[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 23 (Wednesday, February 13, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S690-S692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here again to talk about the 
effects of climate change on the health of our families and our 
communities. Just as we know that secondhand smoke and too much sun 
exposure are bad for human health, we know pollution and variations in 
climate conditions are as well.
  I wish to thank our chairman on the Environment and Public Works 
Committee, Mrs. Boxer, for the briefing she held today with a number of 
scientists, including one who spoke specifically about the human health 
effects we can see from climate change. Climate change is threatening 
to erode the improvements in air quality we have achieved through the 
Clean Air Act.
  EPA-enforced emissions reductions have led to a decline in the number 
and

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severity of bad air days in the United States. These are the days I 
know the Presiding Officer is familiar with because I am sure they 
happen in Connecticut as well as in Rhode Island, where the air quality 
is so poor that it is unhealthy for sensitive individuals: the elderly, 
infants, people with breathing difficulties to be outdoors. Even 
healthy people are urged to limit their activities when out-of-doors.
  In Rhode Island, about 12 percent of children and 11 percent of 
adults suffer from asthma. Both are higher than the national average. 
Our Rhode Island Public Transit Authority runs free buses on bad ozone 
days to try to keep car traffic down because these days are so 
dangerous to the public. Of course, the major air pollutant behind bad 
air days is ozone, commonly known as smog. Ground-level ozone or smog 
makes it difficult to breathe, causes coughing, inflames airways, 
aggravates asthma, emphysema and bronchitis and makes lungs more 
susceptible to infection.
  That all means asthma attacks, emergency room visits, 
hospitalizations, which, in turn, result in missed school and work and 
a burden not only of worry but also a burden on the economy. Smog, of 
course, forms more quickly during hot and sunny days. So as climate 
change drives more heat, it increases the number of warm days and the 
conditions for smog and for bad air days become more common.
  Climate change is also prolonging the allergy season. I am sure there 
are a number of people listening who suffer from hay fever in the late 
summer and early fall. Some people suffer from it most acutely. It is 
most often caused by ragweed pollen. Since 1995, ragweed season has 
increased across the country. It has increased by 13 days in Madison, 
WI. It has increased by 20 days in Minneapolis, MN. It has increased by 
almost 25 days in Fargo, ND. The further north you go, the greater the 
increase in the ragweed season. So for folks in Fargo, for instance, it 
is 25 more days of sniffling and sneezing and 25 more days that ragweed 
pollen might trigger a child's asthma attack.
  Not only does more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mean warmer 
weather and therefore longer pollen seasons, it also means a higher 
pollen count. At 280 parts per million, which was the concentration of 
atmospheric carbon back in the year 1900, each ragweed plant would 
produce about 5 grams of pollen.
  At 370 parts per million, which is where we are now--year 2000 levels 
to be precise--pollen production more than doubles. It doubles again at 
72 parts per million, which is the concentration that is now projected 
for the year 2075. So as we work to improve air quality and to reduce 
respiratory illnesses and the allergic conditions that trigger 
respiratory distress, we need to fight the growing trigger, climate 
change.
  Warming oceans and lakes can also harm our health. Higher water 
surface temperature is associated with harmful blooms of various 
species of algae. These blooms are often referred to as ``red tide.'' 
They deplete oxygen, block sunlight, and they produce toxins. The 
toxins are very often captured by clams and oysters and other 
shellfish.
  When they are consumed, it can result in neurotoxic shellfish 
poisoning, which causes debilitating respiratory and gastrointestinal 
symptoms. A warming climate also is predicted to change the range of 
disease-spreading parasites, such as ticks and mosquitoes. With longer 
summers and shorter winters, we will face more exposure to these pests 
and to the diseases they can carry.
  We in New England and Connecticut and Rhode Island and Massachusetts, 
of course, are very familiar with lyme disease, which is a tick-borne 
illness that can have very grave and serious effects.
  Slow and steady warming is also causing sea levels to rise, which 
threatens coastal infrastructure and human safety as well. In South 
Kingstown, RI, Matunuck Beach Road is the only means of access to 
approximately 500 homes. That road also covers the public water main. 
For years, the sand erosion has eaten away at the beach. Now the road 
is immediately vulnerable to storms. Indeed it has been overwashed in 
recent storms. A breach in Matunuck Beach Road cuts off those 500 homes 
from emergency services. If it were damaging enough, it could cut off 
their water.
  Our water quality is also threatened. Many of Rhode Island's 
wastewater treatment plants are in low-lying areas and flood zones near 
the coast. It is the story in many other States. In California, for 
example, the rising sea level has put 29 wastewater treatment plants, 
responsible for 530 million gallons of sewage processing every day, at 
increased risk for flooding.
  As we know, climate change loads the dice for more extreme weather: 
heat waves, droughts, storms, all serious threats to human health and 
safety. Climate change has led to an increase in the likelihood of 
severe heat waves. Extreme heat causes heat exhaustion. It can cause 
heat stroke. The need for air-conditioning in heat waves also strains 
the power infrastructure, which can cause electrical brownouts and 
blackouts. This hinders emergency services and exacerbates wildfires 
and drought. These are the kinds of conditions--from extreme heat--that 
led to literally tens of thousands of deaths in the record-setting 
Russian heat wave of 2010.

