[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8798-8799]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK AND THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, last week, I spent our congressional recess 
in the Rocky Mountain National Park, home to some of America's most 
unique and breathtaking natural wonders, in an attempt to better 
understand the mounting impacts climate change has on our national 
parks and all of our public lands across the country.
  More than 4.5 million people from across America and the world visit 
the Rockies every year to take in the snowcapped peaks, the winding 
rivers, and the endless evergreen forests. They see herds of elk and 
bighorn sheep, and hear the screeching call of the mountain pika, a 
small furry creature that I can personally attest makes one of the most 
distinctive sounds in the mountains.
  Visitors to the park, like me, can experience all four seasons in an 
hour as they drive up Trail Ridge Road from the sunny, low-elevation 
valleys, to the top of 12,000-foot peaks covered in 20-foot snowdrifts. 
It is impossible not to appreciate the intricate balance of nature 
while standing in that environment, the way that each species is finely 
tuned to survive in its surroundings and the way that each depends on 
the other.
  Unfortunately, this careful balance is being shaken to its very core 
by manmade climate change as well as the denial of its existence by a 
very small group of post-science, post-research skeptics.
  For centuries, bark beetles and lodgepole pines maintained a special 
relationship. Beetles, held in check by deep, cold winters, ate and 
killed some of the largest and oldest trees, opening up valuable forest 
real estate for new, younger trees to thrive. Now, however, thanks to 
warming global temperatures, those cold winters haven't come and beetle 
populations have boomed, killing literally millions of trees in the 
Rocky Mountains.
  Formerly green mountainsides are dotted, or even dominated, by the 
silver skeletons of pines, it is one of the most conspicuous changes to 
visitors of the park.
  The little pika is another of many species whose way of life is 
disappearing as global warming drives temperatures higher and higher. 
As summer temperatures spike, many of these creatures are dying out. 
Humans are not immune to these impacts either.
  Warming winters cause more and more of the mountain's precipitation 
to fall as rain instead of snow, allowing it to run off or soak into 
the soil. The snowpack, which for generations has fed the Colorado 
River, is diminishing and, with it, our reliable and already taxed 
water source for seven Western States.
  It was uncanny, Mr. Speaker, to be standing at the headwaters of the 
Colorado River, a mere creek in the Rockies, learning about the ways 
manmade warming is changing the world around us at the same time the 
President was withdrawing the United States from the historic Paris 
Agreement.
  It was tragic irony to be in that environment to hear this 
devastating announcement. It was truly inexplicable to be surrounded by 
one of many national treasures as our Federal Government announced 
their decision to abandon them when they are needed most.
  The agreement, an unprecedented show of global will to tackle a truly 
global problem, isn't an end-all, as some less-enlightened critics have 
said. It is a framework, a roadmap to get the pollution reductions 
started, to ensure a safe, sustainable, and economically prosperous 
future. It supports an economic model built for the long haul, one that 
protects lives and livelihoods, while wasting less and producing more. 
These are irrefutable costs to leaving the Paris Agreement.
  By removing us from the agreement, the President isn't canceling it. 
He is simply ensuring that we are the ones who will be left behind as 
the world moves forward without us. We will be left behind with the 
cost of polluted air, preventable and expensive illness, and shrinking, 
uncompetitive fossil fuel industries that imperil their workers and 
drag the economy down.
  It will cost us standing as a world leader in innovation as other 
countries step forward to fill the void that we have created and 
realize the benefits of clean-energy jobs, reliable public transit, and 
stable supply chains for businesses.
  They understand that climate change affects us all, no matter our 
income or whether we are in the middle of a major city or on the top of 
the great Rocky Mountains.
  The 194 nations that remain in the Paris Agreement will continue to 
act, not because the U.S. once told them to do so, but because it is 
the right thing to do and it is in their best interest from economic 
gain and public health to national security and stewardship.
  I encourage everyone to go visit the mountains. Go spend a week with 
the incredible men and women of the National Park Service who have 
dedicated their lives to understanding and protecting America's 
precious natural places. Then come back here, and I guarantee that you 
will understand why we need to act.

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