[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 13231-13235]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




MAKING EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING 
                 SEPTEMBER 30, 2014--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 488.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 488, S. 2648, a bill 
     making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal 
     year ending September 30, 2014, and for other purposes.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a cloture motion at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 488, S. 2648, a bill making emergency 
     supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending 
     September 30, 2014, and for other purposes.
         Harry Reid, Barbara A. Mikulski, Benjamin L. Cardin, 
           Barbara Boxer, Patrick J. Leahy, Sheldon Whitehouse, 
           Jack Reed, Christopher A. Coons, Jeff Merkley, Debbie 
           Stabenow, Robert P. Casey, Jr., Bill Nelson, John D. 
           Rockefeller IV, Mazie K. Hirono, Tom Harkin, Bernard 
           Sanders, Richard Blumenthal.

  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under 
rule XXII be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Minnesota.


                 Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 524

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise in support of a simple and 
straightforward resolution cosponsored by 20 of our colleagues that 
would simply express the sense of the Senate that climate change is 
occurring and that it will continue to pose ongoing risks and 
challenges to our citizens and to our country. That is all it says. We 
know we have a problem. We don't pretend to give every solution in this 
resolution; it simply gives us the point of saying we have a problem.
  I am pleased to be joined by two leaders on this issue, Senator 
Sheldon Whitehouse as well as Chairman Barbara Boxer, the chair of the 
Environment and Public Works Committee.
  We have an obligation to our constituents and to this country to 
address global climate change. We must tackle the challenge head-on. 
This is an issue facing all Americans--from farmers struggling with 
extreme weather from drought, to floods in seaside communities 
threatened by rising waters, to habitat changes that are impacting our 
hunting, fishing, and outdoor economy, to businesses trying to mitigate 
the financial risks posed by the effects of climate change.
  It is clear climate change poses a grave threat to food security, the 
environment, and our national security, as well as to our businesses. 
Yet achieving a commitment to at least admit this problem is going on 
in the Senate has fallen short. That is the point of our direct 
resolution that simply states the facts--the science--about climate 
change and the impact it is having on our country.
  The resolution draws from the 2014 National Climate Assessment which 
was drafted by 300 climate experts and extensively reviewed by a 60-
member advisory committee and the National Academy of Sciences. The 
National Climate Assessment states the science very simply. The most 
recent decade was the Nation's warmest on record and U.S. temperatures 
are expected to continue to rise. The Department of Defense of this 
country, of the United States of America, our own Department of Defense 
2014 Quadrennial Defense Review reiterates climate change has a 
destabilizing effect, stating: ``The pressures caused by climate change 
will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on 
economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world.'' 
And the Defense Science Board report concluded: ``Climate change will 
only grow in concern for the United States and its security 
interests.''
  All the resolution says is that it is the sense of the Senate that 
global climate change is occurring and will continue to cause ongoing 
risks and challenges to the people and the Government of the United 
States.
  We know the costs. The 2012 drought was the worst drought since 1956 
and caused over $30 billion in damage nationwide. The current drought 
in the Western and Southwestern States is estimated to cost billions 
and it remains ongoing. Last week there was a newspaper map showing 
that about 34 percent of the contiguous United States was in at least a 
moderate drought as of July 22. Those are the numbers. Those are the 
facts.
  We have seen heavy downpours increasing nationally. We have seen 
hurricanes increasing in intensity. If we continue on our current path, 
by the year 2050, between $66 billion and $106 billion worth of 
existing coastal properties will likely be below sea level nationwide, 
and $238 billion to $507 billion worth of property will be below sea 
level by the year 2100.
  So what are we hearing from the business community? We have 
conservative businesspeople such as former U.S. Secretary of the 
Treasury under George Bush, Hank Paulson, speaking out. He, along with 
former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and eight other prominent 
business and policy leaders, recently released the first comprehensive 
assessment of the economic risks our Nation faces from the changing 
climate, including increased coastal storm damage, reduced productivity 
in some areas of the United States because they have become too hot for 
outdoor work, strained energy networks, and expanding public health 
impacts. This report represents an important first step toward a true 
accounting of the risks of climate change so the American business 
community can begin to work toward effective climate risk management.
  Just this past Thursday, former Clinton Treasury Secretary and 
cochair of the Foreign Relations Council Bob Rubin wrote an article in 
the Washington Post advocating that although it is clear that the U.S. 
economy faces enormous risks from unmitigated climate change, policy 
and business leaders are not taking into account the cost of inaction, 
which means decisions are being made based on the broad picture posed 
by climate change on our economy.
  So now we have scientists, business leaders, church groups, and 
outdoor groups all out in front of this issue. In fact, a recent poll 
found that 63 percent of Americans believe this is occurring. Sixty-
three percent of Americans believe it is occurring. Yet where is the 
Senate? Where are we?
  We have an opportunity today, to pass this simple resolution saying 
it is the sense of the Senate that global climate change is occurring 
and will continue to pose ongoing challenges to the people and the 
Government of the United States.
  It should not be that hard for this Congress to simply say that. 
Think of what the Senate has done in the past. When we saw what was 
going on in South Africa, it was the Senate that overcame a 
Presidential veto to approve the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. It 
was the Senate that took the lead on civil rights legislation. It was 
the Senate that was willing to put partisan issues aside and take on 
the Watergate hearings. It was the Senate that took on consumer issues. 
It was the Senate that passed the Clean Air Act approved by 43 
Democrats and 30 Republicans.
  We just have to take one step today; that is, to simply tell the 
world we know there is a problem. We are not here trying to give all 
the solutions. We know colleagues disagree with this in terms of what 
we should do, depending on where they are from or what States they 
represent. But to even start having those discussions, we have to admit 
there is a problem.
  I urge my colleagues to support this simple, straightforward 
resolution. I urge them to support it because it is so important to our 
country.

