[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17845-17847]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, in every corner of the globe--from 
pole to pole, and from the top of our atmosphere to the depths of our 
oceans--we see evidence of the fundamental changes that are taking 
place across our Earth.
  In 2012, North America experienced a number of unusually severe 
events and passed several ominous milestones. These episodes have 
driven a shift in attitude--a realization, really, among Americans. As 
we head home for the holidays this year, each of us is likely to find 
back in our home States that more and more people are convinced that 
climate change is happening, and that it is deadly serious.
  Here are just some of the extraordinary events that occurred as we 
look back on this year, 2012.
  January 2012 was the fourth warmest January experienced in the 
contiguous United States since we began keeping records. And we began 
keeping records in 1895. By the end of January, snowpack in the Sierra 
Nevada Mountains was 50 percent less than normal.
  February 2012 marked the end of the fourth warmest winter on record--
an above-average start to the year but not extremely so.
  Then this happened: March 2012. March 2012 was the warmest March on 
record. Every State in the Nation experienced a record daily high 
temperature in March. There were 21 instances of nighttime 
temperatures--nighttime temperatures--being as warm or warmer than the 
existing daytime record temperature.
  It was also in March that a University of Texas poll asked 
respondents if they thought climate change was occurring. Madam 
President, 83 percent of Democrats said yes; 60 percent of Independents 
said yes; 45 percent of Republicans said yes.
  As 2012 went on, things did not slow down much for the lower 48 
States.
  April 2012 would become the third warmest April on record. I came to 
the floor in April to speak about another milestone surpassed that 
month. For the first time--for the first time--one of NOAA's remote 
monitoring sites--this one in the Arctic--recorded a concentration of 
400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere, 
crushing records that go back 8,000 centuries. For 8,000 centuries 
mankind has inhabited a planet with an atmosphere with carbon 
concentration being 170 and 300 parts per million. We have broken out 
of that. For the first time, in April, we hit 400 parts per million.
  By May, it was no surprise that spring 2012 was a full 2 degrees 
Fahrenheit warmer than the next warmest spring in recorded history. May 
was the second warmest ever.
  June was only the eighth warmest June, but it officially marked the 
end

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of the warmest 12-month period the United States of America has ever 
experienced.
  Across the lower 48, July was not only the warmest July on record, it 
was the all-time warmest month in America in recorded history. 
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 62.9 percent of the contiguous 
U.S. was experiencing moderate to exceptional drought by the end of the 
month--nearly two-thirds. Madam President, 62.9 percent was 
experiencing moderate to exceptional drought as a result of this being 
the all-time warmest month.
  As the mercury climbed in July, so did agreement among Americans on 
the crisis of climate change. That University of Texas poll was taken 
again, and the percentage of Democrats convinced of global climate 
change had risen to 87 percent in July, up from 83 percent in March. 
Among Independents, the percentage went from 60 percent up to 72 
percent. And Republican believers in climate change became a majority. 
They went from 45 percent to 53 percent.
  By August we had experienced the third hottest summer in the history 
of the continental United States. In the West, 3.6 million acres were 
ablaze with wildfires--nearly twice the August average, and the most in 
the 12-year period of record.
  August also brought bad news from the North. The University of 
Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center and NASA announced that 
Arctic sea ice had reached a record low area of 1.58 million square 
miles--nearly 70,000 square miles smaller than the previous modern 
record low. Over the past three decades, average annual temperatures 
had increased twice as much over the Arctic as over the rest of the 
world. The average extent of the Arctic sea ice has declined by 25 to 
30 percent in that time, and the rate of decline is accelerating.
  September 2012. September 2012 was the 16th month in a row that the 
contiguous United States recorded an above 20th century average 
temperature.
  October finally ended that record streak with a temperature across 
the lower 48 that was 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit below the long-term 
average. But October also brought us, as the Acting President pro 
tempore so well knows, Hurricane Sandy, Superstorm Sandy. It was the 
largest Atlantic hurricane on record, claiming more than 100 lives, and 
the second costliest. The cleanup in my home State of Rhode Island and 
across the east coast--I know most agonizingly in New York and New 
Jersey--is still underway. This week in the Senate we are working to 
approve a $60 billion aid package which will help restore that damage.


