[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 39 (Monday, March 10, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1377-S1415]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MORNING BUSINESS

                                 ______
                                 

                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, just last week one of the world's most well-
known spiritual leaders, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, 
visited the Capitol. He talked about the moral

[[Page S1378]]

imperative to protect the planet we call home. The Dalai Lama spoke 
with passion and longing of his native Tibet, where mountain snows melt 
in spring to feed the rivers to provide Bangladesh, China, India, 
Nepal, and Pakistan with water.
  The Himalayas are sometimes called the ``third pole'' because they 
contain nearly a third of the world's nonpolar ice. But in recent 
years, manmade climate change has caused milder winters, less snow, and 
less water for 1.3 billion people living downstream from Tibet.
  In the Western United States we face a similar problem. For more than 
a decade drought has plagued the Colorado River, both upstream and 
downstream--the lifeblood of a number of Western States, including 
Nevada, California, Arizona, and other States.
  During this period of time, we have had some so-called average snows 
in the Upper Colorado but none of it reaches the river. The climate has 
changed. Milder winters have meant less Rocky Mountain snowpack and 
less spring runoff to feed the river. Combined with more extreme summer 
heat and other issues connected with climate change, the shrinking 
western snowpack threatens the water source for more than 30 million 
people. Far more than 30 million people, because 38 million people in 
California are affected very adversely because of what is going on with 
the Colorado River.
  The seriousness of this climate problem is not lost on the average 
American. The vast majority of Americans believe climate change is 
real. They believe it is here.
  A quarter century ago the first President Bush promised to use ``the 
White House effect'' to combat the ``greenhouse effect.'' That is what 
President Bush said, but not much has happened, I am sorry to say.
  Despite overwhelming scientific evidence and overwhelming public 
opinion, climate change deniers still exist. There are lots of 
them. They exist in this country. They exist, I am sorry to say, in 
this Congress--in the House and in the Senate.

  So I am very grateful to Senator Schatz, Senator Whitehouse, and the 
chairman of the very important environmental committee, Senator Boxer, 
and many other Senators who will join this climate change debate and 
presentation tonight for standing up against the deniers.
  Climate change is real. It is here. It is time to stop acting as 
though those who ignore this crisis--for example, the oil baron Koch 
brothers and their allies in Congress--have a valid point. They don't. 
Climate change is here. Climate change has brought harsh and drastic 
situations all over our country.
  In the last few years alone, the Midwest has experienced the most 
punishing drought since the Great Depression. Wildfires have ravaged 
the West, with places burning which have never burned before. The 
mighty Mississippi nearly ran dry, and barge traffic had to be brought 
to a stop because the river wasn't deep enough for them to travel.
  While record droughts affected some parts of the United States, 
torrential rains and extreme thunderstorms struck others. Temperatures 
topped 60 degrees in Alaska in January. February brought a blanket of 
snow and ice to Atlanta, GA--the South.
  In other parts of the world, glaciers and ice sheets which have been 
frozen for tens of thousands of years are melting and melting quickly. 
Fires have consumed vast forests and monsoons and superfloods left 
millions homeless all over the world. Since this new year, the United 
Kingdom has had its wettest winter perhaps ever but far more than in 
the last 100 years. Tokyo, Japan, in a period of a little over 2 weeks, 
got 4 years' worth of snow. Australia experienced its hottest summer in 
the history of Australia.
  The vast majority of scientists say this is just the beginning of the 
ravages of our world changing. Dozens of reports from scientists around 
the globe link extreme weather to climate change, and the more extreme 
climate change gets, the more extreme the weather is going to get. 
Everyone has to understand that. It is easy to see the urgency to 
confront climate change, but this challenge is also an opportunity--and 
it truly is.
  We have the ability now to reduce our reliance on oil and other 
fossil fuels, increase our production of clean energy, and create good-
paying jobs which can never be outsourced. We have the ability to 
choose the kind of world in which we live. We have that choice.
  In Nevada we have done some good things. We have chosen clean 
renewable energy as we retire older polluting powerplants. We only have 
one left. We imported millions of tons of coal.
  I remember I was in the House of Representatives and one powerplant 
was on its way out. Al Matteucci, attorney for Nevada Power, was 
telling me that little powerplant was importing 2 million tons of coal 
a year. I said: What are you talking about? I thought, 2 million tons 
of coal? But that is the way it was, just one relatively small 
powerplant. We are no longer doing that in Nevada. We have only one 
coal-fired plant left, and we have done this by going of course to some 
natural gas, but we have done so many good things with renewable 
energy. With geothermal we finally passed California. We are the most 
productive State in the Union with geothermal energy.
  We have done other things with renewable energy. This old plant I 
just talked about, where millions of tons of coal came in every year, 
why are we getting rid of that? For lots of reasons. But one reason is 
this polluting powerplant, built on Paiute Indian land in Moapa, NV, 
about 35 miles outside of Las Vegas, during the Johnson administration 
was closed.
  Next week, a week from this coming Friday, we are going to have a 
groundbreaking on the Moapa land, where they are going to have hundreds 
and hundreds of jobs because they are going to produce huge amounts of 
energy through solar, and that energy is going to go to California. We 
have huge amounts of solar energy all over the State of Nevada and we 
are shipping it to California because California did the right thing. 
They passed a law saying by a certain period of time one-third of all 
their power must come from renewable sources. This is a progressive 
State. It is important, and we are helping them meet those demands, but 
we are also doing a lot to produce our own energy.
  I talked about this powerplant. The powerplant, Moapa, at this Indian 
reservation, is the first solar project to be built on tribal lands--
certainly in Nevada and likely in the whole country.
  The largest solar plant in the world opened last month on the Nevada-
California border, the largest one in the world. Dozens of geothermal 
wells on public lands power the cities of Reno and Sparks in northern 
Nevada. Because some of Nevada's best renewable energy resources are 
located in the rural areas, we recently completed a power line 
connecting renewable energy sources. It was part of the Obama program 
to help stimulate the economy, which certainly has done that all over 
the country, but it certainly has done it in Nevada. We have this power 
line connecting the northern part of the State and the southern State 
for the first time ever.
  What is being put into that power line? Renewable energy. Solar, 
wind, geothermal. This power line connecting renewable energy resources 
with the people and businesses that need them and making the electric 
grid more efficient is a part of what we used to talk about all the 
time, a smart grid. It is actually here. Nevada is the first place 
where we actually have Federal programs which got us the smart grid. We 
have permission to take this power line from northern Nevada to 
southern Nevada, now into the great Northwest.
  So we are doing some good work. This is what the smart grid is all 
about. Nevada has proven it is very easy to reduce our reliance on 
fossil fuels, which is good for the economy and good for the 
environment.
  But as the Dalai Lama said:

       We have the capability and the responsibility to act. But 
     we must do so before it is too late.

  He went on further to say:

       This . . . is not just a question of morality or ethics, 
     but a question of our own survival.

  I believe him.
  I ask unanimous consent that following my opening remarks the 
following Senators be recognized for up to 90 seconds in the order 
listed: Durbin, Schumer, Murray, Boxer, Whitehouse, Schatz, Feinstein, 
Wyden, Nelson, Cantwell, Cardin, Klobuchar, Udall of Colorado, Udall of 
New Mexico, Shaheen, Merkley, Bennet, Franken, Coons, Blumenthal,

[[Page S1379]]

Heinrich, King, Kaine, Warren, Markey, Booker, and Gillibrand.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The assistant majority leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in this Chamber we spend a lot of time 
debating how our actions will affect future generations and the 
obligations we have to leave future generations a better nation and a 
better world.
  Nowhere is this responsibility more apparent than when it comes to 
the issue of climate change. It is critical we leave our children and 
grandchildren a sustainable planet with a promising, bright future.
  We can no longer shy away from the fact that over 98 percent of all 
working climate scientists believe that human activities have led to 
climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found 
it to be unequivocal that the world is warming due to human activities. 
The existence of manmade climate change is not a debatable issue, nor 
is it a vague or distant threat. It is a situation which requires 
serious attention immediately.
  I have heard it said there is only one major political party in the 
world which denies what I just said: the scientific evidence which 
points to climate change and the fact the world we are living in is 
changing with extreme weather patterns the life we lead and the future 
for many generations.
  I hope, during the course of this debate, if the Republican Party 
comes to the floor, they will dispute what I just said. I am calling on 
them to name any other major political party in the world which agrees 
with the proposition that they stand for, questioning whether there is 
scientific evidence supporting climate change. I believe there is, and 
I believe we should act now.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues. They did an 
amazing job on the Climate Action Task Force, particularly Senators 
Boxer and Whitehouse, who led the task force, and the indefatigable new 
Member Senator Schatz for organizing and coordinating this effort.
  The overwhelming majority of the world's scientists believe humans 
are changing the Earth's climate. Climate deniers like to claim there 
are competing stories about whether this is true, usually pushing 
polluter talking points that there is not a scientific consensus on 
climate change. We know this is utterly false, and I would pose the 
following question to my colleagues who think ``the jury is still out'' 
on climate change: If you went to 100 doctors and 98 of them said you 
were sick and should take medicine, but two told you that you were fine 
and should do nothing, what would you do?
  Climate change deniers need to wake up and realize the scientific 
diagnosis about warming the planet is real. We need to take action, 
much of which will be outlined tonight. I hope my colleagues and the 
American people are listening.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, as a member of the Senate Climate Action 
Task Force, I am very proud to join with all of our colleagues to talk 
about an action which is needed.
  Climate change is real. We have seen it in the overwhelming 
scientific evidence which is occurring today. It is not just about 
science. It is impacting all of us. We see the rise in asthma attacks. 
We see the impacts in my home State of Washington. I hear this concern 
from my constituents, and we know rising sea levels are threatening all 
of us. We see it in our rural communities where we are seeing drought. 
We are seeing it in our forests where the dry weather is turning our 
woods into kindling. We see it in our local fishing communities where 
ocean acidification is hindering our shellfish development. These 
impacts have enormous costs. They are devastating to our families and 
communities who are suffering from droughts, superstorms, and 
wildfires.
  But it is not just an environmental issue; it is not just a health 
issue. It is a budget issue. It is not just about rising temperatures; 
it is about rising costs. As chair of the Budget Committee, I can tell 
you this issue is a burden to our taxpayers. Federal disaster recovery 
spending alone has increased year after year as the number and size of 
weather-related disasters rise. These costs will continue if we don't 
act.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mrs. MURRAY. We know the jobs we can create with new economic 
opportunities of climate change will help bring us out of the budget 
deficits we face.
  I congratulate all of our colleagues who are here tonight to talk, 
and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, we know all Senators care deeply about 
their constituents and their families. If any one of us saw danger 
looming, we would do everything in our power to save them. Yet in the 
face of irrefutable scientific agreement, the Senate does nothing to 
make sure polluters pay for the carbon they emit, which would move us 
toward a clean energy economy and away from catastrophic climate 
change.
  Yes, there is money, big money, behind the polluters. Yes, those 
polluters are raging against us with layers of lies. Yet and still the 
environment which used to be a bipartisan issue has turned truly 
bitterly partisan, but we cannot and we must not and we will not give 
in because it is our job. We must preserve our environment for our 
people, which is pretty basic.
  The deniers have given in to the power of wishful thinking, just as 
those defending cigarette addiction did.
  To those who would say let China lead, I say this is shameful. In 
China 1.2 million people died in 2010 from air pollution. That is a 
fact, not a fantasy. America doesn't sit around and wait for someone 
else to protect the health and safety and the quality of life of our 
people. It is wrong. So I am so proud tonight to stand with my resolute 
colleagues as we fight back against those polluters who would put their 
self-interests ahead of the salmon we have sworn to protect.

  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Mr. Presiding Officer.
  The problem of carbon pollution could not be more real for my home 
State of Rhode Island. It is real for our country's future. I will be 
here in the wee hours and I will yield my time so we can compress this. 
We have a lot of Senators who want to speak in a short period of time.
  I want to yield my time and express my gratitude to Senator Schatz of 
Hawaii who has coordinated tonight's event.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. SCHATZ. I rise with 29 of my colleagues with a simple message for 
Congress and for our Nation: Climate change is real; climate change is 
caused by humans; and climate change is solvable. We will not rest 
until Congress wakes up and acts on the most pressing issue of our 
time.
  Why are we doing this? Why are we taking this particular action to 
take the floor tonight and into the morning right now? The answer is 
simple: This is the floor of the U.S. Senate, the greatest deliberative 
body in the world. This is where historically America has addressed 
some of its toughest challenges. Tonight has to be the historic 
beginning of us facing the challenge of our generation. The real 
question ought to be: Why haven't we done this sooner and, perhaps more 
pointedly, why isn't every single Member of this body down here with 
us?
  Tonight is just the beginning. We are going to continue to push 
throughout the year, and the public is with us--Independents, 
Democrats, and Republicans. Americans are calling for action. The only 
place where climate change is still an open debate is within the four 
corners of this Capitol.
  I have seen what can happen when there is a real commitment to clean 
energy and clear goals laid out. In my home State of Hawaii we set 
aggressive goals and doubled our use of clean energy in just 3 years. 
Tackling climate change is going to require the entire country working 
together.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Hawaii has 
expired.
  Mr. SCHATZ. I yield the floor.

[[Page S1380]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I thank Senator Schatz for all the work he did to put together this 
effort tonight.
  I simply want to say that when you look at the data from the National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Academy of 
Sciences, I believe you reach a blunt judgment: Climate change is the 
scientific equivalent of a speeding Mack truck. So tonight it is 
appropriate that Senators start getting into these issues with 
practical approaches. We have done our part in a bipartisan effort to 
promote hydropower. I am very pleased the President has a new approach 
in terms of dealing with wildfire, which is also bipartisan, because 
fires we are seeing are getting bigger and hotter, and there are steps 
we can take to deal with those urgent problems. This evening is all 
about sensible action.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, one of the places that is threatened most 
is a low-lying area such as Bangladesh, but do you know what area is 
threatened most in the Continental United States? The Miami area. I am 
going to be taking the commerce committee during the April recess to 
have a hearing on climate change and sea level rise particularly right 
in the heart of a city that has been experiencing flooding over and 
over because of this climate change.
  Florida is ground zero for sea level rise. We have a compelling story 
to tell. Our leaders are making key decisions and investments today so 
that our coastal economy will thrive. We are going to pull all this 
together in the hearing. There are several members of the commerce 
committee here tonight. I invite Senators during the April recess to 
come to this hearing. Thank you all for organizing this all-night 
event, and I look forward to the material that will be coming out this 
evening.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, climate change is not a problem of the 
future. Climate change is drastically impacting our oceans today. 
Acidification is increasing at astonishing rates, and our oceans take 
up 25 percent of our carbon emissions. Carbon and ocean acidification 
kill our oysters, crabs, and other shellfish, and impact the shellfish 
that other sea life depends on, such as our salmon, so the impact to an 
industry in our State that is worth $30 billion and supports 148,000 
jobs is serious.
  Just last week there was a huge die-off of scallops in British 
Columbia, resulting in 30 percent of employees in that region being 
laid off. So climate change is not only killing oysters and scallops, 
but it is killing our fishing jobs. That is why we are here tonight, 
because we know we need to act to save jobs and help our economy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, as a member of the Climate Action Task 
Force, I couldn't be more proud of my colleagues on the floor tonight. 
I thank Senator Boxer, Senator Schatz, and Senator Whitehouse for 
organizing this evening.
  The information we want to present is clear. The facts are clear. 
Science indicates what we do here on Earth is affecting the livability 
of our planet, and we can do something about it. This is an urgent 
issue, from climate refugees around the world, the visible signs we see 
in China, to each of our individual States.
  I am honored to represent the people of Maryland, where 70 percent of 
citizens live in coastal zones. The Chesapeake Bay is iconic to the 
survival of Maryland as we know it today and yet it is at risk.
  But here is the good news: We can do something about it. We can 
reduce our carbon footprint. We can reduce our carbon pollution, and in 
doing so we not only help our environment, we also help our economy and 
job growth, help make America more energy secure, which helps our 
national security. So let's take the reasonable steps necessary to help 
our future generations, help our economy, and help our environment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. I am also very pleased to talk about one of 
the most pressing challenges confronting our Nation and my State of 
Colorado, and that is climate change. We have seen in my State this is 
not an obscure threat or distant problem. We have had catastrophic 
floods and mega wildfires that have been the result of drought, of a 
whole series of changes in a way we see climate systems operating in 
Colorado. It is threatening our way of life.
  I have a powerful photograph here. We have had in the past 2 years 
three successive mega fires. Last year's Black Forest fire brought 
destruction to Colorado Springs. Over 500 homes burned and we lost 2 
lives. This fire quickly surpassed the Waldo Canyon fire which was the 
most destructive fire in Colorado history.
  Now is the time to act. Now is the time to grab the opportunity to 
create new emergency technologies, to enhance our national security 
and, by the way, to keep faith with our children. We do not inherit 
this Earth from our parents. We are borrowing it from our children. If 
we do not act on climate change, we will leave them a less bright 
future. If we do act, we can create jobs and protect the environment.
  As a member of the Armed Services Committee, along with the Presiding 
Officer, we can enhance our Nation's security with these new 
technologies. Let's act now. I am here in this Congress and this Senate 
to protect our way of life. If we act now, we can protect that special 
way of life.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. President, thank you very much, and let 
me first of all congratulate my chairman, Chairman Boxer, Senator 
Whitehouse, and Senator Schatz for organizing this effort and what we 
are calling an up-all-night conversation.
  New Mexico is in the bull's-eye when it comes to climate change. 
Everyplace else, if it goes up 1 degree, New Mexico and the Southwest 
go up 2 degrees, so we know we are hit really hard. I am going to talk 
later in this conversation about all of the impacts.
  It is clear, forest fires, as my cousin talked about, droughts, huge 
die-off in terms of trees, extreme rain events after fires, and 
flooding are devastating. But New Mexico has been at the forefront of 
the solution. When it comes to renewable energy, we are out there--
solar energy, wind, bio, advanced biofuels such as algae. We are 
working in the direction we need all of us to be working in together in 
this country, to make sure we orient toward renewables and tackle this 
problem. I will be able to expand on this later.
  I would yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I am pleased to join my colleagues tonight in talking about the 
economic and environmental imperative of addressing climate change. I 
thank all of the members of the climate task force, all my colleagues 
who are here, and particularly Senator Schatz from Hawaii, for 
organizing tonight.
  The fact is, as we have heard, climate change is real and it is 
happening. According to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change, a group of 3,000 scientists from over 130 countries who have 
studied climate change for over 20 years, global emissions must be 
stabilized by midcentury in order to avoid the most catastrophic and 
irreversible consequences of climate change.
  Studies from the National Research Council and the U.S. Global 
Climate Research Program reinforce that global temperatures are 
steadily rising and contributing to more extreme weather events and 
rising sea levels. Scientists from the University of New Hampshire have 
found that humans are responsible for releasing large amounts of carbon 
dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that are causing 
rapid climate change. I only need to look at New Hampshire to see the 
real economic and health implications.
  In New Hampshire, climate change is contributing to sea level rise, 
which

[[Page S1381]]

imperils businesses, homes, and coastal communities such as Portsmouth.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from New Hampshire has 
expired.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. The outdoor recreation community has less snow, 
resulting in fewer tourism dollars. Wildlife health is becoming 
increasingly vulnerable to disease. What is happening in New Hampshire 
is happening around the world. We must take action now.
  I look forward to coming back later this evening to talk more about 
what we are seeing in New Hampshire.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, Theodore Roosevelt said:

       Of all the questions which can come before this Nation, 
     short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great 
     war, there is none which compares in importance with the 
     great central task of leaving this land even a better land 
     for our descendants than it is for us.

  We should reconsider those words now in the context of carbon 
pollution--carbon pollution which is a direct assault to our rural 
resources, on our farming, fishing, and forestry. In Oregon we had 
three worst-ever droughts we have faced over a 13-year period, 
devastating to the farmers, their families, and the farm economy.
  In fishing, everyone who goes to their favorite trout stream knows 
that if there is no snowpack, the stream is warmer and smaller in 
summer and a poor place to fish, and certainly worse for iconic salmon 
and steelhead.
  The forests are burning, from pine beetles, which spread throughout 
the land in the context of not having those cold snaps in the winter, 
and in the context of tinderbox conditions on the forest floor. Those 
forest fires have been some of the worst we have seen in a century, and 
more is yet to come. We cannot wait for 20 or 30 or 40 years to act.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. MERKLEY. We cannot wait for 2 or 3 or 4 years to act. The carbon 
pollution is real and the damage is real. It is time for this Chamber 
to act.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Why are we here tonight. We are here because if we 
fail to act, our planet will be destroyed. As exaggerated as that claim 
sounds, it is strikingly, irrefutably true. We are here because our 
future is at stake, and not only ours but our children's. We are here 
because of climate change, which is really climate disruption and 
planet destruction. It is real and it is urgent.
  Anyone who lives in Connecticut knows about the snowstorms and 
hurricanes, Superstorm Sandy, the rising tide that will eventually 
destroy our coastline, the rising temperatures that will emaciate our 
vegetation and our produce. There are real human effects but also 
economic effects. There are immense economic perils but also tremendous 
economic promise. There are immense economic perils but also tremendous 
economic promise if we invest in the steps that have to be taken to 
stop climate disruption.

  We can take advantage of the immense opportunity and obligation we 
face by acknowledging the reality that our planet is at stake and 
defeating and discrediting the climate change deniers, who are as much 
a part of the problem as any of the natural forces or elements at 
stake.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. That is why we are here tonight, and that is why we 
will stay the course.
  I yield the floor.
  The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, as a member of the climate change task 
force, I am pleased to join my colleagues in calling for action on 
tackling one of our Nation's greatest challenges. I wish to start by 
thanking Senator Whitehouse, Senator Schatz, and Senator Boxer for 
their leadership on this issue.
  Tonight we will illustrate that climate change is not theoretical and 
cannot be ignored. We will discuss how sound science can be used to 
better understand and manage climate impacts. We will highlight the 
moral imperative that we have in Congress to implement real solutions.
  In my home State of New Mexico we are seeing bigger fires, dryer 
summers, more severe floods when it finally does rain, and less 
snowpack in the winter. Our Nation's second most extreme year for 
weather on record was in 2012, but in New Mexico we experienced the 
hottest year on record. Over the last 4 years alone, we have seen the 
two largest fires in New Mexico's history.
  The reality is that things are only going to get worse if we don't 
act. If we have any hope of reversing the effects of climate change--
and we truly must--it is critical that we embrace this challenge now 
and lead the world in innovation, efficiency, and clean energy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. KING. Mr. President, Joe Sewall, David Huber, Harry Richardson, 
Hoddy Hildreth, and Sherry Huber--those names mean nothing in this 
Chamber, but they meant everything in Maine in the 1970s. They were the 
parents of the environmental movement in our State. What do they all 
have in common? They are all Republicans.
  I rise tonight in puzzlement as to how this issue became a partisan 
one. It is a scientific issue. Light travels at 186,000 miles per 
second. That is science. That is not a partisan or debatable issue. The 
science on this question is definitive.
  I would not call myself a denier, but I was a skeptic until several 
years when I encountered a chart, which I will show in a large version 
later this evening, that talks about CO2 in the atmosphere 
for the last million years. Yes, it varied over time between 150 and 
250 parts per million, but in the 1860s, at the dawn of the fossil fuel 
age, it started to go up, and now it is at 400 parts per million. That 
number has not been seen in this world for 3 million years. The last 
time we were at that figure, the sea level was 80 feet higher.
  We are playing with the future of this planet. We have to do 
something, and that is why we are here.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, as a member of the climate change task 
force, I am proud to join my colleagues today. I particularly wish to 
thank Senators Schatz, Whitehouse, and Boxer for getting us organized 
and bringing attention to the urgent need to address climate change. We 
are on the cusp of a climate crisis. We are at a point of no return 
that will threaten our health, our economy, and our planet.
  For the next several hours and all through the night and into 
tomorrow, dozens of Senators will add their voices to the millions of 
voices around the country of people who are committed in the fight 
against climate change.
  I got ready for this event by asking people for help. I sent out an 
email asking a simple question: What do people think the world will 
look like 25 years from now if we don't do anything at all to stop 
climate change? Nearly 5,000 emails have already poured in from 
workers, teachers, grandparents, and students. These Americans see what 
is happening to our environment. They see the paralysis of our 
politics. They see that we are headed down a dangerous path. They see 
that we--our country and our Congress--must change.
  This is where we start--a moment of great peril for Massachusetts, 
for America, and for the world, but also a moment of great opportunity. 
This is a time for us to come together.
  During my time on the floor, I plan to read letters from some of the 
people who have emailed me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Ms. WARREN. I yield the floor.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, the science proves there is a danger, the 
economics prove there is a solution, and the politics tonight begin the 
process of saying there is a way to deal with this issue.
  The planet is running a fever, but there are no emergency rooms for 
planets. We have to engage in the preventive care so that we deploy the 
strategies which make it possible for our planet to avoid the worst, 
most catastrophic effects of climate change. We can do it and do it in 
a way that helps our economy.
  There are now 80,000 people working in the wind industry in the 
United States. There are 142,000 people in the

[[Page S1382]]

solar industry. That is 220,000 people. There are 80,000 people in the 
coal industry. Most of the wind and solar jobs have been created in the 
last 5 years. This is a job-creating revolution which is taking off.
  Tonight we are going to stay up all night to talk about this climate 
change issue in the hopes that tomorrow will be the dawn of a new era 
where the Congress begins to do something about this issue and where it 
responds to its historic duty to the next generation to end this 
crisis.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, climate change is real and it is 
here. Rising sea levels, disappearing coastlines, longer droughts, 
colder winters, hotter summers, and massive so-called storms of the 
century are occurring routinely, such as Hurricanes Irene and Lee and, 
of course, Superstorm Sandy that devastated the Northeast. But powerful 
special interests and too many politicians who should simply know 
better would have us believe that it is a hoax or that any reasonable 
action would kill jobs.
  I, for one, refuse to believe that somehow harmful pollution is the 
only way to grow and sustain our economy. I, for one, know for a fact 
that what is good for our environment can be good for business when we 
act responsibly.
  It is time to invest in clean energy with wind, solar, biofuel, and 
other sources of energy that do not pollute our environment and 
contribute to climate change. We have everything it takes from 
sustainable resources, American innovation, and manufacturing know-how 
to produce new sources of clean energy that are made here in America. 
That is how we can cut our dependence on costly foreign oil and make us 
more secure; that is how we can spark new businesses, new jobs, and a 
stronger middle class, all while protecting the air we breathe and the 
water we drink and preserving all the beauty of our most cherished 
places for the next generation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, how much time remains under the 
control of our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 3 minutes 30 seconds.
  Mr. INHOFE. If the Senator needs more time, I will not object.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. That is kind of the distinguished Senator, but I 
think we have managed to come within our time.
  As we close, I wish to thank so many colleagues who have participated 
in this early lightning round of statements by Senators. We expect to 
have 30 Democratic Senators speaking on this issue during the course of 
the night, through the night, and into tomorrow morning.
  It is a matter we are overdue in addressing. It is a matter that is 
really beyond legitimate scientific dispute--at least as to the 
fundamental truth of the planet warming and why. Indeed, Abraham 
Lincoln was the President when a scientist named Tyndall--over in 
England--first presented to the Royal Academy of Sciences his work 
showing that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warms the Earth as it 
increases its density. We are now more carbon dense.
  As Senator King said, we spent about 800,000 to 3 million years in a 
zone of 150 to 300 parts per million. We had never been at 400 parts 
per million in the history of human habitation on the face of this 
planet until just a few months ago when the first 400-parts-per-million 
reading was recorded. We have to pay attention to this.
  I will close by saying that not only is this a vital point for our 
home States, it is vital for California, which is riven by drought. It 
is vital for New Mexico and Colorado, which have also seen drought and 
wildfires. It is also vital for New York, which was clobbered by 
Superstorm Sandy. It is vital for Hawaii, which is seeing sea level 
rise and acidification. It is vital for Massachusetts, where the sea 
level is up 10 inches, and we are beginning to see fisheries move north 
and away from our waters to avoid the warming seas. It is vital for 
Connecticut, which has virtually lost its lobster fishery because of 
its warming season. And, of course, it is vital for Rhode Island. My 
Narragansett Bay is 3 to 4 degrees warmer in the winter, and that means 
that fisheries, such as the winter flounder fishery, are simply gone--
90-plus percent crashed.
  We have to face this as States, we have to face this as a nation, and 
if we fail, we will have failed the fundamental test of every American 
generation. The fundamental test of every American generation is, will 
you bring the reputation of this country and the integrity of this 
democracy forward through your time so the next American generation can 
carry it forward with honor?
  We received our democracy from the ``greatest generation.'' They 
fought world wars to make it safe for us. If we fail now, we will not 
be the greatest generation; we will be a disgraced generation. I intend 
to do everything I can to make sure we do not get there.
  I yield back the rest of the Democrats' time
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, all night long? Well, that is going to be 
fun.
  By the way, the Oklahoma City Thunders are not playing tonight, so we 
may get a few more viewers.
  It is nice to look over and see probably the most articulate and 
knowledgeable of all of the alarmists historically as our newest 
Senator from Massachusetts, Ed Markey.
  You can be good friends and still disagree. The Senator from Rhode 
Island certainly knows that because we had a little disagreement last 
week. The Senator from California certainly knows this as well.
  We have been working on this for a long time. This started with the 
Kyoto Treaty. I think most people have forgotten about that. During the 
Clinton-Gore administration, Gore came back from Rio de Janeiro and 
said we are all going to die from global warming. I will say that he 
knows what he is doing. The New York Times speculated that Al Gore is 
very likely the first environmental billionaire in existence, so I 
guess he knows what he is doing there.
  In spite of the fact of what has happened recently, I think it is 
probably necessary to have something all night, something to get the 
attention of the American people, because they keep saying--and I hear 
it over and over--climate change is real, global warming is real; it is 
real; it is real; it is real. If you say it enough times, then people 
are going to think it is real.
  Tonight, all night long, you can say ``it is real, it is real, it is 
real,'' but I think people have heard that before and times have 
changed. A couple of things have happened, and I know a lot of you 
regret this.
  I remember so well when Lisa Jackson was the Administrator of the 
EPA.
  I have often said some very good things about her, even though she is 
very liberal and I am ranked most of the time as the most conservative 
Member of the Senate. Yet when she is asked a direct question, she 
always comes out with an honest answer.
  I asked my good friend Senator Markey just a few minutes ago, who was 
there--first of all, let me say the United Nations started all this 
stuff. They have one big annual party, and it is usually in very nice 
places. I think at last count 190 countries were there. I remember 
talking to one of my good friends from one of the sub-Saharan African 
countries who was there with his administration. I said: You don't 
believe this stuff, do you?
  He said: No, but this is one of the biggest parties of the year.
  One of the big parties in 2009 was Copenhagen. They set a record of 
how cold it was in Copenhagen. I remember that very well. I remember at 
that time--and I hope I get this right because we had several people 
from the administration. We had at that time Senator John Kerry, of 
course, Congressman Ed Markey, Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama, who 
was Senator Obama at that time--no, he was already President at that 
time. Their job was to convince the 191 other countries that were in 
Copenhagen that we in the United States were going to pass some type of 
real cap and trade legislation.
  So we had a hearing. At that time I think the Republicans were in 
control. But I said to Lisa Jackson: I am going to go to Copenhagen 
tomorrow to be a one-man truth squad. Everybody has been there talking 
about what we are going to do here in the United States and somebody 
has to tell them the

[[Page S1383]]

truth. So I said: I have a feeling when I leave tomorrow, you are going 
to have a declaration and when you do, it has to be based on some type 
of science. I could tell by looking at her that they were going to have 
the endangerment finding.
  I ask my friend if he remembers that, the endangerment finding.
  Anyway, I left the next morning for Copenhagen, and that afternoon 
they had the endangerment finding. Before I left I said: When you have 
the endangerment finding, it has to be based on some type of science. 
What science are you going to use?
  She said: Well, mostly the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change.
  So that is the kind of science they have been using for a long period 
of time.
  But, ironically, the timing couldn't be better. It wasn't a matter of 
weeks after that; it was a matter of hours after that, that climategate 
was exposed. Climategate was the--it all started with East Anglia 
University's Climate Research Unit--the CRU--one of the main 
universities that helps put together the information about global 
warming for the IPCC. There it was disclosed that the IPCC was 
systematically distorting the facts, cooking the science of global 
warming to either cover up data that didn't tell the story they wanted 
everyone to hear and exaggerating the impacts of changing climate to 
help drive people out of fear into action.
  There are three things one needs to know about the IPCC. First of 
all, the Obama administration has referred to the IPCC as the gold 
standard of climate change science and global warming. Some say its 
reports on climate change and global warming represent the so-called 
consensus of the science opinion about global warming. IPCC and Al Gore 
were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for their efforts to build 
and disseminate greater knowledge and doing so through the IPCC. Simply 
put, what this means is that in the elite circles, the IPCC is a big 
deal.
  So as a result of climategate--when they found they had been lying 
all this time--when ABC News, when The Economist, when Time Magazine, 
when The Times of London, among many others, report that the IPCC's 
research contains embarrassing flaws and that the IPCC chairman and 
scientists knew of the flaws but published them anyway, we have the 
makings of a major scientific scandal. There are two examples of how 
the IPCC was cooking the science.
  The IPCC claimed that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. Of 
course, this is not true. It is simply false. Yet it was put into the 
IPCC's fourth assessment report. According to The Sunday Times, the 
claim about the Himalayas was based on a 1999 story in a news magazine 
which, in turn, was based on a short telephone interview with someone 
named Seyed Hasnain, who is a very little-known Indian scientist.
  Next, in 2005, the activist group World Wildlife Fund cited the story 
in one of its climate change reports. Yet despite the fact that the 
World Wildlife Fund report was not scientifically peer reviewed, it was 
still referenced by the IPCC. Next, according to The Times, the 
Himalayan glaciers are so thick at such high altitude that most 
glaciologists believe it would take several hundred years to melt at 
the present rate.
  Anyway, all of that was taking place. It has to be really disturbing 
to a lot of those individuals who are alarmists, that all of a sudden 
this backbone of the science they have been referring to of the IPCC 
was exposed.

