[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 22 (Tuesday, February 10, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S896-S898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CLIMATE CHANGE
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I might point out that not only are
Delaware and Rhode Island both small and mighty, but they are small,
mighty, and coastal, which is relative to the topic of my remarks this
afternoon. I am now here for the 89th consecutive week that Congress
has been in session to urge the Senate to wake up to the risks of
climate change and to address the carbon pollution that is causing
climate change.
We have a particular context for this conversation this week. The
Founding Fathers in article I, section 8 of the Constitution granted to
Congress a sacred duty, as the Constitution says, to
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``provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United
States.''
To that end, we have built the world's greatest military and the most
sophisticated intelligence and national security services. After the
attacks of September 11, 2001, we undertook the largest reorganization
of the Federal Government in half a century to stand up the Department
of Homeland Security. We trust these national security agencies and the
dedicated professionals who lead them and serve in them to ascertain
and prepare for the risks facing our country in an uncertain world. But
the tea party wing of the Republican caucus has chosen to hold up
appropriations for vital Homeland Security programs--programs that
protect Americans from terrorism, programs that help our States prepare
for disasters--all to have a quarrel with the President on immigration.
Well, when we get to immigration--if our friends on the House side
ever get to immigration--we could certainly debate the merits of the
President's action. Certainly, we should pass legislation to fix our
broken immigration system so the President's Executive actions are no
longer necessary. And, by the way, in the Senate we did our job and
passed a strong bipartisan bill. But to deny the Department of Homeland
Security the resources it needs to safeguard the Nation is foolhardy.
Now, it is precisely because of that duty to safeguard the Nation
that we should take our homeland security and military professionals
seriously when they take seriously the threats posed by climate change.
I think we should have a vote on a resolution highlighting the fact
findings of our national security, military, and intelligence services
about the climate threat. This resolution would express the sense of
the Senate that the conclusions of our security professionals are not
products of some hoax or deception perpetrated on the American public
and that they deserve our respect.
That ought to be something every Senator can get behind. Let's look
at some of the information. Just last week the administration's 2015
National Security Strategy classified climate change as ``an urgent and
growing threat to our national security.'' It is because this is
serious that the United States is out there actively cutting pollution
and strengthening resilience at home and leading the international
community towards stronger carbon pollution standards.
The challenge that climate change poses to national security and to
emergency preparedness is clearly laid out in the Department of
Homeland Security's 2014 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. It
describes the effects of climate change as threat multipliers, with the
potential to aggravate hazards to American safety and health. For
example, higher temperatures may change patterns of disease and the
spread of pests and pathogens.
Competition for resources can contribute to the kind of social
destabilization that engenders terrorist activity all around the world.
You don't have to look far to see that today. Extreme weather and
temperatures endanger the infrastructure that underpins our economy and
way of life--from roads and bridges that now run too close to rising
seas, to power and water treatment plants, to telecommunications and
cyber networks.
As Assistant Secretary David Heyman of the DHS Office of Policy and
Assistant Secretary Caitlin Durkovich of the Office of Infrastructure
Protection explained to our own Senate Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs just last year:
The projected impacts of climate change, including sea
level rise and increasing severity and frequency of extreme
weather events, can cause damage or disruptions that result
in cascading effects across our communities, with
immeasurable costs in lives lost and billions of dollars in
property damage.
Why would we not want to take that seriously?
We heard just the same message in the Budget Committee just last week
from OMB Director Shaun Donovan.
Already, the annual number of costly weather-related disasters is
going up. According to NOAA, in the 1980s--in that decade--if you look
at the number of natural disasters costing $1 billion or more, in each
year of the 1980s there were between zero and five. That was the range
for the 1980s--between zero and five $1 billion weather events. In the
1990s that rate rose to between three and nine events each year. Then
in 2000 it went up to between 2 and 11 events per year. Since 2010, in
the category of $1 billion disasters each year, the range has been
between 6 and 16.
So from the 1980s, it was 0 to 5, until this decade when it is 6 to
16. If people can't take that seriously, they are simply not meeting
their responsibilities.
