[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 86 (Wednesday, May 22, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S3019]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, earlier this month, a report from 
Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory found that carbon dioxide levels in our 
atmosphere have now reached the highest level in human history--in 
human history. It was a chilling reminder that the threat from climate 
change is real, immediate, and existential. Almost everyone accepts 
this science and the gravity of the threat it portends. The only group 
of folks that still seem skeptical of climate science are Republicans 
and the Trump administration.
  Yesterday the New York Times reported that the Trump EPA is planning 
to rewrite the established benchmarks for unsafe levels of air 
pollution. You heard that right. They are planning to use dubious math 
to obscure the real and long-known health risks of air pollution. These 
new formulations would result in fewer predicted deaths than what the 
experts have long agreed to. People will still die. The numbers will 
just be wrong about the effect.
  Why, might you ask, would anyone want to obscure the full health 
risks of air pollution? Because then the Trump administration could use 
the fake math to justify further rollbacks to clean air rules at a time 
when global warming is increasing and when Americans know the danger. 
This Trump administration and the Republican majority are rolling the 
clock back--more carbon, more coal, more oil, and more gas, when we 
need less. We all know that.
  What kind of Orwellian nonsense is this? The Environmental Protection 
Agency making it easier to pollute the environment? It is a textbook 
definition of ``dystopian.''
  As my colleague Senator Whitehouse so often points out, dark money 
lurks behind so much of what the Trump administration does. Big Oil, 
Big Gas, and big polluters everywhere are the only possible boosters of 
this decision. It is their money, funneled to political organizations 
and politicians without a trace of disclosure, that motivates folks in 
the Trump administration to make it easier to release more pollution 
into the air.
  We should be using the Senate to debate climate policies in search of 
common ground, but Leader McConnell has decided to bring forward his 
version of the Green New Deal just so his party could vote against it. 
We know what Leader McConnell and the Republicans are against. What are 
they for in dealing with climate change? So far, nada, zero, nothing--
they haven't put a single thing on the floor. The American people see 
the effects of climate change in their lives, and they know Congress 
must act. Only the Republican majority stands in the way.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Romney). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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