[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 17, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4896-S4901]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Climate Change
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon with
a number of my colleagues because we are very concerned about the lack
of legislating that is happening here in the Senate, particularly on
the issue of climate change.
As this poster shows, it has been 76 days since the House passed H.R.
9, which is the Climate Action Now Act. It is legislation that would
prevent the President from using funds to withdraw the United States
from the Paris climate agreement. We also have a Senate proposal, which
is bipartisan legislation that I have sponsored, called the
International Climate Accountability Act. It has been cosponsored by 46
Senators. Yet the majority leader has refused to bring these bills to
the floor for a debate.
It didn't used to be this way. Even in my time in the Senate, it
didn't used to be this way. The Senate used to take up important
issues, put them on the floor for substantive debate, and at the end of
the day, work to pass legislation to improve the lives of Americans.
Sadly, what we see now is that the Senate is turning into a legislative
graveyard. Unfortunately, the International Climate Accountability Act
is one of several proposals that the majority leader wishes to bury.
Yet, without a doubt, climate change is the greatest environmental
challenge the world has ever faced.
At the end of last year, the U.S. Global Change Research Program
released its ``Fourth National Climate Assessment.'' This report makes
it abundantly clear that every American is affected by climate change
and that the threat it poses will get worse over time unless we take
action.
I want to be clear that climate change is not just an environmental
issue; it affects our public health, and it affects our economy. In New
Hampshire, we understand this all too well. Rising temperatures are
shortening our fall foliage season. They are disrupting maple syrup
production. They are affecting our ski industry and snowmobiling
industry. We are seeing stresses on our fisheries. Our trout is moving
farther north in streams. We see an increase in insect-borne diseases.
Lyme disease is on the rise in New Hampshire and throughout New
England. Our moose population is down 40 percent, and other wildlife is
being affected. All of these changes are tied to the effects of climate
change.
A few months ago, I met with members of the New England Water
Environment Association to discuss the enormous effect climate change
is having on our water infrastructure. Rising temperatures and
increased rainfall brought on by climate change make flooding more
frequent and rainstorms
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more intense. We are seeing that now on our gulf coast, where we have
seen 20 inches of rain in parts of Louisiana.
Americans are witnessing this firsthand across the country with the
historic flooding and with the tornadoes that have swept across the
South and the Midwest. These extreme weather events not only endanger
families and homes and businesses, but they increase the strain on our
Nation's overburdened water systems. They take water treatment plants
offline. This means debris is discharged into our rivers and streams,
which affects our water quality.
These extreme weather events are particularly dangerous for coastal
communities. I see my colleague from Maine is here, Senator King. They
face this in Maine with its long coastline. In New Hampshire, we have
18 miles of coastline, but we still see it at our coastline.
Accelerated sea level rise, which is primarily driven by climate
change, is worsening tidal flooding conditions and imperiling coastal
homes and businesses.
According to a 2018 study from the Union of Concerned Scientists,
projected tidal flooding in the United States will put as many as
311,000 coastal homes that are collectively valued at $117 billion at
risk of chronic flooding within the next 30 years. That is the lifespan
of a typical mortgage. By the end of the century, the report estimates
that 2.4 million homes and 107,000 commercial properties that are
currently worth more than $1 trillion will be at risk for chronic
flooding. This includes properties in towns like Hampton Beach, which
is located in New Hampshire's Seacoast Region.
For those who haven't had a chance to visit Hampton Beach, it is
beautiful. It is a perfect vacation destination. It is a barrier island
town with the Hampton River on one side of the city and the ocean on
the other. Unfortunately, this makes Hampton Beach one of the State's
most at-risk towns from rising sea levels.
In this photograph, we can see the impact of rising sea levels. This
was taken in November of 2017. We see what is happening. All of these
homes should not be underwater here. Yet that is what we are seeing.
A 2019 report from Columbia University and the First Street
Foundation found that Hampton Beach lost $7.9 million in home value due
to tidal flooding between 2005 and 2017. In total, increased tidal
flooding has cost New Hampshire homeowners $15 million in lost property
value. This is just in recent years, and the problem is only going to
get worse.
The impact of climate change will get worse if we don't act now to
reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions. I am proud that in New
Hampshire, we understand the need for climate action. We have
implemented policies that reduce carbon emissions, that help us
transition to a more energy-efficient, clean economy, but New Hampshire
can't do this alone, and the United States can't do this alone.
