[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 88 (Monday, June 9, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3494-S3496]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Climate Change
Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?
Mr. MARKEY. I will yield to the Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the
conclusion of the remarks of the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator
Whitehouse, and two or three others at his choosing, that I be
recognized as in morning business for such time as I shall consume.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. It is not an objection at this point, but I think it
is our understanding that the Senator from Oklahoma will speak for 20
to 30 minutes but that the time would revert to me at the conclusion of
his remarks after 20 to 30 minutes. If that is an acceptable amendment
to the unanimous consent request, then I will agree to it.
Mr. INHOFE. Let's just amend the Senator's amendment that it be 20 to
35 minutes.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Perfect.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. President.
We are at a very important historical juncture, where the science is
now conclusive that in fact the planet is dangerously warming.
Since we last met on this floor a lot has happened. The global
temperature
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for April 2014 tied with 2010 for the warmest April ever recorded in
the history of the planet. This goes back to 1880.
In May, the third National Climate Assessment presented the
scientific evidence that climate change is already impacting the United
States.
The good news. The good news is that the President last week
promulgated new rules to control greenhouse gases coming out of
powerplants in the United States of America.
Here is the very good news--the Senator from Rhode Island, the
Senator from Vermont, the States across the Northeast--nine States have
already had a regional greenhouse gas initiative over the last 9 years.
In Massachusetts, we are already 40 percent lower now in 2014 than we
were in 2005--40 percent lower. We know a flexible system such as this
can and will work across the country.
It is absolutely necessary for the United States to be the leader. We
cannot preach temperance from a bar stool. The United States cannot
tell the rest of the world they should reduce their greenhouse gases
when we are still continuing on our historic path.
The good news is we are going to create a green energy revolution. We
can save creation while engaging in massive job creation in the United
States.
We can unleash this green energy revolution. We can reduce greenhouse
gases. We can give the leadership to the rest of the world. We need to
have a big debate here on the Senate floor. This is the place where the
United States of America expects us to have this debate and where the
rest of the world is watching.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, the issue we are discussing tonight,
frankly, is perhaps the most important issue facing our entire planet.
The issue has everything to do with whether we are going to leave a
habitable planet for our kids and our grandchildren. I want to thank
the Senate Climate Action Task Force, led by Senator Boxer, Senator
Whitehouse, Senator Heinrich, and others for helping to bring us down
here tonight to discuss this issue.
While it goes without saying that Senator Inhofe and many of us hold
very different points of view regarding global warming, I want to
congratulate him for having the courage to come down here and defend
his point of view. That is what democracy is about. I think he is
wrong, but I am glad he is here.
Virtually the entire scientific community agrees that climate change
is real, that it is already causing devastating problems in the United
States and around the world in terms of floods, droughts, wildfires,
forest fires, and extreme weather disturbances. The scientific
community is also almost virtually unanimous in agreeing that climate
change is caused significantly by human activity.
According to a study published in the journal Environmental Research
Letters in May of last year, more than 97 percent of peer-reviewed
scientific literature on climate supports the view that human activity
is a primary cause of global warming.
What disturbs me very much about this debate is the rejection of
basic science. We can have differences of opinion on health care, on
the funding of education, on whether we should have a jobs program, on
many other issues. But what the U.S. Senate should not be about is
rejecting basic science. It saddens me very much that most of my
colleagues in the Republican Party are doing just that.
We do not hear great debates on the floor of the Senate regarding
research in terms of cancer, in terms of heart disease, in terms of
other scientific issues. But for whatever reason--and I happen to
believe those reasons have a lot to do with the power of the coal
industry, of the oil industry, of the fossil fuel industry--we are
suddenly seeing a great debate on an issue the overwhelming majority of
scientists agree on; that is, climate change is real; it is caused by
human activity.
2012 was the second worst year on record in the United States for
extreme weather. Across the globe, the 10 warmest years on record have
all occurred since 1998. The global annual average temperature has
increased by more than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit between 1880 and 2012.
