[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 98 (Wednesday, June 10, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2716-S2718]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CLIMATE CHANGE
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, today marks the 308th time that I have
stood on the Senate floor and asked my colleagues to wake up to the
realities of climate change.
This also marks 308 times that my Republican colleagues have ignored
my call to wake up. They even refuse to acknowledge the simple truths
that the climate is changing, oceans are warming, sea levels are
rising, and our fossil fuel emissions are the principal cause.
In the last several weeks, Republicans have sent someone to the floor
to object each time I sought unanimous consent to pass a resolution
affirming these very simple truths.
The Senate's record of failure profoundly disappoints me. In fact, it
angers me. I am angry on behalf of the homeowners in Florida,
Louisiana, back home in Rhode Island, and across the country who are
paying double or triple what they used to for property insurance
because climate risk is making floods, storms, and wildfires more
frequent and severe.
I am angry that these same families are paying more than ever for
groceries due to increasingly frequent and severe droughts, heat waves,
floods, and storms.
This is a tragedy. But, worse, it is a preventable tragedy. Ignoring
it will not make climate change go away; it will leave Americans poorer
and American communities more vulnerable and less prepared.
America can do big things. Our history shows that. And I believe a
challenge of the magnitude of climate change justifies congressional
action.
So here I still am, speaking because I still believe in the power of
this body to take action, to serve the people whom we took an oath to
serve, and to use the awesome power that our constituents have granted
us to solve the greatest problems facing our country today.
This is a significant anniversary. Republican Senator John Chafee,
whose distinguished career in the Senate spanned from 1976 to 1999, and
who also served as Governor of my State and Secretary of the Navy,
shared my belief.
On a note of personal disclosure, when he and my father both came
back from World War II as marines from the Pacific theater, they ended
up as roommates in college. So there is some personal family affection
there, as well as professional appreciation.
Well, exactly 40 years ago this week, while serving as chair of the
Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Environmental
Pollution, Senator Chafee convened a 2-day, 5-panel hearing on the
greenhouse effect, climate change, and ozone depletion. Senator Chafee
believed Congress had a role in addressing both the hole in the ozone
layer and the rising temperatures and global disruptions caused by
climate change.
The 1986 Chafee hearing witnesses included scientists and
policymakers--among them, Dr. James Hansen, who went on to become a
leading advocate for decisive climate action and served NASA with great
distinction; Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, later an Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change participant and Nobel prize recipient; and even then-
Senator Al Gore of Tennessee. Also testifying were President Reagan's
EPA Administrator, Lee Thomas, and his Commerce Deputy Secretary,
Clarence Brown.
In Senator Chafee's opening remarks, he warned of what he called two
``critical problems facing the world.'' First was ``the growing use of
manmade chemicals'' that were significantly depleting the ozone layer,
and second was the ``buildup of greenhouse gases, which threaten to
warm the Earth to unprecedented levels.''
Those problems had to be addressed, Senator Chafee warned 40 years
ago, because--and I will continue with his words here--``there is a
very real possibility that man--through ignorance or indifference, or
both--is irreversibly altering the ability of our atmosphere to perform
basic life support functions for the planet.''
He asked the scientists to educate the public on the scientific
consensus on ozone depletion and climate change, and he urged the
government officials to take immediate action to, as he said, ``put the
brakes on'' these looming crises and ensure a livable planet for future
generations. Notably, Ronald Reagan's appointees acknowledged the
climate crisis and agreed to take action.
This is not the first time I have brought this graph to the Senate
floor. This is the so-called Keeling Curve, well known in science
circles. This chart shows the change in carbon dioxide concentration in
the Earth's atmosphere. As you can see, it has accelerated rapidly
since 1950.
Last month, the Member whom the Republicans sent to the floor to
object to my statement of the science made the point that
CO2 levels have naturally fluctuated over many, many years
of geologic time. Well, yeah, that is true.
Here is what that looks like. This is 800,000 years ago--800,000
years ago. For the last 800,000 years, the carbon concentration in the
atmosphere has never gone above 300 parts per million. It has varied up
and down. But something very, very different happened when our
Industrial Revolution began and we started emitting massive amounts of
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, like methane, into the
atmosphere. There it is--up like a rocket. The notion that this can be
explained by that is just plain preposterous.
This is also not the first time I have come to the floor to speak
about the 1986 Chafee hearings. I did so 10 years ago, in 2016, to mark
those hearings' 30th anniversary. Then, as now, I reflected not only on
the reality of climate science, which is virtually undisputed except
among those on fossil fuel's payroll, and the climate costs that have
accrued since 1986. But I also spoke about the shocking transformation
of the Republican Party from the 1980s to today.
