Brian Schatz

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, Leader McConnell may, in fact, be proud that he has turned the Senate floor into a legislative graveyard, but that doesn't mean we Senators have abandoned our effort to make this body work for the American people. Today the special committee on the climate crisis held its very first hearing, where we heard from five mayors from cities across the United States. They told our committee that the average temperature in Atlanta has already increased 2 degrees since 1980; that 3 of St. Paul's 10 biggest floods ever recorded have happened in the last 10 years. So it is clear to them that climate change is not something that will happen eventually, in 5 or 10 or 20 years. It is happening now. It is happening in realtime. That is why these mayors are not waiting for Leader McConnell, or for the Trump administration, or anyone else to start doing something about it. Honolulu, St. Paul, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Portland and cities and towns across the Nation are working to transition to 100 percent clean energy. Atlanta is converting an abandoned quarry into a reservoir to increase the city's emergency drinking water supply. Portland, OR, has designated more than $50 million for a green jobs and healthy homes initiative. The experience of these mayors stands in contrast to some of the rhetoric we hear on the Senate floor and elsewhere about how climate action is somehow economically unwise. The Portland mayor, Ted Wheeler, pointed out that his city's investments in reducing carbon emissions are the very things that make people want to live in Portland. He said in his testimony that ``failing to take meaningful action to address climate change is bad for the economy.'' That is why Senate Democrats are not going to wait for Republican colleagues--because the cost of climate inaction is so much higher than the cost of action. The damage that is being done to our cities, our farmers, our fisheries--and the risks that are threatening our workers, our small businesses, our financial industry, and our taxpayers--are too high for us to wait any longer. The benefits of action are way higher than the cost of inaction. The Pittsburgh mayor, William Peduto, said today that if you want to turn a coal miner into an environmentalist, then give them a paycheck. If you want to turn a coal miner into an environmentalist, then give them a paycheck. Hawaii isn't a coal mining State, but his words rang true to me because they illustrate the basic point, which is that climate action can, should, and will work for everybody. So we are not going to let Majority Leader McConnell stop us from taking action. He is certainly slowing us down, but he is not going to stop us. Over the coming months, the Senate Democrats' special committee on the climate crisis will establish the predicate for climate action. Through hearings both in Congress and out in the field, we are going to build the record and the coalitions needed to move forward. We are also going to keep an open door for our Republican colleagues to join us. There is a way to address the climate crisis that is consistent with conservative principles. Senator Whitehouse and I have introduced a carbon pricing bill that aligns with traditional conservative principles and has the support of Republicans outside of the U.S. Senate, but as long as Leader McConnell keeps standing in the way of the Senate doing anything, as long as he has turned this body into a legislative graveyard--not just on climate but on healthcare, on prescription drug costs, on the cruelty shown to children and families on the southern border of the United States--then we are going to have to find other ways to act without it. All of this stuff should be bipartisan, and one day it again will be, but right now we cannot wait. We will not wait. The severity of the climate crisis and the urgency for action are just too great. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes, followed by Senators Whitehouse and Heinrich for 10 minutes each.

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I yield the floor to the majority leader.

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following legislative fellows in my office be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress: Allison Hutchings, Chris Thaxton, and Sarah Eccleston.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, last year, the United States weathered 14 different disasters costing $1 billion or more, including 2 hurricanes that cost more than $25 billion in damages. Just in the past 3 years, the annual average of billion-dollar disasters has doubled compared to what it has been over the long term. These numbers give us a sense of what extreme weather and climate inaction will cost us, but the hundreds of billions of dollars of damages we have seen from extreme weather over the past few years do not capture the full costs. An economist named Gary Yohe recently pointed out in a Washington Post article that extreme weather doesn't simply damage or destroy property. These events require people, businesses, and government to take money they would have spent elsewhere and put it toward rebuilding. So instead of promoting growth or investing in business or communities, we are treading water by putting billions of dollars into just rebuilding the status quo. Yohe calculates that if we have similar extreme weather events over the next 10 years, the U.S. GDP will be 3.6 percent lower. So, in 2029, our economy will be $1 trillion poorer because of extreme weather and climate change. This is why actuaries have named climate change the No. 1 risk to North American insurers. This isn't the Conservation Council for Hawai'i. This isn't the Sierra Club. This is not the League of Conservation Voters. These are actuaries. They named climate change the No. 1 risk to North American insurers. That is why insurance executives are warning that the world will be uninsurable if climate change accelerates. Risks that come with climate change--extreme fires and droughts, sea rise and hurricanes--threaten economic growth and financial instability across sectors. This is no longer in the future tense. This is no longer hypothetical. Climate change is happening right now and is forcing businesses to change their approach right now. In Europe and the United States, insurance companies have publicly announced they will no longer do business with mining and coal companies. Alliance, Chubb, AXA, Zurich, Swiss Re, and others have all decided they can't insure coal anymore. They can't underwrite or invest in the industry without taking on too much risk. This is part of a trend across the private sector and across the world. Farmers, private equity groups, shareholders, and regulators are all looking at the economic risks of climate change and changing their strategies to mitigate these risks. They are worried about the cost of goods, the profitability of businesses, the stability of the market. They are worried about the new and growing risk of droughts, floods, storms, wildfires, and sea level rise because these events reduce the value of assets. They decrease