[[Page 13232]]

  I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration 
of S. Res. 524, expressing the sense of the Senate regarding global 
climate change which was submitted earlier today; that the resolution 
be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider 
be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. INHOFE. I reserve the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have to say this. The resolution by 
Senator Klobuchar clearly demonstrates the vast political influence of 
the President's global warming advocates and what they have been doing 
over time.
  This is not new. This started in this Chamber--let's see, 15 years 
ago--at the time the Clinton-Gore effort took place in South America 
and they signed on to the treaty down there. Of course, it never came 
up to be ratified.
  This resolution cites 13 different government agencies that are 
colluding together to merge their policies to promote global warming, 
which underscores how effective the environmental activists such as Tom 
Steyer have been at getting their agenda into the Obama administration.
  While some Democrats may be convinced global warming is continuing to 
occur, the scientific record does not agree. In fact, for the past 15 
years temperatures across the globe have not increased. Let's think 
about that. Is anyone listening here? Temperatures have not increased 
over the last 15 years. This isn't just--a major magazine had an 
article on it, ``The Economist'' did, and even the scientists at the 
IPCC.
  Let's keep in mind that the whole thing was started by the United 
Nations. They started this group called the IPCC--the Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change--and they have been promoting it ever since. 
Even the IPCC says we have had no warming for the last 15 years. 
Senator Wicker from Mississippi, at a hearing last week, pointed out 
that some 31,000 American scientists, 9,000 of whom have Ph.D.s, have 
signed a petition noting there is a lack of scientific evidence that 
greenhouse gases are causing global warming.
  Looking at the political side of things, the Senate has been debating 
this issue for nearly 15 years. I can remember standing right here at 
this podium, the first bill that came down was the McCain-Lieberman 
bill. It was to legislatively do a cap-and-trade bill. It would have 
set up an economywide cap-and-trade program. It failed by a vote of 43 
to 55. This is in the Senate. A short while after that they had another 
bill, which was in 2005, and it failed by a larger margin. In 2008, the 
Warner-Lieberman bill came up. It failed also. Each time it fails, it 
fails by a larger plurality, which leads me to question how people can 
possibly say the majority in this Senate has an interest in this 
legislation because they fail every time. The last time the bill was 
considered in Congress was in 2009. That was the Waxman-Markey bill. It 
passed the House but never got a vote in the Senate because they knew 
it was going to fail.
  One might ask, Why is that? What changed from the time the polling 
showed Americans were interested in this issue? I will tell my 
colleagues when it was. I happened to be at that time chairman of the 
air subcommittee of the Environment and Public Works Committee. They 
had at that time a study that came out. It was by the scientists from 
the Wharton School of Economics talking about what the cost would be if 
we were to pass cap and trade. That figure was between $300 billion and 
$400 billion a year. Let's keep in mind that would constitute the 
largest tax increase in the history of America.
  It is not as if it is just one group. MIT, Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, came out and agreed with those figures. They said $300 
billion to $400 billion. Then Charles Rivers came out and said the same 
thing, about $300 billion to $400 billion a year.
  Since that time there has been a wake-up call for the American 
people. I don't know what my good friend from Minnesota--maybe she will 