International cooperation is key to reducing global greenhouse gas
emissions. That is why the Paris Agreement is so critical in mitigating
the worst effects of climate change.
With a delegation from the Senate, I had the opportunity to attend
the 2015 U.N. climate summit, and we participated in discussions that
led to the Paris climate accord. During the summit, we were impressed
by the leadership and the determination that was shown by the United
States to encourage other nations to reach ambitious emissions
reduction goals. Unfortunately, when President Trump announced his
intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the United States
forfeited this leadership to other countries.
In the absence of leadership from the White House, the majority
leader should allow the Senate to consider the International Climate
Accountability Act, which would keep the United States in the Paris
Agreement. Let's take up the bill that has been sent over by the House.
Let's take up the Senate bill. Let's bring this bill to the floor, and
let's have a debate. If people don't support it, they can debate it,
but we should be talking about this. The threat to New Hampshire and to
this country is in doubt, and until we act, it is only going to get
worse.
We have a number of our colleagues who would like to come to the
floor and speak to this issue, and I am pleased that Senator King from
Maine, my colleague, is here to talk about these impacts.
Yet, before my colleagues speak, I ask unanimous consent to show a
banner that was delivered to my office by the Moms Clean Air Force.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Let me just show everyone this. This was made by the
mothers who came to our office. What they have written is: ``Please
protect the families of New Hampshire from air pollution and climate
change. Moms Clean Air Force.'' You are able to see all of the folks
who were with the delegation and who visited my office to sign this
because everyone is concerned about what the impact is going to be on
their families and on their communities if we don't address climate
change.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Mr. KING. Mr. President, I am happy to join my colleague from New
Hampshire and other colleagues tonight to talk about one of the most
serious threats to ever face this Nation or, in fact, this world.
A few years ago, Tom Brokaw, the television news anchor, wrote a
wonderful book called ``The Greatest Generation.'' He was writing about
the generation of our parents and grandparents who fought in World War
II, who paid off the debt from World War II, who built the Interstate
Highway System--who, by the way, paid for it--and who built the
greatest economy the world has ever seen. That was the ``greatest
generation.''
The characteristic of that generation was that of meeting their
responsibilities. It was not of avoiding problems but of meeting them
head-on and establishing for the world and for this country an example
of governance and of the responsible dealing with issues and problems
the likes of which we have not seen in our lifetimes.
If Tom Brokaw were writing another book today about us, it would be
called ``The Lousiest Generation.'' We are the ones who have built up
an unconscionable debt for our children. We cut taxes in the middle of
a war in 2005. It was the first time I had been able to find in world
history when that had ever happened. We have given ourselves tax cuts
and not paid the bill, and we are passing on this enormous $22 trillion
debt to our children.
None of us on our deathbed, when our children are standing around,
would lean up and say: Here is the credit card, kids. I have run it up
to the max. You can now pay for it. Yet that is exactly what we are
doing collectively--the lousiest generation, the one that hasn't paid
its bills.
Infrastructure. We have allowed our infrastructure to fall to pieces.
It is the infrastructure that was given to us by our parents, that was
paid for--the bridges, the roads, the railroads, and the airports. Now
we have one of the poorest infrastructure situations in the world. It
is embarrassing to go to a small country somewhere else in the world
and walk into an airport that makes ours look old and falling apart.
So we haven't kept up with the infrastructure, and that is a debt
that we are passing on to our children, just as real as the national
debt.
Finally, we are facing a known, real, unquestionable crisis in terms
of the effect on the climate, and this is something that we are
shamefully passing on to our children. They are the ones who are going
to have to deal with the consequences that we will not face. They are
the ones who are going to have to pay the bills, who are going to have
to shore up the infrastructure, who are going to have to respond to the
drastic changes in the climate not only here but around the world, and
we are doing nothing.
What will it take? What will it take for us to meet this
responsibility? What is it going to take?
Well, OK, let's go down a list. Maybe it will take scientific data
that demonstrates the level of CO2 that we have put into the
atmosphere.
I don't seem to have a chart. I don't need a chart. For millions of
years, CO2 has varied between 180 and 280 parts per million.