investment income. They increase insured and uninsured losses. In other words, they are disrupting our financial institutions. The health of our financial system is at stake, and the cost of inaction is higher than the cost of action. The U.S. Government cannot be alone. Like the private sector and other countries, it is in all of our best interests to deal with climate change and to invest in an energy system for the future. The best thing we can do that will make the biggest difference is to put a price on carbon. The carbon fee is straightforward and it is simple: unleash the markets to tackle climate change by requiring companies to pay for the emissions they are responsible for. Senators Whitehouse, Heinrich, Gillibrand, and I have introduced a carbon pricing piece of legislation that will allow us to address nearly all greenhouse gas emissions. Our bill establishes a set of incentives for businesses to stop using dirty fuels so the free market can compete, innovate, and make money building the energy future we need. We also give businesses something they say they crave, which is certainty. It is challenging to make investment choices when the private sector is subjugated to the idiosyncrasies of politics. The last administration had a Clean Power Plan and Paris Agreement and now there is no Clean Power Plan and no Paris Agreement. In the meantime, companies are trying to plan a business strategy beyond an election cycle. A price on carbon put in place by Congress is much more certain than an Executive order and cannot be overturned or not enforced. You don't have to take my word for it. The business community is organizing for a carbon fee for this very reason. Oil companies with big name brands have joined together to support a carbon pricing proposal by something called the Climate Leadership Council. One of the top benefits they cite is predictability. There are many other things we can do about climate. We can invest in clean jobs. We can invest in nuclear. We can work on carbon capture. We can certainly fund innovation. We can do solar and wind. I am for conservation and efficiency. The point is there is no silver bullet, but there is silver buckshot. In other words, we are going to have to do all of these things, and the best way to get all of these things done is to simply assign a price to carbon and let the market take over. That is why we should move forward with our legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, climate change is already wreaking havoc on the American economy, and anyone who cares today about having a strong economy in 10, 20, or 30 years needs to be committed to acting now. We are already seeing the economic risks related to climate change. Temperatures are rising, sea levels are rising, and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more severe. Ask families in California whose homes and businesses have been burned to the ground in record-setting fires or construction workers in Texas who have to cut their hours because of the heat or farmers in Nebraska, where the State Farm Bureau estimates that this spring's flood will cost ranchers $500 million and will cost grain farmers $400 million. Farm bankruptcies were already at a 10-year high even before the flooding. We are getting closer to long-term tipping points. Within 30 years, which is a typical span of a mortgage, nearly 400,000 existing homes in the U.S. coastal areas are at risk of being uninhabitable. These homes collectively are worth about $210 billion. That is more than four times the estimated insured losses of Hurricane Katrina. The ``National Climate Assessment'' says that $1 trillion worth of coastal real estate in the United States is threatened by the effects of climate change. The assessment also shows that labor productivity will take a hit. Under one scenario, the Southeast United States alone could lose $47 billion in productivity each year. The ``National Climate Assessment'' also predicts that maize and soybean yields will each be down as much as 25 percent across the Midwest by midcentury, mostly due to hot temperatures. In other words, we are looking at a real estate bubble, massive changes in productivity, and increased disaster costs for State and Federal governments. It is no wonder that experts say that climate change is the top economic risk facing our planet today. The World Economic Forum has warned us that we are ``sleepwalking into catastrophe.'' Citigroup estimates that world economies could lose at least $44 trillion in economic activity between now and the year 2060. Actuaries name climate change the No. 1 risk to insurers in North America. All of those individuals and institutions and companies and agencies that just described the risks related to climate change--I have no idea how they feel about birds and butterflies. I have no idea if they care about conservation on a personal level. I don't know if they surf or they snowboard or they hike or they bird-watch. I don't know how much they care about the natural environment. I do know they care about money, and they are paid to care about money, and they are very worried about the impact that climate change will have on our economy. You will notice that this is not a traditional climate speech. I got involved in climate because I care, but I understand that not everybody has the luxury of worrying about the birds and the butterflies and the creatures in the ocean. A lot of people worry every day about whether they are going to be able to put food on the table, and a lot of people worry about the value of their home and value of their 401(k) and whether the government is going to be consumed with these disaster costs. You should be worried about the new and growing risks of droughts, floods, storms, wildfires, and sea level rise because these events reduce the value of assets. They decrease investment income. They can increase insured and uninsured losses. In other words, they promise to disrupt financial institutions. That means the health of our financial system is at stake. There are now 36 central banks and financial regulators around the world who are worried about climate's economic impact and how to plan for it, including the UK, Germany, Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and China. They have come together to work on developing the tools to assess climate change risk to the financial system. This is not the ecological system, and these are not communities. This is about money and how much money is at risk when it comes to climate change. The Bank of England is planning to include climate impacts in its bank's stress tests as early as next year, and the central bank of the Netherlands is doing more to include climate-related risks in its financial supervision. Yet guess who is not part of this group of 36 countries that is trying to develop the analytic tools to figure out what impacts climate change is going to have on our economic system-- the United States. The three Federal Government Agencies that oversee the financial system are taking a unique approach to this problem by putting their heads in the sand. I know this because I asked them. I was part of a group of 20 