  I remember one of the emails in 1999. These were the emails that were 
exposed. These are the ones that are behind--giving the information to 
the IPCC:

       I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the 
     real temps to each series for the last 20 years, i.e., from 
     1981 onwards, and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline.

  So they were actually adding higher temperatures to give the trends 
they wanted.
  In 2009:

       The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming 
     at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can't.

  These are the people who were supplying the information to the IPCC.
  I could go on and on; there is not time to get to all of them.
  Christopher Booker of the U.K. said: ``This is the worst scientific 
scandal of our generation.'' He was talking about the IPCC. That is the 
basis of all of this.

       Clive Crook, Financial Times: The closed mindedness of 
     these supposed men of science . . . is surprising, even to 
     me. The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering.
       IPCC Prominent Physicist Resigns: Climategate was a fraud 
     on a scale I've never seen.
       U.N. Scientist Dr. Phillip Lloyd calls out IPCC ``fraud''--
     ``The result is NOT scientific.''
       Newsweek: Once celebrated climate researchers feeling the 
     used car salesman.
       Some of the IPCC's most quoted data and recommendations 
     were taken straight out of unchecked activist brochures . . .

  Now, I am quoting right now. This was in Newsweek.
  George Monbiot--I probably mispronounced that. He is a columnist who 
is on the other side of this issue from me. He said:

       It's no use pretending that this isn't a major blow. The 
     emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic unit at the 
     University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging . . 
     . I'm dismayed and deeply shaken by them . . . I was too 
     trusting of some of those who provided the evidence I 
     championed. I would have been a better journalist if I had 
     investigated the claims more closely.

  We have the other problem, and that is that instead of increasing, we 
are going through now some cold spells that are just shocking and 
setting new records. In January of 2014, 4,406 cold temperature records 
were set around the country. In January of 2014, in my city of Tulsa, 
it got down to minus 2 degrees, breaking a record that was held since 
1912--over 100 years; in Enid, OK, minus 3 degrees. In Bartlesville, it 
went down to minus 14 degrees--colder than the South Pole, where it was 
only minus 11 on that same day.
  February 2014: 5,836 cold temperature records set around the country. 
March 2014: Snow cover at third highest level on record; 1969, 1978 
were higher. The Great Lakes, second highest ice cover on record--91 
percent; 1979 is highest at 94 percent.
  This is not surprising given the 15-year pause in global warming. 
Nature magazine stated that over the last 15 years ``the observed 
[temperature] trend is . . . not significantly different from zero 
[and] suggests a temporary `hiatus' in global warming.''
  The Economist magazine said the same thing.
  The President hasn't acknowledged this. On multiple occasions he has 
said--this is a quote from the President: ``The temperature around the 
globe is increasing faster than was predicted even 10 years ago.''
  Unfortunately for his talking point, the data that has been reported 
in Nature, The Economist, and even in the United Nations IPCC report 
shows that this simply is not true. Increases in global temperature 
have stalled over the last 15 years.
  This has to be really shocking to an awful lot of advocates who put 
their reputation and their lives on the idea that this world is coming 
to an end and global warming is a reality.

  Several weeks ago, in a hearing held in the EPW Committee, Gina 
McCarthy--she is the one who is the current EPA Administrator--was 
pressed on this point. Asked whether or not President Obama's statement 
was true, she responded: ``I can't answer that.''
  With all this in mind--climategate, recent cold temperatures, and a 
15-year hiatus--how could Congress, in good conscience, move forward 
with legislation that gives EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse 
gases? How could EPA, more importantly, move forward with regulations 
based off of this cooked science?
  There have been several votes on global warming-related legislation 
over the past decade since we first started debating it here in the 
late 1990s, but they have all failed to show that there have even been 
the 60 votes required to pass cap and trade.
  In 1997 the Byrd-Hagel legislation, 95 to 0, the United States should 
not be a signator to the Kyoto Treaty. The Kyoto Treaty was a treaty 
that was negotiated with Al Gore down in South America.
  In 2003 we had the McCain-Lieberman bill. It failed 43 to 55. Then we 
had the McCain-Lieberman bill again in 2005, and it failed 38 to 60. 
The trend is going in the wrong direction for them.
  In 2008 the Lieberman-Warner bill failed 48 to 36.

[[Page S1384]]

  In 2010, a resolution of disapproval on EPA's greenhouse gas rule was 
47 to 53.
  In 2011, the Inhofe-Upton prohibition on greenhouse gas regulation 
was 50-50. In 2013, the Inhofe-Upton prohibition on greenhouse gas 
regulations as a budget amendment was 47 to 52.
  What I am saying here is the sentiment of the House and the Senate is 
going in the reverse direction. So it has been virtually impossible to 
try to pass a cap-and-trade bill.
  I know there are a lot of people who at one time were looking at this 
and feeling as though this was something that was going to be a 
reality. But I have to say this. One of the reasons--this is kind of 
interesting. I am sorry my good friend from Massachusetts is not on the 
floor right now. But I can remember back when Republicans were in the 
majority in the Senate, and I was the chairman of a subcommittee of the 
Environment and Public Works Committee that was addressing this item. 
At that time everyone was talking as though global warming was here and 
it must be true, and I believed it probably was true, until they came 
out with the financial analysis. What would it cost if we passed cap 
and trade as a law?
  At that time the scientists and the economists from the Wharton 
School of Economics and from MIT who participated--all of the estimates 
were between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. That is something we 
want to be very careful about. I know every time we hear ``billion 
dollars'' it doesn't really register how much that is. In my State of 
Oklahoma, what I do at the end of each year is I get the total number 
of people who filed a Federal tax return, and then I do my math as to 
what it is going to cost. For $300 billion to $400 billion a year, it 
would cost each taxpayer in the State of Oklahoma some $3,000 a year. 
That could be really significant, but not if there is a problem they 
are addressing out there. Getting back to Lisa Jackson, who is the 
Obama appointee to be Administrator of the EPA, I asked the question--
and this was at a hearing, and I am sure the Senator from California 
remembers this as well because it was in one of the hearings of that 
committee, live on TV.
  I said: Right now we are looking at different bills. We are looking 
at the Waxman bill and several others. The cap and trades are pretty 
much cap and trades. If we were to pass this, any of this legislation, 
would this have the effect of lowering the release of CO2?
  Her answer was: No. The reason is this is not where the problem is. 
The problem is in China, in India, in Mexico, and in places where they 
do not have any regulations.
  In fact, you can carry it one step further. If we were to pass that 
either by regulation or by legislation, and go ahead and incur this 
huge tax increase--the largest tax increase in the history of America--
if we were to do this, as she said, it would not lower greenhouse 
gases. It could increase them because we would have to be chasing our 
manufacturing base where they could find the generation of electricity; 
and that would be in countries I just mentioned where they have no 
restrictions at all. So it could increase, not decrease, the greenhouse 
gases.
  This is very significant, but it is in the weeds to the point where 
it is rather difficult to understand. Under the Clean Air Act, the 
EPA--well, I want to talk about the timing just for a minute because we 
are going through this. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must finalize 
new rules within 1 year of its publication in the Federal Register.
  What I am saying now is, what they could not get done through 
legislation they are trying to do through regulation. One of the things 
they are trying to do is have the greenhouse gas legislation come under 
the EPA.
  Anytime you have a new EPA rule, it has to be finalized within 1 year 
of its publication in the Federal Register. So the rule was released on 
September 20, 2013, but it was not published until January 8, 2014. Why 
do you suppose that was? Had the new rule been published on September 
30, the rule would have gone into effect 6 weeks prior to the midterm 
elections and people would have known how much it was going to cost 
them.
  If there is any doubt in anyone's mind, I have an article that was 
published on December 14 in the Washington Post that goes through the 
details as to why they did this so people would not know when they were 
voting how much all these regulations were going to cost. I ask 
unanimous consent this article be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Dec. 14, 2013]

  ICYMI: White House Delayed Enacting Rules Ahead of 2012 Election to 
                           Avoid Controversy

                          (By Juliet Eilperin)

       The White House systematically delayed enacting a series of 
     rules on the environment, worker safety and health care to 
     prevent them from becoming points of contention before the 
     2012 election, according to documents and interviews with 
     current and former administration officials.
       Some agency officials were instructed to hold off 
     submitting proposals to the White House for up to a year to 
     ensure that they would not be issued before voters went to 
     the polls, the current and former officials said.
       The delays meant that rules were postponed or never issued. 
     The stalled regulations included crucial elements of the 
     Affordable Care Act, what bodies of water deserved federal 
     protection, pollution controls for industrial boilers and 
     limits on dangerous silica exposure in the workplace.
       The Obama administration has repeatedly said that any 
     delays until after the election were coincidental and that 
     such decisions were made without regard to politics. But 
     seven current and former administration officials told The 
     Washington Post that the motives behind many of the delays 
     were clearly political, as Obama's top aides focused on 
     avoiding controversy before his reelection.
       The number and scope of delays under Obama went well beyond 
     those of his predecessors, who helped shape rules but did not 
     have the same formalized controls, said current and former 
     officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of 
     the sensitivity of the topic.
       Those findings are bolstered by a new report from the 
     Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), an 
     independent agency that advises the federal government on 
     regulatory issues. The report is based on anonymous 
     interviews with more than a dozen senior agency officials who 
     worked with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs 
     (OIRA), which oversees the implementation of federal rules.
       The report said internal reviews of proposed regulatory 
     changes ``took longer in 2011 and 2012 because of concerns 
     about the agencies issuing costly or controversial rules 
     prior to the November 2012 election.''
       Emily Cain, spokeswoman for the Office of Management and 
     Budget, said in a statement that the administration's 
     ``approach to regulatory review is consistent with long-
     standing precedent across previous administrations and fully 
     adheres'' to federal rules.
       Administration officials noted that they issued a number of 
     controversial rules during Obama's first term, including 
     limits on mercury emissions for power plants and Medicaid 
     eligibility criteria under the Affordable Care Act.
       ``OMB works as expeditiously as possible to review rules, 
     but when it comes to complex rules with significant potential 
     impact, we take the time needed to get them right,'' Cain 
     said.
       But Ronald White, who directs regulatory policy at the 
     advocacy group Center for Effective Government, said the 
     ``overt manipulation of the regulatory review process by a 
     small White House office'' raises questions about how the 
     government writes regulations. He said the amount of time it 
     took the White House to review proposed rules was 
     ``particularly egregious over the past two years.''
       Previous White House operations have weighed in on major 
     rules before they were officially submitted for review. But 
     Jeffrey Holmstead, who headed the EPA's Office of Air and 
     Radiation in the George W. Bush administration, said the 
     effort was not as extensive as the Obama administration's 
     approach.
       ``There was no formalized process by which you had to get 
     permission to send them over,'' Holmstead said, referring to 
     rules being submitted to the White House.
       The recent decision to bring on Democratic strategist John 
     Podesta as a senior White House adviser is likely to 
     accelerate the number of new rules and executive orders, 
     given Podesta's long-standing support for using executive 
     action to achieve the president's goals despite congressional 
     opposition.
       Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who chairs the Judiciary 
     Subcommittee on Oversight, Federal Rights and Agency Action, 
     said he's concerned about the real-world impact of the 
     postponements in the first term.
       ``Legal protection delayed is protection denied,'' 
     Blumenthal said. ``I've spoken to officials at the top rungs 
     of the White House power structure and at OIRA and we're 
     going to hold their feet to the fire, and we're going to make 
     sure they're held accountable in a series of hearings.''
       The officials interviewed for the ACUS report, whose names 
     were withheld from publication by the study authors, said 
     that starting in 2012 they had to meet with an OIRA desk 
     officer before submitting each significant rule for formal 
     review. They called the sessions ``Mother-may-I'' meetings, 
     according to the study.

[[Page S1385]]

       The accounts were echoed by four Obama administration 
     political appointees and three career officials interviewed 
     by The Post.
       At the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, a 
     former official said that only two managers had the authority 
     to request a major rule in 2012: then-administrator Lisa P. 
     Jackson and deputy administrator Bob Perciasepe. Perciasepe 
     and OIRA's director at the time, Cass Sunstein, would have 
     ``weekly and sometimes semi-weekly discussions'' to discuss 
     rules that affected the economy, one said, because they had 
     political consequences, the person said.
       ``As we entered the run-up to the election, the word went 
     out the White House was not anxious to review new rules,'' 
     the former official said.
       Sunstein, who has returned to his post as a Harvard Law 
     School professor, declined to comment.
       Several significant EPA proposals were withheld as a result 
     of those meetings, officials said, including a proposal 
     requiring cleaner gasoline and lower-pollution vehicles that 
     had won the support of automakers but angered the oil 
     industry.
       That regulation, which would reduce the amount of sulfur in 
     U.S. gasoline by two-thirds and impose fleetwide pollution 
     limits on new vehicles by 2017, was ready in December 2011, 
     said three officials familiar with the proposal. But agency 
     officials were told to wait a year to submit it for review 
     because critics could use it to suggest that the 
     administration was raising gas prices, they said. The EPA 
     issued the proposed rule in March.
       Other EPA regulations that were delayed beyond the 2012 
     election included rules on coal ash disposal, water pollution 
     rules for streams and wetlands, air emissions from industrial 
     boilers and cement kilns, and carbon dioxide limits for 
     existing power plants.
       Ross Eisenberg, who serves as vice president of energy and 
     resources policy at the National Association for 
     Manufacturers and has criticized several EPA regulations, 
     noted that in the past year the administration moved ahead 
     with proposals such as the rules on greenhouse gas emissions 
     and boilers.
       ``The agenda certainly did slow down, but it doesn't 
     change,'' he said.
       The administration also was slow to handle rules pertaining 
     to its health-care law. Several key regulations did not come 
     out until after the 2012 election, including one defining 
     what constitutes ``essential health benefits'' under a health 
     plan and which Americans could qualify for federal subsidies 
     if they opted to enroll in a state or a federal marketplace 
     plan.
       The latter focused on what constitutes ``affordable.'' 
     Treasury proposed a regulation in August 2011 saying an 
     employer plan was affordable as long as the premium for an 
     individual was no more than 9.5 percent of the taxpayer's 
     household income. Several groups--including labor unions--
     argued that the proposal did not take into account that the 
     premium for a family plan might be much higher than that 
     standard.
       Unions represent a vital part of the Democratic coalition, 
     in part because they help mobilize voters during elections.
       The Treasury Department held the proposal back while 
     finalizing all the other tax-credit rules on May 23, 2012. 
     Treasury officials later told those working on the regulation 
     that it could not be published before the election, according 
     to a government official familiar with the decision who spoke 
     on the condition of anonymity because of its sensitive 
     nature. The department made the rule on Feb. 1.
       OMB has reduced the length of time that rules are pending 
     this year. The agency has cut the number of rules that were 
     under review for more than 200 days by more than half.
       But while the administration is pressing ahead, activists 
     say the delays took a toll. Peg Seminario, director of safety 
     and health for the AFL-CIO, points to an update of the 
     nation's silica standards proposed Sept. 12 after a long 
     delay. The rule, which would prevent an estimated 688 deaths 
     and 1,585 silica-related illnesses each year, won't be 
     finalized until 2016.
       Jon Devine, a senior lawyer in the Natural Resources 
     Defense Council's water program, said small streams and 
     wetlands remain vulnerable because of the administration's 
     foot-dragging. The EPA recently withdrew a proposal to 
     outline what kind of water bodies deserve federal protection 
     that had been pending since February 2012 and announced it 
     would issue a legally binding rule instead.
       ``What's disappointing is it leaves waters subject to the 
     existing, weak state of affairs until they get the rule over 
     the final hurdle,'' Devine said.

  Mr. INHOFE. There are more impacts that are taking place. The 
greenhouse gas regulations for existing powerplants are expected to be 
released in June of 2014.
  The other regulations that are out there--and I am not going to spend 
any time on this because there are too many. But on the greenhouse gas 
legislation--even though when it started, it was Charles Rivers and the 
Wharton School and MIT--they came out with the approximation of $300 to 
$400 billion a year; and that is every year. The greenhouse gas 
regulatory costs under the Clean Air Act are totally different. No one 
has even calculated this yet.
  I would like to make sure we understand that under the bill my good 
friend Ed Markey and Waxman put forth, it would regulate the emissions 
of those organizations that emit 25,000 tons or more. However, if you 
do it through the Clean Air Act, it would be 250 tons. So you are 
talking about instead of 25,000 tons--which might be only the very 
large organizations; refineries and that type of thing--under the Clean 
Air Act, which is what they are attempting to do today as we speak, it 
would be just 250 tons, which would be every school, every hospital, 
every shop, and many residences.
  So the greenhouse gas regulatory costs--if it costs $300 to $400 
billion to regulate organizations that emit 25,000 tons, how much would 
it be if they emitted 250 tons? It is something that has not even been 
calculated yet.
  So we have all of these impacts of the regulations that take place. 
But the greatest of all would be, if you think about the cumulative 
impact study back--I have introduced legislation, along with several 
others. I know John Barrasso and several others have cosponsored 
legislation that would tell the public the cumulative effect of all 
these regulations.
  For example, as to the ozone regulations: 77 Oklahoma counties would 
be out of attainment; 7 million jobs would be lost.
  As to Utility MACT--that is something that did pass--a $100 billion 
cost--1.65 million jobs lost. It has already been implemented.
  Boiler MACT--and every manufacturing company has a boiler; and 
``MACT'' means ``maximum achievable control technology''--Boiler MACT 
is costing $63 billion, and 800,000 jobs have already been lost.
  The BLM fracking regulations would be $100,000 per well--duplicative 
of effective State regulations, which have been doing very well now 
since 1948.
  And there are greenhouse gas costs of $300 to $400 billion.
  So I guess what I am saying here--and I know I am using up quite a 
bit of time, but it is important to look and see what has happened 
since the time they were all talking about global warming. Everybody 
was talking about it, and how they are going to have an all-night thing 
to try to revive it because the public has gone in the other direction.
  George Mason University had a study where they actually interviewed 
several hundred of the TV meteorological people. Mr. President, 63 
percent of them said that if global warming is taking place, it is from 
natural causes, not from global warming.
  Polar bears. Everyone is concerned about polar bears. I know my good 
friend from California gave me a polar bear. It is my favorite coffee 
cup and I use it all the time. But between the 1950s and 1960s, the 
number of polar bears that were wandering around out there was between 
5,000 and 10,000. Today, it is between 15,000 and 25,000.
  The threats. A lot of times when people cannot win an argument, then 
they threaten. NASA's James Hansen said this is ``high crimes against 
humanity.'' Robert Kennedy, Jr., called me a ``call girl,'' a 
``prostitute.'' Robert Kennedy, Jr., also said: ``This is treason. And 
we need to start treating them as traitors.'' In other words, we need 
to start killing people.
  In 2006, the eco-magazine Grist called for Nuremberg-style trials for 
skeptics. September 29, 2007: Virginia State climatologist skeptical of 
global warming loses his job after a clash with the Governor. ``I was 
told that I could not speak in public.''
  Barone: Warmists have a ``desire to kill heretics.''
  The Weather Channel--Heidi Cullen, by the way, is a meteorologist on 
the Weather Channel. She is off with an environmental group right now, 
so she is not around anymore.
  Polling--where the American people are going; I think it is important 
to understand--this is a Gallup poll that is a current one right now. 
According to a Gallup poll, climate change is the least important 
environmental issue among the voters.
  In March of 2010, the same Gallup poll: Americans rank global warming 
dead last, 8 out of 8 environmental issues.
  In March 2010, Rasmussen: 72 percent of American voters do not 
believe global warming is a ``very serious problem.''
  The global warmist Robert Socolow laments:


[[Page S1386]]


       We are losing the argument with the public, big time. . . . 
     I think the climate change activists, myself included, have 
     lost the American Middle.

  So there are definitely some things going on here that are not in 
their favor.
  I would like to mention this, though. I think a lot of people have 
talked about the various scientists. On my Web site you can look up 
several thousand--this is a long time ago--I think we passed through 
1,000 qualified scientists way back in 2006, and it has gone up since 
that time to many, many, so it is something where there are a lot of 
scientists. One of my favorite scientists is one because he is a Nobel 
prize-winning Stanford University physicist. He said:

       Please remain calm. The earth will heal itself--climate is 
     beyond our power to control. The earth doesn't care about 
     governments and legislation. Climate change is a matter of 
     geologic time . . . something the earth does on its own 
     without asking anyone's permission or explaining itself.

  Richard Lindzen of MIT was a former U.N. IPCC receiver. He said: If 
the government wants carbon control, that is the answer the NAS will 
provide. He is the one who also said: The ultimate controlling factor 
is once you control CO2, you control people.
  The Harvard Smithsonian Study. The study examined the results of more 
than 240 peer-reviewed papers published by thousands of researchers 
over the past four decades. The study covers a multitude of geophysical 
and biological climate indicators. They came to the conclusion that 
climate change is not real and that the science is not accurate.
  Dr. Fred Seitz--he is the former president of the National Academy of 
Sciences--said: ``There is no convincing evidence that human release of 
carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, 
in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's 
atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate.''
  So we have a lot of scientists on both sides of this issue. I think 
the American people have woken up. I use something quite often because 
it is a little bit comical--and this is just kind of from memory, but 
this is something that actually did happen. Mr. President, 1895 was the 
first time we had, in recent history--we have had cold spells before, 
and we had the medieval warm period and all of that stuff; that was a 
long time ago--but in 1895--starting with current, more modern 
history--they had a cold spell that came in. That is where, I say to my 
friend from New Hampshire, they first came up with a new ice age that 
was coming. That was in 1895. That lasted from 1895 to 1918. Then, in 
1918, they came along with a warming period. That was the first time we 
heard the term ``global warming.'' That was in 1918, and that lasted 
until 1948.
  And get this. These are about 30-year cycles. That lasted until about 
1945. In 1945, all of a sudden it changed from this warming period to a 
cooling period. That lasted until 1975. Then it changed to a warming 
period. Now, since 2000, it has leveled off, and we are going into 
another cycle. You can almost set your watch by these cycles.
  Here is an interesting thing about that. In 1948, when it changed 
from a warming period to a cooling period, that coincided with the 
greatest single release of CO2 in history. That was right 
after World War II.
  So these are the things that are happening. I know they are going to 
enjoy staying up all night. They will have an audience of themselves, 
and I hope they enjoy it.
  But I have to say this in all sincerity. When you see something, and 
instead of going right along with the public and saying, it must be 
true because everybody is saying it--and everybody goes over and over 
again and talks about the climate is real and the science is real, and 
all that--well, that happens when it is not real, and that is what we 
have been going through.
  Right now I know President Obama is going through all kinds of 
efforts to try to do through regulations what the elected people would 
not do in the House, as well as in the Senate. When people realize--and 
they will be reminded again, even though it has been a while--now, I 
think it might be clever that after several years now where people have 
been talking about global warming that now they are trying to revive 
it, and that is what you are going to hear all night long here tonight.
  It is kind of interesting that this is happening at a time that we 
are going through this cold spell. It certainly has not been much fun 
in Oklahoma.
  So I think the American people are not ready to pass the largest tax 
increase in the history of America, and we will have to wait and see.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, it was with great interest that I listened 
to my friend. I suppose we are making progress. He used to call climate 
change a hoax, and he did not say that. So maybe he is moving in our 
direction.
  But I also want to point out, he says we are going to be talking to 
ourselves. I am happy to report that I just learned of two petitions, 
one that has 65,000 signatures calling on us to act and another that 
has 30,000 signatures calling on us to act, and the night is young.
  Now, my friend from Oklahoma----
  Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield for an observation, since the 
Senator mentioned my name?
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, if the time is taken off their time, I am 
happy to yield.
  Mr. INHOFE. The reason I did not use the word ``hoax'' is because 
then I might be guilty of advertising my book, and I certainly did not 
want to do that.
  Mrs. BOXER. That is wonderful. I am so happy you did not use hoaxes, 
and maybe there is a way for us to come closer together on this issue. 
But let my say this: People are listening. People care. Because when 97 
to 98 percent of the scientists say something is real, they do not have 
anything pressing them to say that other than the truth. They do not 
have any other agenda. They do not work for the oil companies.
  I will tell you, as chairman of the environment committee, every time 
the Republicans choose a so-called expert on climate, we have tracked 
them to special interest funding, those 3 percent. They know where 
their bread is buttered. I am sorry my friend left. I guess he could 
not stand to hear the truth. So I will put that truth into the Record.
  I do not know how my Republican colleagues can continue to deny that 
climate change is happening. One would think they could see it out 
their window, because as my colleague says: Oh, there was such cold 
weather. That has been predicted by the scientists, extreme weather. 
Here is the U.S. Global Change Research Program, their National Climate 
Assessment draft: Some extreme weather and climate events have 
increased in recent decades. We have seen heavy downpours, more severe 
droughts, and some extremes.
  At the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works climate 
change briefing, Dr. Marshall Shepherd, president of the American 
Meteorological Society, and a director of the Atmospheric Sciences 
Program at the University of Georgia, said:

       Climate change is increasing the probability of extreme 
     events, and in some cases maybe strengthening their intensity 
     or increasing their frequency. We are loading the dice 
     towards more Sandy or blizzard-type storms.

  So when my friend says: The planet is not warming; it is cold, we all 
know it is not about the weather. It is about the climate. It is about 
the long term--and, yes, we are going to see these extreme weather 
conditions.
  I would say that when my friends call us alarmists, that is 
ridiculous. We are trying to do our job. We are not scientists. We are 
not doctors either, for the most part, but we want to make sure people 
have health care coverage. We are not scientists, but we want to 
protect our people from the ravages of climate.
  I would ask my colleague Senator Schatz would he like me to go 
another 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 2 minutes? It is up to him. I can 
withhold. I am going to be here for quite a few hours.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. SCHATZ. If the Senator from California wanted to go for another 2 
or 3 minutes, I could give remarks for about 10, and then the senior 
Senator from Oregon has remarks to give as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.

[[Page S1387]]

  Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely. Will the Presiding Officer tell me when I 
have used 3 minutes and then I will yield the floor at that time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will be so notified.
  Mrs. BOXER. We just heard 45 minutes from my friend Jim Inhofe, whom 
I have a very friendly relationship with but who I think is a dangerous 
denier, a dangerous denier in the face of 97 percent agreement among 
scientists.
  He talks about international groups. I wish to talk about the 
National Academy of Sciences. Here is what they said: ``Levels of 
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in earth's atmosphere are 
exceeding levels recorded in the past millions of years.''
  That is our own National Academy of Sciences. I guess if we went out 
and asked the public do they support the National Academy of Sciences, 
I think it would come in at 90 percent, and the other 10 percent would 
say, I will get back to you.
  Then we have more from the National Academy:

       Climate change is occurring. It is very likely caused 
     primarily by the emission of greenhouse gasses from human 
     activity.

  They go on:

       Human activities have increased greenhouse gas 
     concentrations in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the main 
     greenhouse gas, is emitted by human activities and it has 
     risen almost 40 percent over the past 150 years.

  So when you hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle stand 
and deny this, how about the U.S. National Climate Assessment? This is 
the United States of America, our experts:

       Global sea level has risen by about 8 inches since reliable 
     recordkeeping began. It is projected to rise another 1 to 4 
     feet by 2100.