elaborate a little bit on these polls. But I can remember back when the 
Gallup polls used to say, some 15 years ago, that global warming was 
either the first or the second major concern people had. A Gallup poll 
that came out just 2 weeks ago said it was No. 14 out of 15. In other 
words, they said: Name the 15 greatest concerns we have, and No. 14 out 
of 15 was global warming.
  The Pew Research Center came out just the other day saying that 53 
percent of Americans who believe in global warming--these are the ones 
who truly believe the globe is warming and we are all going to die--
when they asked about the cause of global warming, either they said 
they don't believe there is enough evidence to blame manmade gases--
that is anthropogenic gases--or they believe it is caused by natural 
variation.
  This probably explains why it has been difficult for Tom Steyer to 
reengender a lot of interest in this issue. He has committed to raising 
$100 million. He promised to help Democrats win elections this fall. He 
put $50 million of his own money--this is Tom Steyer talking; he admits 
he is doing this--and he is going to raise the other $50 million. We 
found out from an article in Politico 2 weeks ago that the most he has 
been able to raise of the second $50 million is $1.2 million from 
outside donors so far. Maybe over the weekend he had a good weekend; I 
don't know. That is a possibility.
  What we should be doing is learning from the international community. 
Just last week Australia repealed its much hated carbon tax--the same 
thing that is being promoted right now. Either cap and trade or a tax 
on carbon is what they passed in Australia, and they did it 
overwhelmingly. Then they realized the real cost. Tony Abbott, the 
Prime Minister, should be heralded as a hero for his courageous 
leadership to help the poor and those on fixed incomes who suffer when 
energy prices needlessly rise.
  Upon passage of the bill to repeal the tax, he told the Australian 
people--this is his quote; listen very carefully: ``Today the tax that 
you voted to get rid of is finally gone. A useless destructive tax 
which damaged jobs, which hurt families' cost of living and which 
didn't actually help the environment is finally gone.'' He is talking 
about the tax they passed in the country of Australia and just recently 
rescinded that.
  By the way, there is a guy, Senator Cory Bernardi, who came out--I 
happened to see him 3 or 4 days ago in Washington. He was here. He was 
one of the senators who actually had promoted this to start with and 
then changed his mind and realized this is something that is worth 
repealing. And they did it.
  So the Australian people are thanking their Prime Minister. I believe 
we will be able to protect the American people from the senseless 
global warming policies here in the United States. It is something they 
have tried for 15 years here. Every time they stand up and say, oh, the 
science is settled, the science is settled, then we come up with more 
groups. I can remember the first time they said the science is settled. 
That was 12 years ago. Look at my Web site. I named a handful of 
scientists who had been intimidated by the IPCC--that is the United 
Nations--into saying: Yes, we want you to participate. But to do this, 
you have to believe this stuff on global warming. Of course, it did not 
happen.
  So we started listing, and we got several hundred, then several 
thousand scientists who we still have on the Web site. You can access 
it. So it is not just recently that scientists have changed their mind 
on this, because they started a long time ago. By the way, I know this 
is a fine person, Tom Steyer, and we are reading from Politico. Later 
on he made the statement:

       It is true that we expect to be heavily involved in the 
     mid-term elections. We are looking at a bunch of races. My 
     guess is that we will end up involved in eight or more races.

  This is a guy talking about what he is going to do with $100 million. 
So it is something that is not going to happen.

[[Page 13233]]

