[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 157 (Wednesday, November 6, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7869-S7870]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I am here today for what is now the 49th straight 
week in which the Senate has been in session to urge that we wake up to 
the effects of carbon pollution on the Earth's oceans and climate, that 
we sweep away the manufactured doubt that so often surrounds this issue 
and get serious about the threat we face from climate change.
  When I come to the floor, I often have a specialized subject. I talk 
about the oceans and how they are affected by carbon pollution. I talk 
about the economics around carbon pollution. I talk about the faith 
community's interest in carbon pollution. Today I want to talk about 
the role of the media in all of this.
  In America, we count on the press to report faithfully and accurately 
our changing world and to awaken the public to apparent mounting 
threats. Our Constitution gives the press special vital rights so that 
they can perform this special vital role. But what happens when the 
press fails in this role? What happens when the press stops being 
independent, when it becomes the bedfellow of special interests? The 
Latin phrase ``Quis custodiet ipsos custodes''--who will watch the 
watchmen themselves--then becomes the question. The press is supposed 
to scrutinize all of us. Who watches them when they fail at their 
independent role?
  I wish to speak about a very specific example--the editorial page of 
one of our Nation's leading publications, the Wall Street Journal. The 
Wall Street Journal is one of America's great newspapers, and there is 
probably none better when it comes to news coverage and reporting. It 
is a paragon in journalism until one turns to the editorial page and 
then steps into a chasm of polluter sludge when the issue is harmful 
industrial pollutants. When that is the issue, harmful industrial 
pollutants, this editorial page will mislead its readers, will deny the 
scientific consensus, and it will ignore its excellent news pages' 
actual reporting, all to help the industry, all to help the campaign to 
manufacture doubt and delay action.
  As I said before, there is a denier's playbook around these issues. 
We have seen the pattern repeat itself in the pages of the Wall Street 
Journal on acid rain, on the ozone layer, and now, most pronouncedly, 
on climate change. The pattern is a simple one: No. 1, deny the 
science; No. 2, question the motives; and No. 3, exaggerate the costs. 
Call it the polluting industry 1-2-3.
  Let's start in the 1970s when scientists first warned that 
chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which were commonly used as refrigerants 
and aerosol propellants, could break down the Earth's stratospheric 
ozone layer, which would increase human exposure to ultraviolet rays 
and cause cancer. As outlined in a report by Media Matters, this is 
when the Wall Street Journal's editorial page embarked upon what would 
become a persistent and familiar pattern.
  For more than 25 years, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page 
doggedly printed editorials devaluing science and attacking any 
regulation of CFCs.
  In January of 1976, an editorial proclaimed the connection between 
CFCs and ozone depletion ``is only a theory and will remain only that 
until further efforts are made to test its validity in the atmosphere 
itself.''
  In May of 1979, an editorial said that scientists ``still don't know 
to what extent, if any, mankind's activities have altered the ozone 
barrier or whether the possibly harmful effects of these activities 
aren't offset by natural processes. . . . Thus, it now appears, all the 
excitement over the threat to the ozone layer was founded on scanty 
scientific evidence.''
  In March 1984, we read on the editorial page that concerns about 
ozone depletion were based on ``premature scientific evidence.'' 
Rather, it was written, ``new evidence shows that the ozone layer isn't 
vanishing after all; it may even be increasing.''
  In March 1989, an editorial called for more research on the 
``questionable theory that CFCs cause depletion of the ozone layer'' 
and implored scientists to ``continue to study the sky until we know 
enough to make a sound decision regarding the phasing out of our best 
refrigerants.''
  Again, deny the science.
  Predictably, they also attacked the motives of reformers. A February 
1992 editorial stated that ``it is simply not clear to us that real 
science drives policy in this area.''
  Finally, playbook 3, they have warned that action to slow ozone 
depletion would be costly.
  A March 1984 editorial claimed that banning CFCs would ``cost the 
economy some $1.52 billion in forgone profits and product-change 
expenses'' as well as 8,700 jobs.
  An August 1990 editorial warned that banning CFCs would lead to a 
``dramatic increase in air-conditioning and refrigeration costs.'' It 
added that ``the likely substitute for the most popular banned 
refrigerant costs 30 times as much and will itself be banned by the 
year 2015. The economy will have to shoulder at least $10 to $15 
billion a year in added refrigeration costs by the year 2000.''
  A February 1992 editorial warned that accelerating the phase-out of 
CFCs ``almost surely will translate into big price increases on many 
consumer products.''
  Despite the protests of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, we 
actually listened in America to the science, and we took action. We 
protected the ozone layer, we protected the public health, and the 
economy prospered.
  What about all those costs that they claimed? Looking back, we can 
see that action to slow ozone depletion in fact saved money. According 
to the EPA's 1999 progress report on the Clean Air Act, ``every dollar 
invested in ozone protection provides $20 of societal health benefits 
in the United States''--$1 spent, $20 saved. The Journal's response? 
Silence. They just stopped talking about it.
  Next we will go to acid rain. In the late 1970s scientists began 
reporting that acid rain was falling on most of our Northeastern United 
States. Guess what. Again, at the Wall Street Journal editorial page, 
out came the playbook.
  First, they questioned the science behind the problem. A May 1980 
editorial questioned the link between increased burning of coal and 
acid rain, concluding that existing ``data are not conclusive and more 
studies are needed.''
  In September 1982 the editors told us that ``scientific study, as 
opposed to political rhetoric, points more and more toward the theory 
that nature, not industry, is the primary source of acid rain.'' Nature 
is the primary source of acid rain.
  A September 1985 Journal editorial claimed that ``the scientific case 
for acid rain is dying.''
  In June 1989 the editorial page argued that we needed to wait--it is 
always needing to wait--for science to understand, for example, to what 
extent acid rain is manmade before enacting regulations. During that 
same period the Wall Street Journal's editorial page also smeared the 
motive, declaring that the effort to address acid rain was driven by 
politics, not science.
  Consistent with No. 2 in the playbook, in July 1987 the editorial 
page wrote: ``As the acid-rain story continues to develop, it's 
becoming increasingly apparent that politics, not nature, is the 
primary force driving the theory's biggest boosters.''
  Wall Street Journal editors also consistently opposed plans to 
address acid rain because of cost concerns--No. 3 in the playbook.
  A June 1982 editorial warned of the ``immense cost of controlling 
sulfur emissions.''
  A January 1984 editorial claimed a regulatory program for acid rain 
would cost ``upwards of $100 billion.''
  These claims were made even as the evidence mounted against their 
position, even as President Reagan's own scientific panel said that 
inaction would risk ``irreversible damage.'' Of course, the cost 
equation of the Wall Street Journal editorial page was always totally 
one-sided--always the cost to clean up the pollution; never the cost of 
the harm the pollution caused.

