[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 141 (Wednesday, September 11, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5973-S5975]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, 6 years ago, I sent all of my 
colleagues in the Senate this binder of economic warnings about climate 
change. Here it is. The warning signs were flashing, so I shared all of 
those different reports. When I assumed the role of Senate Budget 
Committee chair, I provided an updated version of that binder to my 
committee members. As you can see, it had gotten a lot thicker. The 
warning signs had kept piling up, imploring us to act now before it is 
too late. And what is happening now? The events warned of are coming to 
pass.
  Over 19 Budget Committee hearings, we heard from serious experts 
about the looming economic, financial, and fiscal risks of climate 
change. We had economists, actuaries, industry analysts, scientists, 
healthcare providers,

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farmers, academics, national security leaders; even some conservative 
political leaders shared the warnings. The witnesses and the topics 
differed, but the message was the same: Look out. Climate change 
presents an economic threat, and ignoring it poses severe, even 
systemic economic risks. We ignore it at our economic and fiscal peril.
  Ignoring it is, unfortunately, the path my Republican colleagues have 
chosen to follow, but ignoring climate change does not stop climate 
change from hitting our economies even in red and purple States. The 
changes are happening in every corner of the country; and day after 
day, news reports only confirm the warnings.
  We held hearings on communities facing coastal flooding risk and 
wildfire risk and how those risks affect insurance and mortgage markets 
and, ultimately, property values. A mortgage issuer looks forward 30 
years--the term of the mortgage--and climate-driven sea level rise, 
extreme precipitation, hurricane damage, and river flooding will add 
big risks to residential properties over the next 30 years. I am a 
Rhode Islander, so the flood risk is close to home, but more than half 
of all U.S. properties face a wildfire risk, and that is also getting 
worse with climate change.
  Insurers are taking notice. When climate-driven losses increase, 
premiums increase; and when climate-driven losses become too hard to 
predict, insurers pull out. Insurance becomes not only not affordable 
but not even available. Since our hearings, insurance and housing 
markets in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and California--States highly 
exposed to climate-driven hurricane, flooding, and wildfire risks--are 
in full crises.
  In May of last year, State Farm announced it was no longer offering 
new policies in California. Then in June, Allstate followed suit. That 
July, Farmers announced it was pulling out of the Florida market 
entirely. Just last week, Progressive Insurance announced that the 
company was ``temporarily restricting'' new homeowners business in 
Texas.
  After Texas got a double whammy--historic wildfires through February 
and March and then the Hurricane Beryl flooding in July, knocking out 
power to nearly 3 million Texans and leading to ``the most tornado 
warnings issued in the U.S. in a single July day since records 
began''--people sat in flooded homes, without air conditioning, in 90-
plus-degree heat, with mold growing, and Texas politicians still denied 
climate change.
  Well, homeowner's insurance companies don't deny climate change. 
Nationally, average homeowner's insurance premiums increased 33 percent 
between 2020 and 2023. In Florida, already high premiums more than 
doubled. Average insurance premiums in Florida are now more than 
$10,000 per year--average. Over in New Orleans, average premiums are 
closing on $10,000 per year. In Miami, they average almost $17,000 per 
year. This is fossil fuel-driven climateflation, and it presents an 
affordability crunch for American families.
  Don't just take it from me; take it from Federal Reserve Chairman 
Powell, who testified that rising insurance premiums have been a 
significant driver of inflation. He warned that ``in the longer term, 
companies are withdrawing from writing insurance in some coastal areas. 
It's a significant issue.''
  It even came into the Presidential debate last night, when Vice 
President Harris said what we know about climate change is that it is 
very real. You ask anyone who lives in a State who has experienced 
these extreme weather occurrences who now is either being denied home 
insurance or is being jacked up on insurance rates.
  There is a cascade effect here: The crisis in coastal homeowner's 
insurance bleeds over into mortgage markets. And when mortgage markets 
suffer, that affects property values--a cascade that poses what 
economists call a ``systemic'' threat to our economy.
  If your property can't get insurance, good luck getting a mortgage. 
Without mortgages, your only buyers are those able to pay cash, and 
that drives down your property values.
  The chief economist of Freddie Mac actually warned of a coastal 
property values crash that would damage the entire economy, 
``systemic'' damage, just like we saw in the 2008 financial crisis and 
great recession. Florida and parts of Texas are already in that spiral, 
as unsold condominiums pile up in those markets and values fall.
  We face a national affordable housing challenge, so it is an added 
piece of bad news from housing nonprofits that the insurance rates 
squeeze ``could threaten to end affordable housing development as we 
know it.''
  Back to wildfires. New York City saw this orange skyline, a 
phenomenon San Franciscans got to know too well in 2020's wildfire 
season. That is because extreme wildfires have more than doubled over 
the past two decades, with the six worst wildfire seasons occurring in 
the last 7 years. That makes wildfire risk the evil twin of flood risk 
for insurance, mortgages, and property values.
  To quote our witness, Benjamin Keys, a professor of finance at 
Wharton:

       This should be ringing alarm bells for housing markets all 
     over the country.

  April's Economist magazine--I have got a bigger version for folks 
watching us on C-SPAN. April's Economist magazine--not exactly a green 
publication--went Dr. Keys one better, warning that the whole world 
should be concerned about climate change, putting $25 trillion of 
global real estate at risk, threatening a global financial meltdown--
cover article. Read it yourself.
  Insurance, of course, isn't the only cost being driven higher by 
climateflation. Just go to the grocery store. At one hearing last year, 
we actually had bipartisan agreement that climate change is damaging 
crop yields and driving up prices. And those trends continue this year.
  Just look at breakfast. The price of orange juice is at an alltime 
high, driven by the lowest harvest in Florida in 90 years and a 24-
percent decline in yield in Brazil, which supplies about 70 percent of 
the world's orange juice--climateflation.
  Brazil and Vietnam supply more than half of the world's coffee beans. 
In both countries, drought drove coffee prices up. Vietnam just 
reported that its July coffee exports declined nearly 30 percent year 
over year, and worse was June, which declined 50 percent year over 
year--more climateflation.
  India and Thailand are the two largest exporters of sugar behind 
Brazil. Severe droughts in both of these countries have pushed the 
global cost of sugar to its highest level since 2011.
  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. consumers saw 
the price of sugar and sweets rise by 8.9 percent in 2023. USDA expects 
prices to increase another 5.6 percent this year. And cocoa production 
is also hit, with April prices up 235 percent in less than 6 months.
  Olive oil, a kitchen staple, saw prices jump over 130 percent due to 
last year's Mediterranean drought. The International Olive Council 
expects even less production this year as droughts persists. In Spain, 
bottles of olive oil are now one of the most shoplifted items.
  Climate change bodes ill for wine, too. A recent reveal of more than 
200 studies predict that ``70% of current wine-producing regions face a 
substantial risk of losing their suitability for wine-growing if global 
temperatures increase more than 2 degrees Celsius.'' That is a danger 
threshold we are coming closer and closer to, giving new meaning to 
``in vino veritas.''
  When we wonder why grocery prices remain high, look at climate-driven 
disruptions, climateflation, not just to agriculture, as I have been 
describing, but also to the supply chains that move those products 
around.
  Last October, a witness of ours warned the committee that ``the 
direct impact to extreme weather events can cascade through supply 
chains, affecting the flow of commodities and goods to regions and 
sectors leading to increased costs to business and to the broader 
economy''--more climateflation.
  And while we were listening to that testimony, a historic drought had 
reduced Panama Canal vessel traffic to 24 crossings per day. So vessels 
resorted to the Suez Canal or went around South Africa to avoid the 
delays of canal travel. And those longer routes came at a higher 
shipping cost, ultimately passed on to consumers in higher prices--more 
climateflation.
  Climate change is even beating up the infrastructure that underpins 
our

