[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.
____________________