[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 158 (Tuesday, October 3, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6282-S6283]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, this week on an island nation one-
tenth the size of Rhode Island, more than 60 countries will gather at 
the fourth international Our Ocean Conference. Catalyzed by then-
Secretary of State John Kerry, the United States hosted the premier 
international ocean conference in 2014 and 2016. Secretary Kerry's 
legacy continues with the Malta Conference now going on, hosted by the 
European Union, and that will be followed by scheduled conferences in 
Indonesia in 2018 and Norway in 2019.
  Nations come to these conferences to share ocean conservation 
achievements and to pledge future efforts in sustainable fisheries, 
marine debris prevention, marine protected areas, maritime security, 
and climate change. At last count, conference organizers in Malta are 
anticipating more than 150 separate pledges from governments, NGOs, and 
the private sector. Since Secretary Kerry started it, the Our Ocean 
Conference has produced hundreds of commitments, totaling nearly $10 
billion and protecting nearly 4 million square miles of ocean. Though 
the oceans cover more than 70 percent of our Earth, they are often 
taken for granted. Oceans drive our weather, cool our planet, provide 
food and income for billions of people, and absorb much of our carbon 
dioxide emissions.
  So for my 181st ``Time to Wake Up'' speech, I will return to the 
topic of what we are doing to our oceans. The oceans provide a hard-to-
deny reminder of what is happening, thanks to greenhouse gas emissions, 
climate change denial, and America's legislative paralysis.
  Physics and chemistry don't care about fossil fuel industry 
propaganda. It doesn't affect them at all. Science measures how our 
carbon pollution continues to drive unprecedented change in the Earth's 
oceans.
  The oceans have absorbed about one-third of all the excess carbon 
dioxide emitted by human activity since the Industrial Revolution; that 
is, around 600 gigatons of carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean. The 
effect of absorbing all that carbon dioxide is chemical, making ocean 
water more acidic at the fastest rate in 50 million years. Humankind 
has been on the planet only about 800,000 or so years, so 50 million 
goes way back.
  This acidification is potentially calamitous for the ocean ecosystem. 
Off Washington, Oregon, and Northern California, 50 percent of 
pteropods were measured to have ``severe shell damage,'' mostly from 
acidified sea water. If that species collapses, the bottom falls out of 
the oceanic food chain, with a cascading effect up to us at the top of 
the food chain.
  Ocean acidification is causing real economic concerns on coasts all 
around the country. It is affecting Florida's reefs, for instance. 
Rhode Island's clammers, lobstermen, and aquaculture growers watch with 
real alarm the damage acidified seas are doing on America's northwest 
coast. Oyster hatcheries there experienced significant losses when new 
hatches were unable to grow their shells in the acidified seawater. 
Those hatcheries now need to buffer ocean water to keep the pH at a 
survivable level for baby clams, oysters, and other shellfish. Well, 
you can do that for your aquaculture lab, but you can't do that for the 
ocean. So it bodes well for the future of these shellfish.
  In addition to the CO2 the oceans have absorbed--30 
percent of that--they have also absorbed heat. They have absorbed over 
90 percent of the excess heat that climate change has trapped in our 
atmosphere, thanks to the operation of the greenhouse gases we have 
emitted. The oceans, in doing that, have conferred on us an 
extraordinary blessing because without their absorbing more than 90 
percent of that heat--forget the 2 degrees Centigrade cap that we worry 
about--we would likely be already more than 36 degrees Centigrade 
hotter. That isn't just life changing; that is species-changing 
variation in our planet. When oceans absorb all of this heat, which is 
equivalent to more than a Hiroshima-style nuclear bomb per second going 
off, the principle of thermal expansion kicks in. As oceans warm, they 
expand, and as the world warms from the remaining heat, ice melts. So 
between the two, sea levels rise.
  NOAA, in January, updated global sea level rise estimates based on 
the latest peer-reviewed scientific literature. Ice sheets and glaciers 
are melting faster than previously expected, raising global sea level 
rise estimates in this century--under the ``we do nothing on climate 
change'' scenario--by around 20 more inches on average.
  Apply these findings to the U.S. coast, and the news gets 
particularly harsh for the northeast Atlantic coast, including my home 
State of Rhode Island. Rhode Island's Coastal Resources Management 
Council is now telling us that we need to plan for as much as 9 to 12 
vertical feet of sea level rise by the end of this century. The refusal 
of the Republican majority to do anything serious about climate change 
is going to have a big effect on the very map of my State.
  This is the present Upper Narragansett Bay, including Providence up 
here, our capital city, down to Greenwich Bay down here, and Warwick on 
the west side. Over here, we have Bristol and Warren on the east side 
of the image, and it still looks actually very much like it did when 
early explorers first came to Rhode Island in the 1600s. And it looked 
very much like that for centuries before, when the Narragansetts and 
the Wampanoags lived here. But as climate change raises sea levels, all 
of this is changing rapidly.
