[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 63 (Wednesday, April 18, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2252-S2253]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, when we think about climate change--
something we don't do much of in this body--we often think about rising 
global temperatures and heat waves, and we think of changing weather 
patterns, stronger storms, or sea level rise threatening coastal 
communities. We actually see these effects unfold across the United 
States and around the world as heat records fall, winters shrink, and 
waters creep ever higher along our coastlines.
  We also see the economic consequences of climate change. Just last 
year, the United States suffered a record 16 separate billion-dollar 
weather disasters, adding up to well over $300 billion in damages. 
Acidifying seawater has devastated shellfish harvests in the Pacific 
Northwest. Rhode Island fishermen struggle as their traditional catches 
move farther north and offshore. Insurers and bond rating agencies warn 
that coastal regions are becoming too risky to build homes and 
infrastructure.
  Among those various hazards, there is another hazard: the effects of 
climate change on public health. The Rhode Island Department of Health 
has produced this guide for Rhode Islanders to help them understand the 
health risks they face from climate change and to better learn how to 
protect themselves from what are often new risks.
  Perhaps the most obvious effect of climate change on public health is 
increased heat-related illness and mortality. This link has been well 
studied across the country, often cross-referencing temperature records 
and death certificates. Work has been done by a lot of places; one of 
them is Rhode Island's own Brown University.
  Here is the Rhode Island Health Department report. Over the last 
century, Rhode Island's average temperature has already increased by 
more than 3 degrees Fahrenheit, and temperatures are expected to keep 
on climbing due to climate change. Currently, Rhode Island sees on 
average only about 10 days of 90-plus degree temperatures. Starting in 
the next decade and running through the end of the century, the number 
of days that the heat index will hit at least 90 degrees will rise to 
between 13 and 44 days each summer. That is as much as 6 weeks in a 
summer of heat in the nineties. That increase of hot summer days caused 
by climate change puts many Rhode Islanders at risk, particularly those 
who don't have air conditioning, either because they can't afford it or 
because, right now, they don't need it. Heat waves are the leading 
cause of extreme weather-related deaths in the United States, causing 
an average of more than 600 deaths a year and thousands more 
hospitalizations. Rhode Island, even though we are in the Northeast, is 
not spared, and with climate change, it will only get worse.

  Hot days pose a health risk to many different groups of people, as 
shown here in Rhode Island's Department of Health report. Children, the 
elderly, people who work outdoors, athletes, the disabled, pregnant 
women, and folks who are on medications that reduce their bodies' 
ability to dissipate heat are just some of the many people who are 
especially at risk from heat waves. Because of the nature of their 
responsibilities, emergency responders are particularly vulnerable.
  When I visited Phoenix, AZ, I was told by their emergency response 
leadership that they are having to restructure the duty schedules to 
protect firefighters from being overcome, if they are out fighting 
fires or responding to an emergency in daytime temperatures, because 
they overheat. So you have to rotate them through much faster and add 
cooling and hydration teams to support the fire crews as they speed 
through their heightened rotations.
  An ER doc from the Lifespan health system in Rhode Island visited my 
office and told another story about an older woman who was treated for 
a heat-related illness. She had just been sitting outside on a hot day, 
in the Sun, enjoying herself. Perhaps she didn't feel the need to 
hydrate herself. Perhaps some routine medication that she was on made 
her more susceptible, but she was not aware of how quickly she was 
overheating. When her husband returned home from work, he found her 
lethargic and unable to move, with a body temperature of 107 degrees.
  Hotter temperatures are bad on their own because of the effects they 
have on people's bodies and because of the added deaths that they 
cause, but they also work to create more ozone. Ozone is dangerous. 
Ozone is dangerous for children. It is dangerous for the elderly. It is 
dangerous for anyone with asthma or other breathing-related 
difficulties. Again, from Rhode Island's health report, Rhode Island's 
asthma rates are 33 percent higher than national averages for adults 
and 40 percent higher for children. So asthma is pretty serious for us, 
and people go to the hospital for this.
  This is not just an inconvenience. In Rhode Island, we have heard air 
quality alerts on morning drive-time radio. You are going in to work 
and listening to the radio, and the announcer is saying, ``Kids, 
seniors, people with breathing difficulties, you need to stay indoors 
today.'' It is a sunny, perfect summer day, it seems. Ozone is not 
visible, but because it is there and because of what it does to lungs 
and to asthma, people in Rhode Island are told they can't go outdoors 
that day. That kind of bad day alert, because it is for ozone, is going 
to become more frequent as climate change warms up our climate and 
produces more ozone.
  It works this way. Our air in Rhode Island is polluted, primarily, by 
midwestern powerplants. Out in the Midwest, they run the emissions up 
supertall smokestacks. The pollution is then injected up into the 
atmosphere and is carried away on prevailing winds. Guess what. It 
bakes in the Sun,

