[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 131 (Monday, September 15, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5576-S5578]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CLIMATE CHANGE
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise today for the 78th time in my
``Time to Wake Up'' series to urge my Republican colleagues that it is
long past time to wake up to the growing threat of global climate
change.
For those who still deny the science--and believe it or not, that is
where some of our colleagues still are--I remind them that virtually
every credible scientific authority--and, no, the ones funded by the
big carbon polluters don't count--virtually every credible scientific
authority has moved beyond the question of whether our climate is
changing or whether human carbon pollution drives these changes to now
how it is happening and where it is happening.
Climate change is no longer a forecast; it is happening before our
eyes, all around us. The latest reports from the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change--made up of the world's top climate
scientists--call the fact that our Earth is warming ``unequivocal.''
Just last week the Secretary General of the World Meteorological
Organization said: ``We know without any doubt that our climate is
changing and our weather is becoming more extreme due to human
activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.'' I repeat--he said
``without any doubt.''
It is actually evident to our own eyes now from observations and
measurements--not projections or predictions--of increases in global
warming air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice,
and a rising global average sea level--a phenomenon that means a lot to
my coastal State of Rhode Island and to the Presiding Officer's State
of Maine. Back home our constituents, our neighbors, get it. On our
coasts they brace against the unrelenting rise of the seas and watch
mystifying changes in fisheries they have been familiar with for
generations. On the Plains they toil to raise crops under unprecedented
drought. In the mountains they watch as ancient acres of forest are
killed by the spread of invasive pests. Yet here in Washington we do
nothing.
In Rhode Island the waters of Narragansett Bay are getting warmer--3
to 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer in the winter just since the 1960s.
Long-term data from the tide gauges in Newport, RI, just off Naval
Station Newport, show an increase in average sea level of nearly 10
inches since 1930 and accelerating. Sea level rise is contributing to
erosion and brings storm surges and waves farther inland.
While Washington fiddles, Rhode Islanders act. Early this month more
than 200 Rhode Islanders came together in Providence for my annual
Rhode Island Energy and Environmental Leaders Day. The event brings
together Rhode Islanders in renewable energy and sustainable
development businesses, in community development nonprofits; it brings
together State and local officials, advocates, and academics to share
ideas with each other and with national leaders and Federal agencies on
promoting green energy, improving resiliency, and combating climate
change.
The innovation taking place in my Ocean State was on full display
this year. Rhode Islanders are leading the effort to improve our
environment and develop clean technology and energy and prepare for the
changes carbon pollution has looming over us. Sheila Dormody, the
director of sustainability of Providence was there to discuss the
recently released Sustainable Providence plan for making our comparable
city cleaner and greener. The plan covers everything from reducing food
waste to improving energy efficiency to increasing alternative
transportation options. These actions benefit public health and the
environment, and they create economic opportunity. These aren't job
killers. These are job builders. You cannot send efficiency upgrades or
solar panel installation jobs overseas. Those are Rhode Island jobs,
American jobs.
Grover Fugate, executive director of Rhode Island's Coastal Resources
Management Council, was there to discuss the collaboration they have
with the Rhode Island Realtors Association to create a Rhode Island
coastal property guide. We need a Rhode Island coastal
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property guide because climate change loads the dice for more frequent
and more severe storms and hurricanes that put businesses and
homeowners along the shore at risk from flooding, erosion, and wind
damage.
Superstorm Sandy was a harsh warning. This property guide helps
residents and business owners understand the risks and the costs they
now face both today and in the future because of the carbon pollution
we are doing nothing about. Extreme precipitation, rain bursts, heavy
rains or snows have increased 74 percent in the Northeast between 1958
and 2010.
Rhode Islanders have always cared a lot about our Narragansett Bay.
We love our bay. We want to protect it. These heavy rains, these sudden
rains, these rain bursts, what they do is they drive polluted and
nutrient-rich runoff that might otherwise be filtered or captured
straight into the bay where it can close beaches and harm the bay's
marine life.
Climate change and the carbon pollution mean we will have to work
harder in Rhode Island and invest more dollars in a storm water and
wastewater infrastructure, and it is not cheap. Our Rhode Island
Narragansett Bay Commission, our wastewater utility, is overhauling its
sewer and storm water collection to address that overflow during big
storms. When big storms hit now, the underground storage tunnel that
was completed in 2008 stores up the sewer and storm water until the
extra water can be processed and until the capacity in the treatment
plant is there to pump it out and process it.
As a result of the first phase of what is called the combined sewer
overflow project, the commission estimates that through 2012, 4.6
billion gallons of mixed storm and wastewater that would have been
dumped directly into Narragansett Bay untreated were instead processed
at the Field's Point Wastewater Treatment Facility at one of our small
towns. The town of Tiverton, RI, received funding through the USDA to
help pay for upgrades to the town's water system, connecting thousands
of residents on inefficient old septic tank systems to a town sewer.
Leroy Kendricks, the chair of the Tiverton Wastewater District, told
our group that these improvements will protect the Sakonnet River and
Mount Hope Bay from mounting levels of pollution.
