Sheldon Whitehouse

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I would be glad to speak with the Senator from Georgia about that because he may find we agree more than we disagree.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I guess in the order proceeding here, I am here to bring the opposing views. Every week we are here, I remind this body of the damage carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and to our oceans. I have traveled to Senator Isakson's State to see what the University of Georgia is measuring off of Sapelo Island, and I hope to have the chance to go west to continue this. We have to wake up to climate change, and we have to move toward a clean-energy economy and the jobs and innovation that support it. Clear measurements exist of the harm that is already happening: climbing sea levels, we measure; climbing global temperatures, we measure; acidifying oceans, we measure. Virtually every respected scientific and academic institution agrees that climate change is happening and that human activities-- specifically carbon emissions--are driving it. Carbon pollution is affecting our economy, it is affecting agriculture and wildfires, and it is affecting storms and insurance costs. There are so many people--doctors and health professionals, military and security leaders, insurance and reinsurance industry folks, our major utilities, American corporations, and our faith leaders all agree that climate change is a serious challenge and an important priority. Yet here, despite the growing chorus around the country calling for climate action, we hear congressional Republicans, such as the majority leader, claim they are here to stand up for our people by blocking the President's Clean Power Plan. As carbon pollution piles up in the atmosphere, who are they standing up for? Certainly not the American people. Eighty-three percent of Americans, including 6 in 10 Republicans, want action to reduce carbon emissions. The Clean Power Plan delivers. For the first time, we have a national plan to reduce carbon pollution from the largest source of U.S. carbon emissions, which is powerplants. The 50 dirtiest coal plants in America together emit more carbon pollution than all of South Korea and more than all of Canada. Are we going to do nothing about that? Too often we hear on the Republican side folks who trumpet these industry-backed, one-sided reports that point only to the cost of action. They don't even measure or consider the cost of inaction. If you were an accountant and did the books that way, you would go to jail. Well, if you look at both sides of the ledger, the EPA shows that the projected health benefits of the Clean Power Plan will avoid 300,000 missed work and school days, 1,700 heart attacks, 90,000 asthma attacks, and 3,600 premature deaths every year. Every dollar invested through the Clean Power Plan will keep up to $4 in American families' pockets. The savings are also passed on to electricity consumers, with the average American family projected to save almost $85 per year on their electric bill by 2030. I am from New England. We have the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, RGGI, and it is proving that States grow their economies at the same time that they cut emissions. Putting a price on carbon and plowing that money back into clean energy products is saving us billions of dollars and helping to reduce carbon pollution. The EPA put the States in the driver's seat to come up with plans that suit them. An analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists shows that ``31 States are already on track to be more than halfway toward meeting their 2022 Clean Power Plan benchmarks.'' These States include both cap-and-trade States, such as California and the Northeast RGGI States, and coal-heavy States, such as Iowa, Ohio, and Kentucky. ``We can meet it,'' says Kentucky energy and environment secretary Leonard Peters about the plan. ``We can meet it.'' In fact, Dr. Peters praised the EPA for working with States like Kentucky to build this rule. ``The outreach they've done, I think, is incredible,'' he said. The EPA had an ``open door policy. You could call them, talk to them, meet with them.'' The Kentucky experience was echoed around the country, as EPA listens closely to hundreds of concerns, holds hundreds of public meetings, and the final rule includes significant adjustments to accommodate individual State's concerns. Even with all of this, the majority leader, the senior Senator from Kentucky, will brook no serious conversation about climate change. We just never have that come up as a subject. The Republican leader, in a modern, massive resistance effort, wrote to all 50 Governors urging defiance of Federal regulation, calling the regulations ``extremely burdensome and costly.'' That might have been a more credible allegation about the regulations if he had not reached it months before the regulations were even finalized. The Clean Power Plan, says the majority leader, is the latest battle in a great ``War on Coal.'' He says, ``[W]e have a depression in central Appalachia created because of the President's zeal to have an impact worldwide on the issue of climate.'' It seems that the head of one of his region's biggest electric utilities doesn't agree. Appalachian Power president and CEO Charles Patton told a meeting of energy executives last week that coal can no longer compete against cheaper alternatives such as natural gas and wind power. Coal, he said, will continue to decline with or without the Clean Power Plan. It has nothing to do with the President. ``If we believe we can just change administrations and this issue is going to go away,'' Patton said, ``we're making a terrible mistake.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article titled ``Coal not coming back, Appalachian Power president says'' and editorial titled ``Reality check on coal, future'' be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. It says: With or without the Clean Power Plan, the economics of alternatives to fossil-based fuels are making end roads in the utility plan, companies are making decisions today where they are moving away from coal-fired generation. The debate largely at this time has been lost. Mr. Patton is not alone. In September, financial giant Goldman Sachs released several bleak reports on the future of the global coal market. The latest report was in September, where they drew the conclusion that ``[t]he industry does not require a new investment given the ability of existing assets to satisfy flat demand, so prices will remain under pressure as the deflationary cycle continues.'' In plain English, market forces are driving coal's decline. I seriously doubt that any colleague would think Goldman Sachs is a bunch of liberal greenies who launched a war on coal. This is their clear economic thought. Since the clean power rule was finalized in August, the massive resistance the majority leader sought has not ensued. Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear has so far not heeded the majority leader's call to rebel. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, the first to publicly pledge to resist the President's plan, recently hinted that Oklahoma would submit a compliance plan after all. Indeed, even while West Virginia leads the multistate lawsuit against EPA, Governor Earl Tomblin announced last week that his administration will begin working on a compliance plan. In the heart of coal country, in Charleston, WV, the newspaper, Gazette-Mail, praised the Governor's move, writing on its editorial page: It is the right thing to do--both to decrease emissions that contribute to human-caused climate change-- Here is a newspaper in the heart of coal country conceding that emissions contribute to human-caused climate change, and I don't know why we can't get over that in the Senate-- and as the governor says, to make sure West Virginia's interests are best represented in how the plan is carried out. They described Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell's urge to rebel against the rule as petulant and foolish. That is from the heart of coal country. The coal industry, like an aging ship at sea, is taking on water. Between the costs of old, dirty powerplants and the competitive advantage of cheaper natural gas, coal is struggling to stay afloat. As Mr. Patton from Appalachian Power pointed out, those circumstances have nothing to do with whoever is sitting in the Oval office. For States that have relied on coal for generations, the Clean Power Plan is actually a lifeboat. It is a chance to kick-start new industries and innovative technologies and to choose the path forward that is best for your State and your citizens. It is a way off a sinking ship. Recognizing the costs of carbon pollution is another lifeboat. I know this sounds strange to my colleagues, but please bear with me. You can't build the carbon capture plants that could keep coal plants operating if they are free to pollute. There is no economic value to a carbon capture plant if it is free to pollute. The truculent insistence on this market failure by Big Coal is ironically coal's own undoing. Yet congressional Republicans won't engage. They waste time with the useless Gingrich-era Congressional Review Act efforts to block carbon pollution controls on powerplants--controls that Americans overwhelmingly support. Beyond that, our Republican friends simply have no plan--nothing. There is no plan B to the President's Clean Power Plan. If you have something else, please bring it forward. We can debate which is better, but you can't just pretend this isn't a problem. They have no plan to deal with climate change, no plan to help coal-reliant communities find safe passage to a more sustainable economic future. I ask my colleagues to please read what the CEO of Appalachian Power said. Please take it to heart. Please read the Charleston Gazette-Mail editorial. Please engage with us while we can still do some good because when the market completely collapses, when there is nothing left to do, when coal is priced out by solar and wind and natural gas and other fuels, then it is too late to come back and say: Now we need help. When the market has acted and someone suffers as a result, they don't get any sympathy in this building. Now is the time when people who want to make this a smooth transition for coal economies need to come forward in the interests of their own people, in the interests of their own miners who need their pensions filled and fixed, in the interests of communities that need transitions, in the interests of their economy. I thank the distinguished Senator from Georgia for his patience. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Why doesn't the Senator from Montana proceed with his remarks.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Before that matter is settled, reserving the right to object, I will be speaking for about 15 minutes. If one of you is going to be quicker than that, particularly significantly quicker--not 14 minutes--I would be happy to yield and let somebody go first.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I see a number of Senators on the floor. I don't know if there is an order at this point that has been established. What is our manner of proceeding? Senator Isakson is here.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, we are embarked on a significant budget agreement that has as one of its components adjustments to America's health care costs. In the case of this particular agreement, I support the adjustments that have been proposed--things such as preventing drug manufacturers from raising their costs higher than the rate of inflation. We have seen people come in and buy companies and jack up the costs 10 times because they can. They haven't added any value to the products; they have just raised the costs. I support that. Paying hospitals the rate for physician practices that the physician practices were paid before the hospital bought them--nothing changed in the physician practices; just ownership changed, and that shouldn't allow a windfall to the buyer. I think we have done well with what we have done to reduce health care spending in this particular bill, but I recall that in the sequester we did an across-the-board haircut right across Medicare. Whatever you were being paid before, you got paid 98 percent of that afterward if you were a Medicare provider. I want to come today to offer a thought that I hope can percolate a bit, and if we go back and look at those costs again I would like to get this thought into the conversation. The backdrop of this is the extraordinary increase of health care costs that we have seen more or less in my lifetime. This chart shows 1960, and it is a $27 billion American expenditure on total health care. Here it is in 2013, with $2.9 trillion, an increase of more than 100 times over those years in what we spend on health care. And as we have done that, what we have done is we have become the most expensive per-capita health care country in the world-- and not by a little but by a ton. Over at the far side of the chart is the United Kingdom, then Germany, Japan, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, and here is the United States. Again, this is 2013 data. We are way above the most expensive competitors that we have. So there is something that can be done here with this excess cost, because people aren't getting bad health care in Germany. They are not getting terrible health care in the United Kingdom. They are not suffering in Japan or Switzerland or France or the Netherlands. These are competitive systems with ours, but ours costs half again as much. There is a big target in savings here. Here is another way of describing it. If you look at the cost and you compare it to a quality measure, here the quality measure is life expectancy in years, how long people can expect to live in these different countries, and this is the same per-capita cost information I showed in the last bar chart. What you see is that most of the countries that we compete with are grouped right up in here, as shown on this chart--Greece, Great Britain, Japan. Most of the EU is right in here. As you run up the cost curve you get to Switzerland and the Netherlands. They are the two most expensive countries in the world in per-capita health care, not counting us. Look where we are. We are out here. Our costs are about half again as much as the least efficient health care providers in the industrialized world. We are more inefficient by nearly a factor of a third than the least efficient health care providers in the industrialized world. That is not a prize we want to own. We want to be able to move this back. If you look at this gradient of life expectancy, we compare with Chile and the Czech Republic. Where we want to be is up here. Where we are is here. So once again, it proves there is enormous room for improvement in our health care system and we know that because other countries are doing it. They can do it. Darn it, we ought to be able to do it too. Now we change the scope of this a little bit. This chart shows the American health care system State by State. Each State is marked as one of the dots on this graph. This graph has the same thing across the bottom--Medicare spending per beneficiary. The last one was national spending, and this is Medicare spending per beneficiary. Here are the quality rankings of the States. There are a variety of quality rankings, and this assembles them into a consolidated quality rating. What you see is that within the United States of America you have the States. This goes back a bit. This is an old ranking that the Journal of the American Medical Association produced. It shows that there are some States that were just under $5,000 per capita. They were doing something right. There are other States here, including an outlier, all the way over to $8,000 per capita. But there is a bulk of States here that run about $7,000 per capita. That is a $2,000-per-Medicare- recipient difference between this group of States and that group of States. That is interesting. Why is it that there is this big difference? Here is another interesting factor. Look who is doing better on quality--the States that spend less. The lesson from this is if you are delivering