[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 125 (Thursday, July 20, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3442-S3443]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, before we begin, I would like to thank 
Paige Rodrigues, who first came to my office 5 years ago and has been 
working tirelessly over all of that time, working to protect the people 
of Massachusetts and the people of our country and our entire planet 
from the effects of climate change and environmental threats to our 
country and to our planet.
  She is heading off to law school, and we will miss her. We will miss 
her brilliant work and her continual devotion to building a better 
world for everyone, because this world is under immediate threat.
  Earlier this month, we experienced what might have been Earth's 
hottest day in 125,000 years. You heard that right: the hottest day in 
125,000 years. And we are living through it right now. In Phoenix, AZ, 
the temperature has been 110 degrees or higher for nearly 3 weeks in a 
row.
  The water off of the coast of Florida is now nearing 100 degrees. The 
water is boiling in our oceans off of our coastlines.
  On July 15, nearly one in three Americans was living under an extreme 
heat alert. We are living under a heat dome right now in our Nation.
  The forest fires in Canada are sending fumes down across our country. 
It is like an exhaust pipe from an automobile just sending these toxic 
fumes down across our country day after day, week after week, from 
Canada, from their forest fires right above us.
  This year, we have experienced 17 of the hottest days ever recorded. 
This is nothing short of a public health crisis in our country. Extreme 
heat causes heat stroke, pregnancy risk, and thousands of 
hospitalizations and deaths every year in our country. And this extreme 
heat isn't a coincidence; it is the climate crisis announcing its 
arrival.
  We did this. We did this to ourselves. Humankind's greed and 
negligence--America's greed and negligence--is creating a literal hell 
on Earth, right now. We are living through it. We took a first step 
last year to pass climate and clean energy legislation that will inch 
us closer to salvation, but it will not save us. We must take bolder 
action to stop the climate crisis and secure a livable future, and we 
also need to act with urgency to protect the people who, right now, 
face extreme heat risk as a result of extreme heat in our country.
  We have a moral and a planetary obligation to the American people to 
deliver the resources communities need to combat extreme heat, 
especially the frontline communities where the effects of heat are 
worsened by unjust racial and economic divides.
  We have to listen to the young people in our country. They are 
warning us. They are saying that they have been let down, that their 
generation has been left with this crisis, that not enough has been 
done, and that the preceding generation just enjoyed all the benefits 
of industrialization. And now this generation of young people who are 
organizing, who are lifting their voices, who are demanding a change, 
they understand this issue. They understand this issue better than 
preceding generations because they are living with the consequences of 
not dealing with this issue.
  This generation--this young generation--are the issues-oriented 
generation. They are the ones who understand this issue. They are the 
ones who understand the problem and want even greater solutions to be 
put in place.
  I am working with my colleagues to reintroduce my legislation, the 
Preventing HEAT Illness and Deaths Act, which will do just that, while 
giving our Federal Government the resources and the authority to track 
and to study and to alert Americans of all the threats posed by extreme 
heat.
  We must meet this public health crisis with the urgency that it 
requires. Workers are collapsing. Wildfires are raging. And this heat 
isn't going anywhere. The summers are getting hotter. The storms are 
getting stronger. The seas are rising higher due to human-caused 
climate change.
  In Arizona, Texas, California, Nevada, and all around the country, 
people are dying every single day because

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of this heat, and the risks of extreme heat having fallen more heavily 
on low-income communities and communities of color, as well as on our 
seniors and children in our Nation.
  While most heat-related deaths and illnesses are preventable through 
outreach and intervention, extreme heat events have been the leading 
cause of weather-related deaths in the United States over the past 30 
years. And our historic addiction to fossil fuels is what is driving 
all of this devastation.
  So let's think about this, like a doctor would. We can name the 
source of this public health catastrophe: extreme heat. We know what 
drives the extreme heat: fossil fuels. And we know how to cure it: 
climate action now.
  Our planet is sick. Our country is sick. Our country is running a 
fever right now. And there are no emergency rooms for countries. We 
have to engage in preventive care. We know how to cure this. It is 
climate action now. And if we don't, because our country is sick, 
because our planet is sick, it is killing us along with that planet 
being slowly but surely burnt to a crisp.
  This is why, earlier this year, I introduced the Green New Deal for 
Health, a national treatment plan to build a healthcare system that 
delivers the care people need in a dangerous world.
  The Green New Deal for Health brings together the principles of the 
Green New Deal--good-paying jobs, justice for all, and a livable 
future--to create a healthcare system where everyone doesn't just 
survive; they thrive.
  The sirens are sounding. We are in a climate emergency, and Congress 
should be the first responders, not holding the matches that continue 
to exacerbate this crisis. A whole-of-government response is the only 
way to fight this whole-of-planet threat: climate action that breaks 
our fossil fuel addiction, a stronger healthcare system that works for 
workers and patients, and a commitment to a livable future.
  That is where we are. This is an emergency. This heat is a warning. 
But it is no longer a warning of the future. It is a warning that right 
now we are living with the consequences of the future. It is a warning 
that right now we are living with the consequences of our inaction.
  So my hope is that this institution can respond. Young people are 
demanding that we respond. We should listen to the young people of our 
country and the planet. We have to do more.
  I see my good friend and the leader of the Environment Committee, Tom 
Carper, who did just so much last year to pass historic legislation to 
deal with methane and its impact and to deal with the need for us to 
move to wind and solar and all-electric vehicles and battery 
technologies. I can't thank Chairman Carper enough for all of his 
incredible leadership to make sure that we took that first huge step. 
But so much more needs to be done.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.