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supply chains. As a witness told us last year, ``Physical impacts have 
been widely observed for everything from extreme heat waves to flood 
events compromising roads, tarmacs, pipelines, and rail lines, with 
direct repair and delay costs being felt throughout the economy. Annual 
direct damage costs for road and rail impacts alone are estimated to be 
just under $20 billion a year by 2050.''
  This past July, New York had to close the Third Avenue Bridge from 
the Bronx to Manhattan because 95-degree heat caused the steel to 
expand.
  Severe flooding struck Iowa, South Dakota, and Minnesota in June and 
led to the collapse of a railroad bridge, the near failure of a dam, 
and the destruction of hundreds of homes.
  A bridge in Lewiston, ME, recently closed because its pavement 
started to buckle in high temperatures. One expert told the New York 
Times that extreme heat and flooding are accelerating the deterioration 
of bridges, causing them to ``fall apart like tinkertoys.'' And this 
will get worse: Extreme temperatures could cause one in four steel 
bridges to collapse by 2050.
  Americans aren't just paying the cost of fossil fuel emissions 
through climateflation; they are paying it through direct Big Oil 
price-gouging. The oil and gas market, so-called, is actually 
controlled by an international cartel. And when OPEC jacks those 
prices, Big Oil in the United States happily rides along, loading up 
the biggest corporate profits in history. That, too, drives inflation.
  One last thing. Last year, I came to the Senate floor and talked 
about what was then the hottest June on record, followed by the hottest 
July on record, followed by the hottest August on record, and then the 
hottest September on record. Well, this July, the world experienced the 
hottest day in at least 100,000 years.
  We have talked a lot about costs and costs matter. The point of this 
speech is the economic harms of climate change, but that heat kills.
  Our hearing on public health warned how climate change acts as a 
``threat multiplier with health impacts happening through a variety of 
mechanisms, including worsening temperature extremes.''
  Shortly after that hearing, Phoenix, AZ, experienced 31 straight days 
of 110-plus-degree temperatures, shattering the previous record. This 
year, the Phoenix hot streak continued, with temperatures breaking 100 
degrees from late May for more than 100 straight days.
  In Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, at least 150 people 
have died from heat, and hundreds more deaths are still under 
investigation.
  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that over 
1,200 people are killed by extreme heat in the United States every 
year. Heat deaths in 2023 were the highest in 45 years.
  In just 1 month--just 1 month, July 2023--the death count was near 
the annual average. One month nearly matched the annual average. An 
estimated 1,130 U.S. residents died of heat. And as work from Brown 
University and others have shown, that is likely an undercount.
  In spite of all of this danger and its severe fiscal implications, 
some of my Republican colleagues complain that the Budget Committee is 
giving climate change too much attention. To them, it is not enough of 
a risk to our Federal budget, never mind that at least $10 trillion of 
our national debt stems from economic shocks--``exogenous'' they would 
call it in economics--economic shocks; specifically, the 2008 financial 
crisis and the COVID pandemic.
  Well, climate change portends the biggest systemic shock of all. That 
is the lesson of all of these economic reports and studies, the lesson 
of the cover article from The Economist, and the lesson of our 
testimony in the Budget Committee hearings.
  For homeowners in Florida, those dangers are already on their 
doorstep. They are suffering through sea level rise, extreme 
precipitation that floods homes and cars, intense hurricanes that 
batter families and communities, and the soaring insurance premiums 
that result, leading into the cascade from the insurance market to the 
mortgage market, to the property values market that Freddie Mac's chief 
economist warned about.
  To all of this, what is Florida Republicans' answer? To try to 
silence conversation about the climate crisis, to forbid State 
employees from discussing climate change, even when it is an 
affordability crisis for their own constituents.
  There is really no doubt the dangers are growing worse and more 
widespread. The economic shadow of those dangers is looming. Folks with 
fiduciary responsibilities told us in the Budget Committee: We have to 
address the dangers. Folks with business responsibilities told us in 
the Budget Committee how they have to adjust to these new dangers. And 
I have been telling you for a while now, and I hate to say ``I told you 
so,'' but it is here now, and dammit, I told you so.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hassan). The Senator from Rhode Island.

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