high quality health care, you can deliver it less expensively than if you are delivering low quality health care. At a $2,000-per-beneficiary increase in costs, these States are way at the bottom on quality compared to the others. The relationship between quality of the care people receive and the cost it takes to deliver it to them is reversed. This isn't like Lexus and Mercedes, where you pay more and you get a better car. This is the opposite. You have a really crummy car and it costs more to run it, it doesn't work, and it is expensive because it is not working well. It is backward. It is interesting that way. If you bring that forward, this shows a recent graph from the Commonwealth Fund that shows the same thing, overall quality score relative to the U.S. median and costs in total Medicare spending. Here is the average right here for cost and the average for quality, and here you have these States down here in the bad box. They are way out here in costs. They are very expensive States. They are all above average. Some of them here are way above average--25 percent above average, 15 percent above average, 20 percent above average. Look what their quality measure is. They stink. They deliver terrible quality health care. Over here you have a bunch of other States that are way above the quality median and at the same time they are way below the cost average. So the principle from that first graph back in 2000 still holds true, according to the Commonwealth Fund. With that background, here is another way to describe it. These are the 10 worst States in terms of highest cost per capita, and these are the best 10 States. I know we have a country with 50 States. This is only 20. We leave out the middle 30. These are the worst 10 in terms of cost, and these are the 10 best in terms of cost. Here is the idea. Why should we be reimbursing above average the States that have a per-capita cost above average, instead of the way we did it on the sequester, by taking a 2-percent cut on everybody across the board that nobody can do anything about--just a cold, wet blanket of funds denial? Why not look and say this is the most that a State would get paid--whatever the cost would be--if it were at the average. The rest, you just take it back per capita across the entire reimbursement for that State. This is what would happen with these high cost States. The very next meeting of the State medical society, the very next time the State met with the Governor, the very next time the Medicaid program got together, they would be hollering, saying: What on Earth? I do a good job. I am going to get my reimbursement cut because of that? No, we have to fix this. It would give them a massive incentive to stop behaving like this and start behaving like this. If we built in some lead time so they had the chance to actually get there, they might actually never have to cut. They might not ever have to face that cut because what they would have done in the time leading up to when the cut was scheduled to be imposed is begin to behave like the States that have lower costs than average. We know this could be done because so many States are already doing it. Why would we ever again look at an across-the-board Medicare- provider cut when we have an enormous discrepancy between these high- cost, low-quality States and these low-cost, high-quality States--like this one all the way over here? Oh, my gosh, it is a bargain there; it is top quality care. That is my point for the day. I hope that anybody listening who is looking at the proposed cuts in the budget and who is looking at the need to manage this exploding health care cost curve that America has had for the last 50 years--steepening health care cost curve--starts to think about ways to do not just dumb and bloody cuts, but smart cuts-- smart cuts that give the States that are costing us much more money than their peers the inventive to actually start behaving like their peers and bring down the cost for everyone. That is what I would consider to be a serious win-win. I look forward to continuing this discussion. We have a couple of years before we are going to face this again with any luck, but I think this is an idea that is worth considering. Once again, if you give the States enough warning within the 10-year budget period so we can score it but with enough warning that they have got the chance to react--I encourage anybody to read Atul Gawande's last article about Texas. He wrote an article about the terrible cost differential between--I think it was El Paso and a town called McAllen, TX--huge. Then they brought in the ObamaCare affordable care organizations--accountable care organization models and down came the price in McAllen. So it can be done. We have seen it being done. With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, there has been some activity on the Senate floor today regarding the President's Clean Power Plan, with fossil fuel State representatives coming to decry that plan. I would simply note that on October 22, in the Wall Street Journal, many of the leaders of America's national security took out an advertisement to say: ``Republicans & Democrats Agree: U.S. Security Demands Global Climate Action.'' We have had generals and admirals, former National Security Advisers and Directors of National Intelligence, Secretaries of the Treasury, Secretaries of Defense, Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency, Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Governors, Senators, Under Secretaries of State, many Republicans all saying this is important; that it is time for America to lead. And what do we get? We get complaints about America leading. If my friends have a better idea than the Clean Power Plan, I would be glad to listen. I am sure we would all be glad to listen. What is it? What is the other plan? Because if you have nothing, then you really don't have a seat at the table and you certainly don't have occasion to criticize what the President is trying to do. Show us something--anything. What have you got? Where is the Republican bill that even talks about climate change--let alone does anything serious about it. It is truly time for this body to wake up and not just wake up to climate change but also to the decades-long purposeful corporate smokescreens of misleading statements from the fossil fuel industry and its allies on the dangers of carbon pollution. So I am here for the 116th time seeking an open, honest, and factual debate in Congress about global climate change. The energy industry's top dog, ExxonMobil--No. 2 for both revenue and profits among the Fortune 500 of companies--has been getting some bad press lately. Two independent investigative reports from InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times revealed that Exxon's own scientists understood as far back as the late 1970s the effects of carbon pollution on the climate and warned company executives of the potential outcomes for the planet and humankind, but Exxon's own internal report also recognized heading off global warming ``would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion.'' So what did this fossil fuel company do? Rather than behave responsibly, rather than face up to that truth, rather than lead an effort to stave off catastrophic emerging changes to the climate and the oceans, what Exxon chose to do was to fund and participate in a massive misinformation campaign to protect their business model and their bottom line. This started right at the top. Exxon's former chairman and CEO Lee Raymond repeatedly and publicly questioned the science behind climate change, notwithstanding what his own scientists had said. ``Currently,'' Raymond claimed in a 1996 speech before the Economic Club of Detroit--20 years after this work by his own scientists--``the scientific evidence is inclusive as to whether human activities are having a significant effect on the global climate.'' There was already an emerging international consensus that unchecked carbon emissions were warming the planet. There was already Exxon's own internal research that showed carbon emissions were warming the planet, and it has gone forward to now