  That is dangerous. We have already seen it happening. I could go on, 
and I will come back, but I will conclude with this. I am, in my 
concluding remarks, going to tell you about every incredibly 
prestigious scientific group that has warned us about climate change: 
The joint world science academies' statement, the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the 
American Geophysical Union, the American Institute of Biological 
Scientists, the American Society of Plant Biologists, the Association 
of Ecosystem Research Centers, the Botanical Society of America, the 
Crop Science Society of America, the Natural Science Collections 
Alliance, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Soil 
Science Society of America, the American Medical Association, the 
American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 3 minutes.
  Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent for 30 additional seconds.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. The Geological Society of America. All I can say is, to 
come down here and accuse the Democrats of being alarmist, when all we 
are trying to do is protect the health and safety of the American 
people, of their families and future generations, is extreme while we 
are in the mainstream.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I would like to address some of the tropes 
that our climate deniers tend to use. I will go through a couple of 
those before our great senior Senator from the great State of Oregon 
gives his remarks.
  The first trope is: It is not warming. The ``it is not warming'' 
crowd will not even admit that the Earth is warming. Their favorite 
tactic is to point out the window during winter and say: Look at the 
snow on the ground. Climate change is bunk.
  That is not an adult argument. Under that theory, winter weather 
anywhere disproves climate change. Snowstorms are weather. Weather is 
not climate. Weather is a local phenomenon over extremely short 
timespans. Weather is what it is going to be like tomorrow. Weather is 
not climate. Climate is long-term weather trends over vast regions. 
This is not difficult to distinguish among adults. It is easy to make a 
joke about how cold it is and therefore climate change is bunk.
  But the vast majority of science disproves that assertion. Pointing 
out the window on a cold day and laughing about climate change is one 
of the most profoundly unserious things that otherwise good and 
responsible leaders in this Chamber do. Part of this country's 
greatness is our pragmatism. We see the world as it is and fix the 
things we can. For that, we need reliable information. When it comes to 
climate change, we have reliable information. We ignore it at our 
peril.
  For those who say the Earth is not warming, I would like to talk 
about thermometers. They measure temperature. We have them all over the 
world, very sophisticated ones run by very smart people. They provide a 
lot of data that has proven beyond a doubt that the atmosphere and that 
the oceans are warming. Even prominent climate skeptics such as 
American scientist Richard Muller can no longer argue.
  After exhaustive research, Dr. Muller said in 2012:

       Our results show that the average temperature of the 
     earth's land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit 
     over the last 250 years, including an increase of one and a 
     half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it 
     appears likely that essentially all of this increase results 
     from the human emission of greenhouse gases.

  This was a prominent climate denier previously.
  Two, relying on anecdotes to disprove what is actually happening. A 
research vessel got stuck in summer ice in Antarctica. More and more 
deniers are being forced to rely on out-of-context anecdotes to support 
their false claims. In December, they got very excited about a research 
vessel that was stuck in the summer sea ice in Antarctica, claiming it 
as proof that the Earth is not warming. Here is the thing. It is an 
Antarctica. It is at the bottom of the Earth. It is one of the coldest 
places in the world. One summer's ice in Antarctica does not suddenly 
invalidate millions of worldwide temperature measurements from all over 
the planet.
  They do this whether glaciers are growing or melting. Even though 90 
percent of the world's glaciers are melting, they pick off one and use 
it as proof that climate change is somehow not an established 
scientific fact, even though it is.
  The fourth trope we hear, and this is a pivot, we are starting to 
hear it more and more: It may be warming, but maybe we did not cause 
it. They begrudgingly admit that the Earth is warming but say: Hey, 
this is part of a natural cycle. Natural cycles have happened before 
and they will happen again.
  Recently, Dr. James Powell, a geochemist, former college president 
and National Science Board member, studied all peer-reviewed articles 
on climate change--all peer-reviewed articles on climate change from 
1991 to 2013. He found just over 25,000 articles written since 1991. Of 
25,000 articles, only 26--only 26 rejected the premise of human-caused 
climate change. This is no longer a real debate. It is only a debate in 
the four corners of this Capitol. People across the Nation, insurance 
companies, the Department of Defense, most governments across the 
planet, our biggest corporations, regular people of all political 
stripes and in every State understand that this is what is happening to 
us.
  Some deniers also like to use responsible scientists' methods against 
them. The truth about scientists is that they are scientists, which is 
to say they entertain doubt; they ask questions; they are not afraid to 
express their doubts; they observe and refine their theories. So 
deniers cannot in good conscience use the scientific process as 
evidence that doubt still exists. Sure, there is uncertainty among 
scientists, but it is pretty much just about whether future impacts of 
climate change will be really bad or extremely bad.
  The sixth trope is: It is not a big deal. Maybe it is even good. As 
deniers paint themselves even further into a corner, they become 
desperate. We now come to the category of those who admit the Earth is 
warming, admit it is caused by humans but claim the effects are 
negligible or, even more preposterously, they might be good for us.
  My colleagues and I have presented evidence from study after study 
after study showing that while the changes so far are manageable in 
some places, if we do not change our ways, the bad news will start 
coming faster and faster. Absent major reforms, the rate of

[[Page S1388]]

change will increase. We may not notice half a degree of average 
temperature increase here and there, but on a geological timescale, 
these changes are occurring at recordbreaking speed.
  In many cases, they may be happening too quickly for nature or 
humanity to adapt. A 2012 study commissioned by 20 governments, which 
was written by more than 50 scientists, economists, and other experts, 
found that by 2030 the cost of climate change and air pollution 
combined will rise to 3.2 percent of global GDP, with the world's 
least-developed countries most impacted, possibly suffering losses of 
up to 11 percent of their GDP.
  Developed countries will not be exempt from these impacts. The study 
finds that climate change could wipe out 2 percent of our GDP by the 
year 2030. That is a big deal.
  Finally, the trope that China is doing nothing so our actions do not 
matter. This category of deniers accepts the reality, causes, and 
seriousness of climate change, but then they say it is hopeless because 
countries such as China and others are doing nothing to reduce their 
image.
  That is flat wrong. Here is the evidence. In September, the Chinese 
State Council released its atmospheric pollution action plan, which 
called for a reduction in the construction of new coal-fired 
powerplants and a goal of generating 13 percent of its electricity from 
clean energy from renewable sources by 2017.
  Chinese officials have announced they plan to institute a tax on 
carbon pollution in 2015 or 2016. Certain regions have also begun to 
implement pilot cap-and-trade programs, and they have plans to create a 
national carbon market by 2020.
  How about current investments? In 2012, the United States spent about 
$35 billion on renewables, while China spent $64 billion.
  Finally, there is the nothing-we-can-do denial trope. Let's throw in 
the towel. This crowd accepts the science, accepts the impacts but 
seems to have just given up.
  When did we start thinking we couldn't solve America's big problems? 
When did we start thinking we were too small or not important enough to 
make a difference?
  I don't believe that. I believe that when America leads, the world 
follows. For this country to lead, this Congress needs to act.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, earlier this evening I touched on the 
numbers that underlie this debate--the numbers from the National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the numbers from the National 
Academy of Sciences--and said they really drive me to the judgment that 
climate change is the scientific equivalent of a speeding Mack truck. 
But I believe numbers don't really capture this discussion fully 
because what people want to know is the impact of climate change in 
their community, what it truly means for them in their part of the 
country.
  To get into those impacts, I will start with one that is shellacking 
my home State; that is, the wildfires that are burning longer, getting 
hotter, and starting earlier. Drought and high temperatures from 
climate change are driving all of this. During the early part of this 
past year's fire season, intense wildfires once again burned across the 
Western United States, threatening population centers and destroying 
hundreds of homes. This winter, fires have already burned in western 
Oregon--something that used to be very rare. The number of houses that 
have burned in our country from wildfires has increased a staggering 
400 percent in only the past couple of years and is projected to get 
far worse. In 2012, 2 percent of my home State of Oregon burned in just 
one summer and nearly 1.5 million acres burned across the Pacific 
Northwest. Wildfires, of course, have always been part of life in my 
home State, but the fires of recent years are getting hotter and are 
significantly more threatening to homes.
  Our country's top scientists say the conditions that caused these 
recent fire seasons to become more severe, including drought 
accompanied by above-average temperatures, are more common now due to 
human-induced climate change. Over the past 30 years the fire season 
has become 2\1/2\ months longer and both the number and severity of 
forest fires in the American West have increased several-fold. 
Scientists who have examined this issue say climate change is a 
significant factor behind it.
  To their credit, the Obama administration has indicated that they 
want to work with Senators of both political parties to tackle this 
issue. In particular, what they have suggested--and Senator Crapo, the 
Republican Senator from Idaho, and I have pushed this strongly--is that 
instead of shorting the prevention fund, which is the heart of the 
problem--we have to go in and thin out these overstocked stands--
instead of shorting the prevention fund, which is what happens every 
year now, because these fires are so big and so hot, what happens is 
the bureaucracy comes in and takes money from the prevention fund in 
order to suppress the fires, and the problem, of course, gets worse 
because we don't have the funds for prevention.
  The administration wants to work with Democrats and Republicans in 
the Senate and in the other body so that the most serious fires--only 
the most serious ones--get handled from the disaster fund. We believe 
this is going to free up additional support for efforts to prevent 
these fires, and that will be beneficial to our communities.
  Second, I would like to focus on power sector vulnerability. The 
drought and high temperatures that can lead to the wildfires and make 
our power grid more vulnerable also raise the question of the 
implications for our grid and for taxpayers.
  Much of that vulnerability comes from changes in water supply and 
water temperature. Water plays two critical roles in generating 
electricity. Water is needed for generating hydropower--something we do 
a lot of in the Pacific Northwest. It is also needed for cooling in 
many other types of generation, such as nuclear, biomass, and coal. For 
those generators, water must not only be available in sufficient 
quantities, but it has to be cool enough to allow the plants to run 
safely and efficiently. That means climate change poses a double threat 
to some of these facilities.
  This is not a hypothetical situation; recent history has already 
shown the power sector's vulnerability to both drought and high 
temperatures. In 2001, for example, severe drought in the Pacific 
Northwest and California significantly reduced hydroelectric 
generation, causing tight electricity supplies and high prices 
throughout the West. That drought was estimated to have an economic 
impact of between $2.5 billion and $6 billion.
  High temperatures have also made water too hot to actually be able to 
cool some powerplants. In 2007 the Tennessee Valley Authority had to 
temporarily shut down its Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant because the intake 
water temperatures were too high. In 2012 the Millstone nuclear plant 
that powers half of Connecticut had to take 40 percent of its capacity 
offline for almost 2 weeks because the cooling water it was getting 
from Long Island Sound was too warm. In that same year the Braidwood 
nuclear facility in Illinois had to get an exemption to use intake 
water that was 102 degrees instead of shutting down during a heat wave. 
When somebody has their air-conditioning on high because it is over 100 
degrees, that is not a time that we can afford to be taking a base load 
powerplant offline.
  So far it has been possible to get through the heat- and drought-
related shutdowns of these powerplants without major outages, but let's 
make no mistake about it--the ratepayers have definitely felt them in 
their power bills. In Texas during the summer of 2011, for example, 
electricity was selling on the spot market for $3,000 per megawatt 
hour--well over 100 times the normal rate.

  Next I would like to talk about the effects of climate on energy 
infrastructure. The power sector isn't the only bit of energy 
infrastructure that is vulnerable to climate change. Recently, I--along 
with the majority leader, Senator Reid, Senator Franken, Senator 
Harkin, and Senator Mark Udall--asked the Government Accountability 
Office to look into the effects of climate change on energy 
infrastructure.
  That report was just released. What the Government Accountability 
Office

[[Page S1389]]

found is that climate changes are projected to affect infrastructure 
throughout all major stages of the energy supply chain--of course, once 
again increasing the risk of energy disruption.
  In addition to power sector vulnerabilities, the GAO also found 
vulnerabilities among the infrastructure for producing and extracting 
natural resources, including oil and gas platforms, refineries, and 
processing plants. This infrastructure is often located near the coast, 
making it vulnerable to severe weather and sea level rise.
  Fuel transportation and storage infrastructure, including pipelines, 
barges, railways, and storage tanks, are also susceptible to damage 
from severe weather, melting permafrost, and increased precipitation.
  I close by outlining some of the steps that can actually be taken to 
deal with these issues. I am sure people who are following this 
discussion tonight are saying: All right, they are making a good case 
about the nature of the problem. So what else. What comes next in terms 
of our ability to take action to deal with this.
  I have said before that there are a host of areas where we are going 
to have to work in a global kind of manner to build support with other 
countries for tackling climate change, but there is no question that 
this Senate can put points on the board this year in the fight against 
climate change.
  I am very pleased to have been able to work with our colleague 
Senator Murkowski, the ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee, over this past year. Until recently I served as 
chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and we were 
able to pass a major law to spur development of hydropower, which is 
one of America's forgotten renewables. Hydropower already makes up two-
thirds of our country's renewable power, so this is obviously a vital 
renewable source of energy. Our legislation makes it easier to put 
hydro on existing dams, irrigation canals, and conduits, and we believe 
it is going to spark big investments in clean renewable power. The 
National Hydropower Association estimates that there are 60,000 
megawatts of potential new hydropower in our country yet to be 
harnessed.
  In addition, our committee passed an important bill to cut redtape 
associated with developing geothermal power on public lands.
  My colleagues and I urge the administration to take steps to have 
tools at their disposal to invest in energy efficiency and use the 
savings to pay for those upgrades.
  I look forward, here on the floor of the Senate, to being able to 
pass what I would call the platonic ideal of consensus energy 
legislation; that is, the bill that has been sponsored by our 
colleagues, Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman. I am very pleased that 
we had a promising development over the past few weeks where we brought 
together those who care about trying to promote clean and renewable 
energy in Federal buildings. We have been able to get common ground 
between Senators of differing views. I look forward to seeing that 
bill, the Shaheen-Portman bill, on the floor of the Senate.
  The fact is a number of our renewable energy sources have been on a 
roll over the past several years, demonstrating their potential.
  For example, onshore wind has installed tens of thousands of 
megawatts of capacity in recent years when the policy support has been 
in place. As expected, the costs have come down with technology 
improvements, experience, economies of scale, and as a deep domestic 
supply chain has built up to manufacture all of the components of the 
wind turbines and towers. The policy support has been working, and wind 
is now knocking at the door of competitiveness with fossil 
technologies.
  Offshore wind is also picking up steam, even off the coast of my home 
State, where the waters have always been too deep for offshore wind to 
be possible. A company called Principle Power is trying to solve that 
problem by demonstrating floating offshore wind turbines just off the 
coast of Coos Bay in my home State. Putting a turbine on a floating 
platform instead of mounting it on a tower on the ocean floor has the 
potential to dramatically change the potential for offshore wind. It 
would let developers tap into the huge windy resource above the deep 
waters off the coast of Oregon and elsewhere but without the footprints 
on the ocean floor and without affecting views from the coast. It is a 
promising technology, but, like all first-of-a-kind technology, it is 
going to cost a bit more. That is why we ought to get policy support--
so we can realize the potential of commercial-scale energy.
  Finally, the costs of solar power have also been dropping like a 
rock. The potential for sustainable biomass to provide a quadruple win 
of low-carbon energy, increased forest health, reduced danger of forest 
fires, and economic growth is still there waiting to be fully 
developed.
  I wish to touch on two remaining issues, and one is before the Senate 
Finance Committee. It is my strong view that the tax treatment of all 
energy production in the United States ought to be modified so that all 
energy sources compete on a technology-neutral level playing field. 
That ought to be one of the major goals of comprehensive tax reform, 
which, in my view, is really the grand bipartisan prize for Senate 
Finance Committee members.
  In the short-term, we have another challenge. We shouldn't let the 
renewable energy industries that are so important simply fall off the 
cliff just when the supply chains have been developed and just when 
they are reaching a level of competitiveness where they can really take 
off.
  It is my hope that it is possible to work in a bipartisan way. I 
intend to talk to Senator Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Finance 
Committee, and colleagues on both sides of the aisle to work on a tax 
extenders package that includes a variety of clean energy and 
efficiency credits. Senator Hatch and I have been interested in moving 
forward this spring through the regular order and markup of this kind 
of energy package in the Finance Committee.
  I will close by talking about natural gas because to capture all of 
the climate benefits we also have to factor in the dramatic shale gas 
revolution. We understand that natural gas has turned the energy 
equation upside down over the past few years. Along the way, it has 
provided a low-cost way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the same 
time. Increased usage of natural gas has helped our country to reach 
its lowest level of greenhouse gas emissions since 1994, even as the 
economy has been picking up steam. Manufacturing and industrial 
operations have been moving back to the United States to take advantage 
of cheap reliable gas.

  This is good news that was almost unimaginable just a few years ago, 
but we have some major challenges as well. I am concerned that methane 
emissions from leaky compressors and leaky pipes could undermine the 
emission benefits of natural gas in a way that isn't being accounted 
for. A recent report which showed a leakage rate of just 3 percent 
through the entire natural gas supply chain can make burning natural 
gas the same as burning coal from a climate perspective. So I have been 
pushing hard with colleagues here in the Senate to keep that leakage 
rate below 1 percent from production to usage to make sure that climate 
benefits come to reality.
  There are technologies that can address the issue of leakage, and 
they already exist. They can be put in place at almost no net cost, 
with many of the measures paying for themselves. There has been a 
comprehensive survey of the measures for reducing methane leaks through 
the natural gas supply and usage chain, and it found emissions could be 
reduced by 40 percent with technologies that already exist and are 
practical today.
  The scale of this problem is, of course, immense, and it is what 
Senators are talking about here tonight. It is going to take everyone 
pulling together at every level to make the meaningful changes actually 
happen. We are going to need continued leadership from our 
entrepreneurs, who aren't sitting idly by but are innovating to come up 
with solutions to climate change. We are going to need savvy consumers 
demanding lower carbon and more efficient goods and services. We will 
need leadership from retailers who are going to ask more of their 
suppliers and supply chains to

[[Page S1390]]

give them products to sell to those consumers. Of course, the key is 
always innovation in the private sector--the private-sector leaders 
working with our national labs and universities.
  I am especially proud that my home State of Oregon is going to lead 
the State efforts in trying to promote sustainability, renewables, and 
efficiency at the local level.
  To wrap up my remarks, let me state the obvious. It is going to take 
new leadership from the Congress. The Congress is going to have to lead 
if we are going to get a long-term framework for a low-carbon economy 
that innovators, entrepreneurs, and others can use in the days ahead to 
address the global nature of this problem, and I think we are up to it 
here in the Senate. I think we are up to doing it in a bipartisan way, 
and that is what I look forward to being part of in the days ahead.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, Senator Feinstein is scheduled to 
speak next, and we are delighted that she is.


                           Dinner Invitation

  I just wanted to make a public service announcement at this point in 
the evening. Any staff, Senators who are here through the night, any 
floor staff, Republican floor staff as well, all are invited; and for 
any of the parliamentary staff who are interested, there is dinner 
available in Room S. 219, and better to get it while it is hot.
  That is the end of the public service announcement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order with respect 
to alternating blocks of time be vitiated and that the Senate remain in 
a period of morning business until 8:45 a.m., Tuesday, March 11, with 
Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 
between 20 and 30 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I want to begin by thanking my friend and colleague, 
Senator Boxer, for her leadership. It was 2 years ago that she began a 
climate action task force that took place at noon, when all our 
stomachs were grumbling for food, but it provided some very interesting 
advice, very interesting knowledge, from interesting scholars who came 
to speak. She was then joined by Senator Whitehouse, when he came. Now 
there is Senator Markey, and there is quite a large number--certainly 
of Democratic Senators--who attend these Tuesday meetings at noon. So I 
want to thank them very much for this leadership.
  As we have heard already, debate over climate change has raged for 
years here on Capitol Hill, but the scientific facts actually have been 
conclusive for some time now. Most people I have found don't realize 
that the greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere just don't go 
away. They do not dissipate. These gases can stay for decades. Our 
actions--the greenhouse gas pollution we put into the air and the 
forests we cut down--are changing the composition of Earth's 
atmosphere, increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the 
atmosphere to above 400 parts per million.
  Just look at this chart. As this chart shows, these are global 
warming gases. This is carbon dioxide. You can see how it has run quite 
along at this level, and then in the last few years it has begun to 
jump up, so much that the average in 2013 was 396 parts per million. 
People don't know this--that all these gases remain in our atmosphere 
year after year, decade after decade, and century after century.
  This change is altering how our atmosphere interacts, with massive 
amounts of solar energy radiating out from the center of our solar 
system. It is well known within the scientific community that the 
Earth's blanket--our atmosphere--is getting more effective at trapping 
heat. The full effects of this stronger blanket--or shield or whatever 
you want to call it--must be projected into the future. Different 
projections show different effects, but we know this. Change is coming, 
and it has already begun.
  A lot of people also believe our Earth is immutable, that we can't 
destroy it and that it can't change. They assume our planet has always 
been pretty much the same. But the last time the Earth's atmosphere 
contained 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide was more than 3 
million years ago when horses and camels lived in the high Arctic in 
conditions that averaged 18 degrees warmer than today. Seas were at 
least 30 feet higher, at a level that today would inundate major cities 
around the world and flood the homes of a quarter of the United States 
population.
  Concentrations of carbon dioxide have risen, as I said, from the 280 
parts per million to more than 400 parts per million in just the last 
150 years. Scientists tell us there is no known geologic period in 
which concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased 
as quickly. Bottom line: Never has our planet faced a faster or more 
ecologically devastating change.
  To settle the scientific debate over climate change, the Bush 
administration appointed a National Academy of Sciences Blue Ribbon 
Panel. The group, which included former climate change deniers, 
reported to Congress in 2001 that greenhouse gases are ``causing 
surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.'' 
They said: ``Temperatures are, in fact, rising.''
  The United Nations created its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change, a group of more than 600 leading scientific experts; and what 
did they say? They said the ``warming of the climate system is 
unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are 
unprecedented over decades to millennia.''
  Average temperatures over lands and ocean surfaces globally have 
increased 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit from 1880 to 2012, with the highest 
rate of increase in the past 3 decades.
  Just look at this. See the line indicating carbon dioxide 
concentration. Start from here. Now notice that the temperatures are 
still down. Watch the line start to go up and notice the climate warm 
up to where it is today.
  The IPCC report continued: ``The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, 
the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and 
the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.''
  This makes that clear. If we don't reduce the greenhouse gas 
emissions, the National Research Council predicts the average global 
temperatures will increase by as much as 11.5 degrees--11.5 degrees by 
2100. Such a dramatic and rapid increase would be catastrophic to our 
planet Earth. It would change our world permanently.
  As temperatures have increased, we have seen that ice sheets that 
cover the North and South Poles have begun melting. The average annual 
Arctic sea ice area has decreased more than 20 percent since 1979. That 
is when satellite records first became available. The Greenland ice 
sheet has melted by nearly 30 percent.
  Here we can see the Arctic, the red line shows what it was in 1979, 
and current picture shows what has been lost and what is left.
  The melting of glaciers and ice caps, along with expansion of ocean 
water due to the increase in temperature have caused the global sea 
level to rise by 8 inches since 1870, with over 2 inches just in the 
past 20 years. If we do nothing to stop climate change, scientific 
models project that there is a real possibility of sea level increasing 
by as much as 4 feet by the end of this century--4 feet.
  Now, what would 4 feet do? At risk are nearly 2.6 million homes 
located less than 4 feet above high tide nationwide.
  Let me speak about my home State of California. We have, within those 
4 feet, the homes of 450,000 people, 30 coastal power plants with 
generating capacity of 10 gigawatts, 22 wastewater treatment plants 
with capacity of 325 million gallons per day, 3,500 miles of roadway, 
280 miles of railway, 140 schools, and 55 hospitals and other health 
care facilities. These could all be inundated by the end of the 
century.
  Oakland and San Francisco International Airports are susceptible to 
flooding, and both are today studying expensive new levy systems to 
hold back the tides.
  Sea level rise in California would also cause flooding of low-lying 
areas, loss of coastal wetlands, such as portions of the San Francisco 
Bay Delta,

[[Page S1391]]

erosion of cliffs and beaches, and saltwater contamination of drinking 
water. Bottom line: Rising seas put California's homes, public 
facilities, and environmental resources in great peril, and adapting to 
this change will impose great cost.
  Temperatures in California have increased 1.26 degrees Fahrenheit 
over the past 4 decades. The warmer climate could be particularly 
devastating to us where threats from catastrophic wildfire and 
reduction in water resources will likely make sunny California a desert 
State. The Sierra Nevada snowpack--and we are hearing a lot about that 
now--which includes Lake Tahoe--is the State's largest source of water. 
It equals about half the storage capacity of all of California's man-
made reservoirs. If we do nothing, the Sierra Nevada spring snowpack 
could drop by as much as 60 to 80 percent by the end of the century, 
eliminating the water source for nearly 16 million people.
  Only four States have populations as large as 16 million people, and 
the largest agricultural State in the United States--California--needs 
water resources to farm and grow crops. The 38 million people living in 
California also need water to drink, to bathe, to water flowers, for 
businesses to flourish.

  Major fire is another danger because the size, severity, duration, 
and frequency of fires are greatly influenced by climate. This is the 
Rim Fire, from not too long ago. It gives us an idea of how things 
burn. Fire seasons in the West are starting sooner and lasting longer. 
The average length has increased by 78 days since 1970, a 64-percent 
increase. This isn't a coincidence, and climate change is suspected as 
a key mechanism for that change. The change is apparent.
  During a recent Senate hearing, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tidwell 
testified:

       On average, wildfires burn twice as many acres each year as 
     compared to 40 years ago, and there are on average seven 
     times as many fires over 10,000 acres per year.

  I believe this: We cannot stop climate change from happening. We do 
not have a silver bullet. There is no action we can take to stem the 
tide. But if we can hold the warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, we 
can accommodate for it. But if the warming reaches 5 degrees to 9 
degrees Celsius, the effects are catastrophic for our planet Earth. 
Dramatic and catastrophic effects are far more likely. Through a series 
of incremental but somewhat aggressive policy steps, we can slow the 
change.
  The combustion of fossil fuel--coal, oil, and natural gas--accounts 
for 78 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in our country. Most of the 
fossil fuel emissions come from the smokestacks of our power plants and 
the tailpipes of our vehicles.
  The bottom line: To address climate change, we must take steps to use 
fossil fuels more efficiently, and we must initiate a shift away from 
fossil fuels where we can and toward cleaner alternatives.
  I believe we can attack this problem by: establishing aggressive fuel 
economy standards to reduce emissions from the transportation sector; 
enabling a shift to renewable sources of power; limiting the emissions 
from stationary sources, especially power plants; and, most important, 
putting a price on heat-trapping carbon pollution.
  Let me mention some steps we have taken because we have begun a 
transition to a cleaner energy economy. The good news is that carbon 
dioxide emissions have dropped 12 percent since 2005, due in part to 
the policies we have adopted.
  One of my proudest achievements was working with Senators Snowe, 
Inouye, Stevens, Cantwell, Lott, Dorgan, Corker, Carper, and many 
others in the 2007 Ten-in-Ten Fuel Economy Act, raising the corporate 
average fuel economy known as CAFE at the maximum achievable rate.
  Let me say what these new standards mean. They mean we will have a 
fleetwide average of 54.5 miles per gallon in 2025. These standards 
will cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks in half by 
2025, reducing emissions by 6 billion metric tons over the life of the 
program, more than the total amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the 
United States in 2010. Better yet, these standards will save American 
families more than $1.7 trillion in fuel costs, resulting in average 
fuel savings of more than $8,000 per vehicle.
  Our legislation also directed the administration to establish the 
first ever fuel economy standards for buses, delivery trucks, and long-
haul 18 wheelers. The first standards, which apply to trucks and buses 
built from 2014 to 2018, will reduce greenhouse gas pollution by 
approximately 270 million metric tons.
  I am very sorry Senator Snowe from Maine isn't here today because I 
began this effort with a simple sense of the Senate resolution in 1993 
with Senator Slade Gorton from Washington, Senator Bryan from Nevada, 
and myself, and we couldn't get a simple statement passed. We then 
tried an SUV loophole closer, which was to bring SUVs down to the 
mileage of sedans and we couldn't do this.
  We then did the Ten-in-Ten and we didn't think it was going to go 
anywhere. Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye put it in a commerce 
committee bill. Senator Stevens changed his view on it, put it in a 
commerce committee bill, and it swept through the Senate and through 
the House, was signed by the President, and is now the law. Today 
President Obama has made completing CAFE standards for trucks built 
after 2018--which are required by our 2007 law--a key part of his 
Climate Action Plan.
  Power plants are our largest single source of greenhouse gas 
emissions. It is fair to say Federal tax incentives and financing, 
State mandates, federally funded research, and a dramatically improving 
permitting process have led to a recent shift away from coal-fired 
power plants and toward renewable energy and lower emission natural 
gas.
  Additionally, renewable energy production has more than doubled since 
2008, and it continues to boom. Last year 4,751 megawatts of solar were 
installed nationwide. This is a 41-percent increase over the previous 
year. Power plant carbon dioxide emissions have dropped 17 percent 
since 2005.
  The lesson is clear: We must continue the policies which are working, 
such as the wind and geothermal production tax credits, the solar 
investment tax credit, and a project-permitting process which advances 
projects on disturbed and less sensitive lands expeditiously, but we 
must also take longer term steps to ensure that power plant emissions 
continue to drop.
  I support the President's plan to use Clean Air Act authorities to 
limit greenhouse gas emissions. The Supreme Court's landmark global 
warming case, Massachusetts v. EPA, found greenhouse gases are 
pollutants with the potential to endanger human health and welfare. 
President Obama and EPA have an obligation to comply with these 
directives to limit such emissions. So I very much look forward to the 
President advancing a strong rule which will use market-based 
mechanisms.
  I also believe Congress could act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 
from power plants by putting an explicit price on pollution. It has 
taken me a long time to get there--approximately 20 years. I supported 
various other mechanisms--and will continue to support--but I am 
convinced, based on information by the Energy Information 
Administration, a fee on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants 
starting at only $10 per ton could reduce emissions 70 percent to 80 
percent by 2050, if the fee steadily increases over time. This is the 
emissions reduction level experts say is necessary to stabilize the 
climate at less than 2 degrees Celsius warmer than today. If we can do 
this, we save planet Earth. If the climate goes 5 degrees to 9 degrees 
warmer by the end of the century, we have lost.
  Such a fee could be responsive to emissions performance. If emissions 
were falling consistent with science-based emissions targets, the fee 
would not have to go up every year. It is estimated a fee on power 
plant emissions would be nearly as effective in reducing heat-trapping 
emissions as an economy-wide fee. The difference is 2 percent. So both 
policies deserve consideration.
  Such a fee would provide industry with cost certainty, and the 
revenues--exceeding $20 billion annually--could help address our 
Nation's debt. They should go back to the general fund. The revenue 
could finance other important national priorities, such as tax reform,

[[Page S1392]]

income inequality, energy research development.
  An MIT study found that if the fee revenues were used to cut other 
taxes or maintain spending for social programs, ``the economy will be 
better off with the carbon (fee) than if we have to keep other taxes 
high or cut programs to rein in the deficit.''
  Science has clearly shown the planet is warming and now at a faster 
rate than ever. We know this. Now we as leaders must make a choice: Do 
we act, do we lead, do we tackle the problem or do we wait until it is 
too late? Do we continue the progress we have made on fuel economy by 
taking on other large emitters or do we simply claim it is impossible, 
it is intractable, we can't do anything about it? Do we blame the 
problem on China? And China has a big problem. Do we deny undeniable 
facts due to current politics?
  I believe we have an obligation to lead. There is no question it is 
difficult and there is no question there are hard choices, but we have 
an obligation to control our own pollution. Our Nation has the 
opportunity to demonstrate to the rest of the world it can be done, and 
tonight shows there are some leaders.
  I thank Senator Boxer, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Markey, and 
Senator Schatz for their leadership, not only on this evening but for 
the years they have led on this issue. So let's get it done.
  Before I end, I would note that my legislative assistant, the young 
man sitting next to me, is leaving to work for the Department of 
Energy. He has worked on fuel efficiency standards, climate change, 
energy, transportation, and a number of other issues.
  Matthew Nelson, I want you to know your expertise, your unique 
creativity and capacity, and your dedication will be missed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, may I thank the distinguished 
Senator from California for her speech. For those who know of her 
history with this issue and her leadership on pollution issues over 
many years, this was an important speech, and I thank the Senator very 
much.
  Before we turn to Senator Boxer, I wish to say a few things about the 
comments the Senator from Oklahoma made earlier, I suppose in an effort 
to suggest climate change is not all that we shake it up to be. The 
first point he made was about a group of emails that came out of East 
Anglia University, which the climate denier community seized on and 
nicknamed climategate, as if like Watergate there was a big scandal in 
those emails. There were some probably not entirely appropriate 
comments that were said in the emails, but the question is, Was the 
science underlying it affected or compromised in any way?