Superstorm Sandy caused tens of billions of dollars in damage,
including terrible losses in my home State of Rhode Island. Across New
England, Sandy destroyed thousands of homes, left millions without
electric service, and caused more than 100 deaths across nine States.
Of course, we cannot say this one devastating storm was specifically
caused by climate change, but we do know that carbon pollution loads
the dice for more and more severe extreme weather such as Sandy.
Sandy sure showed how vulnerable we are to this kind of catastrophic
change. Climate change presents security challenges in every corner of
the homeland. To the south, DHS predicts that more severe droughts and
storms could increase both legal and illegal movements across the U.S.
border--from Mexico, from Central America, and from the Caribbean.
My Republican colleagues insist that protecting our border is a top
priority--fine. I hope that means they will take seriously the warnings
from our national security professionals about the destabilizing
effects of climate change and its effects, in turn, on our border.
If you move up north to the State of Maine, our former colleague,
Olympia Snowe, has just written an article in Newsweek magazine. I will
read the opening:
In late 2014, fishery regulators announced that for the second
consecutive year there would be no shrimp fishery in the gulf of Maine
this winter. The culprit: principally warming ocean waters caused by
climate change.
She goes on to describe another phenomenon that scientists dubbed an
ocean heat wave in the spring of 2012 that led to an early molt and
migration of lobsters that caused a supply glut and subsequent price
collapse. Now if you know anything about Maine, you know lobsters are
pretty important to Maine. Senator Snowe's conclusion: ``The message
here is clear: climate change is taking dollars and jobs away from
fishing communities.''
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that her article be printed at
the conclusion of my remarks.
To the far north, melting sea ice opens the Arctic for shipping,
tourism, and resource extraction, but also for smuggling and illicit
resource extraction and environmental disasters. It is a whole new
frontier to be patrolled and protected by our Coast Guard, part of the
Department of Homeland Security, at taxpayer expense.
Former Coast Guard Commandant ADM Robert Papp, Jr., is now the U.S.
Special Representative to the Arctic Region. He has got the job to help
manage risk in this remote but increasingly accessible region in the
world, and he had this to say about managing the consequences of
climate change. Admiral Papp said:
I am not a scientist. I can read what scientists say, but I
am in the world of consequence management. My first turn in
Alaska was 39 years ago, and during the summertime we had to
break ice to get up to the Bering Strait and to get to
Kotzebue. Thirty-five years later, going up there as
commandant, we flew into Kotzebue at the same time of year. I
could not see ice anywhere. So it is clear to me that there
are changes happening, but I have to deal with the
consequences of that.
The men and women of our homeland and national security forces deal
in real-world consequences. They don't have the luxury of skirting the
evidence or shrugging off serious adult risk analysis.
It is just as true at the Department of Defense as it is at the
Department of Homeland Security. As ADM Samuel J. Locklear, III, the
Navy Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, puts it, it is ``. . . not
my venue to debate the politics of any issue. All I do is report what I
see and what I think I see, and the implications.''
Admiral Locklear, our chief naval officer in the Pacific Command, has
called climate change the biggest long-term security threat in the
Pacific, because as he sees it, ``it is probably the
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most likely thing that is going to happen that will cripple the
security environment.''
Our colleagues may think it is funny to ignore climate change in this
body while they depend so heavily on funding from the fossil fuel that
is behind the pollution. They should listen to admirals who are
responsible for our security when they tell us it is probably the most
likely thing that is going to happen to cripple the security
environment.
Last May, the CNA Corporation released a report on the risks climate
change poses to our national security. This report was led by 15
generals and admirals from all 4 branches of the United States
military. Here is what they said:
The national security risks of projected climate change are
as serious as any challenges we have faced.
That is what they wrote. They continued:
We are dismayed that discussions of climate change have
become so polarizing and have receded from the arena of
informed public disclosure and debate. . . . Time and tide
wait for no man.
Our military intelligence and homeland security services have been
warning Congress for far too long about the risks of climate change. It
is a dereliction of duty for this body to continue to ignore this
problem. It is time to heed the warning. It is time to responsibly
prepare for the clear risk before us, and it is time to wake up.
