[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 10247]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             GLOBAL WARMING

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Tennessee for 
acknowledging Earth Day. All of us are conscious of the fact that, at 
least over the last 30 years or so, we have begun to realize the 
importance of our environment and the important responsibility we have 
toward our environment. I am troubled by the fact that only a few weeks 
ago on this very Senate floor as we debated the budget resolution, 
amendment after amendment was offered to try to stop us from dealing 
with the issue of global warming. I think it is a sad commentary that 
still too many Senators of both political parties are looking for 
excuses to do nothing. We give our speeches, we acknowledge to student 
groups and others that we face a challenge. Yet when we have an 
opportunity, as we do in the Senate, to deal with that, too many of my 
colleagues race away. We cannot do that any longer. We owe it to future 
generations to make important, albeit difficult, decisions which will 
lead us to the point where we are resolving the challenge of global 
warming and climate change. These are realities. We owe nothing less to 
the next generation but to come up with responsible approaches to 
those.
  The budget resolution debate of a few weeks ago was a discouraging 
chapter in this saga. I hope many of my colleagues will come to realize 
that we must accept this responsibility.

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