[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 39 (Thursday, March 3, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H1290-H1291]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CLIMATE CHANGE REQUIRES ACTION

  (Mr. CASTEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, ``climate change effects are outpacing our 
ability to adapt.'' That is from the recent IPCC report.
  Here is what that means in America in 2022:
  We have coastal communities where flooding has washed out roads 
before the bond used to pay for that road was fully paid off.
  We have mayors with no budget for seawalls who are being forced to 
tell their constituents that the only solution is for them to abandon 
their homes and their businesses and relocate to higher ground.
  NOAA reported recently that sea levels in Florida will be 18 inches 
higher by 2050. What that means is that there are properties in Florida 
today that will be underwater before their 30-year government-backed 
mortgage is fully repaid.
  What happens in your community when that happens, if voters are told 
they have to abandon their home, or that their town can't connect them 
back to their grocery store, or that their local bank has to write down 
Federally backed mortgages? We know the political pain that that 
drives, and we know what measures are necessary to protect American 
families from that pain.

  Yet my Republican colleagues in the Senate, who claim to be so 
focused on the economy, are withholding their confirmation for new 
Federal Reserve appointees because they have the temerity to suggest 
that we should not

[[Page H1291]]

even do the scenario analyses necessary to protect ourselves against 
this climate risk to our financial sector.
  When you ignore the laws of physics, you put taxpayer dollars at 
risk; you put communities at risk; you puts lives at risk; you put 
American energy independence at risk.
  It is time, it is long past time for the climate denial caucus to 
pull their heads out of the sand before the rising ocean washes all 
that sand away.

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