with the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stating that ``warming of the climate system is unequivocal.'' Unequivocal. The current ExxonMobil CEO, Rex Tillerson, still emphasizes uncertainty and goes out of his way to overestimate the costs of taking action. In 2013, he asked: ``What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?'' All right, someone needs to explain to me how if we fail to save the planet, humanity does not suffer. I guess it is Exxon's position that we only suffer if we try to save the planet. At this year's annual shareholders meeting, Mr. Tillerson argued that the world needs to wait--that is always their argument, the world needs to wait--for the science to improve--unequivocal is evidently not enough--and to look for solutions to the effects of climate change as they become more clear--more clear. Our oceans are clearly warming and acidifying, and this has been clearly measured. Atmospheric carbon is clearly higher than ever in our species' history on this planet, and this has been clearly measured. In Rhode Island, we have measured nearly 10 inches of sea level rise since the 1930s, right on our shores. What is not clear? While Exxon was peddling climate denial here in Washington, the L.A. Times reports, they were using climate models to plan operations in the warming Arctic. Between 1986 and 1992, Exxon's senior ice researcher, Ken Croasdale, and others studied the effects global warming would have on Arctic oil operations and reported back to Exxon brass. They knew melting ice would lower exploration and development costs. They also knew higher seas and thawing permafrost would threaten the company's ships, drilling platforms, processing plants, and pipelines. So Exxon was challenging the climate models publicly while it was using them privately to guide its own investment decisions. Exxon understood the dangers, but instead of sounding the alarm or trying to help, they chose to sow doubt. Then there are the Exxon front groups. A study out just last month in the peer-reviewed journal Climatic Change says that ExxonMobil paid over $16 million between 1988 and 2005 to a network of phony-baloney think tanks and psuedoscience groups that spread misleading claims about climate science. The company's network includes organizations that name themselves after John Locke, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and even George C. Marshall. It also includes the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which pedals anti-climate legislation in State legislatures. ALEC denies the human contribution to climate change by calling it a ``historical phenomenon,'' asserting ``the debate will continue on the significance of natural and anthropogenic contributions.'' The climate denial coming out of ALEC is so egregious even Shell Oil left the group this summer. Don't forget the paid-for scientists. The Exxon network includes Willie Soon, whose work consistently downplayed the role of carbon pollution in climate change. Well, investigative reporting revealed Dr. Soon received more than $1.2 million from oil and coal interests, including ExxonMobil, over the last decade. So the cat is out of the bag now, and all the bad press has got Exxon a little jumpy. Exxon's VP of Public Affairs, Ken Cohen, took to Exxon's blog to proclaim that his company has a legitimate history when it comes to climate. ``Our scientists have been involved in climate research and related policy analysis for more than 30 years, yielding more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed publications,'' he said. He goes on to say that Exxon has been involved with the U.N. IPCC, the National Academy of Science's National Climate Assessment, and that Exxon funds legitimate scientists at major universities as they research energy and climate. Right. The problem is that is only half the story. That is the half of the story that shows Exxon knew better. What is the rest of the story? Decades of funding to a network of front groups that led a PR campaign designed to undercut climate science and prevent legitimate action on climate change. For decades, Exxon invested in legitimate climate research, you say? That is the proof of actual knowledge. That makes the route they chose of denial and delay all the more culpable, and that denial and delay, as Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story. What are Tillerson and ExxonMobil waiting for? Why this campaign of deceit, denial, and delay? Sadly, it is our American system of big business and paid-for politics--just follow the money. Exxon foists the costs of its carbon pollution on the rest of us--on our children, on our grandchildren--and all the while they make staggering amounts of money. And Congress, funded by their lobbyists, sleeps placidly at the switch. Exxon even fights to protect their status quo with their own shareholders. The Institute for Policy Studies reports that shareholders of ExxonMobil have introduced 62 climate-related resolutions over the past 25 years, and all of them have been opposed by management. Rex Tillerson, who made $21.4 million in stock-based pay in 2014, has openly mocked a shareholder who asked about investing in renewables. This is rich. Tillerson responded that renewable energy ``only survives on the backs of enormous government mandates that are not sustainable. We on purpose choose not to lose money.'' Well, ExxonMobil spends huge amounts of money on the complex PR machine to churn out doubt about the real science in order to protect the market subsidy that ignores the costs of Exxon's carbon pollution and makes clean energy face an uphill battle. So it is really kind of nervy to say that clean energy survives on the backs of enormous government subsidies when oil gets the biggest subsidies ever. Things could have been different. Exxon could have heeded the warnings of its own scientists and helped us make a transition to clean energy. It is happening now without them. The International Energy Agency found that the cost of generating electricity from renewable sources dropped from $500 a megawatt hour in 2010 to $200 in 2015. Imagine if we had rolled up our sleeves and gotten to work way back when Exxon first learned of the dangers of carbon pollution. Imagine the leadership that company could have shown. Imagine how much of the coming climate and ocean changes we could have avoided. But they didn't, and the time of reckoning may now be upon the likes of Exxon and others in the fossil fuel industry. That PR machine may end up costing the company a lot. Look at what happened to big tobacco. Two weeks ago, Congressmen Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch regarding these newly reported allegations that ExxonMobil intentionally hid the truth about the role of fossil fuels in influencing climate change. ``The apparent tactics employed by Exxon are reminiscent of the actions employed by big tobacco companies to deceive the American people about the known risks of tobacco.'' Last week, my friend, the junior Senator from Vermont, joined in the call for the Attorney General to bring a civil RICO investigation into big fossil fuel. ``These reports, if true,'' reads Senator Sanders' letter to Attorney General Lynch, ``raise serious allegations of a misinformation campaign that may have caused public harm similar to the tobacco industry's actions--conduct that led to federal racketeering convictions''--actually, a judgment. It was civil. But it is otherwise accurate. Also last week, Sharon Eubanks, the former U.S. Department of Justice attorney who actually brought the civil action and won the civil RICO case against the tobacco industry, said that, considering recent revelations regarding ExxonMobil, the Department of Justice should consider launching an investigation into big fossil fuel companies-- that it ``is plausible and should be considered.'' That was her quote. Let me show why it is plausible and should be considered. Let me read from U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler's description of the culpable conduct in her decision in the government's racketeering case against Big Tobacco: Each and every one of these Defendants