Senators who sent a letter to the Federal Reserve, the OCC, and the FDIC, and asked them how they are accounting for climate change risks to our financial system. Their response was basically--listen, extreme weather shocks happen all the time. As for the risks of climate change, since they are so far out and hard to quantify, our regulators book that risk at zero. Now think about the absurdity of this. It is not that they are saying the risk doesn't exist. They are conceding that it exists. They are just saying it is so hard to quantify that they have decided it is nothing. There are all kinds of risks that all of these supervisory institutions evaluate on a regular basis. That is their job. They have these big manuals that they use--these thick manuals--to supervise banks and financial institutions. They can look at how much excess capital you have, how much exposure you have to a real estate bubble, or how much exposure you may have to a downturn in the economy. They have decided the risk related to climate change is nothing at all. This is in direct contrast to almost every other industrialized country and its regulatory agency. It doesn't matter what their politics are--whether they are run by rightwing or leftwing governments; everyone else is taking the financial risk related to climate change seriously except the United States. Everyone--the insurance industry, the defense community, the intelligence community, the international community--knows that climate is at increasing risk. They all know that climate change is real and that it is impacting our financial system right now, that it is impacting the finances of publicly held corporations and banks and the government itself. The U.S. financial community needs to join them. Let me end by saying this: We don't have to agree on the many ways in which we should be acting on climate change. It is OK if you hate my bill, with my good friend Senator Whitehouse, on a carbon fee. It is OK if you think we should do the Green New Deal or not do the Green New Deal. It is OK if you think the Paris Agreement is bad or good. You get to think what you want, but you cannot ignore the risk that climate change is imposing on our financial system. You don't get to think that this cost--that this risk--is not material. You don't get to think that we should do nothing. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Robert Yu and Laura Cannon, who are legislative fellows in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, due to a clerical error, the senior Senator from Alaska, Ms. Murkowski, was not added as an original cosponsor and co-lead of the Compact of Free Association Veterans Review Act when we introduced the bill together on April 29, 2019. Senator Murkowski has been a tireless advocate of veterans from the Compact States and a strong partner in our effort to expand Department of Veterans Affairs care to those veterans still living in the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Republic of Palau. I thank her for her partnership to fulfill our commitment to provide veterans everywhere with the access to high- quality care they have earned and deserve. Thank you.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, it gives me no pleasure to say this, but this administration is actively doing terrible things for women and their families. They have rolled back protections for workers. They have made it easier for companies to pollute the air and the water. They have cut investments in public education. They have literally taken children away from their parents and made zero effort to reunite them. They are working as hard as possible to prevent women from having access to the healthcare they need. These are not rhetorical statements. They are policies that hurt people. They are hurting moms. The Centers for Disease Control came out with a report just this week showing that hundreds of women die every year from pregnancy-related complications and that many of these deaths are preventable. The report finds that one of the key ways to prevent these deaths is access to proper medical care. Yet this administration has made taking away people's access to healthcare a top priority. They have put legislation in to end the Affordable Care Act. They filed lawsuits to take away protections for people with preexisting conditions. They have issued regulations that allow healthcare providers to refuse to provide care to someone based on their personal beliefs and keep healthcare providers from giving their patients full and accurate information. As we all know, they have gone after Planned Parenthood--one of the leading sources of healthcare for women--with everything they have. I remember when I first became a Member of this body, I visited a clinic in Honolulu. I remember meeting with the staff, who told me that clinic was the only source of healthcare for most of their patients. This was the one place women could go for family planning services, counseling, and breast cancer screenings. Planned Parenthood's entire reason for being is to help families. In a single year, they cared for 2.4 million people and provided almost 10 million individual healthcare services, including 300,000 breast cancer screenings and over 200,000 well-woman exams--all in a single year. Yet a highlight of this administration's policy on women is to attack women's health and specifically Planned Parenthood. But we know it is not just healthcare. As I said, it is workplace safety and fairness. It is investment in public education. It is clean air and clean water. These are things that all of us care about but moms in particular. Whatever your political persuasion, everyone has a mom. Lots of people are moms or are married to a mom. This administration is inarguably bad for moms and bad for motherhood. Moms in this country deserve better. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I got my first taste of politics when I was 16 years old. I was worried that my favorite surf spot was going to be turned into condominiums, so I joined the Save Sandy Beach Coalition. Adults around me told me that I was too young to take action. They told me that the adults had it under control, but I didn't listen. It took several years, but with lots of grassroots energy, the Governor of the State of Hawaii eventually signed legislation that preserved the Sandy Beach coastline for generations. America's proud history of social change is about young people who don't take no for an answer; they take action. Some of the most inspiring movements in our history have been led by young people. They were the ones who first refused to leave their seats in segregated lunch counters, who filled campus squares demanding an end to apartheid, who marched in the streets against police brutality, and staged walkouts to protest gun violence. Once again, young people are standing up because the adults are blowing it. On March 15, tens of thousands of kids walked out of school in hundreds of cities and 130 countries demanding action on climate. This isn't a school project for them. It is a fight for the world they will inhabit. They see what is happening around the world. The climate is