It sounds real good, standing up and talking about the world coming to 
an end, but that was not sellable back in 2003 when they had the first 
bill. It is not sellable today.
  It always bothers me when we have a President who tries his best to 
get things done legislatively, and then cannot do it that way so he is 
trying to do it through regulations. So having said all of that, I 
object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I appreciate very much having had the 
opportunity to hear those words from what I can only describe as an 
alternate reality from the one I inhabit, any way. First, let me say 
the very first paragraph of the resolution is this: Whereas, the 2014 
National Climate Assessment stated the most recent decade was the 
Nation's warmest on record--U.S. Temperatures are expected to continue 
to rise.
  There is some evidence that certain temperatures have been flat for a 
few years--atmospheric temperatures. What that little rhetorical device 
omits to consider is two things: One, 93 percent of the heat that comes 
onto the Earth from global warming goes into the oceans. Maybe 3 or 4 
percent actually goes into the atmosphere--93 to 3. So if there is any 
change in the ocean, which regulates the temperature of the Earth, then 
it is going to have a pronounced effect on atmospheric temperature. And 
the ocean continues to warm.
  People will say: No, the Earth stopped warming. It has not warmed for 
12 or 15 years--whatever they say. No, if you actually look at it, the 
oceans are continuing to warm. There has been this step in atmospheric 
temperature at a certain level. The other thing that gets left out when 
our friends say that is this is not the first step. If you look at the 
history of how this got to be the hottest decade on record, over and 
over you can look at the graphs and you see these steps. To pretend 
that each step is the last one runs completely against the science. So 
to say we have no warming is just not factual. To say that the 
government--he used the word colluding--is colluding together, that is 
a fairly tough word to use. Let me tell you some of the government 
agencies that are so-called colluding together and believe climate 
change is real and carbon pollution is causing it.
  How about NASA? We trust them to send our astronauts into space. We 
trust them to deliver a rover the size of an SUV to the surface of Mars 
safely and drive it around, sending data and pictures back from Mars to 
us. You think these people know what they are talking about?
  We trust NOAA with our weather predicting. That is what they tell us. 
Nobody is saying they are incompetent at weather predicting. Do not 
listen when people are warning you about storms. But somehow when they 
talk about climate change, that is colluding.
  How about the U.S. Navy? The Commander in Chief of our Pacific 
Command, Admiral Locklear, has said the No. 1 threat we face in the 
Pacific theatre comes from climate change. Is he colluding when he says 
that? This is a career Navy man whom the people of America have trusted 
with the security of our Pacific theater. It is exactly consistent with 
what the Department of Defense Quadrennial Defense Review said both 
last time--4 years ago--and most recently.
  If you want to ignore the Federal Government, if you live in a world 
in which you think the Federal Government colludes with itself to make 
up things that are not true--OK, but look at the property casualty 
insurance and reinsurance industry. They are the people with the 
biggest bet on this. They have billions of dollars riding on getting it 
right. They say climate change is real. Carbon pollution is causing it. 
We have to do something about it.
  So does the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, because they care 
about the poor and the effect this will have on the people who have the 
least. So does every major U.S. scientific society--every single one. 
So you can take a poll or a petition and say it has 30,000 names on it. 
I am told that among the names on that petition are the Spice Girls and 
people from MASH such as Dr. Frank Burns. It is almost a comedic 
effort.
  When you say there are 9,000 who have degrees, that is--what--.00003 
percent of our population of 300 million? Maybe I got a zero wrong 
there. The idea that you cannot find 9,000 people who think the Earth 
is flat is a bit of a stretch. The idea that we should base our 
policies on a petition that imaginary people are on rather than on what 
NASA, NOAA, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 
every major scientific society, and the entire property casualty 
insurance and reinsurance industry are telling us is just 
extraordinary.
  If you want to go into the private sector, you have to look no 
further than Coke and Pepsi. Look no further than Walmart. Look no 
further than Mars. You can go over there to the candy drawer and you 
can get wonderful Mars products. It is a huge company. They are going 
carbon neutral. They are desperately concerned about climate change. 
Look at Nike, look at Google, look at Apple--American company after 
American company.
  The only place, other than, of course, the 9,000 people who joined 
the Spice Girls and MAJ Frank Burns on this petition, where denial is 
anything credible any longer is here in Congress where the money from 
the fossil fuel industry still has such a pernicious effect. But even 
among the Republicans--I will close by saying this and yield to my 
distinguished chairman. Even among the Republicans, they are losing 
their young voters on this issue. People know better. You poll 
Republicans who are under the age of 35 and a majority of them will say 
that somebody who believes in climate denial is ignorant, out of touch 
or crazy. That is what the young Republicans think about that position. 
So time is on our side. The day will come when the Senate can face the 
fact that climate change is real. I want to thank Senator Klobuchar and 
salute her effort to bring such a noncontroversial proposition to the 
floor in the form of a resolution--such a noncontroversial and factual 
proposition. It is a measure of our times and a measure of this body 
and a measure of the influence on it that it was not adopted by 
unanimous consent but was objected to by the Republicans.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Klobuchar from the bottom 
of my heart for writing such a sensible resolution. People who do not 
know Amy Klobuchar, as I know her, may not know that she is terrific at 
bringing both sides together. She does it every day of the week. I 
could list all of the issues, but I will not take the time to do that. 
The record speaks for itself.
  But on this one, on this simple statement of fact, our Republican 
friends will not even let that go. This is amazing. This is not a 
document that says this is how we should fix climate change or this is 
how we should address it. She does not get into that. She stays away 
from that because there are legitimate differences.
  Some people say: Let's keep on making more electric cars. Some people 
say: Let's focus on energy efficiency in our homes. Some people say: 
Shut down the old coal powerplants. It is dangerous to breathe that 
air. They are adding to the problem.
  She does not get into that. All she does in this beautifully elegant 
and simple resolution is state the facts. First, the resolution 
acknowledges that the National Climate Assessment report, which is 
congressionally required--the Congress set it up--states that serious 
impacts are happening all around us. That report was drafted by more 
than 300 experts. Guess what it shows? This is what she points out. 
There are more frequent heat waves, wildfires, and droughts. Coming 
from California, I can tell you, we are in a terrible fire season. We 
go to bed at night not knowing what we are going to hear in the morning 
when we wake up about the raging wildfires in our great State.