People say: Well, it varies over time. This is nothing new. No, between
180 and 280 is the variation until the
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last 50 to 75 years, when it has become a hockey stick. We are now at
over 400 parts per million, the highest it has been in 3 million years,
and, by the way, the last time it was at 400 parts per million, the
oceans were 60 feet higher.
CO2 in the atmosphere is our responsibility. It didn't
come from volcanoes. It came from the consumption of fossil fuel, which
developed and built the wonderful economy that we have and the economy
around the world. Nobody can gainsay that.
The question is, Now that we are seeing the consequences, don't we
have a responsibility to do something about it? Has there been a
gigantic increase in CO2 in the atmosphere? Check. Yes.
Unquestionably.
No. 2, how about Arctic ice? Here we are. In the last 30 years, two-
thirds of the Arctic ice has disappeared--two-thirds.
I was at a conference this morning on the Arctic. The Arctic Ocean is
open for the first time in human history. The conference was about
shipping and mineral exploration and Native peoples losing their
habitat and their way of life. Two-thirds of the Arctic ice is gone in
25 years. This is a place that has been covered with ice for thousands
of years--as long as we have any memory, but now the Arctic ice is
going.
Every time I see a prediction of where it is going to be in 10 years,
lo and behold, it is there in 2 or 3 years. It is opening up. That is
telling us something.
Is there an indication from the Arctic ice that something drastic is
happening to our climate? Yes. Check that box.
No. 3 is the increased intensity of fires. We have seen the most
intense wildfires in this country in the last 10 years that we have
ever seen--more acreage, more intensity, more lives lost, more property
lost. This is caused by drought and by changes in the climate, all
wrought by our activity.
Increase in fires and wildfires? Check.
Sea level rise. Here is the background on the sea level. We tend to
think of the sea level as being a fixed quantity. We walk out in the
ocean, and it always looks pretty much the way it is, whether it is off
the Maine coast or the New Hampshire coast.
Well, it turns out that back here, 24,000 years ago, when the
glaciers were covering most of North America, the sea was 390 feet
shallower than it is today. Chesapeake Bay was dry land. It was 390
feet shallower than it is today.
Then, the glaciers melted, and the sea level started to rise. This is
an interesting period about 14,000 years ago called the meltwater pulse
1A.
This drastic rise in sea level is about a foot a decade. That is what
is predicted for the next century.
Oh, it could never happen. A foot a decade? You must be crazy.
It happened. We know that it happened.
Now, here is why we aren't paying attention. The last 6,000 years, it
has been pretty flat. It has been pretty level. The sea level has
plateaued, in effect, and, therefore, that happens to be recorded human
history, that 6,000 years. So we think that is just where the ocean has
always been.
But do you know what? The last remnant of the glaciers are in
Greenland and Antarctica, and they are going. They are going. There is
20 feet of sea level rise in the Greenland ice sheet and 212 feet of
sea level rise stored in the Antarctic ice sheet, and they are going.
I have been to Greenland. You can see it. The Jakobshavn Glacier has
retreated as much in the last 10 years as it retreated in the prior 100
years.
The only thing slower than a glacier, by the way, is the U.S.
Congress. We make glaciers look like they are moving fast, and, in
fact, the Jakobshavn Glacier is moving fast.
Sea level rise is happening. In Norfolk, VA, they have seen a foot
and a half in the last decade. They are having sunny day floods. They
are having sunny day floods in Miami. They are spending millions of
dollars to build up their roads.
People say dealing with climate change is too expensive. Not dealing
with it is too expensive. In not dealing with it, the expense is going
to be astronomical.
By the way, if you talk about sea level in Norfolk, VA, it is a
national security risk. With the number of bases that we have around
the world that are at or near sea level, it is going to be an enormous
task and a very expensive one to protect those assets.
There is another national security issue involved in this that we are
ignoring, and that is the displacement of peoples. During the Syrian
civil war, there were 4 to 6 million Syrian refugees. A few came here,
not many. Most went to Western Europe, and, as we know, that refugee
flow turned the politics of Western Europe upside-down. Call it 5
million people.
The estimates for refugees from climate change over the next 100
years is between 200 and 400 million people. Imagine what that is going
to do to the geopolitics of this world--200 million people on the
march, looking for water, looking for a place that is habitable,
looking for relief from drought, from fires. This is a national
security threat.