[[Page S7870]]

  That is the industry playbook, faithfully spouted through the 
editorial page of the Wall Street Journal--No. 1, deny the science; No. 
2, question the motives; and No. 3, exaggerate the costs.
  But we made undeniable progress against acid rain despite the efforts 
of the editorial page. Guess what. The Journal's editorial page 
suddenly reversed its tune. A July 2001 editorial called the cap-and-
trade program for sulfur dioxide ``fabulously successful,'' noting that 
the program ``saves about $700 million annually compared with the cost 
of traditional regulation and has been reducing emissions by four 
million tons annually.'' On this occasion, when its effort had failed, 
the Journal changed its tune, but until then it was still the industry 
playbook--No. 1, deny the science; No. 2, question the motives; and No. 
3, exaggerate the costs.
  With carbon pollution running up to 400 parts per million for the 
first time in human history, the Journal is using the same old polluter 
playbook against climate change. The Journal has persistently published 
editorials against taking action to prevent manmade climate change. As 
usual, they question the science.
  In June 1993 the editors wrote that there is ``growing evidence that 
global warming just isn't happening.''
  In September 1999 the page reported that ``serious scientists'' call 
global warming ``one of the greatest hoaxes of all time.''
  In June 2005 the page asserted that the link between fossil fuels and 
global warming had ``become even more doubtful.'' This is June 2005, 
and the Wall Street Journal editorial page is questioning whether there 
is a link between fossil fuels and global warming.
  A December 2011 editorial declared that the global warming debate 
requires ``more definitive evidence.''
  As usual--back to the industry playbook--the motives of the 
scientists were smeared.
  A December 2009 editorial claimed that leading climate scientists 
were suspect because they ``have been on the receiving end of climate 
change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and 
catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe 
in the existence of God.''
  As usual, we heard that tackling climate change, tackling carbon 
pollution, would cost us a lot of money. In August 2009, the editorial 
page warned ``that a high CO2 tax would reduce world GDP a 
staggering 12.9 percent in 2100--the equivalent of $40 trillion a 
year.''

  Just last month, October 2013, the editorial board of the Wall Street 
Journal warned that in the face of climate change, ``interventions make 
the world poorer than it would otherwise be.''
  That same October 2013 editorial actually completed the full polluter 
playbook trifecta by also decrying the ``political actors'' seeking to 
gain economic control and by questioning the science, saying ``global 
surface temperatures have remained essentially flat.''
  They covered them all in just the one editorial. If only the 
editorial page writers at the Wall Street Journal would turn the page 
to the actual news their own paper reports on climate change.
  A March 2013 article reported:

       New research suggests average global temperatures were 
     higher in the past decade than over most of the previous 
     11,300 years, a finding that offers a long-term context for 
     assessing modern-day climate change.

  A piece from the Wall Street Journal news in August 2013 revealed:

       Average global temperatures in 2012 were roughly in line 
     with those of the past decade or so, but the year still 
     ranked among the 10 warmest on record as melting Arctic ice 
     and warming oceans continued to boost sea levels.

  That takes me to a particular fact about what carbon pollution is 
doing, and that is our oceans are taking the brunt of the harm from 
carbon pollution, and it is time to stop looking the other way. But the 
Wall Street Journal editorial page doesn't often address the effects of 
carbon pollution on oceans, perhaps because the changes taking place in 
our oceans are not a matter where the complexity of computer modeling 
leaves room for phony doubt to be insinuated.
  The oceans' recent changes from our carbon pollution aren't 
projections and they aren't models, they are measurements--simple, 
unyielding measurements. We measure sea level rise with a ruler. It is 
not complicated. We measure ocean temperature with a thermometer. We 
measure ocean acidification on the pH scale. They do not talk about 
that much in the Wall Street Journal editorial pages. There is no room 
for phony doubt. So they look elsewhere.
  We have the right to expect independent and honest media to teach the 
American public about the threats facing our oceans and our 
environment. What a difference good reporting can make. Exemplary and 
compelling storytelling can and does influence our national 
conversation and inspire change. Reporters fail when they give false 
equivalency to arguments on each side of the political spectrum, even 
though they are not really equivalent. Editors fail when they look at 
the science, look at the measurements, look at the real threats posed 
to our world and then fail to tell us the unvarnished truth.
  The story of climate change needs to be told. Our oceans need a 
voice. It seems the big polluters already have one.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

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