repeatedly, consistently, vigorously--and falsely--denied the existence of any adverse health effects from smoking. Moreover, they mounted a coordinated, well-financed, sophisticated public relations campaign to attack and distort the scientific evidence demonstrating the relationship between smoking and disease, claiming that the link between the two was still an ``open question.'' Defendants knew there was a consensus in the scientific community that smoking caused lung cancer and other diseases. Despite that fact, they publicly insisted that there was a scientific controversy and disputed scientific findings linking smoking and disease knowing their assertions were false. Now, let's read that exact same language back but apply it to climate. Each and every one of these Defendants repeatedly, consistently, vigorously--and falsely--denied the existence of any adverse [climate] effects from [carbon pollution]. Moreover, they mounted a coordinated, well-financed, sophisticated public relations campaign to attack and distort the scientific evidence demonstrating the relationship between [carbon pollution] and [climate], claiming that the link between the two was still an ``open question.'' Defendants knew there was a consensus in the scientific community that [carbon pollution] caused [climate change] and other [harms]. Despite that fact, they publicly insisted that there was a scientific controversy and disputed scientific findings linking [carbon pollution] and [climate] knowing their assertions were false. Just change the words, and there is her judgment against the tobacco industry, and it plainly applies to climate denial. The investigative journalism from InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times is damning. The calls for greater scrutiny of ExxonMobil and the fossil fuel industry are mounting, and the phony-baloney denial network is up in arms, trying to shovel this campaign under the protection of the First Amendment. Sorry, guys, the First Amendment doesn't protect fraud. Describing Caesar at the Battle of Monda, Napoleon said: ``There is a moment in combat when the slightest maneuver is decisive and gives superiority; it is the drop of water that starts the overflow.'' Is the tide turning? Is this the decisive moment? Despite documented warnings from their own scientists dating from the 1970s, ExxonMobil and others pursued a campaign of deceit, denial, and delay. They may soon have to face the consequences. In any event, history will not look kindly on their choice. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes in morning business.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I now in turn ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 774 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, we have worked long and hard in the bipartisan Oceans Caucus to clear this Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Enforcement Act of 2015. It will help fishermen on all of our coasts better withstand foreign competition that cheats, that destroys resources, and that engages in what we call pirate fishing. This is a House bill. It passed with a huge majority on the House side, and now having passed in the Senate, it can go to the President for its signature. It will be good for fishermen across the country. I thank Senator Vitter for his consideration and for working together to clear both of these bills this afternoon. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I appreciate that very much, more than the Senator can know.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I would like to speak for 5 or 6 minutes on the cyber bill. Unfortunately, I am here to express my distaste for the manner in which this bill has proceeded. I have an amendment that is not going to be voted on. Let me describe some of the characteristics of that amendment. First of all, it is bipartisan. It is Senator Graham's and my amendment. Second, it has had a hearing. We have had a hearing on it in the Judiciary Committee. Considerable work has gone into it. Third, it has the support of the Department of Justice. It repairs holes in our criminal law for protecting cyber security that we worked on very carefully with the Department of Justice and which we have had testimony in support of from our Department of Justice prosecutors. Last, it was in the queue. It was in the list of amendments that were agreed to when we agreed to go to the floor with this bill. So I don't know how I am going to vote on this bill now. But if you have a bipartisan amendment that has had a hearing, that was in the queue, and that has the support of the Department of Justice and you cannot even get a vote on it, then something has gone wrong in the process. I remember Senator Sessions coming to the floor and wondering how it is that certain Senators appoint themselves masters of the universe and go off in a quiet room someplace and decide that certain amendments will and will not be heard. I am very sympathetic to Senator Sessions' concerns right now. Let me tell you what the substance of our amendment would do. First, there are people out there around the world in this cyber universe of fraud and crime who are trafficking in Americans' financial information for purposes of fraud and theft. If they don't travel to America or if they don't have a technical connection to America, we cannot go after them. There is an American victim, but we cannot go after them. That is a loophole that harms Americans that this bill would close. I cannot believe there is one Member of this institution who would oppose closing a loophole that allows foreign criminals access to Americans' financial information for fraudulent purposes but puts them beyond the reach of our criminal law. That is one part of what our bill does. Second, it raises penalties for people who intrude on critical infrastructure. You can go all around this country, you can go to military installations that have way less security concerns than our critical infrastructure, like our electric grid, and you will see chain-link fences that say department of whatever, U.S. Government, stay out. You cannot go in there to picnic, you cannot go in there because you are curious, you cannot go in there for a hike, and the reason is because there is a national security component to what is going on in there. Well, there is a huge national security component to our critical infrastructure, like our electric grid. All this would do is raise the penalties. You could still go in, but if you get caught doing something illegal there, then it is a little different if you are attacking America's critical infrastructure than if you are just prowling around in some other portion of the Web that does not have that. Again, I think if that came to a vote, we would probably get 90 percent of this body in favor. Who is in support of allowing people to mess around in our critical infrastructure? The third is botnet brokers. Botnets are out there all over the Internet. They are a plague on the Internet. There is no such thing as a good botnet. Everyone would be better off if they were removed. They are like weeds on the Internet. There are people who are brokers who allow access to botnets, and because our laws are so out of date, if you are just brokering access to a botnet for criminal purposes, there is no offense. Why would we not want to empower our Department of Justice to be able to go after people who are criminal brokers allowing access for criminals to botnets to use for criminal purposes against Americans? I don't understand that. Lastly, botnet takedowns. A botnet is a weed. We wait until somebody actually encounters that weed and is harmed by it before we allow our Department of Justice to act. We should be out there taking down botnets on a hygiene basis all the time. We are limited because of this artificiality. That is the fourth piece of the bill. It empowers botnet takedowns like the Bugat takedown we just did. We should be doing a lot more of that. Again, unless somebody here is in the botnet caucus and is in favor of more botnets out there, this is something which would probably pass unanimously. Yet I cannot get a vote. It is bipartisan, has had a hearing, is in the queue, is supported by the Department of Justice, and those are the four sub-elements of it. For some reason, the masters of the universe have gone off and had a meeting in which they decided this is not going to be in the queue. I object to that procedure. I am sorry we are at this stage at this point because I think that on the merits this would win. This is a bipartisan, good, Department of Justice-supported, law enforcement exercise to protect people against cyber criminals. I don't know what the sense is that there is some hidden pro-botnet, pro-foreign cyber criminal caucus here that won't let an amendment like mine get a vote. I will yield the floor. I see Senator Carper here, and he has done great work to try to be more productive than my amendment reflects. I hope we can sort this out to a point where an amendment like mine, which was in the queue in the original deal that got us to this bill, can now get back in some kind of a queue so that we can get this done. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I congratulate Senator Vitter on the passage of the bill and would remark on the support for it by Senator Booker and Senator Menendez on our side of the aisle.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, last week the former head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Robert M. Hoyt, passed away at the age of 92. Dr. Hoyt served this Nation under five Presidents and pioneered the peaceful use of satellites to understand our weather and climate. He said: We do have environmental problems and they're serious ones, the preservation of species among them, but the climate is the environmental problem that's so pervasive in its effects on the society. . . . The climate is really the only environmental characteristic that can utterly change our society and our civilization. That was in 1977. That same year, James F. Black, a top scientific researcher at the Exxon Corporation, gave that company's executives a similar warning. ``[T]here is general scientific agreement,'' he told Exxon's Management Committee, ``that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels.'' According to emerging reports, Exxon executives kept that warning a closely guarded company secret for years. I rise today for the 115th time to urge that we wake up to the threat of climate change. I rise in the midst of a decades-long purposeful corporate campaign of misinformation, which has held this Congress and this Nation back from taking meaningful action to prevent that utter change. Scrutiny of the corporate campaign of misinformation intensifies, and scrutiny of the fossil fuel polluters behind it intensifies, and the regular cast of rightwing climate denier attack dogs have their hackles up. On May 6 I gave a speech on the floor of the Senate. The speech compared the misinformation campaign by the fossil fuel industry about the dangers of carbon pollution to the tobacco industry's misinformation campaign about the dangers of its product. The relevance of that comparison is that the U.S. Department of Justice, under the civil provisions of the Federal racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations statute--RICO for short--brought an action against the tobacco industry. The United States alleged that the tobacco industry's misinformation campaign was fraudulent, and the United States won in a lengthy and thorough decision by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler. You can go ahead and read them. DOJ's complaint and Judge Kessler's decision can be found at the Web sites of the Justice Department and the Public Health Law Center, respectively, and they are linked on my Web site, whitehouse.senate.gov/climate change. I will warn you that Judge Kessler's decision is a long one, but it makes good reading. The comparison is strong. There are whole sections of the Department of Justice civil RICO complaint and whole sections of Judge Kessler's decision where you can remove the word ``tobacco'' and put in the word ``carbon'' and remove the word ``health'' and put in the word ``climate,'' and the parallel with the fossil fuel industry climate denial campaign is virtually perfect. This is not an idea I just cooked up. Look at the academic work of Professor Robert Brulle of Drexel University and Professor Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State University. Look at the investigative work of Naomi Oreskes' book ``Merchants of Doubt,'' David Michaels' book ``Doubt is Their Product,'' and Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner's book ``Deceit and Denial,'' describing this industry-backed machinery of deception. Look at the journalistic work of Neela Banerjee, Lisa Song, David Hasemyer, and John Cushman, Jr., in the recent reporting of InsideClimate News about what Exxon knew about climate change versus the falsehoods that Exxon chose to tell the public. Look at a separate probe by journalists Sara Jerving, Katie Jennings, Masako Melissa Hirsch, and Susanne Rust in the Los Angeles Times. From all their work, we know now that Exxon, for instance, knew about the effect of its carbon pollution as far back as the late 1970s but ultimately chose to fund a massive misinformation campaign rather than tell the truth. ``No corporation,'' said professor and climate change activist Bill McKibben, ``has ever done anything this big and this bad.'' Just today, the person who probably knows the most about the tobacco litigation, the assistant attorney general of the United States who prosecuted that case as a civil matter and won it in the U.S. District Court, Sharon Eubanks, said about the climate denial RICO idea: ``I think a RICO action is plausible and should be considered.'' This is how Judge Kessler depicted the culpable conduct of the tobacco industry in her decision in that case: ``Defendants have intentionally maintained and coordinated their fraudulent position on addiction and nicotine as an important part of their overall efforts to influence public opinion and persuade people that smoking is not dangerous.'' Now compare that to the findings of Dr. Brulle, whose research shines light on the dark-money campaigns that fund and support climate denial. This climate denial operation, to quote Dr. Brulle, is ``a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public's understanding of climate.'' The parallels between what the tobacco industry did and what the fossil fuel industry is doing now are so striking, I suggested in my speech of May 6, that it was worth a look, that civil discovery could reveal whether the fossil fuel industry's activities cross that same line into racketeering. I said that again in an op-ed piece I wrote in the Washington Post on May 29 regarding the civil RICO action against tobacco. Oh my, what a caterwauling has ensued from the fossil fuel industry trolls. Here is a quick highlight reel of the tempest of rightwing invective. One climate denier, Christopher Monckton, declared: ``Senator Whitehouse is a fascist goon.'' Another denier compared me to Torquemada, the infamous torturer of the Inquisition. The official Exxon responder got so excited about this suggestion that he used a word I am not even allowed to use on the Senate floor. He forgot rule No. 1 in crisis management: Don't lose your cool. The rightwing Web site breitbart.com responded by calling me ``the preposterous Democrat senator for Rhode Island'' and saying the notion that there is an industry-led effort to mislead the American people about the harm caused by carbon pollution is ``a joke,'' a conspiracy theory on par with Area 51 or the faking of the Moon landing. Well, tell that to the tobacco industry. Paul Gigot, the editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, said global warming concerns ``are based on computer models, not by actual evidence, not by actual evidence of what we've seen so far.'' Tell that to the scientists who measure the effects of climate change every day, particularly in our oceans. The polluter-funded George C. Marshall Institute, a longtime climate denial outfit--and who knows how they got to take respectable George C. Marshall's name and slap it