Is it a national security threat? Yes. Check that box.
What is it going to take? What is it going to take?
Intense storms. We don't need to tell people about the intensity of
storms. We have seen them. We have lived through them. I once made a
joke in Maine that I am 300 years old, and somebody said: Why? I said:
Because according to the news, I have lived through three storms of the
century.
We keep having storms of the century or 500-year storms, and they are
happening more and more frequently.
The heat. Nine out of 10 of the hottest years on record occurred in
the last 15 years. This past June was the hottest June since records
were kept--the hottest June since records were kept.
Now, there is a difference between weather and climate. I understand
that, and I am not going to say that the heat wave that the Midwest is
suffering this weekend is a reflection of climate change. It may or may
not be. Weather is what happens day-to-day. Climate is what happens in
the long term, and we know that we have already increased global
climate by about 1.5 degrees Celsius. In many cases, it is causing
irreversible damage.
When we get to 2 degrees Celsius, which we are headed for, it is
going to be catastrophic for coral, for farms, for animals, and for
people.
Species are already on the move. Senator Shaheen mentioned the ocean.
There are the lobsters in Maine. There used to be a vigorous lobster
fishery in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It is essentially gone now,
and the lobsters are in Maine, which is a mainstay of our economy. It
is a $1.5 billion a year business. The lobsters are moving north and
east. Why? Because the Gulf of Maine is heating faster than 99 percent
of the areas of the world. The only place heating faster than the Gulf
of Maine is the Arctic, and those lobsters are doing what any animal
does. They seek out more hospitable climate.
Climate. This isn't academic. These aren't predictions. This is
something you can see. The people on the water in Maine know it is
happening. The woodsmen know it is happening because they are seeing
different species of trees. Bugs are moving farther north. Ticks are a
huge problem in Northern New England and places where they weren't
before. This isn't something that is academic.
What is it going to take?
One of the things that the Senator from New Hampshire talked about
is--and I think it is important to emphasize because I hear this
sometimes--why should we do this? It is happening everywhere in the
world.
Yes, that is why the Paris climate accord was so important. It wasn't
mandatory, but it was a set of goals, and the entire world was engaged.
Now there is the entire world but one--us. We are out. We are outliers.
We have lost our voice. We have lost our influence. We have lost our
leadership position on one of the most important challenges faced by
this or any generation. Yes, we haven't met our responsibilities as our
parents and our grandparents did.
On December 1, 1862, Abraham Lincoln came to the House Chamber and
spoke about the crisis of the Civil War. The Congress didn't get it.
They were doing politics as usual, and President Lincoln was trying to
move them from the lethargy of the legislative process into the
emergency and the urgency of the Civil War.
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He said two things toward the end of that speech that I think are
profoundly instructive for us today. The first is how to deal with this
change. And this is a change. This is new. I understand that, and
dealing with change is difficult.
Abraham Lincoln uttered what I think are the most profound words
about change that I have ever encountered. Here is what Abraham Lincoln
said:
The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy
present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we
must rise--with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must
think anew, and act anew.
And here is the punch line:
We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our
country.
``We must disenthrall ourselves,'' and that means to think in new and
different ways, to see reality as it is, ``and then we shall save our
country'' and, in this in case, the world.
The other admonition from Lincoln that day, which I think is very
important for us, puts the responsibility directly on us right here. He
was talking to Members of Congress.
He said:
Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this
Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite
of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance,
can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which
we pass----
Of course he was talking about the Civil War, and we are talking
about a fiery trial of our generation.
The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down,
in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.
The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down,
in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.
I want to meet this responsibility. I want this Congress to be
remembered, as we will be, either way, but I want this Congress to be
remembered as people who met the fiery trial, who met our
responsibility, who thought about others more than ourselves and made a
difference in the life of this country and the world.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, I rise with my colleagues to talk about
this urgent issue that faces us: climate change.
Climate disruption is an existential threat to our planet--an
existential threat. Scientists recognize this, so do the American
people, and so does the international community. One hundred ninety-
four countries and the European Union have signed the Paris Agreement,
and so did the United States.
