[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15960-15961]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       H.R. 6--AMENDMENT NO. 1615

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1615, which is 
pending at the desk.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the 
amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Maine [Ms. Collins], for herself and Ms. 
     Cantwell, Ms. Snowe, and Mrs. Murray, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 1615 to amendment No. 1502.

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading 
of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

    (Purpose: To provide for the development and coordination of a 
   comprehensive and integrated United States research program that 
 assists the people of the United States and the world to understand, 
   assess, and predict human-induced and natural processes of abrupt 
                            climate change)

       At the end of title III, insert the following:

     SEC. 305. ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH PROGRAM.

       (a) Establishment of Program.--The Secretary of Commerce 
     shall establish within the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric 
     Research of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
     Administration, and shall carry out, a program of scientific 
     research on abrupt climate change.
       (b) Purposes of Program.--The purposes of the program are 
     as follows:
       (1) To develop a global array of terrestrial and 
     oceanographic indicators of paleoclimate in order to 
     sufficiently identify and describe past instances of abrupt 
     climate change.
       (2) To improve understanding of thresholds and 
     nonlinearities in geophysical systems related to the 
     mechanisms of abrupt climate change.
       (3) To incorporate such mechanisms into advanced 
     geophysical models of climate change.
       (4) To test the output of such models against an improved 
     global array of records of past abrupt climate changes.
       (c) Abrupt Climate Change Defined.--In this section, the 
     term ``abrupt climate change'' means a change in the climate 
     that occurs so rapidly or unexpectedly that human or natural 
     systems have difficulty adapting to the climate as changed.
       (d) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized 
     to be appropriated to the Department of Commerce for each of 
     fiscal years 2009 through 2014, to remain available until 
     expended, $10,000,000 to carry out the research program 
     required under this section.

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to propose an amendment that 
would authorize funding for abrupt climate change research. I am very 
pleased to be joined on this amendment by Senator Cantwell, Senator 
Snowe, and Senator Murray. Our amendment would authorize $10 million 
per year for the next 6 years for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration, NOAA, in partnership with universities across the 
Nation to conduct research into abrupt climate change.
  I recognize the Senate has reached no consensus with regard to how 
best to respond to climate change. Nevertheless, I believe there is one 
issue on which we can agree, and that is the need for a great deal more 
scientific research in order to better understand the potential risk of 
abrupt climate change.
  Understanding and predicting climate changes are enormous scientific 
challenges. The challenges are made even more difficult with the 
recognition that the climate system is capable of dramatic and abrupt 
changes. Scientists have determined that past global temperatures have 
swung as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit within a decade, accompanied by 
drought in some places and catastrophic floods in others.
  An abrupt climate change triggered by the ongoing buildup of 
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would also likely result in the 
redistribution of atmospheric moisture and rainfall, with substantial 
impact for the world's food supply.
  Unfortunately, we have no satisfactory understanding of what triggers 
abrupt climate change. Both the National Academy of Sciences and the 
administration's Strategic Climate Change Science Plan identify abrupt 
climate change as the key priority for additional research. The 
National Academy has stated that:

       Large, abrupt climate changes have repeatedly affected much 
     or all of the earth.

  The academy went on to state that:

       Abrupt climate changes are not only possible but likely in 
     the future, potentially with large impacts on ecosystems and 
     societies.

  The academy noted we are not doing nearly enough to identify even the 
threat of abrupt climate change. The amendment the four of us are 
proposing would lay the framework and provide the funds for the United 
States to better understand and address abrupt climate change. One 
reason this funding is so urgent is we are rapidly losing one of the 
greatest sources of information, and that is ice cores from glaciers.
  The University of Maine's Climate Change Institute has one of the 
best known and best regarded abrupt climate change research programs in 
the entire world, I am proud to say. The Climate Change Institute uses 
ice cores from glaciers and ice sheets around the world to make 
discoveries that change the way we think about climate change.
  Unfortunately, numerous glaciers around the world are melting. When 
they go, the very record that has given us so much of this critical 
climate history will also be lost. I have had several terrific 
opportunities to see for myself how scientists are able to use glaciers 
and ice sheets to better understand climate change. Last year, I joined 
Senators McCain and Sununu in traveling to Antarctica to see 
groundbreaking research taking place on ice more than 2 miles deep at 
the South Pole. Along the way, we toured some of the University of 
Maine's research sites in New Zealand with distinguished university 
professor George Denton. He was the first scientist from the University 
of Maine to be elected to the National Academy of Scientists.
  According to Professor Denton, 50 percent of the glaciers in New 
Zealand have melted since 1860, and this melting is unprecedented in 
the last 5,000 years. We stood with the professor on sites that had 
been buried by massive glaciers at the beginning of the 20th century, 
but now they are ice free. It was remarkable to see this firsthand.
  Two years ago, I traveled with a group of Senators to the 
northernmost community in the world, Ny-Alesund, in Norway. The 
scientists we met told us that global climate change is occurring more 
rapidly now than at any time since the beginning of civilization. They 
further stated that the region of the globe changing most rapidly is 
the Arctic. In fact, the Arctic, in many ways, is the proverbial canary 
in the coal mine when it comes to climate change. The changes are 
remarkable and disturbing.
  In the last 30 years, the Arctic has lost sea ice cover over an area 
10 times as large as the entire State of Maine. In the summer, the 
change has been even more dramatic with twice as much ice loss. The ice 
that remains is as much as 40 percent thinner than it was only a few 
decades ago.
  Senator McCain and others and I witnessed massive blocks of ice 
falling off

[[Page 15961]]

glaciers that have already retreated well back from the shores against 
which they once rested. The melting of glaciers and sea ice, the 
thawing of the permafrost, the increase in sea levels resulting from 
warming, are already beginning to cause environmental, social, and 
economic changes.
  In Barrow, AK, for example, we met with native people who told us 
they are seeing insects they have never seen that far north before. 
They told us the salmon run has changed. We saw telephone poles that 
were tilted over because, for the first time, the permafrost is 
thawing. The changes were very evident and they are very troubling in 
many cases. If these changes were to be compounded by an abrupt climate 
change on the scale seen in our history, the result could be 
devastating.
  The amendment I am proposing has passed the Senate twice before, as 
part of the 2001 and the 2003 Energy bills, and was initially included 
in the managers' package this year. I hope this is the year we finally 
pass this important provision into law.
  We need to act now. We need to authorize this funding so we can gain 
a better understanding of the possibility of abrupt climate change 
causing enormous and relatively rapid changes in our climate.
  I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________