changing, and it is getting worse, and we need to take action. In 2017, the United States experienced 16 disasters that cost $1 billion or more: 9.8 million acres burned by wildfire; 30,000 people homeless; 200,000 homes and businesses damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Harvey; the Florida Keys devastated by Irma; thousands dead, and an entire island's infrastructure destroyed by Hurricane Maria. The year 2017 set a new record for the cost of extreme weather events. Last year was not better. There were 14 separate disasters that cost $1 billion or more, including the largest, deadliest wildfires that California has ever seen. According to NOAA, the wildfires did more than $40 billion worth of damage. So in these two record-setting years, climate change has cost billions in personal property and taxpayer dollars. And they have cost lives. Now the Midwest is flooding. I don't mean that as a political statement or a rhetorical flourish. The Midwest is flooding. In another once-in-a-lifetime storm, which is happening more and more frequently, the levees and systems built to deal with flooding have failed because they were built for a climate that no longer exists. Communities are underwater, and people are stranded in their homes right now, at this very moment. In Nebraska alone, the damage is already more than $1 billion. Livestock, crops, infrastructure have been destroyed. Soil that is needed not just for this season but for the future has been destroyed. This is the moment at which Congress should be examining the costs of climate change and what to do about it. I have to say something about the senior Senator from Utah. That was appalling. I understand that we want to make jokes and that we want to be clever and that we want to have a clip to put on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, but that was appalling. This is the crisis of our generation, and it is not a joke. He spent time creating images not of what we ought to do--not of his conservative proposals around climate change--but in being consistent with what Leader McConnell wants the Republican Party to do, which is to not engage in the substance and to turn this into a joke. I have to say, on behalf of everybody in Hawaii, on behalf of the young people who care about this, and on behalf of the people across the planet who want climate action, this isn't funny. This requires the party in charge of the U.S. Senate to take it seriously. The good news is, we are starting to have an engagement about climate change. I saw the senior Senator from Tennessee engage a bit and say we should have a Manhattan Project for solving climate change. Good enough. I saw Senator Isakson, 3 or 4 weeks ago, talk about how we ought to take climate action. I also know the chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee cares about this issue. So there is an opportunity for engagement but not so long as Leader McConnell thinks this whole thing is worthy of nothing more than being a joke. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President.

Mr. SCHATZ.--manmade climate change is real, and I did not get an answer.

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, will the Senator from Iowa yield to a question? I am interested in whether she believes that climate change is real, caused by humans, and requires Federal action.

Mr. SCHATZ. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ. If she's unwilling to answer that question, I understand.

Mr. SCHATZ. Excuse me, Mr. President. May I ask a followup question through the Chair?

Mr. SCHATZ. I just would like to get clarification. She did say climate change is real, but my question is whether--

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, it is very important that the American people know that Republicans are still trying to take away their healthcare. Last year, Republicans filed a lawsuit arguing that the entire Affordable Care Act should be invalidated, and now they want to give a promotion to the person who led that effort at the Department of Justice. That person's name is Chad Readler, currently a Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Justice Department. Last year, he filed an argument on behalf of the Department of Justice to take away protections for people with preexisting conditions. The American Medical Association said that Mr. Readler's argument would ``have a devastating impact on doctors, patients, and the American health system as a whole,'' that it ``would cause 32 million people to become uninsured,'' and that it would double insurance premiums. The American Medical Association was not alone here. Lawyers at the Justice Department refused to sign their names to Mr. Readler's brief. One senior career official actually resigned in protest, and Senator Lamar Alexander said that his arguments were ``as farfetched as any I've ever heard.'' On the same day that Mr. Readler filed his argument to take away people's healthcare, the White House nominated him to a lifetime appointment to the bench on the Sixth Circuit. They wanted to promote him because of his good work suing in Federal court trying to invalidate the entire healthcare system--the entire healthcare law. We should not sign off on this nominee--not if we care about protecting the health of our constituents, especially those who have cancer, asthma, diabetes, or any other preexisting medical condition. We should also be wary of putting someone on the Sixth Circuit who makes the kind of poor, farfetched argument that Mr. Readler made, because this isn't purely a question of public policy. If it were public policy, you would definitely say: Don't take 32 million people and take away their healthcare--right? If it were public policy, you would say: Don't do the thing that is going to double premiums. This is about what kind of a lawyer he is. This is about what kind of a judge he would be. The White House may want to reward his efforts, but we don't have to. If you look at Mr. Readler's record and feel that, OK, he tried to deport the Dreamers. Even if you concede past his defense of the Muslim ban or his discrimination against a gay couple who wanted to get married or even if you don't mind that he is trying to make it harder for people to vote or his argument to allow kids under 18 to be sentenced to death--even if none of that bothers you--it should bother you that a Senator in Mr. Readler's home State has not returned a blue slip. It should really bother you. If you say you are for protecting people with preexisting conditions, here is your opportunity. It is one thing to say: Well, we would never do that. We would never take away protections for people with preexisting conditions. After all, we all know people with preexisting conditions. I have no doubt that is the actual sentiment among Members of the Senate on both sides. Here is the thing. This week is the week to walk the talk. This week is the week to decide whether or not you are for protecting people with preexisting conditions, because you have a guy who led the effort to gut protections for people with preexisting conditions. Mr. Readler is unqualified for other reasons, but now we have a litmus test on where you stand on preexisting conditions. It is not enough to say it in your campaign debate. It is not enough to say it in the hallway and say: Hey, we want to protect people. Here is your moment. Someone who has dedicated some portion of his professional life to gut the American healthcare system is now being given a permanent job on the Sixth Circuit. Everybody should vote no. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, as of now, there are zero climate proposals coming from Senate Republicans--none. So it becomes extraordinarily difficult to debate climate change when only one political party is committed to fixing it. I can't underscore this enough. I don't know if I can sort of stage direct the C-SPAN cameras, but if I can--if they would pan out--they would see an empty Chamber on the other side. Look, if you don't like our proposals--if you don't like the investment tax credit or the production tax credit, if you don't like planting trees, if you don't like fuel efficiency standards, if you don't like mercury and air quality standards, if you don't like investing in high-tech research to find that next breakthrough or if you think climate change is a hoax, come down to the Senate floor and make your argument. Yet they are not even doing that. This is a planetary emergency--the most important moment in human history as it relates to the planet Earth--and the party in power is doing its best to make the problem worse. Democrats want to invest in clean air, clean water, and smarter infrastructure. We have taken every chance we can to talk about climate and how to fix it. Senator Whitehouse alone has given 200 speeches on the Senate floor about the climate crisis. The Republican response has been to try to make this silly, to score points about something that was posted on a Congresswoman's website and promptly removed and to make false statements saying Democrats want to ban cheeseburgers or whatever. That is because they don't want to debate this issue seriously because they don't have ideas on climate. Their only plan is to actively, aggressively make things even worse. They need to make this debate about something--anything--other than what it is, which is a planet in crisis; weather getting weirder and worse, wildfires, coastal flooding, fisheries crashing. Pennsylvania farmers say they had the worst season they have had in 30 years because of all the rain they got last year, while farmers in the Midwest didn't get near enough. It is a rolling disaster happening right now. In response, here is what the Republicans have done. They have put people who make their money from pollution in charge of regulating pollution. They have given oil and gas companies access to millions of acres of land and water that are supposed to be protected for things like conservation, hunting, hiking. They pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement, which means we are the only country on the planet not at the table when it comes to figuring out what to do about this problem. They have made it easier for companies to put methane in the air or make cars that pump pollution into the air, and instead of just leaving coal companies alone, instead of saying, hey, let's let the market decide, they are actually looking to subsidize coal because now it is noncompetitive with wind and solar, in a lot of instances, but they actually want to subsidize coal so they can get another 10 or 20 years' worth of fossil fuel pollution. This is not what you would do if you were trying to stop climate change. This is what you do if you are trying to make it worse. So let's take a closer look at some of the worst things on their list. First, you have to look at the people they have put in charge of conserving public lands and keeping air and water clean. This week, the Senate is voting on Andrew Wheeler to run the EPA. He is a coal lobbyist, and I know politicians are prone to sort of overstatement, rhetorical flourishes, but this guy is actually a coal lobbyist. He made his living working for coal. I don't know him. I presume he is an honorable fellow, but now we are supposed to believe he is the best person to keep coal companies in line, to make sure they follow the rules and don't hurt the air people breathe or the rivers they fish in. If this were a movie about corruption in politics, this script would be thrown out because it was too obvious. Then there is Ryan Zinke, who was supposed to protect public lands but instead opened up oil and gas leases at the Department of Interior, or the guy regulating Federal energy who denies that climate change is real, even though we can all see it with our own eyes. If you don't believe the science, you can at least believe your own experience. The weather is getting worse and weirder and more severe. He says carbon dioxide really isn't a pollutant at all. So the nominees have been awful, but the policy is bad too. Republicans are trying to pull us out of the Paris Agreement that every other country in the world is part of. We are not even trying to lead on this planetary emergency, and it means that we give the leadership mantle to China to take the lead on how the world is going to fix this problem or make it worse, as if Americans should trust China to do what is best for our country. Then there is the Republican effort to let polluting companies keep polluting. The whole reason the EPA exists is to make sure the air we breathe, the water we drink and swim in, the land we farm on and live on doesn't get polluted, but Republicans have taken control of the EPA to get rid of these protections, and they are telling the auto industry they no longer need to make cars that put less pollution in the air. They have gutted the Clean Power Plan so carbon pollution could be 12 times worse in the next decade--12 times worse in the next decade. Researchers have found it would be better if we had no policy at all than if we do the things the Republicans want to do. They have let energy companies off the hook for leaking methane and made it easier for super pollutants to leak into the air. Again, this is the kind of thing you might hear from a politician who is a little overheated, a little overly angry, maybe taking a few liberties with the truth. This is literally what is happening. They literally put a coal lobbyist in charge of the EPA. That should be enough for someone on the other side to say: Gosh. I can't vote for a coal lobbyist to run the EPA. Now, I don't agree with the Democrats about climate change, but I can't pretend this thing doesn't happen to my home State. I can't pretend Alaska isn't melting or the fisheries aren't crashing or our farms aren't having great difficulty or that the floods in South Carolina and North Carolina and Florida aren't real, and so we can't put a coal lobbyist in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency. There was a time when the EPA and environmental protection itself was not a partisan issue. Here we are in the U.S. Senate--which is the place to solve these kinds of problems over the course of this country's great history--and every time we come to the floor to talk about climate change, it is an empty Chamber on the Republican side. We have to do better as a country. We have to do better as a Senate. We have to solve climate change together. Future generations are counting on us to transcend partisanship and to have this great debate. If Leader McConnell wants to bring a resolution, which he thinks is clever, to sort of divide Democrats, fine. We are not particularly worried about that. We are taking this opportunity to say: Great. Let's talk about climate change. The first question to ask--the first question to ask--is, what is the Republican plan for climate change? Right now, the answer is very simple. They have no plan. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri. I thank him for his leadership and levelheadedness. As he is on his way out, I will say that I think the current way we deal with nominees is not tenable. I imagine a scenario where we have a Democratic President, and it will take even longer than it is currently taking to confirm nominees. I think there are a number of us on both sides of the aisle who are open to modifying the way we operate. For me, the blue-slip question is a redline. I think what they are doing with the blue slips undermines the individual ability for any Senator to have their say, especially as it relates to the circuit courts, but I think there is an opportunity to have a conversation. On climate generally, I am looking forward to a debate, but it is very difficult to debate in the Senate when only one party proffers a proposal. I don't mean this as rhetorical flourish. I don't mean this as a personal accusation or a partisan attack. It is just a fact that there are no climate proposals coming from the Senators who are Republican. There are zero. So they are trying to have a debate about a resolution which was nonbinding and which was signed by 12 Senators. I get it, but I think, given that this is the world's greatest deliberative body, we ought to have a proper debate about climate change. We are actually in a climate emergency. This is the most important moment in the world's history as it relates to this particular crisis. We are sitting here trying to score points about an FAQ that was posted on a new Congresswoman's website and trying to make fun of each other and say: They are going to ban cows and ice cream. It is very silly, and it is not worthy of the seriousness of the moment. I would ask my Republican colleagues--I see a number of them who take the debt, foreign policy, cyber security, personal privacy, and the rules of the Senate very seriously. They are very levelheaded human beings with a seriousness of purpose. Yet when it comes to climate change, it gets into this goofy thing where they are doing everything except debating climate change and what ought to be done about it. We spent 5, maybe 10 years trying to get most Republicans to concede that this problem exists at all. Now a lot of them are feeling comfortable saying: Yes, this problem exists, but all of the solutions proposed by Democrats are wrong. That is fine, but I ask this question in all sincerity: What do Republican Senators propose to do about the climate crisis? What is your plan? If you don't like cap and trade; if you don't like a fee on carbon; if you don't like massive investment in green technology and clean technology; if you don't like the extension of the investment tax credit and the production tax credit; if you don't like our solution; if you don't like being part of the Paris climate accord--which, by the way, is nonbinding, which means we get to decide what our pathway is to clean energy. It is not as though the U.N. gets to tell us what to do. It gives us leverage to make sure that as we move forward toward clean energy, the other countries don't cheat. It actually gives us leverage in this situation. If you don't like our solutions, that is fine. This is the world's greatest deliberative body. This is where the greatest debates in U.S. history have happened. Yet, maybe 19 times out of 20, I have come down to the floor to talk about climate change, and there were Members on this side of the aisle and zero Members on the other side of the aisle. Again, I don't mean this as an attack; I just want a real debate. I am looking at the Senator from Georgia. We have had robust discussions about debt and deficits and the way we try to avoid shutdowns and sequester and all the rest of it. When it comes to climate change, everybody gets really goofy. Everybody puts on their partisan uniform and refuses to engage. If this debate about the Green New Deal offers us an opportunity to talk about the planetary crisis, then I am happy for it. We are in debate time on the nomination of Andrew Wheeler to lead the EPA, so it might be helpful to know the origins of the Agency. In the 1960s, the state of the environment was catastrophic. Millions of freshwater fish and rivers around the country were being poisoned by insecticides, hurting consumer trust and the countless fishermen and families who made a living that way. Pollution was so bad that debris floating in the Cuyahoga River actually caught on fire, causing thousands of dollars in property damage. The water in Lake Superior became so toxic from companies' dumping asbestos-laden waste that local communities had to start filtering their own water. Think about that. People could drink the water from their local reservoirs unfiltered until industrial pollution came along. This was the path our country was on. Pollution was destroying many of the most beautiful places in the country and, maybe more importantly, putting the health of the public at risk. A scientist named Rachel Carson came along and changed everything when she wrote a book that helped the United States see that we couldn't go on like this. Her book was a call for change, and millions of Americans, on a bipartisan basis, demanded change. There was a predictable backlash. Here is what one industry spokesman said as public opinion began to coalesce around addressing pollution: The major claims of Miss Rachel Carson's book ``Silent Spring'' are gross distortions of the actual facts, completely unsupported by scientific, experimental evidence, and general practical experience in the field. Her suggestion that pesticides are in fact biocides destroying all life is obviously absurd in the light of the fact that without selective biologicals, these compounds would be completely useless. This controversy went on for the next few years. The public, the science, and the reality pointed toward the truth, but a few loud voices tried to stop the country from making progress. They said that Rachel Carson distorted the facts, that the science wasn't there, and that there was no need to rush judgment. The U.S. Government moved forward anyway and began to lay the foundation for a new America--one that would preserve and protect our country and its resources for the next generation. In 1970, President Nixon united several offices and bureaus already in the Federal Government into one single agency, the EPA. The EPA was charged with protecting the Nation's health and being the steward of the environment. It has a legacy of fulfilling that mission. The Agency