[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

[[Page S4897]]

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

[[Page S4898]]

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.

[[Page S4899]]

  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.

[[Page S4900]]

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.