Last month the White House released the National Climate Assessment,
emphasizing that global warming is already happening, and warning--and
people should hear this--that global warming could exceed 10 degrees
Fahrenheit in the United States by the end of this century--10 degrees
Fahrenheit.
That is extraordinary. If that in fact happens, if we do not summon
up the courage to transform our energy system, the damage done by that
severity of increase in temperature will be huge.
Also last month scientists reported a large section of the West
Antarctica ice sheet is falling apart, and that its continued melting
is now unstoppable.
Bloomberg reported on the 1st of June that Australia hit new heat
records in May. The 24-month period ending in April 2014 was the
hottest on record for any 2-year period, and the 24-month period ending
with May of 2014 is expected to exceed that.
But it is not just Australia; it is my home State of Vermont. The
Associated Press reported last week that the average temperature in
both Vermont and Maine rose by 2.5 degrees over the past 30 years. This
is the second highest of any State in the lower 48, after Maine. Maine
and Vermont are at the top.
Lake Champlain provides one telling illustration of these changes. It
freezes over less often and later in the winter than it used to.
Between 1800 and 1900, Lake Champlain froze over 97 out of 100 winters,
97 percent of the time. That number began dropping after 1900. In the
past 40 years, Lake Champlain has only frozen over 17 times. These
changes impact the ski industry. They weaken our maple industry. They
allow pests to survive the winter unharmed and to become more damaging
to trees and crops as a result.
These impacts are expected to worsen. According to the 2014 National
Climate Assessment, temperatures in the northeast could increase an
additional 10 degrees Fahrenheit by 2080 if emissions continue at their
current rate. By the end of the century, summers in Vermont--our
beautiful summers--could feel like summers in Georgia right now. I love
the State of Georgia. It is a great State. But the State of Vermont
would prefer to have our summers the way they have been, not Georgia's.
The thing is these new proposed carbon pollution standards are
actually quite modest. It is clear to me that if we listen to the
scientific community, what they are telling us is there is a small
window of opportunity, and it would be rather extraordinary--
extraordinary--for us to look our kids and our grandchildren in the eye
and to say: You know what. We rejected the science and we let this
planet become less and less habitable for you and your kids.
We have a moral responsibility not to do that. It seems clear to me
what we should be doing--and I think the scientific community is in
agreement--first, we need to aggressively expand energy efficiency all
over this country in terms of older homes and buildings. We can save an
enormous amount of fuel, cut carbon emissions, lower fuel bills, and
create jobs if we do that.
Furthermore, we must move aggressively to such sustainable energies
as wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and other technologies. We must
invest in research and development to make those technologies even more
efficient. In my view, it is a no-brainer to say we must reject the
proposed Keystone XL Pipeline once and for all. We need to end tax
breaks and subsidies for oil and coal companies, which amount to well
over $10 billion a year. We should not be subsidizing those companies
that are helping to destroy our planet.
Finally, we need to price carbon through a carbon tax or some other
approach so the real cost of burning carbon is reflected in the price.
I am very proud Senator Barbara Boxer, the chairperson of the
environmental committee, and I introduced such legislation last year.
The bottom line is we are in a pivotal moment in history. This
Congress has got to act. It has to act boldly. When we do that, when we
cut greenhouse gas emissions, when we transform our energy system, we
can save many people money on their fuel bills, we can cut pollution in
general, we can cut
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greenhouse gas emissions significantly, and we can create good-paying
jobs all over this country.
The bottom line here is we cannot afford to reject basic science. We
have to listen to what the scientific community is saying. We have got
to act aggressively, and let's do it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, as an engineer one of the things I
learned early in my education was that science does not care if you
believe in it or not; you can deny science as much as you want, but the
data suggests that the scientific method works pretty darn well.