ended the use of a dangerous pesticide called DDT. It found a solution to acid rain, which was once a major issue for fish, forests, and farming. It took on secondhand smoke, banning smoking in indoor public places. Thanks to the EPA, Rachel Carson's ``fable for tomorrow'' did not become a reality, but here we are decades later facing another environmental crisis, one that affects the United States and every other Nation on this planet, and I am worried that we are not going to do the right thing this time. Instead of facing head-on and in a bipartisan way the biggest crisis in the planet's history, the party in power is not just ignoring the problem; they are making it worse. And they are doing it by nominating and confirming people like Andrew Wheeler. This is someone who said: ``Manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.'' This is the guy to head the EPA. He says manmade global warming is a hoax. This is someone who was formally the vice president of the Washington Coal Club, who lobbied for coal companies. We are in a planetary emergency, and Republicans want someone who is advancing the interests of top polluters to be the Nation's chief environmental steward so that he can continue to advance the interest of the top polluters. Again, it is not just that they are ignoring climate change, which would be bad enough; it is that they are aggressively, proudly, gleefully sometimes, making it worse. Researchers at Harvard found that the EPA's recent plans to gut the Clean Power Plan will lead to more greenhouse gas emissions. Their plan will be worse for climate than if they did nothing at all. Think about that. If the EPA did nothing at all, it would be better than what they are doing now. This is the result of Mr. Wheeler's leadership, which has until now been in an Acting Director capacity. During the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, the EPA was led by Anne Gorsuch Burford, who ended up resigning in scandal. President Reagan nominated as her replacement William Ruckelshaus, whom people trusted to do the job and stabilize the EPA. He was a moderate. He was a steady hand. The EPA could use a steady hand after Scott Pruitt, who promoted the interests of polluters over the health of the American people and who crossed many ethical lines. Yet Andrew Wheeler is no Ruckelshaus. That much is clear from his time at the EPA. Under his leadership, EPA inspections are at a 10-year low. EPA fines are at a 25-year low. Restrictions on new coal plants have been eliminated. Limits on methane pollution are in the process of being rolled back. In other words, polluters are getting their way. That is great news for people who own oil and gas companies, but it is horrible news for people with asthma, for farmers who are trying to get through the worst drought season seen in a century, and for small businesses that are losing customers because of fires. Listen, climate change is here. It is hurting everything from local economies, to public health, to national security, and the Republicans have decided that the best person to lead the Agency to do something about it is a coal lobbyist. It would be funny if it were not so outrageous. The Democrats have a plan for climate change. We have ideas to invest in clean air, clean water, and smarter infrastructure. We have bills on investment and production tax credits, solar energy, wind energy, conservation and efficiency, carbon pricing, and planting trees, and we have stood together against nominations like this one. It is time for the Republicans, if not to stand with us, to at least then stand on the other side against us and engage in this great debate. What are we going to do with climate change? We have proposals, and they have none. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, our friends on the other side of the aisle--the Republicans--are misreading the moment. The planet is in an emergency situation, and instead of coming to the table with ideas on how to fix it, they are running the same play they always run; that is, that they take a popular idea--investing in clean energy, maybe making college more affordable, making the Tax Code more fair--and they try to characterize it as a liberal project so people put on their partisan uniforms. Our ideas are popular, and what they have done recently is, they have taken a batch of our ideas and have said: Socialism. You are going to turn into Venezuela if you do all of these things. I know you think you want affordable college. I know you think you want climate action. I know you think you want to not get ripped off by the Tax Code, but that will cause you to be Venezuela. This is the play they run every time, and they run it with cover from the Wall Street Journal's editorial board and FOX News to try to trick the American people into opposing ideas they actually like. That is what is happening with this nonbinding resolution that 12 Senators have cosponsored. Republicans are trying to take frequently asked questions--a document that was posted on the website of a new Member of Congress, and then subsequently taken down and disavowed, and make you believe this is what Democrats want to do when it comes to climate action. They want you to believe we want to take away ice cream and aviation and everything that is good in the world because they know their position on climate change is absolutely untenable. Over the last couple of days, I read some what we call very serious people in Washington, DC, sort of marveling at Leader McConnell's trolling exercise. This is supposed to be the world's greatest deliberative body. It is not Twitter. This is supposed to be where we solve the greatest problems facing the United States. This is not where we troll each other. This is where we are supposed to have the great debates. Senate Democrats have done all sorts of work on climate: the ITC and the PTC for solar and wind, conservation and efficiency, carbon pricing, fighting deforestation. So Republicans do not have the high ground here. They are trying to make this a partisan exercise, where you have several news organizations churning because they don't want to deal with climate change. If the Senate Republican leadership wants to bring up anything about climate, I echo the words of Senator Schumer and Senator Whitehouse: We have never been more fired up. We are going to take this opportunity to have a real debate about climate because Republicans do not have a plan to address climate change. That is not a rhetorical flourish. That is not an accusation. That is just an observation. They don't have a plan to stop climate pollution. They do not agree with 99 percent of the scientific community saying not just that this problem exists but that Congress must act. If you look at the last session of Congress, it is actually worse than that. I want to put this in context. The last session of Congress spanned two of the worst years of weather in U.S. history. In 2017, there were about 10 million acres that were burned by wildfires. There were Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. In 2018, we had the costliest and deadliest wildfires California had ever seen. In these