Julia Gold is the climate change program manager at the Rhode Island
Department of Health. Julia explained how the department of health has
teamed up with the division of elderly affairs to focus on the effects
of climate change on the elderly, collaborating with the departments of
environmental management and transportation to pilot a Lyme disease
prevention training program for outdoor workers--those ticks spread
more widely in warmer weather--and partnered with the Brown School of
Public Health to examine correlations between rising temperatures and
rising hospital admissions.
You may have seen a segment in the documentary series ``Years Of
Living Dangerously'' on the deaths in Los Angeles from heat-related
conditions worsened by climate change. This work with Brown University
is similar and showing similar results.
These were just a few of the many stories told in Rhode Island at the
Energy and Environmental Leaders Day. Not only do Rhode Islanders
connect with one another there, but we also have the chance to share
our important work with national leaders and hear their perspective on
regional and national leaders, as well as get their perspective on
regional and national trends.
The first of three keynote addresses came from renowned marine
scientist and National Geographic Explorer-in-residence Sylvia Earle.
Sylvia is truly a remarkable woman and a legend in oceanography
circles. Her passion for our living oceans is just about as deep as
those oceans. She reminded us that the oceans are the cornerstone of
our human life support system, that indeed the oceans are the life
support system for all creatures on our planet, not just the aquatic
ones, and that our oceans bear witness to the unprecedented changes
carbon pollution is causing. Her bad news was that these threats are
grave. Her good news was that never before have we, as humans, been as
well equipped with knowledge about our earth and our climate. The
oceans indeed are sick but we have the power simply by changing our
behavior to help them heal.
In a happy coincidence Sylvia's new documentary called ``Mission
Blue,'' which lays out the perilous condition of earth's oceans, was
playing the night before at the Newport Film Festival. Sylvia went
there and said:
Think of a film about oceans 50 years from now. It will be
based on what we do now.
Our possibilities are terrific. Here is another thing that she said.
I will quote her.
The good news sounds like bad news but the good news is
that we know that it is happening. We are the only creatures
on earth with the capacity to dive back into time, put
ourselves into perspective and plan a future based on
evidence, based on knowledge.
So what are we doing now? While Congress snoozes in the snug embrace
of the big polluted interests, President Obama has stepped into the
vacuum. His chief lieutenant in this effort is EPA Administrator Gina
McCarthy. She delivered our second keynote.
Climate change, she told our assembled group, is perhaps the most
difficult, complex, and necessary issue for us to face. She reminded us
that EPA is at its heart a public health agency. So when it comes to
the carbon pollution that increases smog and asthma or increases the
storms and floods that batter our communities, she says this: ``EPA's
job is to protect those that are most vulnerable from this pollution,
so it is our job to take action on climate. Period. Full stop.''
Administrator McCarthy led an extraordinary effort to put out the
EPA's proposed rule, for the first time limiting carbon pollution from
our country's largest source--our powerplants. The rule is
revolutionary in many ways, particularly in its adaptability, allowing
States and regions to reach their own goals their own way. It is the
product of an intensely collaborative process and an enormous amount of
give and take. The rollout has been viewed by those outside fossil fuel
board rooms as a real achievement.
I commend Administrator McCarthy on moving that rule forward with so
much energy. I wish her and that rule Godspeed.
The road ahead offers many obstacles as our third and final keynote
speaker reminded us. Jeff Goodell has reported on the energy industry
and the changing climate for Rolling Stone magazine, where he is a
contributing editor. His many books have explored the inner workings of
the fossil fuel industry and the most far-reaching proposals for
avoiding catastrophic global warming, among other topics.
Jeff has firsthand knowledge of the complex apparatus of denial
supported by the big polluters. The fossil fuel producers are
bankrolling entire political campaigns and phony front organizations
peddling scientific misinformation.
As Jeff pointed out, these misinformation efforts even involve not
just the same strategies but the very same scientists who were involved
working for the tobacco industry--the scientists-for-hire who worked
for the tobacco industry in its decades-long venture to hide the
dangers of tobacco from regulators and the public. They are still at
it, but now it is denying climate change, not denying that tobacco is
harmful.
Not only do these polluters stall tactics stand in the way of
responsible action to cure climate change, Jeff reported they also hold
back progress in our energy sector and in our economy, particularly in
States and regions that have long relied on fossil fuel jobs. He called
on us--he called on his home country--to finally take steps to move
these communities into the 21st century economy.
The environmental and energy challenges facing our Nation can seem
daunting. When we join together to share ideas and experiences, as we
do each year in the Rhode Island Energy and Environment Leaders Day, it
is clear that there is a path forward.
Rhode Islanders understand this. They see the challenge, and we are
up to it. We are all up to it as Americans. One thing Rhode Islanders
will be doing is later this month hundreds of us will board buses and
head down to New York City for what will be known as the People's
Climate March. Organizers expect as many as a half million people will
take part in the historic
[[Page S5578]]
citizen action to call attention to the global crisis of climate
change. Marchers from Rhode Island, from California, from all across
our country, from different organizations, from different industries--a
patchwork of America--will be there to demand responsible leadership in
the fight against carbon pollution. I will be among them.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, what is the current business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in a period of morning business.
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