  So-called climategate was actually looked at over and over again. 
Because it was at the University of East Anglia, the University of East 
Anglia did an investigation. Because it involved scientists at Penn 
State, Penn State did an investigation. Both of those universities gave 
a complete clean bill of health to the underlying science that was at 
the base of this.
  The House of Commons--the British House of Commons did its 
investigation. That is how much fuss the deniers kicked up about this. 
They came back and they said: Nothing wrong with the science there. 
Nothing wrong with the science. The U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency and National Science Foundation also did investigations, as did 
the inspector general of the Department of Commerce. Three for three, 
those investigations came back as well, saying: If they did say 
anything inappropriate, nothing wrong with the science.
  After all that, after six published reviews whose results confirmed 
that there was nothing wrong with the science as a result of these 
emails, for people to continue to come to the floor and to suggest that 
the email chain revealed some flaw in the data or some flaw in the 
science, it is untrue. It is as simple as that. It is just not true.
  In fact, if you wanted to nickname this properly, you would actually 
call it climategate-gate because the real scandal is the phony scandal 
that was whipped up about these emails when the underlying science had 
been confirmed by every single investigation that followed. So much for 
climategate or climategate-gate, more properly said.
  He also indicated that because the IPCC report had said the Himalayan 
glaciers were retreating, but they weren't, that there was something 
obviously wrong with the science. Let us start with some glaciers 
closer to home. This is Grinell Glacier in Montana. Here is what it 
looked like in 1940. That is all snow. Here is what it looks like in 
2004. It is melted down to this little puddle of snow and ice.
  We are indeed losing our glaciers. Have a look in Washington at 
Lillian Glacier in Washington's Olympic National Park. This is in 1905. 
Look at the size of that glacier. Here it is, the same bowl, virtually 
dried of snow--glacier gone.
  The fact that glaciers are disappearing is something people see in 
front of them all around the world. All you have to do is go to 
mountains with glaciers and look. I went with Senator Boxer to the 
glaciers in Greenland. You could see the glaciers retreat. You could 
see the increased speed as the ice moved more rapidly down and out to 
sea because of the melt.
  Now the question of the Himalayan glaciers has also been reviewed. A 
recent article in Nature said:

       The Tibetan plateau and surroundings contain the largest 
     number of glaciers outside polar regions. These glaciers are 
     at the headwaters of many prominent Asian rivers and are 
     largely experiencing shrinkage. . . .

  Which is exactly what one would expect from the science of climate 
change.
  Now the National Academy of Sciences recently did a report on this 
very subject about 6 months ago, and a quote on that report says:

       The report examines how changes to glaciers in the Hindu 
     Kush-Himalayan region, which covers eight countries across 
     Asia, could affect the area's river systems, water supplies, 
     and the South Asian population. The mountains in the region 
     form the headwaters of several major river systems--including 
     the Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow rivers--which serve 
     as sources of drinking water and irrigation supplies for 
     roughly 1.5 billion people. So the irrigation and drinking 
     water for 1.5 billion people is nothing to laugh about.

  Here is the conclusion:

       The entire Himalayan climate is changing, but how climate 
     change will impact specific places remains unclear. . . . The 
     eastern Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau are warming, and the 
     trend is more pronounced at higher elevations. Models suggest 
     that desert dust and black carbon, a component of soot, could 
     contribute to the rapid atmospheric warming, accelerated 
     snowpack melting, and glacier retreat.

  The Senator also mentioned the cost of a carbon fee. Just to make the 
record completely clear, I would propose a carbon fee whose every 
dollar of revenue was returned to the American people if as a result of 
a carbon fee they end up paying more in their energy bill somewhere.
  Every dollar of that should come back to the American people. It 
could come back in the form of a check to the head of a family. It 
could come back in the form of lower tax rates. It could come back in a 
variety of ways, and I hope soon we are actually having that 
discussion. But do not think there is any need for this to be a net 
cost to the economy. Every dollar can go back to the American people. 
Because of the nature of this tax, it is actually probably more 
efficient than others, so it should create economic lift for a net 
economic gain if you are truly offsetting the revenues. So I reject the 
proposition that this would create a cost. It would be easy to design 
it in such a way that it is actually net improvement.
  Finally, I will agree with something Senator Inhofe said. He said 
this has to be international; and indeed it does have to be 
international. India has a vote. They have a lot of powerplants. China 
has a lot of powerplants. They have to work together. We can do that.
  America can lead in the world. If the others are slow to come, we can 
erect tax adjustments at our border that protect us and our products. 
We can make this happen, and we should.
  The last is job loss claims. If you go back through the history of 
regulation of big industries, every time you roll something out they 
say it is going to be a huge economic disaster. They said this about 
the ozone layer; the Clean Air Act; the Clean Water Act. In fact, in 
some cases such as in the Clean Air Act, subsequent review showed the

[[Page S1393]]

amount that is saved from not being polluted exceeds the cost of 
compliance by as much as 30-to-1. Why would we not want a deal like 
that, particularly where the costs of climate change are going to be so 
severe?
  The Senator said it is important to look at what has happened since 
the original IPCC report. Here is what happened since the original IPCC 
report. They doubled down. They are even more sure than they were of 
their findings on climate change. Other scientific organizations such 
as NASA have chimed in in unflinching language. I happen to have a lot 
of respect for NASA. If you can put a vehicle the size of an SUV up and 
out of our atmosphere, into orbit, send it to Mars, land it safely on 
Mars, and then drive it around, I think there is a pretty safe bet that 
you have some good scientists who know what they are talking about. I 
will put them up against the scientists paid for by the polluters every 
day.
  I will yield the floor first to Chairman Boxer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Ms. BOXER. I wish to thank Senator Whitehouse for his leadership. We 
are now 30 minutes behind, so I would take up to 30 minutes, and then I 
will be followed by Senator Franken.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection.
  Ms. BOXER. Madam President, I have been on this floor since early 
this evening and it is very clear that deniers are standing with 3 
percent of the scientists while we Democrats who are here tonight 
calling for action are standing with 97 percent of the scientists.
  As I mentioned before, every time the Republicans call a so-called 
expert to the Committee on Environment and Public Works, I track their 
path and they seem to be tied to the oil industry or to major 
polluters. That is just a fact. I am going to talk a little bit later 
about what has happened and why this suddenly has become a bitter 
partisan fight. It never used to be. It never used to be, but it is and 
it is wrong.
  No one party can put together the votes needed. We have to share 
responsibility and that is critical. People have said to me, the press: 
What is the point of this all-nighter? I said, very simply: The Senate 
Climate Action Task Force, which has membership of getting toward 30 
percent of the Senate, we want to wake up the Congress to the fact that 
time is running out. We have to act now. We have to do everything we 
can legislatively in every way.
  The good news--and there is some good news which has nothing to do 
with the Senate. It is all bad news for the Senate, frankly. But the 
good news is that we have a President who gets this and who is moving 
forward with a climate action plan. I am sorry to say every step he 
takes we have people trying to repeal what he is doing. So far we have 
beat back those naysayers and those voices of the polluters.
  One of the major functions of the Senate Climate Action Task Force is 
not just rallying around the scientists and calling attention to 
climate change, but it is clearly to play defense when we see attempts 
to roll back the President's plan.
  We have already seen a CRA, which stands for congressional review 
act, that is in the works to overturn what the President is trying to 
do to clean up coal-fired plants before they even finish the rules. 
Senator McConnell is talking about a race to repeal it before it is 
even put into place. I do not understand this--well, I understand it, 
but it is wrong.
  We have to stand up for our families. As I said in my earlier 
remarks, if you saw any member of your family or any one of your 
constituents standing in the wake of a disaster, say an oncoming car, 
you would do everything in your power--everything in your power--to 
save that constituent or that family member.
  We are facing an out-of-control problem here with our climate. It is 
out of control. If we do not wrap our arms around it, we will have 
catastrophic warming. It has already started and it will lead to 
horrible pain and suffering whether it is heat waves and deaths. We 
have already seen it in Europe. Colleagues from New Mexico and Colorado 
have already talked about horrible floods and fires. I can tell you 
more about fires in my State.
  I have never seen anything like it. We have seen drought. All of this 
was predicted by the scientists back in the early nineties. I cannot 
believe that is 20 years ago that they told us. I think we have proven 
the point that deniers are standing with 3 percent of the scientists 
and every major scientific organization has warned us to act.
  One of my colleagues, Senator Inhofe, came down and said: Oh, it is 
snowing. It is cold. It is called extreme weather, and it is what was 
predicted. The vortex up in the Arctic, we are feeling the impacts of a 
weakened jet stream. We are seeing these terrible temperatures in an 
extreme fashion hit the lower 48 States, some of which have never had 
it before. We have seen with our very own eyes snow in places such as 
Atlanta, people stuck on highways. No one knew what to do because it 
has never happened before. I think we have made the clear case.
  I say to my colleague Senator Schatz, who has worked so hard with 
Senator Whitehouse to put this together, we have proven the point. I 
believe that we stand with science in the mainstream, and our 
colleagues--most of whom have not come to the floor to debate us--are 
standing with the extreme and, frankly, the special polluting 
interests. Now, after they get done with denying, they have a fallback 
position, and they say: Well, even if you believe there is climate 
change, we should not act until China acts. Since when does the 
greatest country on Earth sit back and allow China to lead us out of a 
climate change impending disaster? Since when do we cede that 
authority?
  I want to talk about that. All you have to do is take a look at China 
to see what happens to a country that throws the environment under a 
bus. Let's take a look at some of the people in China and what it looks 
like. These are people on their bicycles. You can't see anything around 
them. They have masks on. We are going to wait for China to lead us out 
of the climate change problem? I don't think so.
  I went to China on a very interesting trip with Leader Reid a couple 
of years ago. We were there for a good 10 days. We really saw the 
country. It is fascinating. There are a lot of interesting things going 
on there with transportation and so on. We never saw the Sun--never.
  One day the Sun was behind the smog, and the guy who was with us 
said: What a beautiful day.
  I said: No, it is not. This is terrible.
  We went to the American Embassy. They have a measuring tool that 
tells them how dirty the air is in China. It is a hazardous duty post. 
People who were there with their kids were told not to go out because 
it was too dangerous. China has hazardous levels of pollution and toxic 
emissions which have had very harmful effects on the Chinese people.
  We are supposed to wait for China to clean up carbon pollution? I 
don't think so. According to a scientific study from the Health Effects 
Institute, outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature 
deaths in China in 2010 alone. This is not fiction; this is fact.
  We have voices on the Republican side of the aisle who are begging 
us: Don't do anything on carbon pollution until China acts. Air 
pollution was the fourth leading risk factor for deaths in China. The 
threat is expected to get worse.
  Urban air pollution is set to become the top environmental cause of 
mortality worldwide by 2050--ahead of dirty water and lack of 
sanitation. It is estimated that up to 3.6 million people could end up 
dying prematurely from air pollution each year, mostly in China and 
India. Think about that. Yes, we will hear our colleagues say China and 
India too.
  I represent a very large and great State with a population of 38 
million people. We are on the cutting edge of a clean environment. We 
are tackling carbon pollution. We are seeing great jobs being developed 
in solar, wind, and geothermal. We are going to have one-third of our 
electricity generation come from clean sources by 2020. I am so proud 
of my State. The special interests came in there and they tried to 
repeal all of our laws that had to do with cleaning up carbon 
pollution, and the people--even though they were faced with millions of 
dollars in oil company ads--said no.

[[Page S1394]]

  So the people who say this isn't real, we have already disproved 
that. I put out the names of every possible organization. If you ask 
the American people about those organizations, they would say: We 
respect those organizations. So that is out.
  Then they say: Wait for China. That is out. In January the U.S. 
Embassy issued warnings to China's citizens that the air quality in 
Beijing was so bad it exceeded the upper limits of its measurements, 
and the exposure to fine soot was many times above what the World 
Health Organization considers hazardous. They call it an 
``airpocalyse.'' It forced the Chinese Government to close highways 
because the visibility was so bad.
  This goes on in cities across China. A woman looked out her window in 
Harbin and said: ``I couldn't see anything outside the window, and I 
thought it was snowing.'' Then she realized it wasn't snow; it was 
dangerous toxic smog. That is what the people are living with. They are 
beside themselves. They walk around with masks. They can't go out. They 
are suffering and dying. And this is the country that my colleagues say 
we ought to wait for before we tackle climate change? You have to be 
kidding me. This is an embarrassment. Citizens of Harbin can see only 
10 yards in front of them because small particle pollution soared to a 
record 40 times higher than international standards.
  By the way, the cost of environmental degradation in China was about 
$230 billion in 2010 or 3.5 percent of the Nation's gross domestic 
product.
  We know that Superstorm Sandy cost us about $60 billion. One storm 
cost $60 billion. So when you talk about the economic impact of putting 
a price on carbon polluters who are polluting this country, put that 
into the context of what happens if you let them continue polluting. 
Superstorm Sandy--we all lived through it. We all saw what happened.
  I have seen the fires in California. We have seen them in New Mexico 
and Colorado. We know the costs that come from those fires. We have 
seen the drought. The President was out there. Thank God he came out 
there to give some money. Do you know that our ranchers were destroying 
their cattle, killing their cattle because there was no feed? The 
President went out there and made sure that emergency help was 
delivered so they could buy feed for those cattle.
  When people say it is going to cost a lot to solve climate change, I 
beg them to think about the costs if we do nothing. Look at China. They 
did nothing about clean air, and they are paying the price with 
premature deaths, lost productivity, and people who are miserable.
  Here is the thing: We learned a long time ago that stepping up to an 
environmental challenge pays off. Decades ago, the United States 
experienced damage and degradation--tremendous damage--to our 
environment. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio was on fire, massive air 
pollution hung over our cities, and lakes were dying from pollution. 
The American people demanded action. Guess what. We didn't wait for 
China or India or anybody else to act. We came together as Democrats 
and Republicans and said: This isn't appropriate.
  President Nixon helped on the environment, President George Herbert 
Walker Bush helped on the environment, Jimmy Carter helped on the 
environment, Bill Clinton helped on the environment, and Barack Obama 
is helping on the environment. But now it has become a partisan issue.
  The Clean Air Act goes back to 1970, and it was strengthened in 1990. 
Since 1990, the United States has cut fine particulate emissions. Those 
are the emissions that get into your lungs and cause all of our 
problems. Since 1990 we have cut those particulates by 57 percent 
because Democrats and Republicans came together. Now Republicans want 
to repeal all of that, but we won't let them. Fine particulate 
emissions is what is making the Chinese people sick.
  In 1976 there were 166 days when health advisories were issued in 
southern California to urge people with asthma and other people with 
lung sensitivities to stay indoors. That was in 1976. The American 
people said: No, no, no; this isn't right. The people of California 
said: This is terrible. There were 166 days where I couldn't go out and 
breathe the air and take a walk and take my kids out.
  Thanks to the action taken by Democrats and Republicans who worked 
together to pass the Clean Air Act and carry it out, the number of 
smog-related health advisories in 2010 in southern California dropped 
to--drum roll--zero days. So anyone who stands here and says, ``Oh, 
this problem is too big. I can't wrap my arms around it. China and 
India have to act,'' no, no, no, that is not America.
  We have brilliant people in this country with great technological 
skills. Many of our States--and I am so proud of my State--have the 
latest technologies to clean up the air and water, make cars fuel 
efficient. My friend Senator Feinstein spoke about fuel efficiency in 
cars, and I am so pleased we have done that. President Obama is now 
applying it to trucks.
  We are literally saving lives because we know outdoor air pollution 
causes cancer. We know that. Let me tell you what the National Climate 
Assessment--that is our country--is saying about climate change:

       Climate change threatens human health and well-being in 
     many ways, including impacts from increased extreme weather 
     events, wildfire, decreased air quality, diseases transmitted 
     by insects, food and water . . . Some of these health impacts 
     are already underway in the U.S.

  Clearly we have proven tonight that we stand with science. We are not 
scientists, but we are humbled before the science.
  We know our Nation has shown great leadership in the environmental 
movement for years. We started this back in the 1970s when that river 
caught on fire and we said: What are we doing to our planet?
  We should not and we must not wait for other countries to act. We 
must take action now, and that is the purpose of the Senate Climate 
Action Task Force. I am so proud of my colleagues who are here tonight 
and who go to those meetings every Thursday. Ed Markey is leading us in 
meetings on Tuesdays, which is the clearinghouse. The clearinghouse is 
more of a think tank where we bring in the experts. We listen and 
question them. On Thursdays we meet with the task force. Members of the 
task force speak to the Democratic caucus.
  I say to Harry Reid, if he is listening, how much I appreciate his 
leadership on this issue. He has seen some of the horrible impacts of 
climate change in his great State. His State has leaders in alternative 
clean energy. They are moving away from coal and toward clean energy. 
They are creating good-paying jobs.
  When we put a price on carbon, the dirty industries start to pay for 
the pollution they are causing, and that will move us toward clean 
energy. When we move to clean energy, we will see a tremendous 
difference in the amount of carbon pollution in the air, and we will be 
able to avert the most dire predictions for climate, which is 7 degrees 
Fahrenheit. We don't want to see that for our children and our 
grandchildren and our great grandchildren because that will literally 
change the face of the way America lives.

  We have it in our hands. Tonight we are saying: Wake up, Congress. 
Please, wake up. To my colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Inhofe, who is 
my friend, who said: You guys are just talking to each other; good 
luck, good night, I respond: I am proud to say more than 100,000 people 
have so far signed petitions calling on Congress to act, and this is 
just early in the evening. We are going to be going another almost 11 
hours.
  To Senator Whitehouse and Senator Schatz I say thank you for 
organizing this. It is a little like herding cats, getting us all here, 
but it is working. It is working because Senators here get it. They 
know they are going to be here for a finite time, and when we get a 
challenge such as this, we stand up to it. We find the solutions and we 
fight for them, and we fight for the people of this great Nation.
  Thank you so much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaine). The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank Senator Boxer and 
Senator Schatz and Senator Whitehouse for organizing this.

[[Page S1395]]

  I rise tonight to talk about climate change, along with 25 to 30 of 
my colleagues who will be speaking through the night.
  The recent extreme weather events we have experienced across the 
United States are our call to action. We in this body need not just to 
talk about climate change but to take action to address it. If we fail 
to act, the extreme weather events we have seen will only grow more 
extreme in the future.
  This winter has been exceptionally cold in many areas of the United 
States, including Minnesota. Some deniers have taken this as a sign 
that climate change isn't happening. They have pointed to the cold 
weather as evidence that global warming is not occurring. But they are 
missing the point. We already know that on average the Earth is 
warming. This isn't complicated. We have been using thermometers to 
make measurements around the globe for a long time. We know average 
temperatures have gone up significantly in recent years.
  But climate change isn't just about the average temperature. As the 
average temperature continues to rise, most experts agree we will see 
ever more frequent extreme weather events, including drought, storms, 
floods, and other extreme events. It is important to remember that we 
are not attributing any one event to climate change, but we can say 
there will be more extreme weather events as the Earth grows warmer.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, we have seen the polar vortex bring 
Arctic weather to much of the United States during this winter. 
According to White House Science Adviser Dr. John Holdren, we can 
expect to see more of this kind of extreme cold as global warming 
continues. This is going to have serious consequences--it already has.
  In my home State of Minnesota, the extreme cold has contributed to 
very serious propane shortages. Many rural residents are unable to 
properly heat their homes. Turkey growers are finding it difficult to 
heat their barns and, therefore, their turkeys. This is not just a 
problem in Minnesota. Other areas of the country have been affected. We 
in the Senate have to talk about what is happening and start taking 
action in the face of climate change threats.
  The ongoing drought in California and other States is another 
example. The situation is particularly grave in California where vast 
regions have been classified as D4, which is the most severe drought 
category. This has cost farmers their crops and livestock and created 
severe water shortages for residents and businesses. Farmers have had 
to stop farming half a million acres of what normally is irrigated 
land. That is about 6 percent of the entire State of California. 
According to the California Farm Water Coalition, it is already costing 
that State $5 billion. These costs get passed on to every American. As 
a result of this drought, Americans have to pay more and will continue 
to pay more for groceries this winter.
  Unfortunately, droughts such as this are becoming commonplace. In 
2012, drought caused more than 70 percent of U.S. counties to be 
declared disaster areas. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration estimated the economic impact of droughts to be $30 
billion. The droughts destroyed or damaged major crops all over this 
country, making corn and soybeans more expensive and increasing animal 
feed costs. Again, Americans pay more for meats and other animal-based 
products because of drought.
  In the Midwest, the 2012 drought dramatically lowered water levels in 
the Mississippi River, seriously interfering with our ability to 
transport our agricultural goods to market to compete with those from 
other countries. So that barges wouldn't run aground, shippers sent 
them down the Mississippi only half full with, say, soybeans. This made 
Minnesota soybeans less competitive with Brazilian soybeans.
  Climate change is also exacerbating our Nation's wildfires, as we 
heard Senator Wyden from Oregon describe about his State. When Forest 
Service Chief Tom Tidwell testified in 2012 before the Senate Energy 
Committee, I asked him about the link between climate change and forest 
fires. He told us that throughout the country we are seeing longer fire 
seasons--more than 2 months longer--compared to fire seasons in the 
1970s. Wildfires are also larger and more intense. I asked Chief 
Tidwell whether scientists at the Forest Service thought climate change 
was causing this increase in the size and intensity of wildfires and 
extending their season, and without hesitation he said yes. The Forest 
Service is spending more and more fighting wildfires--now about half of 
its entire budget.

  Longer fires and larger, more intense fires are going to eat up more 
and more of that budget. In addition, these wildfires--especially ones 
that occur at the wildland-urban interface--are increasingly 
threatening homes and property. Most importantly, more intense fires 
are costing lives. The 19 brave firefighters who perished in Arizona 
last June should be a reminder of the gravity of this issue.
  Of course, we cannot talk about climate change without talking about 
sea level rise. As I said, I serve on the Committee on Energy and 
Natural Resources. In 2012, I attended a hearing on sea level rise and 
heard testimony about how rising sea levels are increasing the size of 
flood zones and increasing damage from storm surges. One example they 
used--they said this is a possibility--is that a few inches of sea 
level rise could result in a storm surge that could flood the New York 
City subway system. It sounded like something out of science fiction. 
Yet 6 months later, that is exactly what happened when Hurricane Sandy 
hit New York City and flooded the subways. My colleagues do not need to 
be reminded of the cost of Hurricane Sandy. It cost taxpayers a 
staggering $60 billion.
  So when people talk about the harmful consequences of climate change 
and its costs in terms of homes and dollars and lives, they are not 
talking about some far-off future problem. Climate change is already 
hurting us.
  Unfortunately, only one of my colleagues from the other side of the 
aisle--the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources 
Committee, Senator Murkowski from Alaska--attended that hearing. This 
has been pretty much the case whenever we have a hearing that even 
tangentially relates to climate change.
  A number of my colleagues in Congress don't believe human activity is 
contributing to climate change. Many others, I suspect, don't talk 
about climate change because addressing it requires that we make some 
difficult choices.
  This is despite the fact that even some of the major fossil fuel 
companies that previously funded anti-climate change efforts have 
turned the page on this issue. ExxonMobil used to fund the Heartland 
Institute, one of the leading organizations spreading climate change 
denial propaganda. But if we go to ExxonMobil's Web site today, it 
states: ``Rising greenhouse gas emissions pose significant risks to 
society and ecosystems.'' That is ExxonMobil.
  Shell Oil states on its Web site: ``CO2 emissions must be 
reduced to avoid serious climate change.'' That is Shell Oil.
  So even the major oil and gas companies have begun to acknowledge 
that climate change is real. I would respectfully suggest that my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle here in Congress also need to 
engage in a serious conversation on climate change.
  At a time when Americans are dealing with record droughts and other 
extreme weather events, the Senate cannot afford to simply ignore 
climate change. Ultimately, we have to come together to start 
addressing climate change before its damage and costs to society get 
out of control.
  I know this is not going to be easy. Some will point out that climate 
change is a global problem--sometimes called global climate change--and 
that we can't solve it alone. They are right. Emissions in the 
developing world are on the rise. China now surpasses the U.S. in total 
greenhouse gas emissions. But China is also starting to wake up to its 
serious pollution problem. In fact, at the opening of the annual 
meeting of its parliament last week, the Chinese Premier stated that 
his country is declaring a war on pollution. Overcoming pollution 
challenges will require China to invest heavily in renewable and other 
environmentally friendly technologies. It is going to make the global 
clean energy race even more competitive. If we are going to

[[Page S1396]]

win this race and create good-paying jobs for Americans, we have to 
invest in clean energy.
  We know that government investment in energy can pay off. Take the 
example of natural gas. We are currently experiencing a natural gas 
boom in this country. Sometimes my colleagues forget that this boom 
happened in large part because of years of Federal support to develop 
hydraulic fracturing technology. The Eastern Gas Shales Project was an 
initiative the Federal Government began back in 1976, before hydraulic 
fracturing was a mature industry. The project set up and funded dozens 
of pilot demonstration projects with universities and private gas 
companies that tested drilling and fracturing methods. This investment 
by the Federal Government was instrumental in the development of the 
commercial extraction of natural gas from shale. In fact, microseismic 
imaging--a critical tool used in fracking--was originally developed by 
Sandia National Laboratory, a Federal energy laboratory.
  The industry was also supported through tax breaks and subsidies. In 
fact, Mitchell Energy Vice President Dan Stewart said in an interview 
that Mitchell Energy's first horizontal well was subsidized by the 
Federal Government. Mr. Mitchell said:

       DOE--

  That is the Department of Energy--

     DOE started it, and other people took the ball and ran with 
     it. You cannot diminish DOE's involvement.

  This is from one of the pioneers of horizontal drilling: ``You cannot 
diminish DOE's involvement.''
  So the basis of the natural gas revolution that is helping make 
America more energy independent can be traced back to Federal research 
and Federal support.
  In the same way, we have to support the renewable energy sector now. 
We have to be the ones who will develop these technologies and the ones 
who sell them to other nations. We need to lead the world in clean 
energy innovation.
  (Mr. MERKLEY assumed the Chair.)
  At the moment, we are not doing enough. Last year the Senate Energy 
Committee heard testimony regarding a report from the American Energy 
Innovation Council entitled ``Catalyzing Ingenuity.'' The report, 
authored by Bill Gates, Microsoft; former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman 
Augustine; and other business leaders, states:

       The country has yet to embark on a clean energy innovation 
     program commensurate with the scale of the national 
     priorities that are at stake. In fact, rather than improve 
     the country's energy innovation program and invest in 
     strategic national interests, the current political 
     environment is creating strong pressure to pull back from 
     such efforts.

  The report is a wakeup call and makes a convincing case for why 
government needs to support innovation in the energy sector.
  Unfortunately, it has been difficult for Congress to pass 
comprehensive clean energy legislation, even though this is an 
essential prerequisite if we are going to win the global clean energy 
race. The good news is that many individual States, which really are 
the laboratories of our democracy, have gone forward with their own 
clean energy programs.
  As chair of the Energy Subcommittee on the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee, I recently held a hearing on lessons from State 
energy programs. Among the innovative programs developed by many States 
are goals and mandates for renewable energy production as well as for 
increased energy efficiency of government and commercial buildings.
  I say to the Presiding Officer, you probably know this because you 
are Senator Merkley and you know a lot. You probably know this. But 
over half the States have renewable portfolio standards. These 
standards are improving the air, creating jobs, and growing the 
economy.
  My home State of Minnesota is one of the leaders in this area. We 
have a 25-by-25 renewable portfolio standard in place, which means that 
25 percent of the State's electricity must come from renewable sources 
by the year 2025. Excel Energy, Minnesota's largest utility, is 
following an even more ambitious plan of generating over 30 percent 
renewable energy by the year 2020, and they are on track to do that.
  I believe the Federal Government should follow what the States are 
already doing and put a comprehensive and long-term clean energy plan 
in place.
  One of the issues we discussed in my subcommittee was the upcoming 
EPA rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal-fired 
powerplants. I know that a number of my colleagues are concerned about 
these regulations and have argued that they will increase the cost of 
electricity, especially in areas that are heavily dependent on coal and 
coal-fired plants.
  I understand these concerns. I believe these regulations should be 
crafted using common sense. For example, if you give flexibility to 
States to implement these regulations, you can allow powerplant 
operators to offset their emissions by investing in energy efficiency 
in homes and buildings. Buildings consume about 36 percent, 37 percent 
of the energy in this country. If you retrofit our buildings, you will 
get the same environmental result at a lower cost to powerplant owners. 
And just as important, you will unleash energy efficiency manufacturing 
and installation jobs throughout the country. It will reduce our energy 
use. It will benefit the environment and send a signal throughout the 
business sector that we are serious about deploying long-term energy-
efficient solutions. That is why NORESCO, a major energy service 
company that testified at my hearing, was a strong proponent of this 
proposal.
  In fact, we learned during my hearing that there was universal 
agreement among witnesses--both Democratic and Republican witnesses--
that giving States more flexibility to implement these regulations 
would be good.
  So when we talk about taking on climate change, let's start with what 
we can all agree on. Let's do that stuff first. Let's do Shaheen-
Portman.
  The stakes are simply too high to ignore this issue. We cannot leave 
it to future generations. Last year my first grandchild Joe was born, 
and I do not want to look back in 20 years and tell Joe that when we 
were in a position to do something about climate change we chose not to 
because it involved some difficult choices.
  Now, Joe is going to live through this century and, God willing, into 
the next. Unless we act now, his generation will pay a very high price 
for our inaction. Tonight, throughout the night, you are going to be 
hearing about that. You are going to be hearing about the Department of 
Defense research into this and the costs that we will pay when we have 
to address this.
  I do not want to have to have my grandson think of me long after I am 
gone and ask: Why didn't we do anything to address climate change while 
we could.
  So I invite my colleagues from both sides of the aisle--both sides--
to join in this endeavor. We really owe it to the Nation, and we owe it 
to future generations.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as I begin, I thank Senator Boxer for her 
wonderful leadership of the Environment Committee and for her strong 
activism regarding climate change. I thank Senator Whitehouse and 
Senator Schatz, as well, for organizing this important discussion 
tonight.
  The scientific community has been extremely clear--no debate--climate 
change is real, climate change is manmade, and climate change is 
already causing severe damage in terms of drought, floods, forest 
fires, rising sea levels, and extreme weather disturbances. Given that 
reality, I find it extremely disturbing that virtually all--not all but 
virtually all--of my Republican colleagues continue to ignore the 
scientific evidence and refuse to support serious legislation which 
will address this planetary crisis. My hope is that my small State of 
Vermont will be a national leader, will be a model for the rest of the 
country in transforming our energy system, moving us away from fossil 
fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy. And doing 
that, by the way, will not only help the United States become a leader 
in reversing climate change but can, over a period of years, create 
millions of good-paying jobs in this country. And that has to be the 
goal.
  Some people ask--many people ask--they say: Well, why aren't you guys

[[Page S1397]]

doing anything on this issue? The scientific community is almost 
unanimous about the causation of climate change or about its severity. 
What are you doing?
  Let me answer that by just very briefly reading an exchange that took 
place in the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee on April 
11, 2013. Let me preface my remarks by saying Senator Jim Inhofe of 
Oklahoma is a friend of mine. I like Jim Inhofe. He is an honest 
person, a straightforward person. But on this issue, he is dead, dead 
wrong. This is the exchange that took place on April 11, 2013. I was in 
a committee hearing, and this is what I said:

       What Senator Inhofe has written--

     And he has published a book on this issue--

       What Senator Inhofe has written and talked about is his 
     belief that global warming is one of the major hoaxes ever 
     perpetrated on the American people. That it's a hoax pushed 
     by people like Al Gore, the United Nations and the Hollywood 
     elite.