In June of 1986, a Republican Senator, concerned by the same data
that I am sharing with you now, committed to immediate and urgent
action. He directed a panel of Ronald Reagan-appointed officials to
outline their plans to address the crisis, and they did so. At that
time, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was
approximately 348 parts per million.
In June of 2016, when I recognized the 30th anniversary of this
hearing, the fossil fuel billionaire-backed Supreme Court had just
stayed the Clean Power Plan, EPA's first-ever attempt to regulate
greenhouse gas emissions from powerplants. Then-Candidate Donald Trump
promised to rescind the Clean Power Plan when he got into office, and
the U.S. House of Representatives voted to officially denounce a carbon
price. They went to bat to protect the freedom to pollute for their
fossil fuel donors.
In 2016, the concentration of CO2 had climbed from 348
parts per million to 404 parts per million. These are measurements, by
the way, not opinions.
Today, President Trump, approaching the halfway point of his second
term, calls climate change a ``hoax.'' Hoax. His EPA Administrator Lee
Zeldin rescinded EPA's greenhouse gas endangerment finding--an action
flatly at odds with known science and with the law--and then celebrated
what he called ``driving a dagger straight into the heart of the
climate change religion.'' Really.
And to bring things full circle, earlier this spring, 40 years after
a senior Reagan administration Commerce official acknowledged the
reality of climate change, today's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a
strident opponent of affordable renewable energy, denies the science.
The Republican Party steps backward.
Today, as I speak, the concentration of CO2 in the
atmosphere is north of 430 parts per million--348, up to 404, and
[[Page S2717]]
now up to 430. In just four decades, atmospheric CO2
concentration has increased by nearly 25 percent due to fossil fuel
combustion.
As climate deniers are fond of pointing out, CO2 doesn't
harm or kill people. What it does is trap heat in the atmosphere--
enormous amounts of heat--and it is that heated atmosphere that harms
and kills people through more violent extreme weather events,
wildfires, and rising seas.
Here you see global average temperatures. Back in 1986, they were
0.46 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial norm. Now, they are 1.4
degrees above that preindustrial norm. That difference, nearly a full
degree, has already had profound consequences for our planet. For one,
our oceans are heating every year by the zettajoule.
If you don't know what a zettajoule is, let me tell you. It has 21
zeroes after it. You can either call it a billion trillions or a
trillion billions. It is an enormous number.
The entire production and consumption of energy by the human species
on planet Earth is half a zettajoule. And because of the heating
generated by the greenhouse gases, more than 24 zettajoules of excess
heat go into the ocean every year. A multiple of our total energy
consumption as a species is absorbed by the oceans.
If you want to know why they are warming, if you want to know why
reefs are dying, if you want to know why fisheries are moving around,
if you want to know why seas are rising, if you want to know why storms
are worsening, there is your answer: zettajoules of excess heat into
the oceans caused by fossil fuel.
And all of that has economic cost. In this building, I have grown, I
suppose, accustomed to the fact that nobody cares about anything that
can't be monetized, and they only care about it to the extent that it
is monetized. So here is some monetization of what all that means. In
1986--here--there were three--one, two, three--three billion-dollar
disasters in the United States. Last year, there were 23 billion-dollar
disasters. The recent L.A. wildfires alone destroyed thousands of homes
and did tens of billions of dollars in damage.
And guess what happens when that kind of damage soars? Insurance
moves with it. You actually don't have to be directly affected by a
climate change-driven extreme weather event, a hurricane, or a wildfire
to be paying the price for climate change. Back in 1986, when Senator
Chafee held his hearings, homeowners insurance premiums averaged about
$150 annually. In today's money, they averaged $470, roughly. Today--
today--premiums average almost $2,500, and--no surprise--the largest
increases are in the highest climate risk areas. In Florida and
Louisiana, homeowners insurance premiums average more than $10,000, and
they are predicted to increase--doubling, even tripling--off the
proverbial charts.
Climate change is no longer tomorrow's problem, and it has moved from
the science department into the economics department. It is here today.
And whether my colleagues care to admit it or not, we are all already
paying for it. Economists estimate that it costs every household an
average of around $500 per year in heightened climate cost, and that is
a conservative estimate. In many coastal and wildfire-exposed parts of
the country, that average annual cost is already north of $1,000 per
household cost. And that hidden climate tax, brought to you by the
fossil fuel industry, is steadily rising year after year.
This is what 40 years of inaction and obstruction following the
Chafee hearings has wrought: huge costs and increasing economic
dislocation. What was once a scientific issue, a prediction, is now
knocking at our door and causing immediate economic harm.