[[Page 13234]]

  We see them in all of our neighboring States as well, whether it is 
Washington, or Oregon or Arizona. The least we can do is acknowledge we 
have more frequent fires, that we have a terrible drought in the West, 
and that this is a fact in evidence. It is not a fact not in evidence.
  Second, the resolution acknowledges that our top military leaders at 
the Pentagon have concluded the impacts of climate change are a growing 
concern. Sometimes when the military makes a statement it is hard to 
understand it. This one is really clear. Do you know what they say? 
They say that climate change is moving from a threat multiplier to a 
catalyst for conflict. Let me say that again. They used to think it was 
a threat multiplier. So if there was a problem, say, in Syria, where 
there is a horrific drought--and some people think that whole conflict 
has a lot of roots in that drought--where it used to be a multiplier, 
now they are saying it could actually be the reason why there are 
conflicts.
  Now, I cannot believe my Republican friends would cast away the words 
of our military leaders and stand up here and object to this 
resolution. All it says is: Climate change is happening. These are the 
people who say it is happening. It is a risk to the American people if 
we do not address it.
  Now, I will close with this. In our committee Senator Whitehouse had 
an incredible hearing he organized. It was amazing. I sat through the 
entire hearing. He invited four former Republican EPA Administrators 
who served under the last four Republican Presidents: Richard Nixon, 
Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George W. Bush. Now, 
listen to this. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker 
Bush, and George W. Bush--all of these former administrators said: 
Climate change requires action now, and it should not be a partisan 
issue. I ask rhetorically: When did the environment become a partisan 
issue? When I first got into politics--it was a while ago--but it was 
completely bipartisan.
  We addressed this issue together because the health of the American 
people, the ability to go to work and breathe clean air and not have an 
asthma attack or a heart attack, the desire to make sure our kids are 
swimming in safe, clean water and drinking clean water. This wasn't 
partisan.
  The latest thing we know--and this is critical to put in the Record 
at this time--is that when we clean up dirty, filthy carbon pollution, 
we also make sure the air is cleaner to breathe. This is critical. That 
is why the administration's plan is going to lead to healthier 
communities. We can't afford to sit around here debating whether 
climate change is real. We can't afford that.
  All we wanted to say in this resolution and all Senator Klobuchar 
says is that climate change is happening. The experts are telling us. 
The peer review scientists are telling us. The military is telling us. 
Everybody is telling us.
  Yes, as Senator Whitehouse said, there is a small group of people--
there always has been and there always will be--but we didn't wait 
before we protected our people from tobacco smoke because 10 percent of 
the scientists said: No, no, no, it doesn't cause cancer.
  I would love to be able to bring back the lives of those lost when 
the tobacco companies put their dirty money all around the Capitol and 
stopped us from acting.
  I am proud to stand with my friends.
  When history is written--trust me on this one--they are going to look 
at us and say: What did they do? What did they do to step to the plate?
  President Obama did, and we are protecting his rules here. But we 
have a job to do. It all starts with acknowledging that there is a 
problem. If you don't acknowledge that there is a problem, you will 
never fix it.
  I thank my friend Senator Klobuchar for her leadership, and I hope 
she will not be deterred because I want to be back on this floor with 
her, Senator Whitehouse, and others as many times as she is willing to 
put this forward because it is that important.
  I yield the floor.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I thank Senator Boxer.
  We now have 21 cosponsors. We are adding daily. We have cosponsors, 
of course, from coastal States. States such as Hawaii and Maine see the 
effect of the water all around them. Independent Senator Angus King is 
a cosponsor of this resolution. We have Colorado, with Senator Udall 
and Senator Bennet, who are cosponsors, who understand the risk of 
wildfire and what they see in their State with climate change. We have 
States in the Midwest, such as Iowa, with Senator Harkin; Michigan, 
with Senator Stabenow, the chair of the Agriculture Committee. They 
understand what drought means to farmers.
  This is not just a coastal problem; this is a problem across the 
United States as we are seeing the disruptions of climate change.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a link to a 
June 14 report called ``Risky Business, The Economic Risks of Climate 
Change in the United States.''
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       http://riskybusiness.org/uploads/files/Risk Business 
     _Report_WEB_7_22_14.pdf