[[Page S2253]]

turns to ozone, and it lands on us--not them, us. It is their 
pollution, our lungs.
  Thanks a bunch, guys.
  Our air is also worsened by smoke from forest fires, even from as far 
away as Canada, and the warming climate, as the Presiding Officer 
knows, has created an extraordinary fire situation out West. Changing 
precipitation patterns have produced more fires, and that means more 
smoke in downwind States, and we are a downwind State.
  The result of all of this is that Rhode Island's air quality receives 
only a C from the American Lung Association. This poor grade is largely 
because of ozone, most of which comes from out of State. We end up with 
grade C air because of, primarily, out-of-State pollutants. This is not 
just some minor inconvenience. Across the country, air pollution--much 
of it made worse by climate change--is responsible for a staggering 
200,000 premature deaths each year.
  Pollen is another problem. Shifting seasons produce a longer pollen 
season. Increased pollen levels, particularly with increased air 
pollution, kick in allergies, which takes us into another risk. The 
warmth of earlier springs and later falls also means that tick and 
mosquito season in Rhode Island lasts far longer than it used to, and 
that moves us to yet more health risks and diseases.
  Rhode Island already has the fourth highest rate of Lyme disease in 
the country. We have over 900 cases a year, and as temperatures 
increase, we are likely to see the number of ticks in Rhode Island 
increase, which would be expected to lead to even more cases of Lyme 
disease. In States not too far north of us, the tick situation has 
gotten so out of control that they are actually seeing moose calves die 
off because they are so swarmed with ticks. I am sorry. I know this is 
a little bit gross, but calves are dying when their bodies can't 
support both their own metabolism and feeding the ticks that have 
crawled up onto them in the thousands--in some cases, over 10,000 
ticks. So we have to be concerned about this not just for ourselves but 
for the wildlife around us.

  Warmer temperatures also provide a longer breeding season for 
mosquitoes. More downpours--yet another result of climate change--
result in more standing water, which is habitat for mosquito larvae. 
Rhode Island has been up 76 percent in extreme downpours since 1950. 
That is the largest increase in extreme precipitation events out of all 
50 States. Of course, these little critters, the mosquitoes, carry the 
West Nile virus, the Eastern equine encephalitis, and other illnesses 
we didn't used to see in our State.
  As if all of this were not bad enough, climate change is also 
worsening another natural hazard that threatens public health--harmful 
algae blooms. Algae naturally occur in lakes and oceans, but in certain 
conditions, algae populations can explode. These blooms, they call 
them--blooms of algae--can slime waterways and overwhelm ecosystems, 
eating up nutrients, and they can deplete oxygen in the water and in 
the oceans so completely that no other life can exist, so that other 
creatures--fish--actually suffocate in the water. Algae are often, 
therefore, the reason behind massive fish kills.
  Some kinds of algae even produce toxins. People can become sick from 
exposure to the contaminated, toxin-filled water and even from the air 
if you get enough surface turbulence and churning of waves that it 
aerates the toxins, and then it is inhaled. The toxins can get into our 
food chain. They end up in shellfish and seafood on our dinner plates. 
Depending on which toxin it is, the consequences for people, for pets, 
and for wildlife can range from rashes and skin irritation, to pretty 
severe neurological and gastrointestinal symptoms, to respiratory 
arrest, and even death.
  In 2016, New England was hit for the first time by a Pseudo-nitzschia 
bloom--a kind of algae that produces a toxin, domoic acid, which caused 
large swaths of Narragansett Bay to be closed to shellfishing. The 
Providence Journal reported: ``In the more than 15 years officials have 
tested for [domoic acid], Rhode Island . . . never had a bloom reaching 
dangerous levels.'' In March of 2017, Rhode Island was forced, once 
again, to institute emergency shellfish closures in Narragansett Bay--
stuff that did not used to happen before this--when algae produced 
dangerous levels of domoic acid.
  This may seem funny to my western colleagues, but people make their 
living doing this stuff, so it is not funny to us in Rhode Island when 
climate change is warming our oceans and creating these risks. Harmful 
algae blooms have also been advised for ponds in Portsmouth, Cranston, 
Greenville, and Tiverton.
  In all of these ways--from heat-related illnesses, to respiratory 
disease, to allergies, to tick- and mosquito-borne illnesses, to toxic 
algae blooms--climate change has serious and wide-ranging effects on 
public health. Rhode Island's Department of Health has done an 
excellent service with this report--in helping Rhode Islanders learn 
how to be aware and to protect themselves. It was supported, by the 
way, by a grant from the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention, in its Climate and Health Program. It was a small $10 
million program, but it helped this project's report come to fruition 
in Rhode Island. We appreciate it. It is a wise investment to help 
prepare Americans for unfamiliar diseases that are being driven into 
our neighborhoods by a change in climate.
  As I conclude, I know that there are colleagues here who do not care 
to listen to environmental groups, but they might want to listen to the 
American Medical Association. The American Medical Association writes: 
``Scientific surveys have shown clear evidence that our patients are 
facing adverse health effects associated with climate change.''
  Colleagues might listen to the American Lung Association, which 
writes: ``Climate change seriously threatens our wellness--especially 
our lung health.''
  Perhaps colleagues might consider the opinion of the American Academy 
of Pediatrics, which writes: ``Tackling climate change could be the 
greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century.'' They write 
that because here is the problem: ``Climate change poses threats to 
human health, safety, and security, and children are at particularly 
high risk.''
  We may disagree about a lot around here, but when the American 
Academy of Pediatrics is telling us that climate change poses serious 
threats to human health, safety, and security and that children are at 
particularly high risk, it is a very callous thing to pay no attention. 
It is time to wake up. Our constituents' health and well-being actually 
does hang in the balance, and this Rhode Island report shows it for our 
State at least.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for 
his leadership and his outspokenness--how he has shown the importance 
of the Senate actually doing its job on both climate change and 
campaign finance and how much they are related to each other because of 
the stranglehold the oil industry has on the Republican Party and the 
hundreds of millions of dollars they spend. Senator Whitehouse has been 
on this floor well over 100 times to talk about that. The country 
certainly listens, and the country is, certainly, in the same place he 
is and a lot of us are. Unfortunately, the special interest groups in 
this town continue to control this Senate.