  Senator Inhofe was also in this committee hearing, and I said:

       I think that is a fair quote from Senator Inhofe. Is that 
     roughly right, Senator Inhofe?

  He was right here, and Mr. Inhofe said:

       Yes, I would add to that list: Moveon.org, George Soros, 
     Michael Moore and a few others.

  So that is where we are. We have a gentleman--again, a very honest, 
decent man whom I like--a former chair of the Environment Committee, a 
former ranking member of the environment committee, who believes that 
global warming is a hoax pushed by people like Al Gore, the United 
Nations, and the Hollywood elite. So when people ask me why we are not 
doing anything, I would say that is pretty much the reason.
  But let me respond to that, to Mr. Inhofe's views, by saying the 
following: Climate change is real, and there is no longer a scientific 
debate about that. In the words of the U.S. Global Change Research 
Program, which includes EPA, NASA, the National Science Foundation, and 
the Departments of Defense, Energy, State, Health, Interior, 
Transportation, and Commerce: ``global warming is unequivocal and 
primarily human-induced.''
  It is not my view. It is not Senator Boxer's view, not Senator 
Schatz's view. That is the view of the U.S. Global Change Research 
Program, which includes some of the major agencies of the U.S. 
Government. By the way, clearly it is not just the U.S. Government or 
agencies that believe that. There are agencies representing virtually 
every country on Earth that have come to the same conclusion.
  Now, when some people say: Well, there is a debate; the evidence is 
not yet clear; the scientific community is not quite sure, let me clear 
the air on that one. According to a study published in the journal 
Environmental Research Letters in May of last year, more than 97 
percent of the peer-reviewed scientific literature on climate supports 
the view that human activity is a primary cause of global warming.

       I believe I read yesterday that the minority leader, 
     Senator McConnell of Kentucky, was saying: Well, for every 
     person who believes that climate change is real, there is 
     another person who disagrees. Well, the polling indicates 
     that is not quite accurate. But what is really important is 
     not what this person feels or what that person feels, it is 
     what those people who have studied the issue extensively 
     believe. That is really what matters. And for those people--
     the 97 percent of the peer-reviewed scientific literature on 
     this issue--they say very clearly that climate change is real 
     and that human activity is a primary cause of global warming.

  I am reminded--I think Senator Boxer made this point a while ago--
that the debate we are having now is very reminiscent of the debate we 
had 30 or 40 years ago about the role tobacco plays in cancer, 
emphysema, heart conditions, and so forth. We had people, well-funded 
by the Tobacco Institute, coming before the American people, putting 
ads on television, saying: You know smoking is okay; there is no 
evidence linking smoking to cancer.
  Well, they were lying, as a matter of fact. Many of these people were 
being funded by the Tobacco Institute. I think we are in the same 
position now. A lot of the information--misinformation--which is coming 
forward is funded by the fossil fuel industry. We should be clear about 
that.
  Is there still a scientific debate about anything related to climate? 
What is the debate? Well, the only remaining scientific debates are 
about just how devastating climate change will be. Of that, the 
scientists are not exactly sure. There is a disagreement. Are we on 
track for a 2-degree change by the end of the century? Will the planet 
warm by 2 degrees? Will it warm by 4 degrees? Will it warm by 6 
degrees? People are not exactly sure. But they are certainly sure that 
it will warm. Will sea levels rise by 1 foot? Will they rise by 3 feet? 
By 4 feet? Again, scientists are not clear. But they are absolutely 
clear that sea levels will rise.
  As a result of industrial greenhouse gas emissions, Earth's climate 
warmed more between 1971 and 2000 than during any other 3-decade 
interval in the last 1,400 years, reports a paper in the journal Nature 
Geoscience, based on research conducted by 78 scientists from 24 
nations, analyzing climate data from tree rings, pollen, cave 
formations, ice cores, lake and ocean sediment, and historical records 
from around the sea.
  The globe has already warmed 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit from 1880 to 
2012, and the vast majority of that warming, 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit, 
has happened since 1950. According to NOAA, November 2013 was the 
hottest November on record, and 2012 was the warmest year on record in 
the contiguous United States, and saw at least 69,000 local heat 
records set.
  2013 was the fourth warmest year ever recorded since 1880. The World 
Bank, no bastion of left-leaning environmental thinking, is among those 
expressing grave concern about the trend. The World Bank concluded that 
limiting the global temperature increase to 2 degrees centigrade might 
allow us to keep sea level rise by 2100 to less than 2.3 feet.
  Unfortunately, the World Bank also acknowledges we are on track for a 
4-degree centigrade increase, which would result in extreme heat waves 
and life-threatening sea level rise. Since 1901, the global sea level 
has risen about 7.5 inches and it is getting worse; over the last 20 
years seas have been rising nearly twice as fast.
  All over the world glaciers and icepacks are melting. Glaciers in the 
Mount Everest region have shrunk by 13 percent in the last 50 years. 
Glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania have already shrunk by 80 
percent and are expected to be completely gone by 2020. Greenland's ice 
sheets lost ice at a rate of about 60 cubic miles per year between 2002 
and 2011. This is six times faster than the ice was melting during the 
decades before that. All of these impacts and more can be traced 
directly to carbon emissions and their effect on the atmosphere.
  In 2013, as the Presiding Officer knows, we witnessed an ominous 
milestone: The daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the 
atmosphere surpassed 400 parts per million. The last time 
CO2 levels were this high was probably between 2.2 million 
and 3.6 million years ago, when it was so warm there were forests in 
Greenland.
  What does climate change mean? What are the consequences of global 
warming? How is climate change already impacting our lives--not in 5 
years, not in 50 years, but right now? For one thing, climate change is 
making droughts in the Western United States and in other parts of the 
world more severe, longer lasting, and more frequent. Scientists expect 
the precipitation pattern will continue shifting, expanding the 
geographic extent of the dry subtropics, leading to warmer and drier 
weather, which then causes air temperatures to increase even more.
  This helps explain why drought-stricken Texas saw the hottest summer 
ever recorded for a U.S. State in 2011, leading to a combination of 
drought and wildfires, costing $10 billion in damage, and the drought 
continues. As of last month, Texas had only received 68 percent of its 
normal rainfall between 2011 and 2013, and reservoirs are at their 
lowest levels since 1990.
  We should be very clear about this: When we talk about global 
warming, we are talking about the globe, the global community, not just 
the United States, not just Texas, not just California. Australia last 
year endured an ``angry summer,'' which is what it was called, which 
brought both the hottest month and the hottest day the country had ever 
witnessed, and a 4-month heat

[[Page S1398]]

wave, severe wildfires, and torrential rains and flooding, causing $2.4 
billion in damage.
  Last year's heat wave in China was the worst in at least 140 years. 
These droughts have very real consequences for water availability. Many 
regions in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, for 
example, are expected to experience a decline of 20 percent in water 
availability if the climate warms 2 degrees centigrade and a 50-percent 
decline if the climate warms by 4 degrees centigrade. What we are 
talking about here is the inability of people to get water to drink, 
the inability of people to get water to farm. This then leads to other 
problems, including mass migrations and struggles of limited natural 
resources.
  With sustained drought and heat waves comes wildfire. As Thomas 
Tidwell, Chief of the US Forest Service, explained to Congress last 
year: America's wildfire season now lasts 2 months longer than it did 
40 years ago--2 months longer than just 40 years ago--and burns up 
twice as much land as it did then because of the hotter, drier 
conditions from climate change.
  We are seeing this very horrendous and expensive situation of 
wildfires in the southwest of this country. The wildfires, in fact, are 
expected to increase 50 percent across the United States under a 
changing climate, while some studies predict increases of more than 100 
percent in parts of areas of the Western United States by 2050. When 
you think about climate change and you think about drier forests, we 
are looking at very serious problems regarding wildfires.
  Rising sea levels, another great concern and impact of climate 
change, also lead to more destructive storm surges. According to NOAA, 
Hurricane Sandy's storm surge exceeded 14 feet in places, which was a 
record for New York City. The National Academy of Sciences estimated 
every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit increase in global average surface 
temperature could be a twofold to sevenfold increase in the risk of 
extreme storm surge events similar to Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.
  When some people tell us: Well, gee, we cannot afford to address the 
problems of climate change, I would suggest we cannot afford not to 
address this crisis, if only for the kinds of money we are going to 
have to be spending repairing the damage of hurricanes like Sandy, and 
maybe hurricanes that are even worse.
  We heard during a recent Senate environment committee hearing that 
the State of Florida has already seen 5 to 8 inches of sea level rise 
in the past 50 years, with no end in sight. In the Florida Keys we 
expect that nearly 90 percent of Monroe County would be completely 
inundated at high tide, with just 3 feet of sea level rise, and New 
Orleans can expect to see an ocean level increase of well over 4 feet 
by the end of the century.
  In other words, what we are looking at here, in Florida, Miami, 
Louisiana, New Orleans, Massachusetts, Boston, New York City, what we 
are looking at is seas rising, which actually threatens the very 
existence of parts of those cities.
  Experts are predicting that cities such as Miami, Fort Lauderdale, 
New York, and New Orleans will face a growing threat of partial 
submersion within just a few decades as sea levels and storm surge 
levels continue to climb. What will it mean if the seas continue to 
rise and extreme weather events--severe drought, wildfires, storms, 
flooding--become much more common? One of the most important 
consequences will be massive human dislocation all over the world.
  More than 32 million people fled their homes in 2012 because of 
disasters such as floods and storms. An estimated 98 percent of this 
displacement was related to climate change. So when you look into the 
future--and one of the reasons that agencies such as the CIA and the 
Department of Defense and other security agencies worry very much about 
climate change is they see the national security implications of 
massive dislocations of people in different States or regions of the 
country fighting over limited resources, water, land, in order to 
survive.
  The Department of Defense, in its 2010 Quadrennial Review, called 
climate change a potential ``accelerant of instability or conflict.'' 
The potential economic impact of climate change on agriculture, for 
example, is huge. Water scarcity will make it harder to irrigate 
fields, and higher temperatures will make some areas unsuitable for 
growing crops. A study from the International Food Policy Research 
Institute found that globally climate change will greatly increase 
prices for staple crops such as corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans, 
including an approximately 100-percent increase in the price of wheat.
  What this means for Americans, for people all over the world who are 
already struggling economically, is that climate change will mean less 
areas being farmed and higher food prices, something we cannot afford 
right now.
  I think the question some viewers may have is, if the science is so 
clear--and it really is quite clear here in the United States and 
around the world--why do we not fix it? Why do we not come up with the 
bold strategy we need so America is a leader in the world in cutting 
greenhouse gas emissions and transforming our energy system? The good 
news here is the transformation of our energy system is going to be 
less expensive, if you like, than doing nothing.
  Doing nothing means that we will see higher food prices, we will see 
wildfires, we will see scarcities of food, and we will see weather 
disturbances wreaking havoc on communities all over America and around 
the world, requiring huge amounts of monies to address those problems. 
What is the alternative? What do we begin to do?
  The answer and the good news is that we--right now, today--have the 
technology to begin the process of significantly transforming our 
energy system. We know how to do it with today's technology, and that 
technology will only be improved in months and years to come.
  I will give a few examples of some of the good news that is happening 
in terms of the ability that we now have to move to sustainable energy.
  The cost of solar--which certainly will be one of the major 
sustainable energy technologies that we look to in the future--
continues to plummet.
  The Solar Energy Industries Association, in a report issued only last 
week, reported that the average weighted cost of a solar PV system was 
$2.59 per watt, a 15-percent drop from the year before.
  According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, utility-scale 
solar--perhaps the best comparison to utility-scale conventional 
electricity generation--now costs on average 7.7 cents per kilowatt 
hour compared to about 10 cents per kilowatt hour on average for power 
plants now operating across the United States.
  The cost of wind energy is also comparable to or even less than the 
cost of other more traditional energy sources. The average cost of wind 
power coming online between now and 2018 is estimated to be 8.6 cents 
per kilowatt hour, even without including the value of the production 
tax credit.
  Moving to sustainable energies such as solar, wind, geothermal, 
biomass, and hydropower clearly is something that we should be doing 
very aggressively.
  When we do that, we not only cut greenhouse gas emissions, we not 
only significantly cut air pollution but in the process we create many 
jobs as we transform our energy system. But sustainable energy is only 
one part of the equation. What we must also do is invest very 
significantly in energy efficiency and in sustainable energy. Every 
dollar invested in efficiency and low-income households through the 
Weatherization Assistance Program results in $2.53 in energy and 
nonenergy benefits for a community.
  I suspect the story is the same in Maine as it is in Vermont, but I 
can remember meeting with two older women who were sisters. They lived 
in Barre, VT, and they were able to get their homes weatherized. Their 
home, as many of the homes in Vermont, was old, leaking energy, not 
well insulated, did not have good windows, did not have good roofing, 
and the heat was just going right through the walls. As a result of a 
weatherization project in their home, their fuel bill went down by 50 
percent.
  These were seniors and low-income citizens. When we move in this 
direction, we can save Americans substantial sums on their fuel bills. 
We create local jobs. We cut greenhouse gas emissions. If that is not a 
win-win-win situation, then I don't know what is.

[[Page S1399]]

  It seems to me that we should be investing substantially in subsidies 
such as the Investment Tax Credit and the Production Tax Credit. Every 
dollar we invest in these efforts yields many more in savings.
  It is also true that when some of my friends object to the government 
helping to assist sustainable energies or putting money into energy 
efficiency, they seem to forget that the very mature and very 
profitable fossil fuel industry benefits very substantially from the 
subsidies that we have provided them. In fact, American taxpayers are 
set to give away over $100 billion to the oil, gas, and coal industries 
over the next decade through a wide range of subsidies, tax breaks, and 
loopholes.
  If we can subsidize the coal industry, if we can subsidize ExxonMobil 
and the oil industry, if we can subsidize the gas industry, we sure as 
heck can subsidize and provide support for wind, solar, and other 
sustainable energies.
  I come to the end of my remarks and suggest the following: The time 
is now for us to take bold and decisive action. As my colleague Senator 
Franken mentioned, those of us who have kids--and I have four--and 
those of us who have grandchildren--I have seven beautiful 
grandchildren--they will look us in the eye 20 years from now and say: 
Why did you let this happen? Didn't you know what was happening? Didn't 
you understand what lack of action would do for our country and the 
planet?
  That is the issue we face. We need to have the courage now to stand 
up to extremely wealthy and powerful forces in big energy--and that is 
the coal companies, the oil companies, the gas companies--and come up 
with an alternative vision for energy in America.
  In that regard, I am proud to have joined with my colleague, the 
chair of the environmental committee, Senator Barbara Boxer, to 
introduce last year the Climate Protection Act.
  Our bill does what, at the end of the day, every serious person 
understands must be done, and that is to establish a fee on carbon 
pollution emissions--an approach, by the way, endorsed not only by 
progressives but also by moderates and even prominent conservatives 
such as George Shultz, Nobel laureate economist Gary Becker, Mitt 
Romney's former economic adviser Gregory Mankiw, former Reagan adviser 
Art Laffer, and former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis.
  In other words, there is an understanding that if we are to be 
serious about addressing the need to cut carbon emissions, there has to 
be a tax on those emissions.
  Our legislation, which has been endorsed by, I believe, almost every 
major environmental organization, does several things. What we do in a 
very significant way is to invest in energy efficiency and 
weatherization because that is the low-hanging fruit. What we also do 
is invest, very significantly, in sustainable energy. Also, 
importantly, in the event that folks are paying increased costs for 
electricity or for other areas, much of the money is returned directly 
to taxpayers.
  Let me conclude by saying we can have an honest debate about the best 
path forward to transform our energy system. This is complicated stuff, 
and I don't think anyone has the magic answer, but we can debate that. 
What we can no longer debate is whether climate change is real, whether 
it is caused by human activity or whether it is today causing serious 
harm to our country and serious damage all over this planet or whether 
that devastation will only get worse in years to come.
  Right now we have to summon up the courage to acknowledge that we are 
in a crisis situation and that bold action is needed now. I happen to 
believe that with the United States playing a leadership role, China, 
India, Russia, and other major consumers of fossil fuels will follow 
our leadership. Our credibility is not much if we are not what we are 
talking about. If we want to lead the world, we have to act. This is 
something our children, and our grandchildren expect of us and 
something I hope we can, in fact, do.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. KAINE. I thank my colleagues for drawing attention to this 
critical issue and problem.
  I want to start with the solution. The solution to climate change is 
American innovation. The solution to climate change is American 
innovation.
  We have to get beyond the idea first that we need to choose between a 
clean environment and a strong economy. We all want cleaner air and 
water. We all want jobs. They don't have to contradict each other.
  When we frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the 
environment, we talk past one another and we are not realistic about 
our own history. This is, at the beginning, kind of a math problem. 
According to the EPA's annual inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, 
the U.S. pumped about 6 billion tons of greenhouse gases into the 
atmosphere in 2005--6 billion tons.
  The overwhelming scientific consensus is that putting this much 
pollution into the air is bad for the planet, bad for our kids, and bad 
for our grandkids. Most scientists tell us we need to reduce emissions 
about 17 percent from that peak by 2020 and over 80 percent by about 
2050 in order to contain climate change to manageable levels.
  So the question is this. How do we establish the appropriate 
incentives to get that number lower to produce energy more cleanly, at 
prices we can afford, in quantities that support modern life.
  We have to reduce pollution. We need to create jobs. Instead of 
arguing which is more important, let's figure out how we can use 
American innovation to do both.
  My colleague from Vermont has talked a lot about some of the 
evidence. It is important to pay attention to patterns. In Virginia, we 
have huge areas of risk of the negative impacts of climate change, 
especially sea-level rise, all effects that can be traced to carbon 
pollution.
  The Hampton Roads area of Virginia is the second-most populous part 
of our State, 1.6 million people, and it is the second-most vulnerable 
community on the east coast after New Orleans, the eastern half of the 
United States, to sea-level rise.
  Our second-largest area, which is the home of the largest 
concentration of naval power in the world, and critical to our defense, 
is deeply vulnerable to climate change.
  In fact, I have friends who live in Hampton Roads in a historic 
neighborhood where homes have been occupied for 150 years. In the last 
15 years, their home has become completely unable to be occupied. They 
cannot sell it. There is no way the bank will take it back, and there 
is no way anyone will issue insurance to them.
  In addition to being vulnerable because of our coast, our largest 
industry in Virginia is agriculture and forestry. If we want to talk 
about an industry that is affected by climate, that is our industry, 
$70-plus billion a year of economic activity in our State--our largest 
industry affected by climate.
  Tourism is big in Virginia industry--outdoor tourism. That is $20-
plus billion a year. We are directly affected by climate, and we see 
extreme weather patterns. It is not only a Katrina, a Sandy or an Ike. 
It is the pattern of one after the next, droughts one after the next, 
fire damage one after the next.
  To use a recent example, we are having to deal with this in these 
halls. We passed a flood insurance bill to delay sharp premium 
increases for flood insurance policies that are subsidized by the 
National Flood Insurance Program.
  For those who weren't around when we had that debate, these increases 
in premiums were not because of new beach homes that millionaires are 
building on the flood plain out on the beach. No, these were policies 
for homes whose owners had lived in them for decades. They were never 
in flood plains before, but they are now in flood plains because of 
sea-level rise.
  My Portsmouth friends are people who fit into that category, with a 
home that never had these challenges--that is now a home that they 
cannot sell because of the sea-level rise in that area.
  The debate in the Chamber focused on what it would cost to delay 
premiums, how many people would be affected and impacted by the 
solvency of this national program. The larger point is this: Premiums 
are higher because flood risk is higher. When we see flood risk getting 
higher in every coastal area of the country, we have to pay attention 
to what the pattern tells us. If we don't, we are foolish.

[[Page S1400]]

  Now, we have naysayers. There are two kinds of naysayers. There are 
science deniers and leadership deniers, and I want to talk for a minute 
about both. The first are a group of people who, despite the 
overwhelming scientific consensus, say: Oh no, there is no scientific 
evidence that humans affect climate change or that there is even any 
change in the climate going on at all, despite this overwhelming 
scientific consensus. The Senator from Vermont mentioned some quotes 
from Members in this body who deny science exists.
  To science deniers, I am happy to say that Virginians are pro-
science. We are pro-science. The quintessential Virginian, Thomas 
Jefferson, was the preeminent scientist of his day. You cannot be a 
proud Virginian and be anti-science. We accept the science in Virginia. 
In fact, the polling overwhelmingly, among the Virginia public--and we 
are not the bluest State in the country; we are a coal-producing State, 
which I will get to in a minute--even in coal-producing Virginia, the 
polling shows overwhelmingly that the Virginia public accepts that 
humans are affecting climate, causing bad things to our economy, and we 
have to do something about it.
  Now, there is a second argument. It is not science denial; it is 
leadership denial. These folks may not deny the climate science, but 
they deny that the United States can or should be a leader in taking 
steps. They say: Look, even if we reduce U.S. emissions to zero, it 
wouldn't offset world emissions unless China or India did something, so 
let's just not do anything.
  It is just not the American way, folks, for us not to lead on 
something as important as this. It is true that we need every country 
to reduce emissions in the long run, but that is not an argument for 
the United States to do nothing; that is an argument for the United 
States to step up and be leaders.
  Part of leadership is sending the right signals into the market at 
the right time. That is one of the reasons I think it would be very 
good if the President rejected the proposal to expand use of tar sands 
oil in the Keystone Pipeline program. We ought to send the right 
message right now. That is one of the most powerful things we could do 
in our country and beyond to show we are going to be leaders.
  It is very difficult to lead and impossible to get people to follow 
if you are not willing to take a step as the most powerful and 
innovative economy in the world. We are the largest economy in the 
world, and we have been since 1890. We are the global economic leader. 
We have a burden of leadership. And if we lead, we will succeed.
  It is not too hard to reduce emissions. We can reduce them. In fact, 
we are already starting. The Senator from Vermont mentioned this. I 
mentioned that in 2005 the United States was putting 6 billion tons of 
CO2 into the atmosphere. That was our base year. We have now 
actually dipped down to 5.6 billion tons. We have reduced it since 2005 
thanks to greater energy efficiency, natural gas, uptick in renewables, 
and better fuel standards in our vehicles. So we are already on a 
positive path. We are actually on the way to meeting our goal of 
reducing emissions 17 percent by the year 2020. We are on the right 
track; we just have to take more steps forward.
  So what is the strategy we need? I hear the President sometimes and 
others--and I may even use these words on occasion--talk about an ``all 
of the above'' energy strategy, and I have decided I really don't like 
that phrase. When I hear somebody say ``all of the above,'' it is like 
when I ask one of my teenagers something and he says: ``Whatever.'' I 
don't like ``whatever'' as an answer because it kind of sounds 
indifferent and anything goes and who cares and what difference does it 
make. ``All of the above'' kind of has that attitude a little bit.
  Now, sure, we should use all of our energy resources--I get that--in 
a comprehensive strategy, but what we really need is a comprehensive 
strategy that reduces CO2 emissions--that reduces 
CO2 emissions. Such a strategy to reduce emissions does mean 
everything: wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, and advanced biofuels. I 
think it also means natural gas as bridge fuel to reduce our carbon 
footprint; nuclear, if we can reduce costs and resolve disposal issues; 
and, yes, coal, so long as we always work to make it burn cleaner.
  This is my punch line of what we have to do: We have to do everything 
cleaner tomorrow than we are doing it today--everything cleaner 
tomorrow than we are doing it today.
  We will have fossil fuels with us for some time, and we won't bring 
emissions to zero anytime soon. But just because we can't immediately 
go from 6 billion to zero tons of CO2, we can't rest in our 
effort to reduce our CO2 every day a little bit more. On 
fossil fuels, we have to take any progress we can that replaces dirty 
with less dirty even if it doesn't get us the whole way. Over time, the 
portion of our total energy footprint that is carbon based will get 
smaller as we develop more noncarbon alternatives, and it will also get 
cleaner as we reduce carbon-based energy emissions with better 
technology.
  This is why I am against dirty fossil fuels, such as tar sands, which 
make us dirtier tomorrow than today. I want to be cleaner tomorrow than 
today. Tar sands oil is about 15 to 20 percent dirtier than 
conventional oil. Let's not be dirtier tomorrow than today. We have the 
trendline moving in the right direction. We are reducing CO2 
emissions. Let's be cleaner tomorrow than today. Why would we embrace 
tar sands oil and backslide to be dirtier tomorrow? The bottom line is 
that we have to create energy cleaner tomorrow than today.
  Remember, it is a math problem--6 billion tons a year. We have 6 more 
years to reduce it 17 percent, 36 years to reduce it by more than 80 
percent. So we have our goal. We have our goal. We have to give 
innovators the tools they need to meet it. Since innovators will solve 
this problem, here is the really fundamental challenge. This is the 
fundamental challenge. Will Americans be the innovators? See, 
innovation will solve this problem. Will Americans be the innovators or 
will we bury our heads in the tar sands and let other nations' 
innovators be the ones who grab leadership in this new energy economy. 
I don't want to bury my head in the tar sands. I want us to be the 
leader. Will we create the new technologies and sell them to other 
nations or will we be late to the game and have to buy all the 
technologies from other nations?

  The good news is, as I said, we are already on our way to the 2020 
goal, so we don't have to make it all dire. Let's celebrate a little 
success and then figure out how to accelerate our success.
  The transportation sector, the fuel economy standards for cars, 
changing to natural gas in power production--all these things have 
helped us move toward lesser emissions. Wind is the fastest growing 
source of new electricity capacity in the world and in the United 
States, even above natural gas, which is growing rapidly. In a few 
years Virginia will be contributing, with some of the first offshore 
wind turbines near Virginia Beach.
  I would like to talk now for a second about a specific Virginia issue 
because I am not sure how many folks who are in this all-nighter 
speaking on this come from States that have coal and have produced 
coal, and Virginia does. I want to talk about coal for a second.
  EPA is expected to issue standards later this year on reducing 
pollution from coal-fired powerplants, and, in fact, there is already 
talk on the other side of introducing a bill to repeal the regulation 
before the regulation has even come out. I am not exactly sure that is 
kosher, but I suspect we will be having that debate later.
  There is a natural anxiety in a coal-producing region such as 
southwest Virginia. That is where my wife's family is from. It is five 
counties in southwest Virginia. They are hard-hit counties. Coal is a 
big part of their economy, and traditionally it has been. We mine as 
much coal today in Virginia as we did 50 years ago with one-tenth of 
the workers because it is a heavily mechanized industry, but there are 
jobs at stake. And it is not just jobs; coal has been traditionally low 
priced, and so the issue that is important--and even States that don't 
have any coal often use a lot of coal to produce power, and the low 
price has been helpful to consumers who rely on cheap and abundant 
electricity made possible by coal.
  Coal has been hit hard in some recent years, but I disagree 
fundamentally

[[Page S1401]]

with the cynical argument that is made by some--mostly in the coal 
industry--who blame coal's woes on a regulatory ``war on coal.'' When I 
talk to folks in the industry, they are always talking about there is a 
Federal ``war on coal.''
  I am going to tell you what is hurting coal. What is hurting coal is 
innovation and natural gas. Innovation in the natural gas industry has 
brought natural gas prices down, and utilities are deciding to use 
natural gas rather than coal. That is what is hurting coal these days, 
and we ought to take a lesson from that. Innovation is driving 
environmental cleanliness. Innovation is driving lower cost. The 
solution is not to stop innovation. The solution is not to shake your 
fist and blame regulation. The solution is to innovate.
  Coal currently accounts for 37 percent of U.S. electricity generation 
and about the same percentage in Virginia. Today we don't have 37 
percent of anything else that can step right in and replace coal, which 
means we need coal and we are going to be using it for a while.
  Since we need to reduce emissions--do it cleaner tomorrow than 
today--and we are going to need coal for a while, the challenge is to 
convert coal to electricity more efficiently and with less pollution 
than we do today. We have to innovate to make coal cleaner for that 
portion of the pie chart. I learned this as Governor working to permit 
a state-of-the-art coal plant in Wise County, VA. It opened in 2012. It 
is designed in a way that dramatically reduces sulfur dioxide, nitrous 
oxide, mercury emissions, and water use. It was also a plant that was 
only permitted when the company that wanted it agreed to take a dirty 
coal plant--one that preexisted the Clean Air Act and was grandfathered 
in for all of its pollution--and to convert that to natural gas. That 
was innovative. The fuel mix of this plant needed to run the burners 
accommodates biomass and waste coal as well.
  If we can use innovative practices to reduce these emissions, we can 
do the same with carbon emissions. But coal cannot stand still, let 
others innovate, and then complain if it is not competitive. Coal has 
to be as innovative as everything else, and we have to figure out ways 
to assist.
  That is why I support Federal investments in advanced fossil energy 
research and development. Last fall the Energy Department made 
available $8 billion in advanced fossil energy loan guarantee authority 
for low carbon fossil technologies. I advocated for appropriations for 
fossil energy R&D, and there is a strong boost for those programs in 
the omnibus budget bill. There is a great Center for Coal & Energy 
Research at Virginia Tech that is doing some of this research that can 
help us take that portion of the pie chart, make it cleaner, and over 
time make it smaller as we expand noncarbon energy.