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I wanted to follow up on the good words not only of 
Senator Boxer but my good friend Senator Whitehouse, as he took on some 
of the words we were hearing from our colleague from Oklahoma, Senator 
Inhofe, as he talked about collusion of the people in this area--
collusion. I guess he meant with the President of the United States.
  I looked at some of the names on this report--Hank Paulson, former 
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under George Bush. I am trying to 
imagine him colluding with President Obama, and I just can't picture it 
right now.
  Gregory Page is someone I know, the former head of Cargill, the CEO 
of Cargill, a multinational company--the biggest company in the United 
States--based in Minnesota. The executive chairman of Cargill is a part 
of this report warning the business community, looking at what the 
risks are to the business community. I can tell you he is not colluding 
with the President of the United States.
  Olympia Snowe--talk about an independent--the former Senator from the 
State of Maine, is part of this group issuing this report. She is not 
colluding with the President of the United States.
  As Senator Whitehouse pointed out, all of these military branches and 
people from the branches of our military who look at this as a security 
risk are looking at this and literally following the oath. They are 
doing what they are supposed to do--their duty, their duty to protect 
our country--and they see this as a threat to national security, to the 
United States, a threat to our standing in the world and to the scarce 
resources we are seeing with water not only in the United States but 
all across the world--a threat.
  This is not collusion. This is science. These are facts. In my State 
we embrace science. We brought the world everything from the pacemaker 
to the Post-it note. We are the home of the Mayo Clinic. We believe in 
science.
  What this resolution does is it simply states the science, drafted by 
over 300 authors, the 2014 National Climate Assessment, extensively 
reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences, with support, with the 
facts.
  From the Department of Defense, the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review 
of the Department of Defense states that ``the pressures caused by 
climate change will influence resource competition while placing 
additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions 
around the world.''
  All this says is let's get the facts straight. It is a sense of the 
Senate that global climate change is occurring and will continue to 
pose ongoing risks and challenges to the people and the government of 
the United States. That is all it says.
  We are going to have major debate on how to solve this problem. That 
debate is going on right now. But unless we can at least get a vote and 
some support in the Senate for this problem that is happening, when 63 
percent of Americans know it is happening, we look silly. The people 
are in front of us