on the front of a climate denial industry front--they wrote that this was an attack on constitutional rights. Well, that kind of presumes the answer because there is no constitutional right to commit fraud. Similarly, Calvin Beisner, founder of another phony baloney industry front called the Cornwall Alliance, said the same: The mere suggestion of considering this action represents a ``direct attack on the rights to freedom of speech and the press guaranteed by the First Amendment'' and is ``horrifically bad for science.'' Coming from a science-denial outfit, that concern for science is rich. Again, fraud is not protected by the First Amendment. In the National Review, I was accused of wanting to launch ``organized crime investigations . . . against people and institutions that disagree with [me] about global warming'' in order to ``lock people up as Mafiosi.'' Crime? Lock people up? Let's remember, we are talking about civil RICO, not criminal. No one went to jail in the tobacco case. Investigating the organized climate denial scheme under civil RICO is not about putting people in jail. Query why the National Review would mislead people about such an obvious fact, and they are not alone. The rightwing blogosphere has lit up with nonsense about how this is a criminal charge. Read the tobacco complaint. It is on the Department of Justice Web site. Even people who purport to be legal scholars are misleading folks that way. All a civil RICO case does is get people to actually have to tell the truth under oath in front of an actual impartial judge or jury and under cross- examination, which the Supreme Court has described as ``the greatest legal invention ever invented for the discovery of truth.'' No more spin and deception--but that is exactly the audience polluters and their allies cannot bear, so the flacks set off criminal smokescreens and launch fascist goon and Torquemada hysterics. A few weeks ago, 20 scientists agreed with me and wrote a letter to Attorney General Lynch supporting the idea of using civil RICO. That was too much for the troll-in-chief for the fossil fuel industry, the Wall Street Journal editorial page. The Wall Street Journal editorial page has long been an industry science-denial mouthpiece. They use the same playbook every time: one, deny the science; two, question the motives of reformers; and three, exaggerate the costs of reforms. For example, when scientists warned that chlorofluorocarbons could break down the atmosphere's ozone layer, the Wall Street Journal ran editorials--for decades--devaluing the science, attacking scientists and reformers, and exaggerating the costs associated with regulating CFCs. It turns out they were dead wrong. When acid rain was falling in the Northeast, the Wall Street Journal editorial page questioned the science, claimed the sulphur dioxide cleanup effort was driven by politics, and said fixing it carried a huge price tag. Ultimately, the Journal's editorial page, after years of this, had to recant and admit that the cap-and-trade program for sulphur dioxide ``saves about $700 million annually compared with the cost of traditional regulation and has been reducing emissions by four million tons annually.'' Now, on climate change, the Journal is back to the same pattern: Deny the science, question the motives of climate scientists, exaggerate the costs of tackling carbon pollution. For decades, the Journal has been persistently publishing editorials against taking any action to prevent manmade climate change. On this, the editorial page said that by talking about civil RICO, I am trying to ``forcibly silence'' the denial apparatus. Forcibly silence? First of all, against the billions of the Koch brothers and the billions of ExxonMobil, fat chance that I have much ``force'' to use. And silence? I don't want them silent. I want them testifying in a forum where they have to tell the truth. Is the Journal really saying that in a forum where climate deniers have to tell the truth, their only response would have to be silence? Making them tell the truth ``forcibly silences'' them? The only thing civil RICO silences is fraud. By the way, the Journal editorial never mentions that the government won the civil RICO case against tobacco and on very similar facts. That would detract from the fable. Whom does the Journal cast as their victim in their fable? None other than Willie Soon, whom they said I singled out for--this is what they said--having ``published politically inconvenient research on changes in solar radiation.'' Politically inconvenient research. Actually, what is inconvenient for Dr. Soon is that the New York Times reported that he got more than half his funding from big fossil fuel interests such as ExxonMobil and the Charles Koch Foundation to the tune of $1.2 million and didn't disclose it. Dr. Soon's research contracts even gave his industry backers a chance for comment and input before he published, and he referred to the papers he produced for them as ``deliverables.'' In case anyone listening doesn't know this, that is not how real science works. Of course, none of this sordid financial conflict is even mentioned by the Wall Street Journal editorial page. They would rather pretend that Dr. Soon is being singled out for ``politically inconvenient'' views. Please. It gets better. In the editorial, the role of neutral expert commenting on all of this goes to Georgia Tech's Judith Curry. She offers the opinion that my ``demand . . . for legal persecution . . . represents a new low in the politicization of science.'' This is a particularly rich and conflict-riddled opinion, as Ms. Curry is herself a repeat anti-climate witness performing regularly in committees for Republicans here in Congress. Again, there is no mention of this interest of Ms. Curry's in the Wall Street Journal editorial. The fossil fuel industry's climate denial machine rivals or exceeds that of the tobacco industry in size, scope, and complexity. Its purpose is to cast doubt about the reality of climate change in order to forestall moves toward cleaner fuels and to allow the Kochs and the Exxons of the world to continue making money at everybody else's expense. And the Wall Street Journal editorial page plays its part in this machine. Even though it is only the editorial page and not the Journal's well- regarded newsroom, facts and logic are supposed to matter. Ignoring the successful tobacco litigation, omitting the salient fact of Dr. Soon being paid by the industry involved in his research, and bringing in a climate denier as their neutral voice without even disclosing that conflict--I would like to see the Wall Street Journal editorial page get that editorial by the editorial standards of their own newsroom. So why all the histrionics on the far right? Why all the deliberate subterfuge between civil and criminal RICO? Why all the name-calling? Have we perhaps touched a little nerve? Have we made the hit a bit too close to home? Maybe a civil RICO case is indeed plausible and should be considered. Are the cracks in the dark castle of climate denial as it crumbles beginning to maybe rattle the occupants? Whatever the motivation of the Wall Street Journal and other rightwing climate denial outfits, it is clearly long past time for this climate denial scheme to come in from the talk shows and the blogosphere and have to face the kind of truth-testing audience a civil RICO investigation could provide. It is time to let the facts take their place and let climate denial face that greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I wish to join my colleagues from Massachusetts and Hawaii to talk about the tax credits for wind. We have had a remarkably exciting new thing happen in Rhode Island this summer. From time to time, I am able to get out on Narragansett Bay and, over and over, whether driving on the bridges over Narragansett Bay or actually out on Narragansett Bay, we saw the sites of these enormous barges traveling down the bay, bringing these huge structures that were carried out, located off of Block Island, and sunk to the ocean floor to provide the platforms for the first steel-in- water offshore wind energy in the country. Now, we