I yield the floor. I see the majority leader is present on the floor.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From Newsweek, Feb. 9, 2015]
Lack of Action on Climate Change Is Costing Fishing Jobs
(By Senator Olympia Snowe)
In late 2014, fishery regulators announced that for the
second consecutive year, there would be no shrimp fishery in
the Gulf of Maine this winter. The culprit? Principally,
warming ocean waters caused by global climate change.
Maine in particular is feeling this climate pinch: The
water temperature in the Gulf of Maine increased eight times
faster than the rest of the world's oceans in recent years,
according to a 2014 study by Andrew Pershing, chief
scientific officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.
As a result, while the shrimp fishery is the first to close
in New England primarily as a result of our changing climate,
it is unlikely to be the last. Some of the Gulf of Maine's
depleted stocks of groundfish, particularly Gulf of Maine
cod, have been slow to rebuild from overfishing in the 1980s
and 1990s in part as a result of warming water. Lobster has
been disappearing from its traditional habitat in southern
New England.
Meanwhile, the iconic lobster industry in Maine has
experienced record landings in recent years, but more and
more of the catch is coming from areas further down the coast
toward Canada. And a phenomenon that scientists dubbed an
``ocean heat wave'' in the spring of 2012 led to an early
molt and migration of lobsters that caused a supply glut and
subsequent price collapse.
The message here is clear: climate change is taking dollars
and jobs away from New England's fishing communities.
Scientists, fishery managers and industry members recognize
the necessity of better understanding this phenomenon, and
numerous research projects are already underway. For example,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and
Rutgers University have partnered to analyze data from
oceanographic and fisheries-dependent studies. Their project,
OceanAdapt, has confirmed that fish species off the northeast
United States are collectively moving to higher latitudes and
deeper water in search of the cooler temperatures they
require to survive.
Of course, fishermen are the ones who know their ocean the
best. So in order to get their perspective on what they are
experiencing on the water, the Center for American Progress
(CAP) commissioned a poll of participants in the
groundfishery as well as the lobster fisheries in Maine and
Massachusetts.
The CAP poll shows that majorities of all these fishermen
and women believe climate change poses a significant risk to
their industry, as warming waters lead to lower profits and
lower catch limits. Respondents are deeply concerned these
impacts could force them from the fishery or result in the
disappearance of traditional markets for their product.
This perspective is consistent with the findings of the
``Risky Business'' report released last June by a bipartisan
committee co-chaired by Michael Bloomberg, Hank Paulson and
Tom Steyer. I was involved as a member of this project's
``Risk Committee,'' which found that the American economy
faces significant and diverse economic threats from the
effects of climate change--rising seas, increased damage from
storm surge, and more frequent bouts of extreme heat--all of
which will have measurable impacts on our nation.
Each geographic region analyzed by the project faces
distinct and significant economic risks. Here in the
northeast, projections are already showing that temperature
increases in Gulf of Maine waters will restrict habitat for
commercially vital species such as cod and lobster. In
addition, sea levels are likely to rise by two to four feet
in Boston by the end of the century threatening to swamp
coastal infrastructure, including the wharves and fish houses
critical to sustaining our fishing industry.
These numbers fail to reflect the potential for dramatic
``storm surge'' events, in which higher sea levels combine
with more intense weather activity to increase flooding and
storm damage. The Risky Business research finds that these
kinds of impacts, combined, could increase annual property
losses along the northeast coast from $11 billion to $22
billion--a two- to four-fold increase from current levels.
As vigorous policy debates continue in Washington, the
economic impact of addressing climate change and
transitioning to a lower carbon economy is understandably a
key issue--and one that is not the domain of one side versus
the other. Here in New England's fishing communities, there
is serious and legitimate concern for the fishing jobs that
will be lost if we don't act to rein in the emissions warming
and acidifying our waters and causing sea levels to rise.
The loss of Maine's $5 million shrimp fishery should serve
as a warning. A similar blow to our $300 million lobster
fishery must be avoided at all costs. That will require
honest, fact-based discussion and a genuine bipartisan
commitment to solutions.
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