Quite frankly, we shouldn't even have to argue this anymore, but for
those who still don't see the evidence of climate change, it is all
around us: a warming climate; recordbreaking hurricanes off the
Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Caribbean; unprecedented
flooding in the Midwest; Native villages in Alaska actually falling
into the sea; and drought and the most severe wildfires in the West we
have ever seen.
This is from a 2003 fire near the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. We in
New Mexico are on pins and needles every fire season now. We don't know
what disaster will hit us. We know this climate catastrophe is caused
by human activity. Report after report tells us we don't have any time
to waste; that we need to act now.
Even this administration's most recent climate analysis finds that
global warming ``is transforming where and how we live and presents
growing challenges to human health and the quality of life, the
economy, and the natural systems that support us.'' The report
concludes we must act now ``to avoid substantial damages to the U.S.
economy, environment, and human health and well-being over the coming
decades.''
That is coming from an administration of a climate change-denying
President. Yet this administration has slashed and burned every
protection, program, and agreement aimed at combating climate change it
can find, from the Clean Power Plan to methane control regulations, to
the Paris Agreement. I can tell you who in this Congress is the
administration's No. 1 accomplice: the majority leader of the Senate.
The leader's legislative graveyard is littered with legislation the
American people want and deserve, from improving healthcare to
reforming our democracy, to commonsense measures to prevent gun
violence.
Climate change threatens the land, the lives, and the livelihoods of
homeowners, small businesses, farmers, ranchers, fishers, and so many
others all across the Nation. The majority leader's refusal to take up
climate action is about as bad as congressional malfeasance gets.
In May, the House of Representatives passed the first major climate
legislation in nearly a decade--the Climate Action Now Act. H.R. 9 aims
to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by about one-quarter by 2025. The
bill ensures the United States stays in the Paris Agreement.
This bill is not extreme, but it does respond to the dire situation
we face. The Senate should debate this bill and pass it, but we will
not. We all know the majority leader will continue to stand in its way.
Due to this negligence and inaction, States are filling the void and
taking it upon themselves to act. My home State of New Mexico passed
legislation this year aimed at transitioning to 100 percent carbon-free
electricity. Our largest utility says they can do this by 2040. It is
an approach that is consistent with the renewable electricity standard
bill I introduced last month. That legislation is designed to achieve
at least 50 percent renewable electricity nationwide in 15 years,
putting the United States on a path for a zero carbon power sector by
2050.
The fact is, no American is immune from the threats of climate
change, and many of our most underrepresented and vulnerable
communities are at the greatest risk. For example, the most recent
National Climate Assessment finds that Tribes and indigenous peoples
are impacted disproportionately and uniquely. Many Native people's way
of life is intimately tied to the land and water. These natural
resources--that they have depended on for hundreds or even thousands of
years--are being disrupted in ways that upend their communities. Their
subsistence, their cultural practices, their sacred sites are all being
threatened.
Look at the proximity of this fire to the Taos Pueblo. It is not only
sacred to the Taos people, but it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Last week, Senator Schatz and I wrote to American Indian, Alaska
Native, and Native Hawaiian leaders seeking their input on how climate
change is affecting their communities. We want to foster a dialogue
about what actions Congress and Federal agencies should take to
mitigate the impacts.
I am the vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. Senator
Schatz is the chair of the Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, and
we were joined by all Democratic Senators on the Indian Affairs
Committee. This effort should have been bipartisan--climate change is
blind to political party--but it wasn't because too many Republican
members just follow President Trump and the majority leader, killing
anything aimed at progress.
The majority leader jokes that he is the grim reaper, sounding the
death knell on legislation, but climate change is no laughing matter
and neither is access to healthcare for millions of Americans, or our
broken campaign finance system, or the safety of American
schoolchildren.
The Senate must do its duty to the American people and tackle these
most pressing problems. This does not mean rubberstamping legislation
sent to us by the House. The Senate has a storied tradition of debate
and compromise. Let's return to that tradition, have a real climate
debate, and pass some real bipartisan solutions.
We all came to the Senate to solve problems--problems like climate
change. We didn't come here to spend time in a legislative graveyard.
We don't want to be a place where good ideas come to die.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, Leader McConnell may, in fact, be proud
that he has turned the Senate floor into a legislative graveyard, but
that doesn't mean we Senators have abandoned our effort to make this
body work for the American people.
