[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16962-16963]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          SAFE CLIMATE CAUCUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Holt) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOLT. Madam Speaker, I rise today as a member of the Safe Climate 
Caucus to say that climate change is making extreme weather worse and 
costing us in lives and dollars.
  Last week, Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest storm to make landfall in 
recorded history, struck the Philippines with sustained winds of almost 
200 miles per hour. Thousands are reported dead and missing.
  Haiyan, Sandy, Irene, Katrina, wildfires, floods, droughts.
  If you flip a coin 20 times, it is possible that an honest coin will 
land on heads every time, but you should start to suspect that there is 
something wrong with that coin.
  Sure, the recent extreme weather event might be coincidence, but as 
superstorms continue again and again,

[[Page 16963]]

you should suspect that something is wrong with our climate. We should 
begin fixing our broken world, not be pretending that all is well.
  This week marks the beginning of the 19th U.N. climate change 
conference in Warsaw, where representatives from more than 190 nations 
will be discussing climate change and how the world should be 
responding.
  For international climate negotiations to succeed, the U.S. should 
take the lead, and leading internationally will require us to start 
here at home.

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