[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17688-17689]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I am back again for now the 51st consecutive week 
that the Senate has been in session to urge Congress to wake up to the 
effects of carbon pollution on the Earth.
  Today I wish to talk about how climate change is taking its toll on 
an important part of our way of our life, some of our long-cherished 
American pastimes that we do in the great outdoors.
  New Englanders--and the distinguished Presiding Officer from 
Connecticut is very familiar with this--have fond memories of ski trips 
in Vermont, of ice hockey on frozen ponds in New Hampshire, and of 
fishing trips off the coast of Rhode Island. All of these activities 
are fun, they are fulfilling, and they leave us with indelible memories 
of the wonders of our natural world. But climate change is putting much 
of that at risk.
  The New York Times records that declining snowfall and an 
unseasonably warm weather were a drag on winter sports and recreational 
tourism during the 2011-2012 winter. Before the end of the century, 
they report the number of economically viable ski locations in New 
Hampshire and Maine will be cut in half. Skiing in New York will be cut 
by three-quarters. I am sorry to inform the Presiding Officer from the 
great State of Connecticut that there will be no ski area left in 
Connecticut or Massachusetts. I assume from the report that means Rhode 
Island as well, because Rhode Islanders have been skiing our beloved 
Yawgoo Valley since the 1960s.
  As drought and increasing temperatures reduce the snowpack in the 
Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, the future of ski and 
snowboarding there is also at risk.
  The Park City Foundation in Utah predicts an annual local temperature 
increase of 6.8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2075, which could cause a total 
loss of snowpack in the lower Park City resort area. Beyond the loss to 
the skiing tradition in Park City, the report estimates that this will 
result in thousands of lost jobs, tens of millions in lost earnings, 
and hundreds of millions in lost economic output.
  No part of the country will be immune from these changes our carbon 
pollution is driving. Studies have found that extremely warm days in 
the Southeast are on the rise. Ice on the Great Lakes is forming later 
and disappearing earlier. Rain will continue to decrease on the Great 
Plains. Wildfire seasons are getting worse in the West where the 
snowpack is melting earlier. Sea-level rise threatens Hawaii's famed 
beaches, and warming in Alaska is degrading the permafrost that entire 
communities are built on.
  Climate change has already changed rainfall patterns and can load the 
dice for bad weather conditions such as heat waves. This past summer a 
heat wave prompted the Kenosha public schools in Wisconsin to cancel 
all outdoor student practices and sporting events. The district stated 
on its Web site: ``Keeping the best interests of our athletes in mind, 
we are canceling/rescheduling all contests today.''
  According to the Denver Post, this past spring a prolonged drought 
forced Denver Parks and Recreation to postpone opening of the grass 
sports fields for soccer and lacrosse, which kept thousands of children 
and adults from starting their athletic seasons.
  For some, warmer temperatures mean more time inside because the air 
is not fit to breathe. Ground-level ozone, commonly known as smog, 
forms more quickly during hot sunny days, causing asthma attacks, 
emergency room visits, and even hospitalizations.
  In August, I met with two Rhode Island kids: Nick Friend, a 15-year-
old from East Providence, and Kenyatta Richards, who is an 8-year-old 
from Warwick. They have asthma. They have to stay indoors and avoid 
being too active on bad air days. We have had six bad air days from 
ozone this year in Rhode Island. That is 6 days when Rhode Islanders 
such as Nick and

[[Page 17689]]

Kenyatta can't enjoy the outdoor activities that are so much a part of 
our American childhoods.
  The effects of climate change aren't limited to hotter days and smog. 
Oceans are warming, ice is melting, and sea levels are rising. This 
puts coastal infrastructure such as dams, bridges, and coastal 
powerplants at risk. It also threatens many of our most beloved and 
expensive palaces of sport. As far back as 2007, ``Sports Illustrated'' 
ran a special issue on sports and global warming, saying: ``Scientists 
project up to a one-meter increase in sea level by 2100,'' warned one 
article, ``which will alter the shape of the land in low-lying regions 
of U.S.--including San Francisco Bay and South Florida--and swamp well-
known sports venues.'' Places such as the American Airlines Arena and 
Sun Life Stadium in Miami and AT&T Park in San Francisco are at risk.
  As Congress sleepwalks through history, blind to the harmful effects 
of carbon pollution, responsible groups are acting, including our major 
professional sports leagues. The NBA, MLB, NFL, and NHL are letters 
that almost every American knows. These leagues and their teams are 
cultural institutions. They are also big business with annual revenues 
in billions of dollars. They take the threat of postponed games and 
washed-out stadiums seriously.
  Earlier this year, the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, which 
I started with Representative Henry Waxman, to keep attention focused 
on climate change and what we could do to address it, asked the 
National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National 
Hockey League, and the National Football League, as well as the United 
States Olympic Committee, to tell us what climate change means for 
their sports. Each of these organizations is awake to the dangers of 
carbon pollution and each is acting.
  Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig wrote to the task force and said:

       I have often said that Baseball is a social institution, 
     and to that end we recognize our responsibility to be part of 
     the national effort to preserve our environment. And that is 
     why MLB and many of our Major League Clubs have adopted 
     practices that have resulted in clean, energy-efficient 
     ballparks and environmentally friendly baseball events.

  One of those practices is the partial offset of the energy used at 
all the All-Star Game events, including FanFest, the Home Run Derby, 
and the All-Star Game, by Green-e Certified energy renewable credits, 
including wind and solar energy.
  On the hockey front, NHL Deputy Commissioner William Daly wrote:

       Hockey's relationship with the environment is unique. Our 
     sport was born on frozen ponds, where to this day--players of 
     all ages and skill levels learn to skate. For this 
     magnificent tradition to continue, it is imperative that we 
     recognize the importance of maintaining the environment.

  The NHL has partnered with ENERGY STAR and the Natural Resources 
Defense Council to make its own facilities more energy efficient, and 
it has called on the U.S. Government to develop a nationwide retrofit 
strategy to help upgrade buildings such as ice rinks and to reduce 
energy consumption and carbon emissions.
  Kathy Behrens, executive vice president of Social Responsibility & 
Player Programs at the NBA, told us:

       While Professional NBA games are played inside climate 
     controlled arenas, most basketball around the world is played 
     outdoors. If air pollution, extreme heat, and other forms of 
     climate disruption make it difficult to enjoy or attend our 
     game and, of much concern, actually threatens the health and 
     safety of basketball players, fans, and business partners, 
     that matters greatly to the [NBA].

  Pro basketball is working to reduce carbon emissions through improved 
energy efficiency at its arenas. A number of NBA arenas have achieved 
LEED certifications and some have installed on-site solar panels. The 
NBA has also come out in support of standards to reduce carbon 
pollution from electric powerplants, which is a cornerstone of 
President Obama's recently announced climate action plan.
  On the football front, Adolfo Birch III, senior vice president of 
Labor Policy and Government Affairs for the NFL, wrote:

       Twenty years ago, the NFL became the first professional 
     sports organization formally to address the environmental 
     impact of our marquee events--Super Bowl and Pro Bowl.

  The program to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions during every 
Super Bowl has resulted in the planting of more than 50,000 trees in 
the Super Bowl host communities. The National Football League estimates 
that the 2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans achieved a reduction of nearly 
24,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions or the equivalent of the energy 
use of 8,000 American homes for an entire year.
  The U.S. Olympic Committee has also joined in the fight to reduce 
harmful carbon pollution. According to USOC CEO Scott Blackmun:

       The Green Ring program aims to mitigate the USOC and our 
     athletes' impact on the environment through a number of 
     sustainability efforts, an area that is a passion for many of 
     our athletes. Through Green Ring, we hope to contribute to 
     sustainability while using our platform to educate and 
     inspire our constituents to do the same. Our focus is more 
     action, less carbon.

  Other international bodies have also launched aggressive plans to 
fight climate change. The 2014 soccer World Cup in Brazil is aiming to 
be carbon neutral by offsetting 2.7 million tons of carbon dioxide 
estimated to be generated by this year's Confederation Cup tournament 
and the World Cup next year.
  Our major sports leagues thus join a great army amassing on the side 
of climate action: virtually every major scientific body, the insurance 
and reinsurance industry, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National 
Academies, NASA, and the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. 
Conference of Catholic Bishops, leading Americans and international 
corporations, and the American Public Health Association. To them and 
many others, who are all in this fight, we can add our friends in the 
world of sports: Major League Baseball, the National Basketball 
Association, the National Hockey League, the National Football League, 
and the U.S. Olympic Committee. There is a growing chorus of voices 
from every sector of American society calling for action. Indeed, there 
is work to be done. The major sports organizations are doing their part 
because they know that few things define American society like the 
teams we cheer and the games we play.
  We in Congress need to wake up and join the fight. It is time to set 
aside the partisan nonsense and the polluter-fueled fantasies and at 
last take real steps to reduce our carbon pollution and preserve our 
distinctly American way of life.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

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