  We have to make sure the upcoming standards the EPA will put out are 
ambitious and appropriate incentives to get cleaner and disincentives 
to get dirtier and at the same time avoid catastrophic disruptions in 
reliability or affordability.
  I am going to come back and conclude where I started. Remember, when 
I started I said I am going to give a solution. The solution to climate 
change is American innovation, and I want to finish there.
  Reducing CO2 emissions is a hard problem, maybe harder 
than any pollution problem we face because most pollutants tend to come 
from a particular economic sector, but CO2 comes from 
transportation and buildings and manufacturing and power production--
all sectors. So the solution won't be simple. But we do not have to 
accept the false choice of an environment against the economy. Instead, 
we just need to innovate to find the solution. That is the innovation 
challenge we have.
  I make it a habit--apparently unlike some of my colleagues here--to 
never bet against American innovation. We are the Nation that said we 
would put a man on the Moon in a decade with computers that had less in 
them than your cell phones do, and we did it. We are the Nation that 
harnessed the power of the atom. We are the Nation that unwrapped the 
riddle of DNA and are now using that knowledge to cure disease. Nobody 
should ever bet against American innovation.
  In fact, we have already shown it again and again, that innovation 
and regulation--smart regulation--can help us tackle pressing 
environmental problems.
  When we were kids and my wife was growing up in Richmond, where we 
now live, nobody--and I mean nobody--fished or swam in the James River 
in downtown Richmond. You would be taking your life into your hands if 
you swam or if you ate fish you caught in that river because of ketone 
pollution, other industrial pollution, and poor treatment of municipal 
solid waste. But the Nation passed the Clean Water Act and we got 
serious about cleaning up our rivers.
  Naysayers said: It will damage the economy. It will bring our economy 
to its knees.
  But come and see what the Clean Water Act has meant to my hometown. 
You can swim or fish in the James River today, and you can eat the fish 
you catch. You can see herons and bald eagles there that were never 
there before. You can see residents and tourists who flock to the James 
River because they enjoy it.
  It took a law, it took some tough regulations, it took American 
ingenuity in finding new ways to clean up industrial and municipal 
waste, but we did it, and our environment and economy are better off as 
a result.
  When we needed to reduce nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions 
because of acid rain, industry said that any new law would be a 
burdensome job killer, just as they are saying today. But President 
George H.W. Bush worked with Congress to pass a cap-and-trade law to 
bring down these emissions. After the new law, somebody invented the 
catalytic converter. After the new law, somebody invented the sulfur 
scrubber. Not only weren't they burdensome job killers, they improved 
air quality, and they created jobs for American companies that 
manufacture catalytic converters and sulfur scrubbers, and our economy 
and environment are better off as a result.

  Not long ago we heard requiring automakers to make cars which got 
better gas mileage would be devastating to the American auto industry. 
But President Obama struck a deal with the industry, and guess what. 
The quest to build more fuel-efficient vehicles helped revitalize an 
American auto industry which was on its back. Plants operating with 
skeleton crews just sweeping the floors at night now have multiple 
shifts making better vehicles which save drivers more money every day. 
The skeptics were loud, but we moved ahead with smart regulation and 
American innovation, and our environment and economy are better off as 
a result.
  It is the skeptics and the deniers who fight against these strategies 
who are actually naive, because again and again they always claim that 
taking steps to help the environment will hurt the economy, and again 
and again they have been proven wrong. Protecting the environment is 
good for the economy and good for the planet.
  So I say to the skeptics of whatever variety, climate denier or 
leadership denier, don't underestimate American innovation. We can 
solve the problem of climate change for the good of the economy and the 
good of the planet. The story of American innovation is a story of 
solving the hard problems, and I know we can solve this one.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I appreciate the words of my colleague 
from Virginia, especially his focus on innovation and how it must be a 
major part of the solution to our climate change problem.
  As I look around the Chamber and see Senators from Vermont, Virginia, 
Hawaii, California, we may be 5,000 miles apart, but what unites us 
today--including the Presiding Officer's home State of Maine--is the 
focus on climate change and the recognition we are connected by the 
impact of global climate change. It is time for Congress to wake up and 
tackle this issue. This is why we are staying up all night tonight to 
make that major point.
  The consequences of climate change include rising seas and larger 
tidal surges for seaside communities, the devastating drought and water 
shortage we are seeing in California, extreme weather harming the 
habitat for

[[Page S1402]]

native animals in Hawaii, but it also impacts the Midwest, which I 
don't think is the first area of the country people think about where 
we are seeing climate change problems.
  We have seen increased potential in my home State of Minnesota for 
extreme weather wreaking havoc on our local economies, particularly 
those anchored in forestry and farming. In Minnesota we export about 
one-third of our agricultural production which contributes 
significantly to our country's record high agricultural trade surplus 
of $38 billion. This is a major part of our economy and the second 
biggest industry in my State.
  The 2012 drought in Minnesota threatened our ability to produce the 
food needed to feed a growing world. Look at our lakes and our rivers. 
For many years our snowmobilers, the tourism industry, and ice fishers 
couldn't even get out. They had to cancel many activities because--not 
this year but many years before--we had issues with the heat in the 
middle of the winter. We certainly have issues with the heat in the 
summer.
  What is this industry? Every year nearly 2 million people fish in our 
lakes and streams, and close to 700,000 people hunt our fields and 
forests nationwide. The hunting and fishing industry is valued at $95.5 
billion a year and brings in $14 billion in direct tax revenue. This is 
why, as a member of the farm bill conference committee, we worked very 
hard with conservation groups such as Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants 
Forever to make sure we had strong conservation protection in the bill 
and new ideas, such as the sod saver provision Senator Thune and I 
introduced and got signed into law.
  For the people of our State, the economic impact of climate change is 
about their livelihood. It is about a way of life. I mentioned the 2012 
drought. It was the worst drought since 1956 and cost over $30 billion 
in damage nationwide. The drought was uneven in our State. For one 
farmer their crops were fine; in the next county crops would be 
devastated. At the same time, as some farmers were experiencing not 
enough rain, farmers in other parts of our State actually lost their 
crops due to flash floods.
  Research which looks at weather changes in Minnesota indicates that 
extreme weather events, which include heavy rainfall, are becoming more 
and more frequent. These are costs borne heavily by farmers, ranchers, 
and consumers. These production costs lose revenue, they lose supply, 
and they drive up costs at the grocery store for everyone.
  One of the things I don't think people always think about when they 
think about the economic connection with climate change--in the Midwest 
we think about our crops; we think about extreme weather, with 
tornadoes, flash floods, and extreme heat and drought. But it actually 
affects the transportation of goods to market.
  In 2012 Lake Superior was near its lowest level in the last 80 years, 
impacting our ability to transport cargo. It is simple: The heat was 
there, the water wasn't. The barges couldn't be filled all the way 
because the water was simply too shallow. Why is this happening? In the 
years when we don't have solid ice cover, the ice is melting more 
quickly so the water evaporates and you see lower water levels in 
places such as Lake Superior.
  This isn't just a problem for Lake Superior; it is also a critical 
issue impacting the shipping industry on the Mississippi River. The 
Mississippi moves hundreds of millions of tons of goods, such as corn, 
grain, coal, and petroleum. The Mississippi River starts in Minnesota. 
In Minnesota one can actually walk over the Mississippi at Itasca State 
Park. The 2012 drought led to low water conditions which made barge 
travel down the Mississippi very difficult. If shipping were completely 
cut off, as was possible, the economic repercussions would be severe. 
If barge traffic is disrupted, cargo valued at over $7 billion could 
experience shipping delays, including 300 million bushels of farm 
products, 3.8 million tons of coal, and 5 million barrels of 
domestically produced crude oil. A prolonged shipping delay would be 
devastating to the bottom lines of farmers, businesses, and common 
citizens. These are just a few examples of the economic costs of 
climate change.
  Global climate change is a challenge with so many dimensions, some 
moral, some economic, some scientific, and I will spend a few minutes 
talking about the science. My colleague from Virginia talked about 
Virginia being the home of science. I kind of wanted to break in and 
say we have the Mayo Clinic. Minnesota is truly a home of science. We 
are the home of great medical institutions. We helped launch the green 
revolution in agriculture with University of Minnesota alumni Norman 
Borlaug one-half century ago. We have brought the world everything from 
the pacemaker to the Post-it note. We believe in science.
  As we know, climate change doesn't mean every day we will have a 
hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico or every day will be as hot and sticky 
as a 100-degree, humid Minnesota afternoon. But scientists say we are 
sure to see more days outside the range of normal, which includes 
extremes of all kinds.
  In fact, scientists at NASA found that at 2013, factoring all the 
cold temperatures Minnesotans bravely endured last year, the United 
States was still warmer by 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit than the mid-20th 
century average.
  The last time the United States had a below-average annual 
temperature was 1976. Climate change means simply, over time, the 
average temperature is getting warmer and weather patterns are changing 
and becoming less predictable. How many times have we heard in our 
States: This is the hottest summer I can remember. I can't believe it 
warmed up this quickly. I can't believe the ice is melting this 
quickly.
  The debate on whether climate change is happening should be over. The 
facts are in and the science is clear.
  The National Academy of Sciences finds climate change is occurring, 
is very likely caused primarily by the emission of greenhouse gases 
from human activities, and poses significant risk for a range of human 
and natural systems. We know certain kinds of gases, including carbon 
dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, absorb or trap the Sun's heat as 
it bounces off the Earth's surface.
  This wouldn't be such a big problem except that carbon dioxide 
doesn't dissipate quickly. It stays in the atmosphere for five decades 
or more, causing Earth's temperatures to rise. This means most of the 
carbon dioxide produced in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s is still 
in the atmosphere. It means carbon dioxide produced today will still be 
in the atmosphere in 2050 and beyond. This carbon dioxide-trapping heat 
is in our atmosphere. Over time, it means global temperatures rise; in 
turn, sea levels rise, both because water expands and glaciers melt.
  The 2013 draft National Climate Assessment found human-induced 
climate change is projected to continue and accelerate significantly if 
emissions of these heat-trapping gases continue to increase.
  In short, there is robust scientific evidence that human climate 
change is occurring. Climate change is impacting our Nation's systems 
in significant ways, and that is likely to accelerate in the future. 
The result is ocean levels are rising, glaciers are melting, violent 
weather events are increasing, and certainly we have seen them in my 
State.
  When it comes to climate and environmental policy, I think we all 
know we have seen gridlock in this country, just as we have seen in so 
many ways--despite the Presiding Officer's good efforts as the Senator 
from Maine in trying to break through and mine as someone who came out 
of a background which wasn't at all partisan. I was involved early on 
in Kent Conrad's bipartisan energy group during my first few years in 
the Senate, where we were trying to forge some kind of a compromise on 
a policy approach to energy and the environment which brought people 
together. We were stymied in our effort. I served on the environmental 
committee for many years under Senator Boxer's leadership. We were 
again stymied in our efforts.
  As I look back at the moments where we could actually move on the 
issue, where the Nation was captivated, I think we blew it.
  We blew it when President Bush stood before the American people after 
9/11; and if he had truly sold the Nation on energy independence from 
the countries involved in that tragic historic moment, if he had made 
the case for a

[[Page S1403]]

new American energy agenda, I believe 80 percent of Americans then 
would have said sign me up. That didn't happen.
  The second moment we lost was during the summer of 2008. The 
Presiding Officer wasn't a Senator then; I was a brandnew Senator. We 
actually took action. We raised gas mileage standards for the first 
time since I was in junior high. We also made some energy efficiency 
improvements. I called them ``building a bridge to the next century.'' 
But we fell short of one important thing, and we didn't just fall 
short. We fell one vote short of beating the filibuster to get a 
national renewable electricity standard like we have in Minnesota. That 
was a lost moment by one vote.
  The third moment we lost was when President Obama first came into 
office. We had some new Senators. We were in the middle of a downturn. 
It was an incredibly tough time. But I still believe, as I have said 
many times, if we had moved forward on a renewable electricity standard 
at that time in those first 6 months with those new Senators, we would 
have passed it with the House of Representatives. We chose to do some 
other things with the environmental committees. We passed a bill, but 
we were, unfortunately, unable to get it done on the Senate floor. That 
is where we are.
  So when is the next opportunity? The next opportunity is now. We have 
the potential for leadership on energy. We have the potential because 
of the people in this country--the innovators Senator Kaine so 
eloquently talked about. I continue to be optimistic. I wouldn't be 
standing here late at night if I wasn't. This desk is the desk of 
Hubert Humphrey, who was known as the Happy Warrior. He was willing to 
tackle anything which came his way.
  Why am I optimistic? The first is the leadership of Gina McCarthy at 
the EPA. Her background working with Republican Governors, her 
reputation among business leaders as being tough but fair, and her 
experience navigating the ways of Washington make her well suited to 
look at the bigger picture issues.
  As someone who comes from an agricultural state, I understand full 
well how the EPA can sometimes get bogged down in minor issues from my 
perspective, taking on things that create a huge firestorm that 
actually do not solve the problem. I believe this Administrator, Gina 
McCarthy, is going to look at the larger mission of the EPA, especially 
when it comes to climate change.
  Secondly, I am optimistic because we still have some good happening 
here. There is some realism going on in Congress. The Washington Post 
ran an editorial last fall where the editorial board wrote:

       The overriding problem is that Congress hasn't faced up to 
     the global warming threat. Instead of updating clean air 
     rules and building a policy that addresses the unique 
     challenge of greenhouse emissions, it has left the EPA and 
     the courts with a strong but sometimes ambiguous law that 
     applies imperfectly to greenhouse gas emissions.

  That is true, and that is why we have something to do here.
  Given the current mix right now, given what we are facing on this 
issue, I still believe.
  What can we do this year? This year we can be pragmatic. We can 
foster leadership. We passed the farm bill. It had good measures in it 
for conservation and the environment.
  Another example is the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill which 
contains a range of policies that would reduce residential, commercial, 
and industrial use. Not every bill is supported with everyone from the 
Chamber and NAM to many environmental groups. This bill is.
  This leads to my third reason for hope. There are a lot of businesses 
out there that realize they cannot afford the pure cost of the old way 
of doing things. More and more businesses are seeing the good in going 
green, whether it is Walmart in its push toward energy efficiency or 
Apple which is working toward a goal of getting 100 percent of its 
energy from renewables.
  The fourth reason to be positive is because there are some current 
economic positives and market changes out there that are actually 
moving in the right direction. We have reduced our dependency on 
foreign oil in just the last 7 years from 60 percent to 40 percent. It 
is a combination of things. Yes, some of the natural gas and drilling 
in North Dakota is a major force, but we also have stronger vehicle gas 
mileage standards. We have biofuel. We have cleaner fuel. We are moving 
on a number of fronts.
  Look at the efforts on the State level ranging from the rules in 
Texas that are helping to encourage the construction of transmission 
lines bringing wind energy from the plains to the homes and businesses, 
to Colorado's strong renewable portfolio standard and the use of woody 
biomass for power.
  I would add my own State of Minnesota where we have a renewable 
electricity standard requiring 25 percent of electricity coming from 
renewable sources by 2025. Xcel Energy, our largest utility, is on its 
way to meet their even more ambitious standard. By law they will get 30 
percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. I have met 
with their CEO. They are more than on their way to meeting that 
standard. They believe in wind. They believe in renewable.
  The bill we passed in Minnesota, which could be a model for the 
Nation, has overwhelming bipartisan support. It had bipartisan support, 
and when it passed, nearly every legislator voted for it and it was 
signed into law by former Governor Tim Pawlenty.
  What does this mean? The investment in renewable energy and energy 
efficiency technology means that Xcel is actually on its path to reduce 
its greenhouse emissions by 31 percent. Xcel will cut its emissions a 
full 11 percentage points by 2020, more than the standards proposed by 
the passed cap-and-trade law that came out of the environment 
committee.
  Minnesota Power is another utility in our State that is working to 
meet the State's renewable portfolio standard by bringing more wind 
energy onto the grid. They are looking to keep costs low to their 
consumers by using Canadian hydropower to back up their wind resources. 
Because the wind doesn't always blow in Minnesota, the hydropower will 
act as a battery, storing energy when there is too much on the grid, 
and providing electricity when it is needed. By working together we can 
get more wind and solar energy on the grid in a way that provides 
reliable service and keeps prices low for our consumers.
  The Rural Electric Co-op also implemented another way to make better 
use of wind energy in Minnesota, to make our goal of 25 percent by 
2025. They installed large capacity hot water heaters in people's 
basements. How can something as basic and boring as a hot water heater 
play a role in reducing energy consumption and climate change? The hot 
water heaters are only turned on at night when the wind blows the 
strongest and the demand for energy is the lowest. In the morning when 
people wake up and turn on their lights, the heater is already off. The 
wind energy is stored in the form of hot water that can be used 
throughout the day. Heating water is a major source of energy 
consumption and our co-op could find a way to provide an important 
service in a way that incentivizes wind development and saves consumers 
money.
  It was the Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis who said that ``the 
states are the laboratories of democracy.'' We are certainly seeing 
that right now with energy and environmental policy.
  I would like to see a major Federal policy back at those moments that 
I went through back when Bush was President and the tragedy of 9/11 
occurred, back when we had that vote in the summer, when we missed the 
renewable electricity standard by just one vote. But I am hopeful that 
we are going to get back to a point where compromise is possible in 
Washington, and we will get there just as the American people have 
demanded. And when we get there, we know that the States are useful 
models for how to get this done.
  Before we can act on a comprehensive national blueprint for climate 
policy in this country, we need to bring together Americans who share 
these values and speak with a common voice. We are starting that 
discussion tonight. The message is to get Congress to wake up and get 
this job done.
  As I close, I think about this challenge and I recall a prayer from 
the

[[Page S1404]]

Ojibwe people in Minnesota. Their philosophy told them that the 
decisions of great leaders are not made for today, not made for this 
generation, but leaders must make decisions for those who are seven 
generations from them. That would be an Ojibwe philosophy, that led 
them to take care of their land. This is now a part of our burden and 
our challenge as we approach this issue. I have always believed we 
should be stewards of the land.
  In the past, leaders from both parties--you know this so well from 
me--have worked to protect our land, keep our air and water clean. 
President Theodore Roosevelt took executive action to create the 
National Parks System which Ken Burns famously called ``America's best 
idea.''
  Congress has come together to make great progress to protect our 
natural resources. The 1970 Clean Air Act passed in the Senate 73-0 and 
the House by a vote of 371-1. The Clean Water Act in the House, the 
final vote was over 10-1 in favor of this landmark legislation to 
protect our water.
  Global climate change is our generation's challenge to solve. It is 
our generation's challenge. I believe if we work together 
constructively, we can address this threat. We can be stewards of our 
world.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I am honored to be joining Senator Schatz 
who has been working with Senator Whitehouse and with Senator Boxer to 
put together this very important discussion, very important evening.
  While we are discussing climate change, I thought I would first talk 
a little bit about baseball. Something very funny happened in baseball. 
From 1920 all the way through the entire modern baseball history, the 
average number of players who hit more than 40 homeruns in a season was 
3. That is all--Babe Ruth, Hank Greenberg, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, 
Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio. No matter who was playing in the United 
States, the average number of players was 3.3 who made it over 40 
homeruns in a season.
  Then something very strange started to happen. All of a sudden there 
was a dramatic spike in the number of players who could hit more than 
40 homeruns. In 1996 it went up to 17 players all of a sudden, with an 
average of only 3.3 who hit more than 40 homeruns. Year after year the 
same thing was occurring.
  Then it occurred to someone, maybe they are injecting these players 
with steroids. Now some people said, no, the ballparks are getting 
smaller, maybe they are corking the bats, maybe they are juicing the 
baseball. But, no, it turned out that they were injecting steroids into 
baseball players. And all of a sudden the average of 3.3 players 
averaging more than 40 homeruns in a season had spiked to three and 
four times that, until Major League Baseball decided that they were 
going to test for steroids. A very strange thing started to happen. The 
average number of players hitting more than 40 homeruns went right back 
down to the traditional average.
  Well, ladies and gentlemen, NOAA has the same kind of chart for our 
climate. NOAA has been able to do the calculation going back to 1880 of 
what the average temperature is on the planet. As you can see, it 
stayed at a pretty current level until all of a sudden, especially 
beginning in the 1970s, there is a dramatic spike. As we all know, 20 
of the warmest 30 years ever registered have occurred in the last 30 
years. As we all know, the fourth warmest year of all time ever 
recorded occurred just last year, 2013. But we haven't applied the same 
steroids equivalent test for this change in temperature. We have a 
pretty good idea of what has happened because scientists all across the 
United States agree on this issue: It is manmade. The chemicals we are 
putting into the atmosphere are causing the same kind of chemicals 
ballplayers were putting into their bodies were causing in the dramatic 
rise in the number of homeruns that were being hit in Major League 
Baseball.
  (Ms. KLOBUCHAR assumes the Chair.)
  This is basically an obvious correlation between what we are doing as 
human beings and impact on the world in which we live. And just as 
those homeruns went up when the players used chemicals, so too has the 
temperature on the planet. And the same distortions that occurred in 
our national pastime are now occurring on our planet.
  Ladies and gentlemen, the planet is running a fever, but there are no 
emergency rooms for planets. There are no hospitals to go to. We have 
to engage in preventive care. We have to put in place the measures that 
reduce dramatically the likelihood that we are going to see the worst 
catastrophic effects of this dangerous warming of our planet.
  If you are still skeptical, perhaps the findings of another skeptic, 
Dr. Richard Muller and his colleagues at the Berkeley Earth Surface 
Temperature Project, will reassure you. Let me quote from Dr. Muller's 
July 2012 New York Times column entitled ``The Conversion of a Climate 
Change Skeptic.'' Here is what he said:

       Our results show that the average temperature of the 
     earth's land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit 
     over the last 250 years, including an increase of one and a 
     half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it 
     appears likely that essentially all of this increase results 
     from the human emissions of greenhouse gases.

  Our current understanding of human influence on climate change rests 
on 150 years of wide-ranging scientific observations and research. It 
is informed by what we see today with our own eyes measured by our own 
hands. Global temperatures are warming, glaciers are melting, sea 
levels are rising, extreme downpours are increasing. The ocean is 
becoming more acidic.
  But climate change is more than just numbers in a scientist's book. 
In my home State of Massachusetts it is having tangible impacts now. My 
State, Massachusetts, loses an average of 49 football fields of land to 
rising sea levels each and every year. Rates of sea level rise from 
North Carolina to Massachusetts are two to four times faster than the 
global average. Extreme downpours and snowfall in New England have 
increased by 85 percent since 1948.
  According to scientists at the University of New Hampshire, New 
England winters have become 4 degrees warmer on average since 1965. In 
other words, we now have in New England the same weather that 
Philadelphia had in 1965. We are 4 degrees warmer than we were in New 
England in 1965. We have Philadelphia's weather. Thank God in Boston we 
do not have their athletic teams, but we do have their weather and it 
is getting warmer.
  In Massachusetts and most of New England, spring has sprung 5 days 
earlier on average than it did in the latter part of the 20th century.
  Around the iconic Walden Pond, plants now flower 10 days earlier on 
average than they did in the 1850s, according to the careful records 
kept by Henry David Thoreau. Our iconic cod have been moving north as 
ocean temperatures warm. Cod need cold water. As the ocean warms, they 
are moving farther and farther north. In Massachusetts, Cape Cod is our 
iconic beach front, ocean front, and fishing front. The cod are moving 
north and away from our State because they need cold water.
  The coastal communities that depend upon them are being affected 
negatively by the absence of these fish. Scientists are just beginning 
to understand the consequences of the increasingly acidic ocean on 
scallops, lobsters, and plankton, which are the base of the food chain 
in the gulf of Maine.
  As Dr. Aaron Bernstein, from the Harvard School of Public Health, has 
written, climate change is a health threat, no less consequential than 
cigarette smoking. Increasing temperatures increase the risk for bad 
air days, and in turn it increases the risk of asthma attacks. It is 
worse for people with lung disease.
  I have two stories. Rachel is from Cambridge and Sylvia is from 
Amherst. Their moms talked about the impact of pollution on the health 
of their children. I think it is important for us to understand that 
asthma and other illnesses that are created by pollution are 
preventable but only if we here in the Senate put in place the policies 
that make it possible for us to reduce the risk to these young people 
all across our country.
  I strongly support all of the efforts the Members are putting 
together tonight to focus on this issue. It is not

[[Page S1405]]

just the planet, it is the children of the planet who are negatively 
impacted by all of this additional pollution. Left unchecked, the 
impacts of climate change will only become worse in the future.
  An analysis by the Sandia National Lab found that changes in rainfall 
alone could cost Massachusetts $8 billion in GDP and nearly 38,000 jobs 
between 2010 and 2050. That is Massachusetts alone. New England could 
see a $22 billion hit to our GDP and almost 100,000 jobs lost from 
changing precipitation patterns. Sea-level rise will also threaten 
coastal communities where one-third of the Massachusetts population 
lives.
  The seas are getting hotter and they are getting higher. Those 
hotter, higher seas are making storms more damaging. Storm surges on 
top of sea-level rise could cause hundreds of billions in damages to 
cities on the Massachusetts coast during the next decade.
  In 1775 Paul Revere warned Massachusetts revolutionaries of an 
invasion coming from the sea. With climate change, Boston and the Bay 
State could face an invasion of the sea itself in Massachusetts and all 
across New England.
  As sea levels rise and storms become more severe, many of Boston's 
best known landmarks will be threatened, including Faneuil Hall, Quincy 
Market, North Station, Fan Pier, Copley Church, John Hancock Tower, the 
Public Garden. The Back Bay will revert to its original personality as 
a bay.
  We have to be realistic about this. The threats are there. The 
scientists are warning us. This can happen. There but for the grace of 
God and a few degrees, Hurricane Sandy would have damaged the city of 
Boston. We have been warned. Anyone who hasn't been hit by a Hurricane 
Sandy yet has been warned. It is coming, and it will be worse than 
Hurricane Sandy.
  By the end of this century, Massachusetts summers could feel like 
North Carolina's summer--not Philadelphia. By the end of the century, 
the temperatures are going to keep warming. By 2100, Maine could be the 
only State in New England that still has a skiing industry. That is how 
rapidly the snows are disappearing. The economic impact of climate 
change isn't confined to New England because we already feel the cost 
of climate disruption. The GAO added climate change to its 2013 high-
risk list based in large part on two reports they did at my request. 
GAO found that climate change presents a significant financial risk to 
the Federal Government. GAO could just as easily say it presents a 
significant financial risk for all of America.
  As daunting as the impacts of climate change are, the good news is we 
have the solutions to address it. We can generate good jobs in America 
that are also good for saving all of creation.
  With wind and solar, we have a tale of two tax policies. Here is the 
solar industry in the United States. Back in 2007, there was a 
production of perhaps 200 megawatts of electricity from solar. It was 
at the dawn of the solar industry. It wasn't as though the Sun had not 
been up there or that the technologies did not exist or could not have 
been created in order to capture it, but the tax policies were not 
there.
  In 2008, Congress passed a law which added an 8-year tax incentive 
for the solar industry. We can see what happened to this industry. It 
had been denigrated for years--up until last year when there was 5,000 
new megawatts. Think of five Seabrook nuclear powerplants of 
electricity generated by solar in 1 year. That tax break stays on the 
books until the end of 2016, and by the end of 2016, there is an 
expectation that 10,000 new megawatts of solar will be installed in the 
United States in 1 year, ladies and gentlemen, if we keep those tax 
breaks on the books. We can see what happens when there is a 
consistent, predictable tax policy on the books.
  Let me show you another tax policy. This is the tax policy for the 
wind industry. The wind industry has not had the same good fortune 
which the solar industry has had. Every time there is a tax policy that 
is put on the books, wind starts to build upwards of 2,000 megawatts in 
2001, but then the tax policy evaporated and it collapsed as an 
industry. When we put it back on the books, it went back up to 2,000 
megawatts. It expired at the end of that year and collapsed again.
  In 2005, we put a policy on the books that began to see the kind of 
installation of wind that we knew was possible from the beginning of 
time. We all knew it. We all knew the Dutch were right with those 
windmills. We all knew there was something to it, but there was no tax 
policy that was consistent, until we reached 2012 when, 
unbelievably, 13,000 new megawatts of wind was installed in the United 
States--13 nuclear powerplants. There is only 100,000 megawatts of 
nuclear power in the United States after 70 years of tax subsidies. 
Look at what happened with wind in 1 year--13,000 megawatts. But then 
it expired, and it collapsed down to only 2,000 megawatts in the year 
2013.

  That is our challenge, ladies and gentlemen. If we give the same kind 
of predictable tax and policy treatment to these renewable energy 
resources that were given to the oil industry over the last century, 
they have a lot to worry about. By the way, you don't have to worry 
about the oil or the gas industry. Their tax policies stay the same. 
Through the good times and the bad times, the oil industry keeps the 
same tax breaks on the books. They know they can rely upon that. Those 
two industries know the $7 billion in tax breaks they rely upon are 
going to be there year after year after year.
  Let's talk about what else can happen in other industries. Let's talk 
about the automotive industry. The Senator from Minnesota just talked 
about the fuel economy standards we put on the books. Look what 
happened since the fuel economy standards were put on the books and 
implemented by Barack Obama. George Bush did not implement them. I am 
proud to be the host author of those fuel economy standards, but it 
took Barack Obama to put them on the books--54.5 miles per gallon by 
the year 2026. Look what has happened. We are now nearing 600,000 
hybrids, plug-in vehicles, and all-electric vehicles per year. It is 
skyrocketing. Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler are reporting record 
profits and record sales. People will buy them, but you have to create 
the policy in the country.
  By the way, that one policy--the fuel economy standards that were put 
on the books in 2007 in this body, and over in the House of 
Representatives--backs out 4 million barrels of oil per day that we 
import into our country by the year 2040 when all of these standards 
that we put on the books are finally implemented.
  How much is that? The United States imports 3 million barrels of oil 
a day from the Persian Gulf. We are backing out 4 million barrels just 
by putting together a policy that incentivizes the industry to invest 
in the kinds of technologies that Americans want to buy and citizens 
around this planet want to buy. Wind, solar, hybrids, all-electric 
vehicles--it is all there. It is what we can do in order to create jobs 
and at the same time save the planet.
  I will talk about some other numbers that I believe are really 
relevant. The coal industry now has 80,000 employees. The wind industry 
has 80,000 employees in the United States. We saw how low it was in 
2007. Well, they now have 80,000 employees. The solar industry has 
142,000 employees. Coal only has 80,000 employees. We saw what happened 
from the moment that predictable tax policy went on the books until 
today, and it is continuing to go off the charts, but we know there 
will be people who are going to be out here fighting to take away those 
tax breaks and will compromise the ability of the EPA or the Department 
of Transportation to keep those standards on the books.
  Back in the 1990s, I was the chairman of the Telecommunications 
Committee in the House of Representatives, and I was able to put three 
bills on the books. One bill created the 18-inch satellite dish, 
another one created the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth cell phone 
license. That is what drove the price of a phone call from 50 cents a 
minute down to 10 cents a minute. It was 1996 when you started to have 
one of these devices in your pocket. At 50 cents a minute, you didn't 
have one. By the way, it was the size of a brick before that bill 
passed.
  Finally, the 1996 Telecommunications Act moved us from analog to 
digital. It moved us from narrow band to broadband. It created this 
revolution of Google, eBay, Amazon, YouTube, and Facebook. All of that

[[Page S1406]]

happened because of the policies created by the House and Senate and 
signed by the President, and it unleashed $1 trillion worth of private 
sector investment. It revolutionized villages in Africa and Asia. We 
invented those technologies and sold them around the world.
  We have the same kind of economic possibility for renewable energy 
and new energy technologies as we had in the telecommunication sector, 
and we have a chance to cap another $1 trillion to $2 trillion worth of 
investment in the private sector.
  Let's move on to our Nation's carbon emissions from energy due to 
fossil fuels. The total amount of greenhouse gases in our country from 
energy sources fell from 2005 to 2012 by 12 percent. We installed more 
wind, solar, and fuel-efficient vehicles. We got more efficient and we 
reduced our coal use from 2005 to 2012, but in 2013 that reversed, and 
the U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from energy sources increased by 2 
percent in 2013. What happened? The price of natural gas increased in 
2013 by 27 percent. As a result, U.S. electric utilities returned to 
burning more coal and using less natural gas. U.S. energy-related 
carbon emissions are still 10 percent below 2005 levels, but to keep 
driving them down, we need to keep the price of natural gas low and 
continue to drive the deployment of wind and solar up.