Today the special committee on the climate crisis held its very first
hearing, where we heard from five mayors from cities across the United
States.
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They told our committee that the average temperature in Atlanta has
already increased 2 degrees since 1980; that 3 of St. Paul's 10 biggest
floods ever recorded have happened in the last 10 years. So it is clear
to them that climate change is not something that will happen
eventually, in 5 or 10 or 20 years. It is happening now. It is
happening in realtime.
That is why these mayors are not waiting for Leader McConnell, or for
the Trump administration, or anyone else to start doing something about
it. Honolulu, St. Paul, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Portland and cities and
towns across the Nation are working to transition to 100 percent clean
energy.
Atlanta is converting an abandoned quarry into a reservoir to
increase the city's emergency drinking water supply. Portland, OR, has
designated more than $50 million for a green jobs and healthy homes
initiative.
The experience of these mayors stands in contrast to some of the
rhetoric we hear on the Senate floor and elsewhere about how climate
action is somehow economically unwise.
The Portland mayor, Ted Wheeler, pointed out that his city's
investments in reducing carbon emissions are the very things that make
people want to live in Portland. He said in his testimony that
``failing to take meaningful action to address climate change is bad
for the economy.''
That is why Senate Democrats are not going to wait for Republican
colleagues--because the cost of climate inaction is so much higher than
the cost of action. The damage that is being done to our cities, our
farmers, our fisheries--and the risks that are threatening our workers,
our small businesses, our financial industry, and our taxpayers--are
too high for us to wait any longer. The benefits of action are way
higher than the cost of inaction.
The Pittsburgh mayor, William Peduto, said today that if you want to
turn a coal miner into an environmentalist, then give them a paycheck.
If you want to turn a coal miner into an environmentalist, then give
them a paycheck.
Hawaii isn't a coal mining State, but his words rang true to me
because they illustrate the basic point, which is that climate action
can, should, and will work for everybody.
So we are not going to let Majority Leader McConnell stop us from
taking action. He is certainly slowing us down, but he is not going to
stop us.
Over the coming months, the Senate Democrats' special committee on
the climate crisis will establish the predicate for climate action.
Through hearings both in Congress and out in the field, we are going to
build the record and the coalitions needed to move forward.
We are also going to keep an open door for our Republican colleagues
to join us. There is a way to address the climate crisis that is
consistent with conservative principles. Senator Whitehouse and I have
introduced a carbon pricing bill that aligns with traditional
conservative principles and has the support of Republicans outside of
the U.S. Senate, but as long as Leader McConnell keeps standing in the
way of the Senate doing anything, as long as he has turned this body
into a legislative graveyard--not just on climate but on healthcare, on
prescription drug costs, on the cruelty shown to children and families
on the southern border of the United States--then we are going to have
to find other ways to act without it.
All of this stuff should be bipartisan, and one day it again will be,
but right now we cannot wait. We will not wait. The severity of the
climate crisis and the urgency for action are just too great.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in bringing up the
challenges of climate change and our responsibility to do something
about it.
Climate change is real. It is putting our communities at risk. Our
activities here on Earth are affecting climate change, and we can do
something about it. By reducing carbon emissions, we can make a real
difference in the trajectory of the catastrophic impact of climate
change. I just want to give a couple examples.
Last Monday, we had record flash flooding in this region. In less
than 1 hour, we had 1 month's worth of rain. That is becoming typical
as a result of climate change. In our region, we saw streets that were
flooded, sinkholes that developed, water pouring into our Metro
stations, and roads that were literally ripped apart.
This shows one major road in Potomac, MD--not very far from here--
that is critically important for a community to be connected. The road
was destroyed by the record rainfall during that period of time.
We had CSX and Amtrak put high-speed restrictions on the rail
service. In Baltimore, we had 1.3 million gallons of sewage from the
Jones Falls river flow into the Inner Harbor, which produced a sight in
the Inner Harbor of Baltimore that is truly regrettable.
This photo I think shows beautiful downtown Baltimore. It doesn't
look very beautiful. That was just this past Monday and was as a result
of the high amount of water flow and the inability of our sewage
treatment facilities to treat that amount of runoff. We are just not
prepared for it. It is another example of why we need to act.
We need to act now. Climate change is here. The catastrophic impacts
are here, and we can do something about it.