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again. The businesses are in front of us. The church groups are in 
front of us. The scientists are in front of us. The hunting groups in 
my State are in front of us. It is time that we acknowledge we have a 
problem and then move on to fix it.
  As Senator Boxer posed at the end of her remarks, yes, we will be 
back. I am someone who likes to get things done, and I believe the 
first thing we need to do is to get an agreement here on the fact that 
we have a problem. Once we have done that, we can move on and work on 
those solutions.
  Senator Whitehouse has been a leader in the Senate, has been to those 
coastal communities not only in Rhode Island but up and down the coast 
looking at that damage, seeing what is happening in Virginia, and 
seeing what is happening in Florida.
  I yield for the Senator from Rhode Island for closing remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank Senator Klobuchar. It has been a pleasure 
working with the Senator.
  This was an important step today. It was the most benign, factual, 
noncontroversial statement of virtually undisputed facts that one could 
imagine. Yet, here of all places it was unable to achieve consent.
  Let me close by mentioning that this is not something that happens 
off in some other place; it is happening right in our homes.
  In Rhode Island, the tide gauge at Naval Station Newport is up 10 
inches since the 1930s. We have had big storms before. We have had big 
hurricanes before. They do a lot of damage to our State, adding 10 
inches of more ocean to our shores. That is serious for my State. That 
is deadly serious for my State. You can't argue with a tide gauge. It 
is not complicated; it is a measurement.
  We can look at the experience of Rhode Island fishermen who are 
hauling up fish such as tarpon and grouper. Fishermen have told me they 
started fishing on their granddad's boat and they finished on their 
dad's boat and in their lives they never saw these fish. But because of 
the warming seas I talked about earlier, these tropical fish are coming 
up into Rhode Island waters. When the seas warm, they get bigger. It is 
called the law of thermal expansion. It is not a law we passed; it is a 
law of God's Earth. To deny that is to deny the fundamental premises of 
this planet.
  If you think the Rhode Island gauge is weird, go down to Fort 
Pulaski, GA, where I went on my tour of the southern coast. Tides are 
up there as well, same thing. The ocean is warming, the seas are 
rising, and it creates much more risk for our coastal communities.
  You can go as far away from Rhode Island as you like. You can go to 
Utah; how about that. The Park City Foundation, which represents the 
skiing community--a lot of people go to Utah to ski--says climate 
change is serious, carbon pollution is causing it, and we are going to 
lose a lot of business because we are not going to have as much snow. 
It is going to shorten our season and make life much more difficult.
  It is the same in New Hampshire, back on our coast. I went up to New 
Hampshire a little while ago and met with the ski industry. They are 
seeing much more need to make snow because they are not getting the 
snow they used to. If you want to go cross-country skiing or if you 
want to go on a ski mobile tour, they can't make snow on those trails, 
so they are getting clobbered.
  What is really getting clobbered from the lack of snow is that iconic 
New Hampshire animal--the moose. Evidently, the way ticks breed, snow 
kills them off, and when the moose are walking around on snow they are 
protected from ticks, but when the snow is not there the ticks come at 
them.
  I was told in New Hampshire about young moose calves that had not 1 
tick on them, not 100 ticks on them, not 1,000 ticks on them--10,000 
ticks on them. Adult moose have been found with 100,000 ticks on them. 
They are sucking so much blood out of these animals that they can't 
come up, they sicken, and they die. That is from the New Hampshire 
scientists, including people at the University of New Hampshire, State 
universities.
  Utah Senators can deny this is real and refuse to talk about it, but 
Utah State universities both have climate change programs, and they 
both have people studying climate change. How can their State 
universities have programs and people studying climate change in their 
home States and then they come to Washington and pretend it is not 
real? It doesn't make any sense.
  How can a New Hampshire Senator not come here and admit it is real 
when the University of New Hampshire is so active in all of this?
  Florida--I will stop with Florida because Florida is probably the 
worst of all. Florida is getting hugely hurt by sea level rise. One of 
our great cities floods at high tide in Florida.
  I went down on my visit, and I stopped at the Army Corps of 
Engineers. People may think that the Army Corps of Engineers is some 
liberal organization colluding with somebody to do improper stuff and 
that they can't be trusted, but that is not the way people behave 
around here on any other subject. When the Army Corps wants to build 
lakes or dam rivers or build levees or anything else, we have 100 
percent confidence in them. We have confidence in the Army Corps of 
Engineers. So you have to take with a grain of salt some of this 
skepticism about the Army Corps of Engineers.
  The Army Corps of Engineers expert in Florida says that as the sea 
level rises it shoves saltwater by pressure into the limestone southern 
Florida is made of. You can actually measure the infiltration of 
saltwater into what used to be freshwater wells, and the line moves 
back from the coast as the sea level rises and creates hydraulic 
pressure. As they try to create counterhydraulic pressure, which they 
do with freshwater to push back in this hard limestone sponge, they 
raise the water level for freshwater. They said Florida is in a box. 
There is no way out. It is either going to flood with sea level or 
flood with freshwater. There is no way out. This is the Army Corps of 
Engineers expert in Jacksonville, FL. Why won't our colleague from 
Florida listen to the Army Corps of Engineers expert from his own 
State?
  We have to get through this, and we will, but it is going take 
pressure, it is going to take leadership, and it is going to take the 
kind of leadership Senator Klobuchar showed this evening on the floor. 
I am immensely grateful to her.
  I yield the floor.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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