And then there is the politics. In 1986, the hope and determination
to tackle climate change was a bipartisan thing. Today, climate change
has been replaced in the Republican Party by climate denial. When I got
here in 2007, climate change was still a bipartisan concern. We had
major climate legislation in this body--four different measures that I
recall, each significant, each that would have changed the trajectory
that these pages will face in their lifetime.
But then--then--the 2010 Citizens United decision came down. That
decision unleashed a vast fossil fuel-funded armada of front groups
that spread around climate disinformation, perhaps the biggest
fraudulent operation in the country's history, and unlimited dark money
into our politics--perhaps the largest corruption enterprise in
American history.
Back in 1986, Senator Chafee did not face a politics awash in fossil
fuel dark money, and the armada of climate denial front groups did not
exist; and so the Senate was able to focus more on the public interest
and less on fossil fuel's special interests. Today, objecting to my
calls to this body to recognize the reality of climate change, the
objector sent here accused me of ``subscribing to Chicken Little scare
tactics.'' That is the 2026 Republican position.
Back in 1986, Republican John Chafee, before this became the ``House
of Mammon,'' opened his climate change hearing by saying something very
different. He said:
This is not a matter of Chicken Little telling us the sky
is falling.
Forty years of fossil fuel influence has made a sickening difference.
The 1986 Chafee hearing is also illustrative of the power of Congress
when, uncorrupted by a powerful special interest, it acts decisively in
favor of the public.
At the time of the Chafee hearing, depletion of the Earth's
protective ozone layer was allowing dangerous levels of solar radiation
to penetrate the atmosphere. Twin holes in the ozone layer had formed
around the North and South Poles, and the ozone holes were growing.
Scientists worried that, absent immediate action, the holes would
grow big enough to threaten the survival of life on Earth. That fear is
ancient history now. Why? Not because we mocked the scientists for
fearmongering, but because we did as the science advised and phased out
the use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons.
In 1990, just 4 years after the Chafee hearings, Congress passed the
1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, which required this phaseout. No
surprise, the scientists were right, and the phaseout worked.
Chlorofluorocarbons stay in the atmosphere for decades. So it took
years to see the effects of the ban. But beginning in the 2000s, the
ozone holes stabilized and then began to shrink. And if current
policies remain in place, scientists expect a return to pre-1980s
levels, a healing of the ozone holes, within the next four decades.
We could still do the same for climate change: Follow the science,
pass a law to implement policies that would reduce and eventually
eliminate carbon pollution, remove the already emitted carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere and restore our climate's natural health, halt and
eventually reverse dangerous sea level rise and the dangerous cycle of
ever-worsening storms and wildfires, and fend off the insurance
collapse that this trajectory portends.
Many of us watched the recent Artemis II mission with awe--with awe
of the astronauts who traveled farther than any human has gone before
and with awe of NASA's ingenuity to be able to send them there.
Astronaut Christina Koch, speaking from over 200,000 miles away from
Earth, spoke to future generations. She said:
We will explore. We will build. . . . We will visit again.
We will construct science outposts. . . . We will found
companies. We will bolster industry. We will inspire. But,
ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always
choose each other.
Her closing words would resonate, I think, with Senator John Chafee.
Forty years ago, he said:
It seems that the problems man creates for our planet are
never ending. But we have found solutions for prior
difficulties, and we will for these as well.
With those words of his, I salute the memory of Senator John Chafee,
whose seat I now hold. He was an inspiring and farsighted public
servant. We need more of them.
I should add that the NASA scientists who made that remarkable
Artemis voyage possible have no doubts about the climate science.
Those climate doubts, that fake climate denial, are precisely
coextensive with the reach of the fossil fuel industry's corrupt
political influence.
[[Page S2718]]
There are two paths that emerged from Senator Chafee's hearing. One
was the path of science to success against ozone depletion. The other--
the one we have unfortunately chosen--is the path of climate denial
fraud and dark-money political corruption that leads to failure.
We can do better, but only if we wake up.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me thank my colleague from Rhode
Island and recall affectionately that, when I came to the Senate in
1997, John Chafee was serving. And I had an opportunity to meet with
him and to work with him on something that he loved called the Atlantic
Forum. He asked me to join him in a bipartisan way to lead that effort
in the Senate--such a compliment for a freshman Senator to have that
kind of request from a man of his stature.
He served our country so well in World War II, maybe even in the
Korean war, as well, in the Marine Corps, before he was elected
Governor of your State.
I attended his memorial service in Providence, and it was quite a
crowd, as there should have been.
Thank you for bringing up his name in this positive way.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. To the Senator, through the Chair, I, too, was at
that memorial service. It probably was the first time we saw one
another.
Thank you.
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