                           Hazard Mitigation

  Let me step aside of my climate remarks and speak for 1 minute to 
that because as we consider this supplemental appropriations bill, 
long-term mitigation must be part of this discussion. We should not 
replace and rebuild what was damaged just as it was. We need to replace 
and rebuild smarter. Sandy is a preview of what is to come. 
Infrastructure that failed or flooded should be replaced to higher 
standards; at-risk roads, wastewater treatment plants, and other 
utilities need to be relocated to safer places.
  If disaster strikes, as it has, and we do not plan ahead, as we are 
being urged not to, we will squander Federal dollars. A 2005 study by 
the National Institute of Building Sciences showed FEMA hazard 
mitigation efforts yielded an average cost-benefit ratio of 4 to 1--$4 
saved for every $1 spent. Let's not be foolish.
  A prime example of this sort of smart planning was in the Acting 
President pro tempore's home State at Point Lookout, Lido Beach, and 
Atlantic Beach. These communities invested in sand dune buffers--sand 
dune habitat buffers. When Sandy came, they suffered relatively little 
damage compared to nearby Long Beach, which had decided against 
maintaining a sand dune buffer and ended up with an estimated $200 
million in property and infrastructure damage.
  Coastal wetlands act like sponges during flooding events. They absorb 
water. They dissipate wave energy. They protect against storm surge. 
They are an important part of our coastal defenses in coastal States. 
Natural dune systems on barrier islands and beaches do the same. They 
are part of our natural defense against coastal storms. These natural 
defenses must be protected and strengthened for our future safety. And 
I hope that even Senators who come from landlocked States can 
appreciate what this means in coastal States.
  So back to Sandy. While it is impossible to say specifically that 
climate change caused Superstorm Sandy, we know that warmer oceans, 
warmer, moister air, and higher sea level all add to the power and 
danger of these extreme storms. We know that climate change ``loads the 
dice'' for such storms.
  Madam President, 2012 marched us past even more portentous 
milestones. NOAA reported that November 2012 was the 333rd month in a 
row--the 333rd month in a row--that the global monthly temperature was 
above the 20th century average. The Earth has not seen a single month 
below 20th century average temperatures since February of 1985. Some of 
these interns and pages here were born after that. They have lived 
their entire lives in that environment.
  According to the National Climate Data Center, 2012 is set to be the 
warmest calendar year on record for the contiguous United States. 
December would have to be one full degree Fahrenheit colder than the 
coldest December on record to prevent that from happening and make up 
for the exceptionally hot first 8 months of the year.
  The overwhelming majority of scientific research indicates that these 
observed changes in the Earth's atmosphere are the direct result of 
human activity; namely, the emission of carbon dioxide from the burning 
of fossil fuels.
  Just last week, Dr. James Powell, former Reagan and George H.W. Bush 
appointee to the National Science Board, released a new review of the 
scientific literature, in which he searched for articles that expressly 
reject human-caused global warming or propose an alternate explanation. 
He looked at 13,950 peer-reviewed climate articles--nearly 14,000 peer-
reviewed climate articles. Madam President, 24--24--either rejected 
global warming trends or denied the human contribution to warming.
  I am not even sure if viewers looking at this on C-SPAN can see it, 
but on this circle pie graph I have in the Chamber, this little red 
line depicts the 24 articles out of the 14,000. It is a tiny fringe.
  The science is clear, and more and more Americans accept that the 
science is clear behind climate change. An AP poll out just last week 
found that 78 percent of Americans accept the reality of climate 
change.
  The findings, like the University of Texas poll, break it down by 
political party: 83 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of Independents, 
and 70 percent of Republicans. So the real debate in this country is 
not whether humans are altering our climate but how severely we will do 
so and how as a society we will respond to this challenge.
  Although some Members of this Chamber continue to deny the existence 
of climate change, Americans are aware that our Nation is vulnerable to 
extreme weather events. They are aware that climate change loads the 
dice. They are aware that carbon pollution continues unabated, and they 
are aware that Congress has failed to act.
  The public is ready for us to take action, but we are not. We are, as 
I have said in a previous speech, sleepwalking. As Congress sleepwalks, 
Americans actually are taking action on their own. In coordination with 
the nonprofit organization 350.org, for example, students at more than 
150 colleges and universities across the country are pressing those 
institutions to sell off the portions of their endowment portfolios 
that are invested in fossil fuel companies. These students are 
imploring their schools to weigh the real cost of climate change 
against the drive for greater financial returns and divest from the 
polluters.
  This type of divestment campaign was employed effectively in the 
1980s to

[[Page 17847]]

pull investment from South Africa during apartheid. With American 
college and university endowments estimated to total more than $400 
billion, this movement by students deserves significant attention.
  In the Senate key legislation such as the Water Resources Development 
Act must reflect the reality that our climate and environment are 
changing, that we need to prepare for these changes. We should take 
direct legislative action to mitigate climate change. We should defend 
the administration's carbon pollution standards which will require new 
and existing powerplants to clean up their smokestacks.
  The United States must support the Department of Defense, the world's 
single largest consumer of oil, as a leader in energy efficiency and 
alternative fuel development for our national security sake. We must 
extend the production tax credit as our colleague, Senator Mark Udall 
of Colorado, has so often and so eloquently pressed us to do. The 
American Wind Energy Association is pushing for a 6-year extension of 
the production tax credit to grow a vibrant wind power industry in 
America.
  A greener economy provides a cleaner and safer future for Americans. 
More Americans already work in the green industries than in the fossil 
fuels industry. A Brookings Institution report found the clean economy 
employs 2.7 million workers. That is manufacturing and exports, the 
kind of jobs that support a strong middle class. But in Congress we are 
sleepwalking through history. We are sleepwalking through history, and 
we must wake up; awaken to our duties, awaken to our responsibilities, 
awaken to the plain facts that lay all around us if only we would open 
our eyes and see them.
  The public has every reason to want to grab us and give us a good 
shake. We are sleepwalking through this era, lulled as we sleepwalk by 
the narcotics of corporate money, corporate money out of the polluters 
and their allies. We are lulled by the narcotics of manufactured doubt 
planted in a campaign of disinformation by those same polluters and 
allies. But history is calling us loudly and clearly. History is 
shouting in our ears. We are oblivious, sleepwalking along.
  The people across the country and around the world are counting on 
us. They are imploring us. We have responsibilities to them. Yet in 
Congress, we ignore the facts. We ignore our duties. We sleepwalk on. 
It is irresponsible and it is wrong.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Montana.

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