[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 44 (Tuesday, March 12, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S1771]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Madam President, this morning, the President tweeted a quote from a 
guest on ``FOX & Friends'' who called climate change fake science. Here 
is the quote: ``There is no climate crisis, there's weather and climate 
all around the world, and in fact, carbon dioxide is the main building 
block of life.''
  There is weather and climate all around the world. Really, the 
President endorsed that quote. Just about every scientist who has 
studied it knows climate change is the greatest challenge facing our 
planet. Anyone who lives with these dramatic changes in weather, 
whether it is through California wildfires, whether it is through 
floods in the Middle West and Upstate New York, whether it is Miami 
streets flooding near the coast over and over again, everyone knows 
things are changing dramatically. It is not just the normal cycle I 
lived through the first 50 years of my life. We all know it is 
happening, and what does the President do? Not only does he deny it--it 
is worse--he acts on it in the wrong direction.
  He has rolled back commonsense environmental protections, opened up 
more Federal lands for oil and gas, and announced the United States 
would leave the Paris accord. In the budget, President Trump proposes 
to cut more than one-third of EPA's funding and cuts other programs 
that combat climate change. Communities across the country are staring 
climate change in the face. Ask any farmer. They will tell you their 
growing seasons have changed. They will tell you about record droughts. 
They will tell you in the Mountain West about rebuilding from 
devastating wildfires and homeowners along the coasts picking up the 
pieces after hurricanes and storms have ripped through their States. It 
is just shameful. It is embarrassing the President continues to deny 
science and peddles these lies--absolutely shameful. I hope my 
Republican colleagues will stand up to the President and call out this 
nonsense. So far they haven't been willing to contradict the 
President's lies about climate change. That needs to change.

  We challenge our Republican friends to join the resolution by Senator 
Carper, myself, and others. It says three simple things: One, climate 
change is real. Do you believe that, all of my Republican friends? Can 
you answer yes or no? Two, it is caused by human activity. And, three, 
we need to do something to stop it, to stop the dramatic change in 
global warming.
  Why are our Republican friends so silent on this? That is perhaps the 
major issue of our day. When history looks back, it is not going to 
look kindly on them. What are they afraid of--the oil industry? What 
are they afraid of--the facts? What are they afraid of--rightwing 
orthodoxy, often funded by the Koch brothers, who don't want to admit 
to climate change? It is a shame. It is a shame.