The corollary to that fact is whether you believe in climate change
has no bearing on whether it is actually occurring. Unfortunately, the
data shows a warmer and warmer planet, characterized by weather
fluctuations that are more extreme and oftentimes more destructive. In
my home State of New Mexico, too often we find ourselves dealing with
the impacts of climate change today, not at some theoretical future
date.
For example, we are already seeing the effects of climate change and
how it manifests itself in more extreme drought conditions, larger and
more intense wildfires, shrinking forests, and increased flooding when
it finally does rain. The longer we wait to act, the more difficult and
expensive the solutions will be, and the more unpredictable our weather
will become.
2012, as the Senator from Vermont mentioned, was our Nation's second
most extreme year for weather on record. In my home State of New
Mexico, we experienced the hottest year in our entire historical
record. With humidity levels lower and temperatures higher, we are
dealing with fire behavior in our forests that is markedly more intense
than in the past.
We also see climate change take a toll directly on our economy,
especially in my State. That is an important point, because inaction
has its costs too. The costs already being borne in New Mexico are
substantial. With less snowpack, communities that rely on winter sports
tourism take an economic hit. Fewer people lodge in hotels, shop in
stores, eat in restaurants.
Climate change is also having a devastating impact on New Mexico's
agricultural industry, where farmers and ranchers are often the very
first to see the direct impact of extreme weather. The agricultural
sector is highly vulnerable due in large part to the sustained threat
to the water supply, the soil and vegetation from continuous drought.
Things are only going to get worse if we do nothing. If we take our
moral responsibility as stewards of this Earth seriously, it is
imperative that we face the challenge of reversing the effects of
climate change head on and have a sober discussion about what actions
we will need to take now and in the future. America clearly has the
capacity to become energy independent. But we also need to transition
from our current energy portfolio to one that produces as much or more
power with substantially less carbon pollution per kilowatt hour.
That will require innovation, something that historically our country
has done better than any country in the world. But additionally, we
will need political will, something we have grown short of as climate
denial and pseudoscience have made their way into the halls of
Congress.
If history is our guide, we should know that investing in cleaner
energy will not be without cost, but little of value is ever free. The
question is, are we willing to make the modest investments now
necessary to create the quality jobs of tomorrow and to protect our
Nation from the serious economic and strategic risks associated with
our carbon reliance, our reliance on both foreign and carbon pollution-
intensive energy sources?
Since we are looking at history, let's take a moment and look at the
Clean Air Act of 1990, and compare the rhetoric of debate with the
reality of its implementation. In 1989, the Edison Electric Institute
predicted a significant rise in energy costs due to the Clean Air Act.
Yet the reality, according to a recent study by the Center for American
Progress, actually showed a decrease of 16 percent over those years. In
1990, the U.S. Business Roundtable claimed that passage of the Clean
Air Act would cost a minimum--a minimum--of 200,000 jobs. But a recent
study released by the EPA revealed the reality. The Clean Air Act
resulted in a net creation of jobs and new industries created to reduce
pollution, good-paying jobs in industries such as engineering,
manufacturing, construction, and maintenance.
By 2008 the environmental technology sector supported 1.7 million
jobs in this country.
The time has come to address climate change rather than embracing the
pseudoscience and denial that is embraced by far too many in Washington
today. The Nation has never solved a single problem by denying the
facts. Let me be clear. Inaction is not a solution to this very real
crisis. Denial is not a strategy.
Consequently, if my Republican colleagues have a better way to
address carbon pollution than what the President has proposed, I would
ask them to join the debate. If they have a pollution solution that is
more efficient or more effective, now is the time to have that
discussion.
Through American ingenuity we can slow the impact of climate change
and unleash the full potential of cleaner energy. We can create a
healthier, more stable environment for future generations, but we must
have the will to recognize the facts as they are. We will need to make
the investments that are necessary, and we will have to find the
political will to act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REID. Will the Senator from Rhode Island withhold for just a
moment.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I would gladly withhold.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to my friend from
Rhode Island, who is so courteous to everyone, and I appreciate it.