  For the oil and gas industry, the crisis in the Ukraine is an 
opportunity to throw open the doors to unrestrained exports of American 
natural gas. But the notion that gas exports will help Ukraine is an 
illusion. It is a talisman, some lucky charm. This is a simple matter 
of geo-economics, geology, and geopolitics. We have already approved 
five export terminals that could send 4 trillion cubic feet of natural 
gas abroad every year. That is nearly equal to all the gas consumed by 
every home in America. Just take that slice of the pie, and we are 
going to export all that natural gas. That is twice as much as Ukraine 
consumes every year.
  Exporting natural gas could raise U.S. prices upwards of 50 percent 
and create an energy tax of $62 billion each year on American consumers 
and businesses, and it will put the coal industry back in business 
because coal will then be less expensive than natural gas. Then our 
ability to meet this goal of reducing greenhouse gases will be replaced 
by a policy to export all the natural gas we can get to the ports of 
the United States, and the lower our supply is, the higher the price is 
going to be for the remaining natural gas within our boundaries. The 
Energy Information Agency says that just with the terminals that are 
now being proposed, it is a 52-percent increase in the price of gas 
here. We saw it last year. When gas went up 27 percent, coal replaced 
natural gas, and our emissions went up, not down. So we just have to be 
realistic about this whole debate in Ukraine about what it means for us 
in handling this issue.
  By the way, it is what has been leading to manufacturers returning to 
the United States. It is what is a big part of why there is a move 
towards natural gas vehicles, which also backed out imported oil. But 
the higher natural gas prices are the more we undermine our ability to 
make real progress on climate change, on manufacturing, on natural gas 
vehicles, on utilities moving from coal over to natural gas. That is 
our challenge as a people.
  Then, finally, we are the leader, not the laggers. The whole world is 
looking at us. So much of that CO2 is red, white, and blue, 
and they look to us to be the leader. You started your industrial 
revolution in the 19th century, they say to us. If you want us to 
reduce our greenhouse gases, you reduce yours. So we cannot abdicate 
this responsibility.
  Last week I attended a conference here in Washington called Globe. 
There were 100 legislators from around the world who came here--the key 
players on energy and the environment in each country in the world. We 
had a conference over in the Russell Building. Each of these 
legislators said they are looking to us for leadership. Five hundred 
new laws have been put on the books over the last 15 years in these 
countries on climate change. But the question comes to us. What are you 
going to do this year, next year, the year after on these issues? Their 
countries are even more vulnerable than our country. They do not have 
the resources which our country has. So that is our opportunity.
  Henry Waxman and I built a coalition of utilities, of businesses, of 
labor, of faith and environmental groups, and concerned citizens in 
2009. The pieces are still out there, I say to my colleagues. We can do 
it again, but we are going to need everyone's help.
  Recently, the books of Massachusetts author and national treasure 
Doctor Seuss have been popular and read on the Senate floor. I wish I 
had time to read the entirety of his environmental classic ``The 
Lorax.'' But since there are so many Senators who want to talk about 
the impacts of climate change and the benefits addressing it will bring 
our country, I will just have to close with this short portion. Here is 
what it says:

       But now says the Once-ler, now that you're here, the word 
     of the Lorax seems perfectly clear. Unless someone like you 
     cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's 
     not.

  So to my colleagues in the Senate and to everyone watching and 
following tonight, thank you for caring a whole awful lot. This is not 
for us; it is for all the subsequent generations of this country and 
this planet who are looking to this Chamber for leadership. We are 
going to make things better from tonight onward. This is a moment. The 
science is clear; the economics are clear; and now the politics is 
clear. We are going to have a big fight about this in 2014 because 
future generations are going to look back and know that this Senate 
stood up and we had the debate on the most important issue facing this 
planet.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. KING. Facing challenges is hard. The bigger the challenge, the 
harder it is to face it because facing a significant challenge always 
involves risk, always involves a little uncertainty, always involves 
effort, always involves cost, always involves inconvenience, and always 
involves change. The most profound observation I ever heard about 
change is that everybody is for progress and nobody is for change.
  In the 1930s, Europe and particularly England faced a challenge. They 
faced a challenge that was to their very survival. But for almost the 
entire decade of the 1930s, England didn't face that challenge. They 
did not act, even though the data was overwhelming, even though the 
facts were compelling, even though their greatest parliamentarian, the 
greatest parliamentarian in English history--at least recent English 
history--continuously warned them. Winston Churchill spent a good part 
of the 1930s warning his country about the dangers of the rise of Nazi 
Germany. But people didn't listen, and they didn't listen for much the 
same reason I think people aren't listening now--because it is hard to 
take on a new challenge. It is hard to take on something that will have 
a cost. It is hard to take on something that will entail risk. But 
ignoring warnings has consequences. In the case of the 1930s in England 
and ignoring Winston Churchill's warnings, the consequences were 55 
million people dead. Most historians believe Hitler could have been 
stopped in 1938, 1939, but instead of facing the challenge, people said 
it was too expensive; it was too inconvenient; it was too much of a 
change. They were exhausted from World War I.
  That was perfectly understandable, but the consequences were 
catastrophic.
  That is where we are today. We are facing a daunting challenge. For 
all of us speaking tonight, this isn't easy. We can outline the 
problems, but the solutions aren't easy, and the solutions aren't going 
to be free. The solutions are going to involve change; they are going 
to involve investment; they are going to involve innovation; and they 
are going to involve facing up to a challenge that is very serious.
  There are lots of ways to think about this. One way is this example: 
All of us have health insurance. We all have homeowners insurance--even 
simpler than health insurance. Homeowners insurance means basically we 
are insuring our home against burning down. What is the risk of our 
house catching fire? One in two? No. One in 365. Will your house burn 
down once a year. No. One in 3,650? I suspect the risk is somewhere 
around 1 in 10,000 or 20,000. But every family in America is paying an

[[Page S1407]]

average of $800 or $900 a year to insure against a 1 in 10,000 risk. 
But we are being told in this body--in this country--that we can't take 
steps to insure ourselves against a risk which 98 percent of the 
scientific evidence says is a dead certainty. I don't want to take that 
risk.
  People say: You are wrong, Angus. This isn't true. It isn't going to 
happen. Maybe I am. Maybe we are. Maybe that 98 percent of climate 
scientists who have spent their lives studying this issue is wrong. I 
hope they are. I hope I am. But what if we are not wrong? The 
consequences are almost unimaginable.
  Although I have a long history of involvement in environmental 
matters in Maine, I was a climate skeptic. I heard all the arguments 
about it, and I said, I don't know whether this is really true. We can 
argue it both ways. Then, about 5 years ago, I ran across a little 
chart and the chart to me answered the whole question. Here is the 
chart.
  This chart shows a million years of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 
We often hear carbon dioxide naturally goes up and down in the 
atmosphere. Well, yes, it does. That is what these figures show. But 
for 900,000-plus years, it ranged between 160 parts per million to 
about 250 or 275. That is the range. Then all of a sudden, we get up to 
the year 1,000, and it is still in the same higher range. Then right 
here, 1860, when we started to burn fossil fuels in large quantities, 
and there it goes. It goes to levels that we haven't seen on this 
planet for 3 million years. The last time we saw 400 parts per million 
of CO2 in the atmosphere, the temperatures were 12 to 14 
degrees warmer and the oceans were 60 to 80 feet higher.
  This isn't politics. This isn't speculation. These are actual 
measurements based on the Greenland ice cores. This is what the 
CO2 concentrations were, and here we are at the beginning of 
the industrial revolution.
  This chart, it seems to me, answers two of the three basic questions 
on the subject. The first question is: Is something happening? Yes, 
inevitably. We just can't look at this and say this point and this 
point are so different, and this is a million years. Something is 
happening.
  The second question about this whole issue is this. Do people have 
anything to do with it? This is when we started burning stuff. This 
answers that question. Of course, people have something to do with it. 
It is just too weird a coincidence to say all of a sudden, when we 
started to burn fossil fuels in large quantities and release them into 
the atmosphere and increase the CO2, it just happened to 
happen at the same time. One fellow I know said it is volcanoes. I am 
sorry. We didn't have an outburst of volcanoes in the 1850s and 1860s. 
We had little fires all over Europe, all over America. We had steel 
mills. We had the beginnings of the industrial revolution. We started 
to burn coal and later oil. This is what happened.
  I mentioned there were three questions. No. 1, is something 
happening? Yes. No. 2, do people have anything to do with it? Yes.
  The third question is, So what. CO2 is going up in the 
atmosphere. So what. What does that mean? This answers that question. 
This is the relationship between CO2 and temperature. The 
red line is carbon dioxide and the black line is temperature, an almost 
exact correlation. If the CO2 goes up in the atmosphere, and 
we are at about 500,000 years, we can see CO2 goes up, 
temperature goes up; CO2 goes down, temperature goes down. 
So this is the answer to the third question, so what. The answer is 
temperature.
  One of the things that worries me, and the reason I am here tonight, 
is some research that has been done at the University of Maine. We have 
a climate study center at the University of Maine. I was there a year 
or so ago, and I was meeting with them. It was one of these meetings 
where we are going around and we go to the university, factories, and 
schools and meet with people and they give us briefings, and I was 
listening to a briefing on climate change when a word crept into that 
discussion that I had not heard before, and the word was ``abrupt.''
  Climate change, I always assumed, happened in a very slow, long, 
historic, geological time kind of way. That is not the case.
  These are two lines on this chart. The yellow line is temperature; 
the red is the extent of the ice in the Arctic. The point of the chart 
is, look at these vertical lines. That is in a matter of a few years. 
It is not a matter of 1,000 years or 10,000 years; it is a matter of a 
few years. It is as if someone throws a switch, and I do not want to be 
around when that switch is thrown, and I certainly do not want to be 
the cause of the switch being thrown.
  Abrupt climate change, that is what keeps me awake at night; that 
this is something we are sort of assuming is going to be the next 
generation's problem or the generation after that or by 2100. Who knows 
about 2100? Who thinks about 2100? Well, it could be a lot sooner than 
that.
  If things such as this cause a melt-off in the Arctic ice and the 
Greenland ice sheet, and it changes the currents in the Atlantic or 
anywhere else in the world, for that matter, everything changes.
  Without the Gulf Stream, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia 
are essentially uninhabitable. I do not know about the Presiding 
Officer, but I have always thought of England as a being to the east. 
It is not to the east; it is way to the northeast. England is on the 
same latitude as Hudson Bay. The only reason it is of temperate climate 
is because of the Gulf Stream. If something happens to the Gulf Stream, 
Northern Europe is almost uninhabitable.
  These changes can happen abruptly. Again, maybe I am wrong. I hope I 
am wrong. But what if I am right? What if the science is right. Are we 
willing to take that risk? Do you want to be the person who says to 
your grandchildren: We saw this coming. All these people talked. They 
talked all night in the Senate. But we decided not to do anything 
because it would be expensive and it would disrupt some of our 
industries and might cost us a few jobs, which, by the way, would be 
replaced in other industries.
  Do you want to be the person who says: Well, we had this warning but, 
no, we didn't feel we had to do anything. I do not want to be that 
person.
  Does it have practical effects? It does have practical effects. There 
is not a theoretical discussion. This is not just a science lesson. 
This has effects in all of our States. We have heard them here 
tonight--about the water temperature in the streams in Minnesota, the 
forest fires in Colorado, the drought in the West, in California, that 
is rendering millions of acres potentially unproductive that have been 
the breadbasket of America.
  In Maine, it is the lobster, the iconic product of the coast of 
Maine. What is happening is the ocean is getting warmer. As the ocean 
is getting warmer, the lobsters do not necessarily--they are not too 
unhappy about it getting warmer, but the center of gravity of lobsters 
is going to go where the water is colder, and that is what is 
happening. That is what the lobstermen have told me.
  The center of gravity of lobstering in Maine used to be right off of 
Portland in what is called Casco Bay, where I live. But over the last 
10 or 15 years, it has slowly moved northward. Now the lobsters 
themselves have not moved northward, but the heavy catch has moved 
northward.
  Here is a dramatic picture of what has happened. In 1970, here was 
the hotspot for lobster: south of Massachusetts, south of Rhode Island, 
off the end of Long Island. This is where they were catching the most 
lobster. Here is where they are in 2008. They are up along the coast of 
Maine, headed for Nova Scotia. This is the center of gravity of the 
lobster industry.
  People around here may not know what is happening in the climate, but 
the lobsters of Maine know it, and the green crabs and the shellfish 
and the moose and the deer and the trees, they know it because that is 
what is changing in my State.
  There is another thing that is happening that I do not think has been 
discussed tonight; that is, that the ocean is becoming a giant sink for 
all this carbon that is in the atmosphere. When the atmospheric carbon 
dioxide goes into the water and is dissolved in the water, it turns 
into something called H2CO3--carbonic acid. Carbonic acid attacks 
shellfish. Shellfish cannot form their shells because the ocean is 
becoming acidic. This is a recent observation, and it is the result of 
the massive load of carbon that we have been putting into the 
atmosphere.

[[Page S1408]]

  Here is another practical result, and the Presiding Officer talked 
about this in terms of Boston. These are charts that show what happens 
if the sea goes up varying levels--6 meters, 1 meter. One meter is 
shown in dark red on the chart. Look what happens to Virginia Beach in 
North Carolina at just 1 meter, and that is predicted in the next 100 
years as the sea level goes up. Then we look at all these communities: 
New York, Boston, Savannah, and Charleston, Virginia Beach, Miami, 
Louisiana. Then we can multiply this all around the world. I do not 
know the percentage, but a very significant percentage of the world's 
population lives within about 40 miles of the coast--everywhere in the 
world.
  These are real consequences, and these are the kinds of consequences 
that are unbelievably expensive and unbelievably destructive.
  There is another piece of evidence, which is the sea ice extent. We 
are now talking about the famous Northwest Passage actually existing. 
Ships can now go from the Atlantic to the Pacific across the Arctic 
because the ice is disappearing.
  Here it is, as shown here, just from 1979 to the present. This is 
evidence. This is data. This is irrefutable.
  Here is essentially a chart of the Arctic sea ice. The red line was 
the extent of the ice, the average place the ice was in 1979 through 
the year 2000, and here is where we are in 2012. As it continues to 
shrink, several things happen: the ocean levels rise, the acidification 
of the ocean continues, and there is a threat of a change in the 
ocean's currents, which would be catastrophic for many parts of the 
world.
  Another example is the Muir Glacier in Alaska. These two photographs 
I have in the Chamber were taken from exactly the same spot. In 1941, 
here is the glacier. In 2004, here is the lake. The glacier is gone. 
That has changed, and that is a change that is the canary in the coal 
mine. That is the change that tells us something is happening and we 
ignore it at our peril.

  What are the consequences? What are the consequences? I have talked 
about the economic consequences: forest fires, floods, lobsters, 
agriculture, all of those people living in low-lying areas. Multiply 
Superstorm Sandy by two, three, four, five, and we are talking billions 
of dollars of economic costs; we are talking about lost jobs. Something 
like 30 percent of the businesses that were wiped out by Superstorm 
Sandy never came back. They never came back. To each one of those 
businesspeople, to each one of those insurers that insured those 
businesses, to those families it is gone forever. That is the result of 
these superstorms we are seeing more and more frequently.
  An enormous economic risk, an enormous cost. Yes, it is going to cost 
something to prevent this, but it is going to cost us either way. The 
old ad I remember when I was a kid: Pay me now or pay me later. In this 
case, it is pay me now or pay me more later.
  But there is a second level of risk that is almost as significant as 
the economic risk; that is, the national security risk. We have had 
panels of retired judges and admirals who have looked at this issue. 
Global climate change is a major national security risk. Why? Because 
it is going to lead to friction, to riots, to famine, to loss of 
agricultural land, to loss of homes, to territorial disputes about 
water, and that increases our risk.
  I am on the Armed Services Committee and Intelligence Committee. I 
have spent the last year and a half listening to testimony about Al 
Qaeda and what we are doing to confront Al Qaeda. Part of our strategy 
is to fight them and to kill them, but we cannot kill them all. It is 
like the Hydra. You cut off one head and two come back. What we have to 
do is get at the basis of why young people are joining an organization 
such as that and change their lives. This climate change, which 
threatens people's livelihoods, particularly in the developing world, 
is a grave threat to our national security because it generates the 
very people who are dangerous. The most dangerous weapons of mass 
destruction in the world today are large numbers of unemployed 20-year-
olds who are angry and dispossessed and have no hope and are willing to 
take up arms against any authority they can find, and unfortunately 
that may be us.
  This is a national security risk. Water, I predict, will be one of 
the most valuable commodities of the 21st century. It is going to be 
something people fight about. It is going to be something people get 
into wars about. Water is an enormously valuable commodity that global 
climate change threatens.
  Finally, on the question of what are the consequences, it is an 
ethical risk. It is an economic risk, a national security risk, but it 
is also an ethical risk. Another aspect of this that has struck me that 
is not strictly related to climate change but is related to our 
consumption of fossil fuels is what right do we have in two or three 
generations to consume the entire production of fossil fuels that the 
world has produced in the last 3 or 4 or 5 or 10 million years.
  It reminds me of a dad sitting down at Thanksgiving dinner, where all 
of his children are sitting around the table, mom brings in the turkey, 
puts it in front of him, and he says: This is all mine. None of you get 
any. I am going to take it.
  None of us would do that, but that is exactly what we are doing. We 
are saying this oil, this precious oil that is an amazing commodity, 
can do all kinds of different things, we are going to burn it up in 
about 200 years. It takes millions of years to make it, and we are 
going to burn it all up. I think that is an ethical risk.
  OK. I hate talking about problems and not talking about a solution. 
What are the solutions?
  I believe in markets. I believe in free markets as the best way to 
allocate goods and services. But the market, in order to be efficient, 
has to be accurate, and it has to accurately reflect the true costs and 
price of the commodity. Right now we are not paying those costs. The 
cost of climate change is not factored into the cost of consuming 
fossil fuels. If you factor it in, then you have a free market and 
people will make their decisions based upon their economic situation 
and also their commitment to the environment, but the real costs are 
not factored in.
  I am old enough to remember when this debate took place in the 1970s, 
when I worked here. But the debate then was about environmental law 
itself, and the debate was characterized as payrolls versus pickerel. I 
can remember that term, ``payrolls versus pickerel.''
  The idea was that if you clean up the water and clean up the air, it 
is going to put people out of business, we are going to lose jobs, 
industry is going to run away, we can't possibly do it. Well, a man 
named Edmund Sixtus Muskie from the State of Maine did not believe 
that. He was raised in a paper mill town on the Androscoggin River--one 
of the most polluted rivers in America. They used to say it was too 
thick to drink, too thin to plow. Muskie did not believe it, and Muskie 
stood in this body and fought for the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water 
Act.
  Here is the amazing thing. I was asked to do some research and to do 
a presentation about Muskie's environmental leadership. I went back and 
looked at the record. I could not believe my eyes, particularly in 
light of where we are here today--tonight--in this body and in this 
city. The Clean Air Act passed the Senate unanimously. In the midst of 
the debate, Howard Baker, the minority leader, the Republican leader, 
gave his proxy to Muskie. Can you imagine that happening today? It 
passed unanimously. We could not pass the time of day unanimously in 
this body. Yet it happened.
  That brings me to a question that really puzzles me. How did this 
become a partisan issue? How did it come to divide us so cleanly along 
environmental lines? This discussion tonight is important, but it is 
all Democrats and people--Bernie and I, the two Independents--Senator 
Sanders, the Senator from Vermont, and I, the two Independents--no 
people from the other party. I do not understand that. The leaders, the 
giants of the environmental movement in Maine when I was a young man 
were all Republicans.
  When Ed Muskie got the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act passed 
through this body, it was with the support of the overwhelming 
majority--in the case of the Clean Air Act, all of the Republicans, 
including very conservative Republicans. Senator Buckley

[[Page S1409]]

from New York supported the Clean Air Act. I do not know how or why 
this became a partisan issue. Maybe it was because it was invented by 
Al Gore. I do not know. But somehow it has become this divisive 
partisan issue. It should not be. This is our future that is at stake. 
This is our children and grandchildren's future. This should not be a 
partisan issue.
  In my experience, if we can develop a common understanding of the 
facts, we can find solutions. They will not be easy, but they are 
there. Right now the problem is that we do not have a common, shared 
understanding of the facts.
  So what are the solutions? The market is one. Innovation, as Senator 
Kaine from Virginia said, is another. There are ways to use electricity 
and generate electricity through innovation that will be much cleaner, 
support just as many if not more jobs, and help prevent this tragedy 
from befalling us.
  By the way, it does not mean we cannot burn coal. Coal is an abundant 
resource that we have in this country that is loaded with energy, but 
unfortunately it is also loaded with CO2 and other 
pollutants. So I think part of our commitment should be intense 
research on how to use coal efficiently, effectively, and cleanly. That 
should be part of the deal. We are not trying to put any region of the 
country out of business or control people's use of valuable resources, 
but let's use them in the most efficient and effective and 
environmentally safe way. That can be done in part through innovation.
  I was a lobbyist in Maine 30 years ago. One of the things I lobbied 
for was to get rid of pop-top beer cans. The Presiding Officer probably 
remembers the first ones. You grabbed the ring, pulled it off, and it 
became a little razor. People threw them on the ground. You would step 
on them. They were dangerous.
  I remember going to the lobbyist for the bottlers and I said: We want 
to get rid of those things.
  He said: There is no way. Our engineers have looked at it. It is 
impossible to make one that you do not have to tear off.
  Well, lo and behold we passed a law banning those pull-off tabs, and 
the industry found a way to do it safely and in an environmentally 
sound manner. Sometimes you have to help people find a way.
  The final piece when it comes to solutions is that this has to be 
international. I agree with my colleagues who say we cannot just do it 
here. We cannot just do it here. If we just do it here and nobody else 
in the world does it, if China and India do not do it, then it is not 
going to be effective. We will have imposed costs on our society that 
will simply make their businesses more competitive if they are ignoring 
these externalities, these realities of price. It has to be done 
through international cooperation.
  I think the moment may be right. From everything I understand about 
the air quality in China, they may be ready to discuss this. They may 
be ready to take steps along with us. But we are going to have to be 
the leaders. We are going to have to show what can be done and how it 
can be done. We are going to have to innovate our way out of this. But 
we have to do it with our international partners. Movement of air does 
not respect boundaries.
  When Ed Muskie was promoting the Clean Air Act, he would take a 
globe--I do not think we are allowed to take props onto the floor of 
the Senate--he would take a standard globe--imagine I have it here--and 
everybody used to have these in their library. On a globe is a coating 
of shellac to make it shine. That coating of shellac is the same 
thickness in proportion to the globe as our atmosphere is to our real 
globe. In other words, it is very thin and very fragile. We destroy it 
and threaten it at our extreme peril.
  I can boil it all down to one simple concept. This is a Maine 
concept. It is the Maine rototiller rule.
  For those of you from urban States, a rototiller is a device that you 
use to turn the ground in your garden. I guess it is a homeowner's 
plow. It turns the dirt. Not too many people own rototillers, but 
enough do so that you can borrow one when you need it for that one day 
in the spring when you are going to put in your garden.
  The Maine rototiller rule is very straightforward: When you borrow 
your neighbor's rototiller, you always return it to them in as good 
shape as you got it with a full tank of gas. That is all you need to 
know about environmental policy. We do not own this planet. We have it 
on loan. We have it on loan from our children, our grandchildren, and 
their grandchildren. We are borrowing it from them. We have a moral, 
ethical, economic, and security obligation to pass it on to those 
people in as good or better shape than we got it. That is what this 
issue is all about.
  I deeply hope we can put aside the partisanship and the arguments, 
agree on the facts, and then have a robust and vigorous discussion of 
solutions. It is not going to be easy. It is not going to be free. But 
it will make all the difference in the world to the people to whom we 
owe our best work--the future of America and the world.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I appreciate so much the comments of my 
colleague from Maine, bringing his insights and his expertise through 
the years and his stories about how the land and waters of his home 
State are being impacted and our responsibilities to the broader 
planet.
  I am reminded of the comment that Henry David Thoreau said, which is, 
``What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to 
put it on?'' His comment now seems very much ahead of the time and the 
context of the issue we are discussing tonight.
  Then we have the insight from Theodore Roosevelt, who said, in terms 
of our responsibility, ``Of all the questions which can come before 
this Nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a 
great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great 
central task of leaving this land even a better land for our 
descendents than it is for us.''
  But right now we are failing that challenge. Carbon pollution is a 
direct threat to our resources on this planet, a direct threat to our 
forests, to our fishing, and to our farming. So I am going to take a 
little bit of time tonight to talk about those aspects.
  I would like to start by taking a look at our forests. Indeed, if 
there is something that symbolizes some of the dramatic impacts carbon 
pollution is making, it is the spread of the pine beetle.
  This is a picture of a forest devastated not by fire, not by drought, 
but by the spread of the pine beetle. I have gone up in a plane and 
flown over a vast zone of the Cascades known as the red zone, where the 
pine beetle has killed thousands of acres in my home State. They start 
out looking red because the needles turn red. That is why it is called 
the red zone. Then the needles fall off, and you have essentially this 
brown desolate remainder of what was once a thriving forest.
  Timber is something that is very close to our hearts in the State of 
Oregon. So many of us--myself included--are children of the timber 
industry. My father was a millwright--that is the mechanic who keeps 
the sawmill operating--a job he absolutely loved. He used to say that 
if he did his job right, then everyone had a job to come to, and the 
mill made money and everyone was happy as long as the machinery ran. 
Oregon is still the top American producer of plywood and softwood 
lumber. The industry certainly is a big component of our gross domestic 
product in my State.
  When this happens, then not only do we have zones that are not good 
environmental zones, but they are not good timber zones either. It is a 
lose-lose situation. It happens, and it is spreading for one reason: 
The winters are not as cold as they used to be, and the pine beetle is 
very happy about that because it is not knocked back and largely wiped 
out with cold snaps each winter, and it is easy to spread much more 
quickly, and it is able to spread to much higher elevations.
  Then these dead forests become a component in another huge problem, 
which is forest fires.
  This picture you will see in a moment is a picture of the Biscuit 
Fire in 2002--a wall of flames.
  The summer before last, I went down and flew about the State of 
Oregon to look at the innumerable forest fires that were burning. One 
of the reasons we had so many forest fires--10 years after this fire--
was because the floor of the forest was so dry. It is estimated

[[Page S1410]]

that a 2-by-4 that you see in a Home Depot has about a 6-percent 
moisture content. The material on the floor of the forest was even 
drier than that. Then you throw in far more lightning strikes due to 
the pattern of the weather, and you have this magic combination, this 
combination of tinderbox dryness, pine beetle devastation, and then 
lightning strikes. What you have are some of the largest fires we have 
ever seen. Indeed, the Biscuit Fire in 2002--500,000 acres. Half a 
million acres. Fast-forward 10 years. In 2012, 750,000 acres burned in 
my State. With the combination of the ongoing effects of carbon 
pollution--that being pine beetle damage, more lighting strikes, and 
far drier, drought-driven fire seasons--it is going to get worse and 
worse.
  The seven largest fire years since 1960 have all happened in the last 
13 summers. It is pretty amazing to recognize how that transition is 
occurring. If we think about projecting into the future, the National 
Research Council predicts that for every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit 
temperature increase, the area burned in the western forests will 
quadruple.
  This led our Energy Secretary to tell me a few weeks ago about a 
draft of a study that says the western forests will be dramatically 
impacted, devastated in the course of this century due to these 
factors.
  We have a triple threat, that of drought and bark beetles, increased 
temperatures, and the result is decimation of an incredibly important 
world resource, our forests.
  But carbon pollution is not only an attack on our forests, it is also 
an attack on our farming. Indeed, drought across the U.S. is a huge and 
growing threat to agriculture.
  In the State of Oregon, we have had the three worst-ever droughts in 
the Klamath Basin in a 13-year period. It was 2001, then the worst-ever 
drought of 2010, then the worst-ever drought of 2013--and now we are 
looking at the possibility of a drought even worse than any of those--
the worst-ever drought of 2014. Hopefully, we will have a lot of 
precipitation and a lot of snow in the coming weeks and that won't be 
the case, but if we are looking at the snowpack, it is possible that we 
will have the fourth worst ever in a 14-year period. It is absolutely 
devastating to our rural economy, absolutely devastating.
  Let's look at the impact coming from smaller snowpacks. Snowpacks are 
a significant piece of this puzzle. If we were to look at the Pacific 
Northwest, we would basically draw a circle like this. What we see are 
these zones where there is a huge percentage decrease in those 
snowpacks. The snowpacks then provide far less irrigation and water 
available, and therefore dry their foundation for the summer drought, 
which then has a devastating impact on agriculture. This is not good 
for our farming families, and it is certainly not good for our farm 
economy.
  Those snowpacks have another impact. I am going to skip forward to 
the impact on our streams and our fish.
  Folks who like to fish for trout and go to their summer streams know 
that it is going to be better if the stream is large and cold than if 
it is small and warm. But the last of those snowpacks means that the 
summer streams are smaller and warmer, and they are very bad for trout. 
That is what we are seeing in this particular picture: dead trout from 
the Deschutes River. Last fall thousands of fish died in the river from 
low flows attributed to drought.
  Clearly, not only is it bad for trout, it is bad for salmon; it is 
bad for steelhead. It is certainly bad for our fishing industries.
  Let's turn to another part of our fishing industry, and this is an 
impact that we see over on the coast of Oregon.
  I specifically want to take a look at the impact that we see on our 
oysters. Oysters have to fixate a shell at the beginning of their life. 
They are called oyster seed, the baby oyster. We have hatcheries, and 
those hatcheries have been having challenges. The Whiskey Creek oyster 
hatchery in Oregon has had a big problem. Indeed, at one point it had a 
huge impact.
  I will read part of an article:

       Peering into the microscope, Alan Barton thought the baby 
     oysters looked normal, except for one thing: They were dead. 
     Slide after slide, the results were the same. The entire 
     batch of 100 million larvae at the Whiskey Creek Shellfish 
     Hatchery had perished.
       It took several years for the Oregon oyster breeder and a 
     team of scientists to find the culprit: a radical change in 
     ocean acidity.