two record-setting years, climate change cost the economy and the taxpayers billions of dollars. Communities all across the country struggled to rebuild and recover. People lost their lives, their homes, and their livelihoods. In these 2 years, the number of pieces of legislation that Republicans put forward to address climate change--even if I thought they were inadequate, even if I thought they were the wrong approach, even if I thought they were half measures or too private sector- oriented, whatever the criticism might have been, I can't even make criticisms of their climate policy. They have no climate policy other than to make things worse. They have allowed coal companies to leak dirty water and waste into streams without having to clean it up. They voted to make it easier for oil and mining companies to pay foreign governments. They allowed the President to start the process of pulling out of the Paris accords. They allowed him to begin the process of rolling back your fuel efficiency standards, to repeal the Clean Power Plan, to prop up coal-- even though it makes no economic sense in a lot of instances anymore-- and they put climate deniers in top science positions in the government. They put Secretary Zinke in charge of the Department of the Interior, and the first thing he did was to open up lands for oil and gas leases. They put Scott Pruitt in charge of the EPA, and when he finally proved to be a political liability--not for his climate policy but because of his personal habits--they replaced him with someone with the same policies, Andrew Wheeler, who is literally a coal lobbyist. If you wrote all of this into a screenplay, people would say: That is a little too on the nose. That is a little too obvious. This is ridiculous. This is not actually how Washington works. They wouldn't put a coal lobbyist in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency, would they? They did. They did. It is not just that Republicans don't have a plan to make things better, it is that the Democratic approach is to treat this like the emergency it is and invest in clean air, clean water, and smarter infrastructure, and the Republican approach is to put polluters in charge to actively, aggressively, and proudly make climate change worse. I have seen the right approach work in Hawaii. For decades, since the demise of the sugar plantation, we relied on imports of fossil fuels for our energy needs. As recently as 2010, we got more than 90 percent of our electricity from burning oil, which is the dumbest way to do things. It is very expensive and very dirty. Less than a decade later, we are well on our way to 100 percent clean energy. We have addressed the legitimate concerns, we ignored trolls, and we moved forward together. We have quintupled clean energy, lowered electricity rates, and created tons of jobs. Clean energy is the future for Hawaii, and it is the future for the United States. This can be done. Do not be afraid. If Republicans think the Democratic ideas are no good, fine; then offer a different plan. They are the only major political party in the developed world that doesn't even believe climate change is a problem. There is no other issue where the majority party denies that the problem exists at all, not cyber security, not healthcare, not even income inequality. This is not tenable. Whenever a Senate Democrat or a group of Senate Democrats come to the floor to talk about climate change, we usually have a good little group over here, and always--always--in my 7 years in the U.S. Senate, there is always an empty Chamber on the Republican side--empty. The only Republican I am ever talking to is someone who is maybe waiting to give a speech about something else or the Presiding Officer. That is because Republicans in the Senate have no plan at all as it relates to climate change. We have trillions of dollars in infrastructure that needs to be addressed over the next couple of decades. We could make those investments in ways that also address climate. We could offer tax breaks for clean energy. We should reenter the Paris accord, but they are pulling the same play they always do, to make this so partisan, to mock the issue itself so they can continue to do nothing. They are whistling past the graveyard. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, today, we say farewell to a member of our Senate family: Chad Schulken. For more than 16 years, Chad has served the U.S. Senate as a professional staff member and, most recently, clerk on the Appropriations Committee. He started his career on the committee working for Senator Byrd in 2003 as staff of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary. He specialized in budgetary and policy matters affecting the Department of Justice and the Federal judiciary, including the FBI, DEA, ATF, and the U.S. Marshall Service. Two years later, when the Appropriation Committee reorganized, he joined a newly formed subcommittee responsible for Military Construction and Veterans Affairs matters. As the lead staff handling the Department of Veterans Affairs, Arlington National Cemetery, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, the American Battle Monuments Commission, and the Armed Forces Retirement Home, Chad was charged with developing, managing, and negotiating the policy and funding priorities for the VA. Ultimately, it was his job to make sure that Congress kept its promise to the men, women, and the families who have served our country. Chad has forgotten more about the resource and management needs of the VA than most anyone working in government will ever know, so no one was surprised when he was promoted to be the subcommittee's clerk in 2017. As the lead Democratic staffer, Chad negotiated and helped develop the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill. He helped me in my role as the subcommittee's ranking member. He worked with Republican staff, stewarding the interests of all Democratic Senate offices. He managed the bill across the Senate floor and negotiated a final conference agreement with the House. Chad has become one of the Senate's foremost experts on budgetary policy and appropriations law. His mastery of Senate rules and procedure have made him a formidable legislative tactician and negotiator. His commitment to his work--to the unique collaborative process that fulfills the Congress's constitutional duty to appropriate taxpayer dollars--is clear in the many weekends and holidays he missed with family and friends to be here to negotiate appropriations bills. It is no wonder he left an impression on many Members, including those he served directly: Senators Byrd, Inouye, Mikulski, Leahy, Hollings, Feinstein, Johnson, Reed, Tester, and myself. For his professionalism and commitment to our country and the people who have served in our military, we owe a great deal to Chad for his service in the U.S. Senate. We thank him and wish him well as he embarks on a new adventure, one we hope will give him more time with his family: his wife Jessica; three daughters Abi, Bella, and Hundley; and his son Griffin. From all of us in our Senate family, I extend a sincere thank you to Chad and his family.