Let me just make a couple of suggestions. We need to upgrade our
stormwater systems in this country. We have a 21st-century problem with
20th-century infrastructure. It can't handle it. We need to invest in
adaptation and deal with the realities of the new weather systems we
are confronting every day.
Yes, we have to act on climate change. As I said, it is real. Our
activities are impacting it, and we could do something about it. There
are many examples I could give that are affecting our lives. I have
already shared some about some water. We have wildfires in the West. We
have extreme weather conditions throughout. We have unprecedented
concentration and frequency of rainfall in the mid-Atlantic, driven by
climate change.
Studies have shown that tropical storms move more slowly, with much
more precipitation. We saw that with Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in 2017
and Florence in 2018. All those were slower moving hurricanes, dropping
a lot more water, saturating our inlands, and making it more difficult
to deal with the next weather condition. We have warmer ocean
temperatures that are making these storms more costly to our
communities. We have what is known as compound flooding as a result of
climate change--storm surges that hit our shorelines, which are already
saturated by inland precipitation.
After Tropical Storm Barry, FEMA said: ``Given [the] unprecedented
magnitude of natural disasters over the past two years and the current
projected path of the storm, a hurricane making landfall is likely to
impact communities still working to recover from the previous event.''
That is how frequent we are going through flooding.
I will give another example of how much flooding we have had. In my
region, in Baltimore, if you use the period from 1957 to 1963, that 6-
year period, we had an average of 1.3 floods per year. If you use 2007
through 2013, we have had 13.1 floods per year. In Annapolis, those
numbers are 3.8 floods in the 1957 through 1963 period, compared to 39
floods from 2007 to 2013. That is a tenfold increase in the number of
flooding events.
This is an issue that is with us today. Thanks to climate change,
Baltimore may feel more like the Mississippi Delta than Chesapeake Bay
country.
Professor Matt Fitzpatrick at the University of Maryland Center for
Environmental Science published a study in February in the journal
Nature Communications with Robert Dunn, an ecologist at North Carolina
State University, to match cities with their climate counterparts in
2080. If we continue this trajectory, they predict that the average
city will come to resemble climates more than 500 miles away, often to
the south or west. Each one of our communities is going to be impacted
by climate change if we do not take action to change the trajectory.
Like all States, Maryland has a very important agricultural
community. As a farmer, it is difficult to make ends meet today, but
with these extreme weather conditions, it becomes even more difficult.
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It is in our economic interest, our environmental interest, as well
as our security interest for us to deal with the climate issues.
Unchecked, the sea level in Maryland coasts will rise. If we don't do
anything about it in the next century, it is projected to be at least
16 inches and could be as high as 4 feet. We know the catastrophic
impact to our coastal communities if we do not take action to prevent
that from happening.
Our activities of reducing carbon emissions can make a difference,
and we should do that now to reduce our use of fossil fuels.
Our States have acted. I am very proud of the actions we have seen
from local governments and from the private sector. Nine Northeastern
and Mid-Atlantic States, including Maryland, announced an intent of a
new, regional, low-carbon transportation policy proposal. All are
members of the Transportation and Climate Initiative. This is great.
Our States are doing what we need to do.
But I just want to underscore what many of my colleagues have said.
President Trump made the egregious decision to withdraw us from the
Paris climate agreement. I was there when U.S. leadership was
indispensable in bringing the world community together to take action.
Every country in the world joined us in making commitments to reduce
our carbon emissions. It was U.S. leadership. The President has
withdrawn us from that agreement--or is attempting to do that. We can
act. We are an independent branch.
I applaud the action of the House in passing H.R. 9, the Climate
Action Now Act, but it has been 76 days since the House has taken
action on this very important climate issue.
Senator Shaheen was on the floor earlier and has introduced S. 1743,
the International Climate Accountability Act. The United States should
meet its nationally determined contributions. We determine our own
contributions. We should meet those contributions and join the
international community in doing something about climate change.
So, yes, I do ask the majority leader to let the Senate do what we
should do. Let us consider climate legislation. Let us debate and act
on climate legislation. We shouldn't be the graveyard on these
important issues. The Senate must stop denying action on important
issues and do the right thing to meet the threat of climate change. It
is real here today. I urge my colleagues to bring this issue up so that
we can, in fact, do the responsible thing.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.