  Heavy rainfall can cause physical damage, flooding erosion, and 
sewage overflow. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 
118,000 sanitary sewer overflows occur annually from storms overwashing 
through combined sewer systems, overloading those systems, and being 
released directly into the open, releasing up to actually 860 billion 
gallons of untreated sewage and wastewater. In 2010, heavy rainfall and 
flooding caused millions of dollars in damage in spilled raw sewage in 
Warwick, RI, my home State. The flood led to the temporary shutdown of 
the local wastewater treatment facility. These overflows, like the one 
in Warwick, can result in beach closures, shellfish bed closures, 
contamination of drinking water supplies, and other environmental and 
public health problems.
  Extreme rainfall, meaning both way too little and way too much 
rainfall, promotes waterborne outbreaks of disease. In the northeast 
United States, heavy rainfall has increased by 74 percent since my 
childhood in the 1950s.
  As we have seen with Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Irene, and Hurricane 
Katrina, storms can very quickly affect millions of people and require 
tens of billions of dollars to clean up. The threat gets worse as sea-
level rise allows storm surges to reach farther inland and create more 
damage than just a few decades ago. Much of the east coast was fearful 
of flooding during Superstorm Sandy last year, including, of course, 
southern Rhode Island. Because of erosion and sea-level rise, the storm 
surges on our shores can reach homes that were originally built 
hundreds of feet from the coastline.
  I had the experience of standing with a man who had a childhood home 
that had been through at least three generations of his family. He was 
now actually older than me, and that childhood home--which had stood 
well back from the beach--was canting toward the sea and tumbling into 
the ocean. The ocean had claimed his home of multiple generations as 
its victim.
  This map shows by ZIP code where the 800,000 people displaced by 
Hurricane Katrina sought refuge after that terrible storm. Hundreds of 
thousands of people were strewn across every corner of the country. 
Hundreds of thousands of lives were disrupted as a result.
  Thankfully, not everybody is sleepwalking through these alarming 
realities. In 2010, Rhode Island created our Climate Change Commission, 
which has identified risks to key infrastructure and is analyzing data 
from events such as Hurricane Sandy and the 2010 flood. Other States 
have formed similar commissions.
  I brought last night to our President's State of the Union Address 
Grover Fugate, who is executive director of our Coastal Resources 
Management Council, which has to look at and address every day and plan 
for the effects of our rising sea level, increased storm activity, and 
the risk that that portends to the shores of our ocean State.
  For the past 3 years, Rhode Island has also been part of a regional 
greenhouse gas initiative nicknamed ReGGie, along with our neighbors in 
Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,

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New York, and Vermont. Our region caps carbon emissions and sells 
permits to emit greenhouses gases to powerplants. This has created 
economic incentives for both the States and our utilities to invest in 
energy efficiency and in renewable energy development. And consumers 
have reaped the benefit of lower prices. In 2012, regional emissions 
were 45 percent below the annual cap, so just last week the State 
announced an agreement to cap future emissions at the 2012 rate.
  I am proud of the work done in my State, and I know the Presiding 
Officer's home State of Connecticut is working equally hard on this 
issue. We are working to both slow climate change and to prepare for 
what are now its inevitable effects. But sadly, when it comes to this 
particular threat to our national security and our prosperity, Congress 
is asleep. It is time for us to wake up. The health and safety of 
Americans and of people all over the world is at risk. We must awaken 
to what is happening in the world around us and to the fact that the 
carbon pollution we are emitting is causing it. This is our 
responsibility. This is our generation's responsibility. It is, indeed, 
our duty. It is time for us to wake up.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and 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. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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