot say is pushed back and instead we 
stand in the light of day, in the light of science and fact, and behave 
responsibly about the changes that are coming and our role in causing 
these changes.
  I see the distinguished Senator from Georgia in the Chamber, and I 
yield the floor.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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