  This is why, because when we have greater carbon pollution in the 
air, that carbon then is absorbed by the ocean, a significant portion 
of it. That dissolved carbon dioxide combines with water and becomes 
H2CO3, otherwise known as carbonic acid.
  That carbonic acid is preventing the baby oysters from forming their 
shells. We can think of this as the canary in the coal mine for our 
world's oceans because if baby oysters are having a challenge forming 
their shells because of a 30-percent increase in acidity since the 
start of the Industrial Revolution, what other impacts are there going 
to be along in the shellfish world and the food chains that depend on 
those shellfish, not to mention the impact on our shellfish farmers.
  I was noting this in Washington State and I was told: You know, our 
oyster farmers are experiencing a similar problem, and they are going 
to Hawaii and to Asia. This is not only an Oregon problem.
  The manager of the hatchery in Oregon, David Stick, said in an 
article:

       I do not think people understand the seriousness of the 
     problem. Ocean acidification is going to be a game-changer. 
     It has the potential to be a real catastrophe.

  Let's recognize another part of the planet that is having a problem 
with warmer waters and ocean acidification; that is, our coral reefs. 
We have, in Oregon, a researcher at Oregon State university. His name 
is Professor Hixon. Professor Hixon is recognizing that the coral reefs 
around the world are in trouble. As he said in a presentation, he 
studied dozens of reefs. They are his children. Then he said: My 
children are dying. One of the key reasons is acidification, but 
another is the oceans are getting warmer.
  I have a chart showing the warming of the ocean. The oceans are 
absorbing carbon dioxide, and they are also absorbing heat. As they 
become warmer, they create a real problem for coral reefs. Coral is an 
animal. We may think of it as a plant, but it actually is an animal, 
and it lives in a symbiotic relationship with a type of algae.
  They depend on each other. What happens when the water gets warmer 
around a coral reef is that the algae start to multiply in a fashion 
that overwhelms the coral.
  The coral, in an effort to survive, ejects the algae, throws them out 
of the host. Then the coral, having ejected the algae, dies. This is 
called bleaching, and it is something we are seeing in coral reefs 
around the world. That is why Professor Hixon noted: My children are 
dying.
  I will state something else about the warming that is occurring, and 
this is more about warming that is occurring in terms of the 
temperature of our planet. It is affecting our recreation industry and 
our snow industry.
  I am going to start by taking a look at what is driving that in terms 
of a chart related to carbon dioxide. Specifically, this chart shows 
the dramatic change that has gone on. We see the fluctuations in carbon 
dioxide over hundreds of thousands of years, into the modern time and 
then, boom, 400 parts per million of carbon pollution.
  What does this come from? It comes from burning fossil fuels.
  This carbon--carbon dioxide, as a component of the atmosphere, traps 
heat. To summarize, our planet has a fever. The temperature is going 
up. Let's take a look at how that carbon dioxide correlates with 
temperatures.
  We have, in this case, showing since 1880--basically, the start of 
the Industrial Revolution--the increase in temperature on our planet, 
the global surface mean temperature. We have seen a significant 
increase.
  If we want to find a way that this impacts our economy, let's take a 
look at how it impacts our recreation industry. This is an article that 
I grabbed from the New York Times. It is a lengthy article, but it is 
the title and the picture that I really wanted to show. It is from the 
Sunday Review and it is called ``The End Of Snow.''
  This article basically documents how our ski resorts around our 
planet are suffering because they don't have as much snow as they used 
to have. There is a picture of artificial snow being created and put on 
the slope. It notes how much energy this requires, how many dollars it 
costs to provide that energy,

[[Page S1411]]

how this is making many of our resorts not feasible, and how many of 
them will go out of the business. This is just another angle on the 
impact that carbon dioxide is having, in this case, on our recreation 
industry.
  Of course, it is having other impact on our recreation industry. When 
we think of those smaller streams, we can think of fewer kayaks, for 
example, and rafting companies operating.
  Let's turn from these multitudinous impacts. First, before we return 
to recognizing that we have the power to take on carbon pollution, 
let's recognize when folks say isn't that global warming issue about 
some computer programmer using some assumption and some model. Isn't 
there some dispute about it; is it real.
  Put all of that aside. We don't need a computer model to show us the 
impact from the pine beetle. We don't need a computer model to show us 
the impact on our trout streams. We don't need a computer model to show 
us the impact today on droughts. We don't need a computer model to show 
us impact on forest burning. We don't need a computer model to show us 
the impact on our coral. We don't need a computer model to show us the 
impact on the oyster industry, and we don't need a computer model to 
show us the impact on our snow-based recreational activities and the 
industries that are associated with it.
  In other words, carbon pollution is here and now. Global warming is 
here and now. It is making an impact wherever we look. We can feel it, 
we can touch it, we can see it, and we can smell it. It is here, and it 
is our responsibility, our responsibility as American citizens, our 
responsibility as policy leaders in this esteemed Chamber of the Senate 
to take on this issue.
  There is so much we can do because it boils down to this. We have to 
replace our appetite for fossil fuels with renewable fuels, renewable 
energy. We can do that. We can do that in a host of ways.
  I will start. Let me start by noting a little bit about the growth of 
solar energy. When one realizes this chart is just from 2001 to 2013, 
it is phenomenal the deployed amount of installed capacity in megawatts 
in solar energy. From 2012 to 2013, we have more than 3,000 additional 
megawatts of energy, solar energy, solar potential, deployed.
  A similar explosion of renewable energy is happening in the source of 
wind. Let's take a look at that.
  We have deployed capacity in wind energy. If we were to recognize 
that, again, from 2001 to 2013 there was a huge growth in the 
industry--and I want to point out a particular factor here going from 
2011 to 2012. This large bump on the chart was 13,000 megawatts of 
installed capacity and wind energy in 1 year. The next year there was 
only 1,000.
  The difference, as pointed out by one of my colleagues earlier on 
this floor, is the difference in tax credits, of consistently available 
production tax credits that the wind industry can depend on.
  We give all kinds of subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. Why can't 
we create a steady, reliable source to promote renewable energy to help 
replace those fossil fuels. We have this policy potential in our hands, 
and we need to exercise it. There are many other forms of renewable 
energy. There is offshore wind, there is geothermal energy, and there 
is wave energy. Oregon has some of the best winds for offshore wind 
energy and waves for wave energy, but we already have the ability 
through the technologies we have today to dramatically reduce our 
consumption of fossil fuels.

  What this chart shows is that in different parts of the country the 
mix between biomass and geothermal and wind onshore, wind offshore, 
wave energy and solar energy, concentrated solar power energy would be 
different in different parts of the country, but everywhere around the 
country there is the potential to essentially replace our appetite for 
fossil fuels.
  Then there is the conservation side. We can certainly do a tremendous 
amount in our fuel standards for cars, a tremendous amount in our fuel 
standards for trucks, and a significant amount in terms of energy-
saving retrofits to our buildings.
  In the farm bill we just passed, we have a program for low-cost loans 
for energy-saving retrofits, and that program--the Rural Energy Savings 
Program--will help retrofits occur in commercial buildings and 
residential buildings, and it will allow people to pay back the loan on 
their electric bill. Often, they will be able to pay back that loan 
simply with the savings in energy--electricity consumption--from the 
changes they make to their building. So it is a win-win--creating jobs, 
saving energy, yet being paid for without much additional expense for 
the consumer.
  All of these possibilities exist and more. It is our challenge as 
policymakers to take on this issue, to work on how we can generate 
electricity with far fewer fossil fuels, how we can conserve 
electricity in transportation. How do we conserve electricity and other 
fuels? In fact, in both cases--transportation and heating our homes, 
energy consumed in our buildings--how do we do this with far fewer 
fossil fuels and do it with renewable energy?
  I applaud my colleagues for coming here tonight to raise this issue 
and say we must come together and take on these challenges. My 
colleague from Delaware is about to speak and share some stories from 
his experiences that bear on this, but every Senator in this Chamber 
can talk about issues from their home State and where they see the 
impact of carbon pollution and call upon us, call upon our moral 
responsibility to tackle this issue.
  With that, I yield the floor to my colleague.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleague from 
Oregon, Senator Merkley, who has done a tremendous job laying out the 
scientific case, the compelling economic case, the cultural case, and 
the global case for why we here in the Senate need to wake up, need to 
listen to the indisputable evidence of what climate change is doing in 
our home States, to our country, and around the world.
  Mr. President, even now as we speak in this Chamber, my own three 
children--Maggie, Michael, and Jack--are asleep at home. And as I 
reflected on this past summer, I was struck by something--an experience 
we had--that was a simple and telling reminder of the steady changes 
wrought by climate change in our Nation.
  Last summer we took a family vacation--a trip--to Glacier National 
Park. For those who have had the opportunity to hike in this majestic 
national park in Montana, it is the site of many striking and beautiful 
scenes, but there was one hike we took in particular that stayed with 
me. It was a hike to historic Grinnell Glacier--a glacier that is by 
many photographs over decades documented in its steady receding. In 
fact, since 1966 it has lost nearly half of its total acreage. We took 
a long and winding hike up the trail that takes you to Grinnell 
Glacier. You can't quite see until you come up over the last rise that 
most of what is left of Grinnell Glacier in the summers today is a 
chilly pool of water.
  For my daughter Maggie and for my sons Mike and Jack, as I look ahead 
to the long-term future, I think we all have to ask ourselves this 
question: How many more changes are we willing to accept being wrought 
on creation, on this Nation, and on the world by the steady advance of 
climate change?
  I know we can't simply take the examples of things such as Grinnell 
Glacier or what to me seemed a striking change in the cap of Mount 
Kilimanjaro. I first climbed it in 1984 and visited it again last year. 
There is a striking change, a visually powerful change. These aren't 
scientific.
  There are lots of other arguments, perhaps, as to why these two 
particular glaciers have retreated, but I still remember hearing a 
presentation at the University of Delaware by Dr. Lonnie Thompson of 
Ohio State University, a glaciologist who presented a very broad and I 
thought very compelling case based on ice cores for the actual advance 
of climate change over many decades.
  In fact, I see my colleague from Rhode Island has a photographic 
history of Grinnell Glacier in Montana's Glacier National Park, so the 
point I was just making in passing he is able to illustrate here. That 
is as of 10 years ago. The glacier has retreated even further from 
that. But this striking glacier from 1940 is now almost completely gone 
in just one generation.

[[Page S1412]]

This and so many other glaciers that were monuments in our national 
parks are today receded or altogether gone.
  Well, I think we have to ask ourselves fundamentally, what is our 
path forward? We have heard from other Senators. Tim Kaine of Virginia 
spoke about the importance of innovation, and Angus King, the Senator 
from Maine, spoke about the importance of markets and of making sure 
our inventions and innovations in trying to solve these problems are 
also shared internationally. I think these are great and important 
insights.
  One of the things I wanted to bring to the floor today first was 
insights from my own home State of Delaware, where our Governor, Jack 
Markell, impaneled a sea level rise advisory committee starting in 2010 
that looked hard at how climate change might affect my home State.
  At just 60 feet, Delaware has the lowest mean elevation of any State 
in the country, and that already makes it more susceptible to sea level 
rise than almost any State in the country. In my State of Delaware, we 
have seen and will continue to see the impact of climate change on our 
businesses, our communities, and our local environment. As the sea 
level rises, we are seeing the effects more and more.
  Sea level rises essentially for two reasons. First, as the planet's 
ice sheets melt--the much larger sheets than Grinnell Glacier--they add 
to the amount of water in the ocean. Second, saltwater actually expands 
as it warms as well. So as the planet's average temperature has 
steadily risen, so too has the level of its saltwater seas.
  The fact that the Earth's oceans are rising each year isn't new 
information. It has been rising as long as we have been keeping track. 
But what is really jarring is that rate of rise is increasing and 
increasing significantly. When the data was tracked from 1870 to 1930, 
the sea level was rising at a rate of 4 inches per 100 years. Over the 
next 60 years it rose at a rate of 8 inches per 100 years--more than 
double. In just the last 20 years the sea level has been rising at a 
strikingly more rapid rate of 12.5 inches per 100 years. The water is 
rising, and in Delaware it is rising fast.
  The land itself in my State is also actually sinking. There is 
actually a documented vertical movement of the Earth's crust under the 
mid-Atlantic coast. It is called subsidence. It has been happening in 
Delaware slowly but gradually since the ice age at a pace of just 2 
millimeters of elevation every year. I know that doesn't sound like a 
lot, but it adds up to another 4 inches over the century.
  So we have the water rising and the land sinking, making climate 
change and sea level rise--specifically for my home State--a very real 
issue.
  A wide array of scientists have studied this and its impact on 
Delaware, and they have developed three models for a future scenario. 
In the conservative model, by the year 2100 the sea level in Delaware 
will have risen about 1.5 feet. In another model, the water off 
Delaware rises another full meter. In another and the most 
disconcerting model, it is 1.5 meters or about 5 feet. Unfortunately, 
at present, this broad group of scientists--inside and outside of 
government--are estimating that is the most likely scenario.
  Let's make this real. Here is a projection of these three different 
scenarios in one area of Delaware. This is Bowers Beach. This shows how 
now this is a well-established beach community. The most conservative 
model, we still have something of the land; in the middle, it is 
completely cut off here from the mainland; and then in the most likely, 
sadly, given the most current evidence, there is literally nothing left 
except a little sandbar out by itself in the Delaware Bay. That gives 
one example of why the difference between these three scenarios matters 
so much. Unfortunately, there is no scenario in which Bowers Beach is 
still a viable beachfront community by the end of this century. This 
beach community of Bowers Beach is very close to Dover Air Force Base 
and ends up underwater.
  Now let's take a look at South Wilmington. The city in which I live 
is Wilmington, DE, and South Wilmington is a neighborhood in the 
largest city in our State. As the water rises in the Atlantic Ocean, it 
also rises up the Delaware Bay, the Delaware River, and the Christina 
River, which runs right through most of my home county, Newcastle 
County, and rises in the Peterson Wildlife Refuge too.
  The impacts here are potentially devastating. We are talking about 
water 1.5 feet higher than what Delaware experienced during Superstorm 
Sandy--not for a brief storm surge but each and every day. Again, take 
a look at today the conservative, the middle, and the most likely, most 
aggressive scenario in which virtually all of South Wilmington is 
underwater by the end of this century. The calculation of whether we 
are hit with a half a meter, a full meter, or 1.5 meters of sea rise 
comes down to the rate of acceleration of climate change globally, and 
it leaves for us a central and so far unanswered question: whether we 
try to slow the rate at which climate change is affecting our planet 
and maybe somehow turn the tide. This is the part of climate change 
policy called mitigation.
  Priority one in this strategy is cutting the emissions we are pumping 
into our atmosphere. To do that, we can and must diversify our energy 
sources and reduce our dependence on polluting fossil fuels. Clean 
energy technology, energy efficiency programs, public transportation, 
and more will help cut down on these emissions, but it will require a 
global effort in order to avoid or minimize local impacts.
  The second part of climate change policy is adaptation based on an 
acceptance of the reality that our climate is changing and will have 
real effects on our planet and all of our communities. The truth is 
that even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions today--if we shut 
down powerplants, stopped driving cars, stopped using gas-powered farm 
equipment, trains, and ships, and all the rest--the amount of 
greenhouse gases, of CO2 and others already in the 
atmosphere would still take many years to dissipate. Changes in the 
world's climate are at this point inevitable. It is already happening 
and affecting communities, and we can expect these impacts to intensify 
as the rate of climate change continues to accelerate. We can modify 
our behavior to prevent those effects from being catastrophic. We can 
and should make better choices now to prevent disaster later.
  In Delaware, for example, we have had two laws on the books for now 
40 years that have helped us adapt. The first was championed in the 
1970s by a Republican Governor, Russ Peterson, a hero of mine and of 
our Governor's and others. It is called the Coastal Zone Act, and 
passing it cost him his career in politics. It prohibited future 
industrial development on a long strip of coastal land, allowing the 
State and Federal government to preserve it and reduce the impacts of 
flooding and coastal erosion. Ultimately, in the long run, Governor 
Peterson has been proven a visionary in preserving this vital barrier 
all along Delaware's coast.
  The second law empowered the State to protect and replenish the 
State's beaches, including the beaches on Delaware Bay, which are often 
overlooked. This has allowed our State to build a berm and dune system 
that protects infrastructure and protects property from being washed 
away.
  More important than these significant landmark laws of 40 years ago, 
today, instead of running away from the science, Delaware's leaders 
have embraced it. The State agency that manages environmental issues 
for Delaware--known as DNREC and ably led by secretary Collin O'Mara--
has taken the lead on a governmentwide project to assess the State's 
vulnerability to sea level rise and, as I mentioned, recommend options 
for adaptation.
  Delaware's Sea Level Rise Committee spent 18 months looking at 79 
different statewide resources--roads, bridges, schools, fire stations, 
railroads, wetlands, people and their homes and businesses--and layered 
all of this onto maps to show just how far the water would reach at 
different models for sea level rise.
  If the sea level does get to 1.5 meters, we lose more than 10 percent 
of our State. The water claims 20,000 residential properties, 
significant percentages of wetlands, farms, highways, and industrial 
sites. We would lose 21 miles of our Northeast corridor rail lines to 
flooding, shutting down the vital Northeast corridor that transports so 
many millions every year.

[[Page S1413]]

  The Port of Wilmington would be rendered useless, nearly all the 
State's acreage of protected wetlands could be inundated, nearly three-
quarters of our dams, dikes, and levees flooded out. In short, this 
scenario for our lowest-lying State would be devastating.
  As Secretary O'Mara said:

       We're looking at big risks for human health and safety, and 
     not just at the Delaware Bay beaches. We have big concerns 
     about [communities in Delaware]. It's much more complex than 
     just the bay beaches or a community here or there.

  He is right. So once again, remember, we have two basic approaches to 
climate change policy: adaptation and mitigation.
  Once Delaware compiled its 200-page vulnerability assessment on sea 
level rise, the committee got to work on an adaptation strategy to 
protect our State and came up with slightly more than 60 options and 
hosted a whole series of public meetings and townhalls to discuss it. 
We are now working on a broader vulnerability assessment to examine the 
full range of impacts from climate change, even beyond sea level rise--
changing temperatures, extreme weather, changes in precipitation--
impacts which will affect us and our neighbors.
  Climate change will affect the distribution, abundance, and behavior 
of wildlife, as well as the diversity, structure, and function of our 
ecosystem. We are already seeing changes in natural patterns. As 
Senator Markey of Massachusetts commented earlier this evening, many 
commercial and recreational fish stocks along our east coast have moved 
northward by 20 to 200 miles over the past 40 years as ocean 
temperatures have increased. Scientists expect migratory species to be 
strongly affected by climate change, since animal migration is closely 
connected to climate factors, and migratory species use multiple 
habitats and resources during their migrations. These changes are 
impacting our own multimillion bird watching and waterfowl hunting, an 
important economic driver for us and critical parts of our heritage.
  According to the draft National Climate Assessment released in 2013, 
our farmers are expected to initially adapt relatively well to the 
changing climate over the next 25 years. But later, as temperature 
increases and precipitation extremes get more intense, crop yields and 
production of poultry and livestock are expected to decline. More 
extreme weather events--drought and heavy downpours--will further 
reduce yields, damage soil, stress irrigation water supplies, and 
increase production costs. All in all, this is a fairly grim long-term 
outlook in the absence of decisive action.
  I am proud of my State. Delaware was the first State to thoroughly 
assess the vulnerability of specific resources in as comprehensive a 
way as they have, and we are determined to confront these changes to 
our planet head on and to protect our communities and the way of life 
we have built.
  I will briefly review. There is so much we can and should do here in 
Congress in a bipartisan way to lay the groundwork for the actions we 
have to take. We can improve our energy efficiency. We could take up 
and pass the bipartisan bill recently reintroduced by Senators Shaheen 
and Portman to increase the use of energy-efficient technology across 
all sectors in our society. The new version of the bill has 12 
cosponsors--six Democrats and six Republicans--and includes 10 new 
commonsense amendments which would save consumers electricity and 
money, a small but meaningful start on a journey toward changing our 
direction on climate change. Or we could level the playing field and 
help new clean energy technologies get off the ground by giving them 
the same tax advantages currently utilized by fossil fuel projects. The 
bipartisan Master Limited Partnerships Parity Act--which I am proud to 
cosponsor with my colleagues Senators Moran, Stabenow, Murkowski, 
Landrieu, and Collins, Democrats and Republicans working together--
would level the playing field for renewables and give them and other 
new technologies a fighting chance in our energy market.
  There are so many other steps we could do in combination, if we would 
but get past this endless, pointless debate which has long been 
resolved in the halls of science, and move forward in a way which 
better serves our country and our world.
  The bottom line is that our climate is changing. We know this. With 
this knowledge comes the responsibility to reduce our emissions, to 
mitigate the impacts, and prepare for and take action to deal with the 
coming changes.
  As I reflect on our own responsibilities as Senators, I am in part 
moved to respond to the challenge of climate change--not just because 
it is an environmental issue, an economic issue, a regional issue or 
global issue, but it is also for me and for many others a faith issue. 
It is a question of how we carry out our responsibility to be good 
stewards of God's creation, to be those Senators we are called to be 
each from our own traditions who stand up and do what is right, not 
just for the short term, not just for the concerns of the day, but for 
the long term.
  As I move toward my close, I will share with those in the Chamber and 
watching one of the things most encouraging to me as I have reflected 
on the change in the climate change movement over recent years is it 
has begun to draw support from all across the theological spectrum. 
There was last year, July of 2013, a letter sent to Speaker Boehner, 
Majority Leader Reid, and all Members of Congress by 200 self-
identified Christian evangelical scientists from both religious and 
secular universities all across the United States, a powerful and 
incisive letter which says:

       As evangelical scientists and academics, we understand 
     climate change is real and action is urgently needed. All of 
     God's Creation--human and our environment--is groaning under 
     the weight of our uncontrolled use of fossil fuels, bringing 
     on a warming planet, melting ice, and rising seas.

  I urge any watching to consider reading it. It is posted on line. It 
goes on to quote Christian Scripture at length in making the case we 
have an obligation, if we are concerned about our neighbors and about 
the least of these in this world, to take on the challenge of making 
sure we are good stewards.
  Those of the Roman Catholic faith might be inspired by Pope Francis, 
who has taken the name of the patron saint of animals and the 
environment, and recently issued a call for all people to be protectors 
of creation.
  Last, I might read from a letter issued by the president of the 
National Association of Evangelicals, a group not commonly known for 
their close alignment with my party. Leith Anderson wrote in a letter 
in 2011:

       While others debate the science and politics of climate 
     change, my thoughts go to the poor people who are neither 
     scientists nor politicians. They will never study carbon 
     dioxide in the air or acidification of the ocean. But they 
     will suffer from dry wells in the Sahel of Africa and floods 
     along the coasts of Bangladesh. Their crops will fail while 
     our supermarkets remain full. They will suffer while we 
     study.

  This couldn't be more true. I urge all of us in this Chamber to 
reflect on whatever traditions sustain and bring us here that we have 
an obligation to those who sleep soundly in our homes now, to those 
from our home States around the country, to stand up and take action, 
to look clearly at the challenge which lies in front of us and to act 
in the best traditions of this body and of this Nation, to be good 
stewards of creation and to stand up to the challenges of this time.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I thank all of my friends who are 
speaking on the floor tonight for their continued commitment to not 
just bring attention to climate change, but to push for decisive action 
on the issue.
  As experts from around the world show us beyond a reasonable doubt 
that we, as a global community, are contributing to rising 
temperatures, there are those that would deny that human actions can 
have any effect on our climate and environment. Too often, lawmakers 
try to legislate their own ``science'' rather than properly utilizing 
the conclusions and recommendations made by skilled experts--yet nature 
does not conform to our laws. That is why the United States must be an 
innovator in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, and a leading light 
in the clean energy sector.
  My own home State of New Jersey has shown strong leadership in moving 
our country towards a sustainable energy future. We have developed and 
implemented an aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standard that requires 
over

[[Page S1414]]

20 percent of New Jersey's electricity to come from renewable sources 
by 2021. We have put in place strong incentives for energy customers of 
all sizes, from single families to the many businesses that call New 
Jersey home, to become energy efficient and even clean energy 
producers, by installing solar panels on their homes and buildings. New 
Jersey is also beginning to realize some of its extraordinary potential 
to harness wind power off our coast, with multiple offshore wind 
projects currently in development. I am encouraged by some of the 
progress that I have seen in the renewable energy sector in New Jersey 
and other leading States, and hope that others will follow suit.
  New Jersey's many exemplary institutions of higher learning have also 
been at the forefront of the vital research that has helped us to 
understand the causes and consequences of global climate change. 
Important work is being done at the Institute of Marine and Coastal 
Sciences at Rutgers University into how climatic changes in the Arctic 
impact weather in the U.S., and Princeton University's Cooperative 
Institute for Climate Science is at the forefront of climate change 
mitigation options and response strategies.
  Some of my Senate colleagues from fossil fuel producing States have 
been hesitant to act, they say, because oil and coal production are 
home State issues for them. Well, for me, climate change is a home 
State issue. Not just because of the excellent work being done in New 
Jersey, but because my State has seen firsthand the devastating effects 
of a warmer climate that brings with it powerful storms, rising seas, 
and destructive flooding.
  Not 18 months ago, New Jersey and much of the eastern seaboard was 
battered by an unprecedented superstorm that washed away much of the 
New Jersey coastline. Superstorm Sandy caused an estimated $65 billion 
in economic losses. 159 people lost their lives, 650,000 homes were 
damaged or destroyed, and 8.5 million households and businesses lost 
power, many of them for weeks. Power outages caused severe gas 
shortages, with traffic backed up for miles, and people waiting for 
hours to obtain fuel to feed the generators that were keeping their 
families warm and their food from spoiling.
  Now, New Jersey has persevered. We worked together and helped each 
other rebuild lives, businesses, homes, and our famous beaches and 
boardwalks. Efforts have been undertaken to make our coastal 
communities and critical infrastructure more resilient to future storms 
of this magnitude. But unless we act to implement responsible energy 
policies that cut our greenhouse gas emissions and incentivize 
investment in renewable energy infrastructure, these damaging 
superstorms will only become more powerful and frequent. Those who deny 
the reality of climate change tend to emphasize the economic costs of 
regulating carbon emissions, but these costs pale next to the economic 
and social costs of doing nothing.
  I am proud to join my colleagues tonight, and for the duration of my 
time serving the people of New Jersey in the Senate, to call for real 
solutions to our climate challenges. The decisions that we make in this 
body now will shape the future for our children and grandchildren. 
Years from now, I hope to humbly reflect on my time in the Senate, and 
be able to say I was a part of the Congress that finally reigned in big 
oil and coal, and put the United States on a path towards 
sustainability and environmental responsibility. Future generations of 
Americans deserve no less, and our planet demands it.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, nearly 30 years ago, I joined a good 
friend, the late Hub Vogelmann, along with a Republican Congressman, a 
Democratic Governor, and President Reagan's EPA Administrator, on a 
hike to the summit of Vermont's iconic peak, Camel's Hump. We had a 
goal in mind. We wanted to observe first-hand the effects of acid raid. 
When we arrived at the summit, we saw the evidence we feared. You did 
not have to be a scientist to see it: a scar burned across the peak of 
Camel's Hump and across all of the peaks of the Green Mountains and the 
Adirondacks. Due to human action, weather patterns had changed, 
altering the very chemistry of rainfall on a grand scale. As a result, 
we caused profound and large-scale damage to life sustaining 
ecosystems.
  There were Democrats and Republicans, scientists and bureaucrats on 
that mountain. We returned to Washington, united and eager to address 
the problem. It was not easy. We had to overcome strong objections from 
industry and develop an entirely new cap-and-trade regulatory 
framework. In the end, a Democratic majority in Congress passed, and 
Republican President George H.W. Bush signed into law, the Clean Air 
Act amendments.
  Once again, we are confronted with irrefutable evidence that humans 
have altered not just the weather of a region, but the climate of the 
entire planet. This time, we do not need to climb mountains to see the 
damage. We see it in New England's flood ravaged river valleys, 
California's scorched farmland, Alaska's retreating glaciers, Wyoming's 
burnt forests, and super-storm ravaged coastlines.
  Before we even get to the accumulated--and accumulating--scientific 
evidence for climate change and the carbonization of our fragile 
envelope of atmosphere, we only need to apply common sense. As we look 
around us, anywhere, everywhere, and at any time, doesn't it just stand 
to reason that human activity is contributing to documented changes in 
our atmosphere, and to climate change? I certainly have seen it in my 
lifetime. But I have also seen people try to deny all reason and the 
evidence all around us.
  The scientists have done their work. We now better understand the 
human causes of climate change and we understand its profound and 
accelerating impact. Unfortunately, too many policy makers deny the 
evidence, or refuse to cross political lines to solve the problem. I 
say it is time we wake up and act on climate change.
  We have taken some steps in the right direction. This past summer, 
President Obama announced his Climate Action Plan to cut carbon 
pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency has begun creating new 
carbon emission standards for future power plants. The Department of 
Energy is working on ground-breaking energy technologies, and the 
Department of Transportation is studying transportation planning to 
address future risks and vulnerabilities from extreme weather and 
climate change. The Transportation Department is also addressing 
vehicle fuel efficiency which is saving vehicle owners and operators 
billions of dollars a year. These are all positive changes, but before 
we rest on our laurels, we have to understand that there are not nearly 
enough to address the problem at hand. Congress needs to cast aside 
partisan blinders by enacting legislation that prioritizes renewable 
energy development, supports energy efficient technologies, and taxes 
carbon pollution.
  It is time to take a stand against misguided policies and projects 
that put future generations at risk, and in my State, we believe that 
includes the Keystone XL pipeline. The State Department recently 
released its long-awaited environmental impact statement on the 
Keystone XL pipeline. I am deeply troubled that the State Department's 
analysis did not take into account the overwhelming evidence that this 
project will further accelerate the release of greenhouse gas 
pollution, which will intensify climate change. There is a mountain of 
evidence that the carbon pollution, drinking water threats, public 
health threats, and safety threats from this pipeline are so great that 
it is not in our national interest, and its permit should be denied. I 
realize this goes against some public opinion polls, but I believe we 
must stamp out our addiction to fossil fuels and fight back against 
these threats to our land, water, air, and healthy communities around 
the world.
  We have to understand that climate change is not simply an 
environmental challenge. Creating a green energy sector is not just 
about cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It is about providing jobs for 
Americans in the renewable energy and energy efficiency fields. It is 
about strengthening national security in America by having greater 
control over our energy sources and breaking the stranglehold of oil on 
the transportation system. What should unite all of us, Republicans and 
Democrats alike, is assuring that our children and grandchildren have 
clean air to breathe.
  We have come together before. We did it back in the time of President

[[Page S1415]]

George H.W. Bush. We joined hands across the aisle and across regions 
of this great country to solve problems. Why can't we do it again? 
Isn't that the least we owe to our planet? Isn't that the least we owe 
to our children and grandchildren?
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________