  The Coastal Resources Management Council has developed something 
called STORMTOOLS, which is an online simulation to model sea level 
rise and storm surge, so we can see how rising sea levels will affect 
my State.
  This is the same image as that one. I will put one over the other so 
that you can see the match. Everything that is blue is land and is now 
submerged on these 9-to-12-foot sea level estimates. It all has changed 
quite dramatically. Warwick Neck breaks off and becomes Warwick Neck 
Island. Much of the town of Barrington here becomes a new salt lake. 
This is a bedroom community with a lot of wealthy people living in very 
nice homes, and it all goes under water. Down here, Bristol and Warren 
become an island, and off of them, Poppasquash Point becomes two 
islands. This continues all around the State. The map changes, and we 
become a Rhode Island archipelago. Look at Newport, Little Compton, 
Tiverton, Providence, Jamestown, Point Judith. Flooded areas in my 
State represent billions of dollars in losses to Rhode Islanders.
  Of course, around the visibly flooded areas are the less visible 
areas where legal setbacks, flood zones, velocity zones, and other 
building restrictions prevent construction. In those areas that are 
still above water, it is still unbuildable because the property has 
become uninsurable, unmortgageable, or unsellable. That is a pretty 
hard hit to expect my State to take without objection.
  It is not just Rhode Island; all sorts of changes are happening along 
America's coasts. Up in the Gulf of Maine, ocean waters are warming 
faster than nearly any other place on earth. A study published in 
Elementa last month found that summer temperatures in the Gulf of Maine 
last two months longer than in the 1980s. Longer, warmer summers 
benefit some species, but others get hurt, including what little is 
left of the iconic cod.
  Native villages in Alaska and island communities in Louisiana and 
Maryland are facing tough decisions about abandoning traditional 
shorelands and islands and relocating. Around the world, entire nations 
are planning for relocation as the ocean steadily rises over their 
island homes.
  Layered on top of this sea level rise is the worsening risk of storm 
surge

[[Page S6283]]

and flooding from hurricanes and other storms. The Presiding Officer 
does not need to be told about this. His State has experienced it 
firsthand.
  This satellite image is a snapshot of this particularly destructive 
2017 hurricane system. From the left to right, we see Hurricane Katia, 
Hurricane Irma--at category 5 strength--and Hurricane Jose down here.
  As the recovery efforts continue for our citizens in Puerto Rico, 
Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, and we look at hundreds of billions of 
dollars in disaster relief emergency spending, here in Washington we 
might want to think about helping coastal States around the country get 
serious about predicting what is coming, shoring up our coastlines, 
fortifying coastal infrastructure, and preparing for what climate 
change has in store for us.
  Climate change is not the only way we are damaging the oceans. Each 
year, around 8 million metric tons of plastic waste enters our oceans 
from land. By 2050, we could see as much plastic in the oceans as fish 
in the oceans by weight, since plastics do not fully degrade in the 
ocean. They just break down into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic, 
and those travel the globe on ocean currents.
  Plastic is now everywhere; on our beaches, in our oceans, ingested 
and entangling our wildlife. It is even in tapwater, salt, and other 
foods that we humans consume. Plastic waste has been found on remote 
islands, in deep-sea sediments, and in sea ice.
  In an area previously inaccessible to researchers due to that sea 
ice, the Arctic is apparently releasing frozen plastic back into the 
oceans. That is how badly we are polluting our oceans. An international 
research expedition to the North Pole even found chunks of plastic 
littering that remote region.
  Thankfully, there is interest in solving our ocean trash problem in 
the Senate. At last year's Our Ocean Conference, over $1 billion was 
pledged to combat marine debris. Additional commitments are expected 
this year. Our Senate Oceans Caucus work parallels work around the 
world. The Senate Oceans Caucus is a bipartisan group. There are 36 of 
us. We have made marine debris one of our focus areas.
  In August, by unanimous consent, we passed the Save Our Seas Act, a 
bipartisan bill to reauthorize NOAA's marine debris program and expand 
its ability to deal with severe marine debris events, where tsunamis or 
huge storms sweep enormous amounts of plastic garbage into the oceans 
and then ultimately onto our shores.
  The bill asks the President to increase U.S. international efforts to 
reduce marine debris, including improving international waste 
management practices and improving research on plastics that will 
actually biodegrade in the ocean. It also directs the U.S. Trade 
Representative to start considering marine plastic debris--much of 
which comes from just a few countries--when dealing with them in future 
trade agreements.
  We reinforced this piece of the bill recently in the National Defense 
Authorization Act, which we passed just last month.
  The Save Our Seas Act garnered support from environmental NGOs, from 
corporations, from chemical trade groups, but there is still much more 
work to do. We have abused and ignored our oceans for far too long. The 
oceans are warning us in every way they know how, and we can't afford 
to ignore those warnings any longer. We must start taking serious 
action to respond to what we are doing to our oceans. I promise you, 
anybody who knows anything about oceans hears those alarm bells 
ringing. It is time for us to wake up.
  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.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.