can go over to Europe and see wind energy all over the place. We are behind them in developing it, but Rhode Island is the start. And whether we saw these enormous structures that were the legs--the frames for the pylon and the turbine--or whether we saw enormous pilings that get carried out there and in the same way that you drive a nail through the hole for a hanger and put it through wall, they take these enormous pilings that reach way up into the sky and drive them through the hollow legs of the framework and down to anchor them in the ocean floor. So this is under construction right now. It is big. We see these barges coming by and they are enormous. The structures run hundreds of feet in the air. It is exciting to see this happening, and it is part of the wind revolution that Senator Markey and Senator Schatz talked about. So there is a conflict in my mind between this exciting sight in Rhode Island--these big yellow structures coming down the bay in the bright light--and then coming to the darker Halls of Congress and moving from that exciting sight to the tedious fight that we have over and over to protect the wind production tax credit. Over and over we have to go through this fight. Why? I will tell my colleagues why. It is because opposition to the wind tax credit is one more little wriggling tentacle of the fossil fuel industry. They have huge tax subsidies, tax credits, and tax advantages baked permanently into the Tax Code, and they sit on those and they defend them and they are merciless about anybody who tries to take those away. But let a little wind come along and try to get a competing tax credit of its own, and they try to crush it, over and over and over. Nobody runs for office to come to the Senate and says: The thing that drives me, the thing that motivates my candidacy is to make sure that our wind energy in the United States gets knocked down; let's take their little tax credit away. Nobody runs on that. In fact, if I recall correctly, the Presiding Officer ran for office with a picture of a wind turbine in Colorado. So it is not as if there aren't friends to wind in this Chamber. But once someone gets here, the oil and fossil guys are very powerful. They are very remorseless. They have made immense threats to squash any action on climate change. And as a little sidebar, they always try to beat the little wind energy subsidy. They will never give up their own, and their own are much bigger. We have probably $50 billion over 10 years in cash tax benefits going to these companies, which are the most profitable companies in the history of the planet. They are the last companies that need any help. If we look at people such as the International Monetary Fund--not exactly a liberal, green group--the International Monetary Fund estimates that if we put in all of the subsidies that fossil fuel gets around the world, it adds up to more than $5 trillion--trillion. I am from Rhode Island. I think $1 million is a lot of money. I am starting to get used to talking about billions of dollars being here. Trillions is what the fossil fuel subsidy, in effect, is around the world, and just in the U.S. it is $700 billion in a year. Yet, greedy, big corporations that sit and defend that benefit to the last trench also want to crush the poor little wind benefit. It is just not fair and it is just wrong. But I think we are going to be able to prevail. We have seen some real progress here. Bloomberg just published an article that wind power is now the cheapest electricity to produce--cheaper than anything else--in both Germany and in the United Kingdom. It is a powerful industry in States such as Colorado and in Wyoming, where they have so much wind that they export wind energy to other States. Iowa is probably our leader. Iowa generates nearly 30 percent of its electricity from wind. TPI Composites is a Rhode Island company. It builds composite materials in Warren, RI. They have a facility in Iowa where they manufacture wind turbine blades and, in the last decade, they have manufactured 10,000--10,000--wind turbine blades. There had been a Maytag factory in a town called Newton, IA, and the Maytag factory went bust because, of course, we are offshoring jobs to China. But guess what. They came in and started building these wind turbines. They are really too big to ship from China, so it has been a boom industry. It has put little Newton back on its feet. If we don't pass the wind production tax credit, then States such as Wyoming and Colorado and Iowa that depend on this are really going to be hurt. This is bipartisan in these States. I don't know why the fossil fuel industry primarily runs its mischief through the Republican Party here in Congress, but it doesn't work in Iowa. In Iowa, a year ago, the Iowa State Senate unanimously passed a resolution supporting extension of the production tax credit--unanimously. So we have a really strong case to make that this is the technology of the future. We have a fairness case to make that the great big brutal fossil fuel lobbyist organization shouldn't be allowed to hold on to all of its subsidies--depending on how we measure, they are measuring into the hundreds of billions of dollars--and, at the same time, try to squash poor little wind when it wants to get some subsidies in order to compete with this massive and malevolent incumbent. Then I think we have the practical politics of this, which is that in State after State after State, wind has become real enough that it is going to be very hard for some of our colleagues on the Republican side to go home and say to their home State industry: Sorry, we put you under the bus. We put you under the bus. We protected your competitors in oil and gas; we absolutely would never touch them. We protected them. They are sacrosanct on our side. But we put you under the bus. That is going to be a little hard to explain. So I very much hope that as we come together and pull together the continuing resolution or the omnibus--that avoids, I pray, another shutdown and that puts our country on a sensible budgetary footing going forward--this tax credit is a part of it, because we need these jobs. People are working in Rhode Island, and I will tell my colleagues this: When you are building a giant, enormous, big frame offshore, you are paying good wages. You are paying good wages to the people who operate the barges. You are paying good wages to the ironworkers, the steelworkers, and the electrical workers. You are paying good wages to the stevedores who are helping to load it up. These are really strong economic businesses, and we want to support them. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Gifford J. Wong, who is an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. These are serious people running big, successful companies. They don't take climate change lightly, they don't scoff and neither should we. They are asking that elected officials find the courage to address climate change. Majorities of voters of both parties and of Independents are also asking elected representatives to find the courage to address climate change. That brings us back to that squeeze I talked about. If you are not willing to address carbon pollution and the climate change and ocean acidification it is causing, I ask my colleagues who are on the ballot in 2016: What are you going to say? What are you going to say to your voters? Are you going to say it is a hoax? Great. Good luck with that. Are you going to say: OK. It is real, it is important, these companies are all right, but as far as fixing it, well, we have nothing--because right now that is what they have, nothing. Maybe they should just beg: Please don't ask me about climate change because the big fossil fuel polluters are paying my party's bills and making mean threats to me. Those are not a great set of options. At some point soon, I tell my friends: Your party's leaders are going to have to go to the fossil fuel billionaires and say: Enough. Enough. Let my people go. We held out for you as long as we could, but now you have to let my people go, and it has to be soon. As one executive told Congressman Gibson and me quite directly, ``The window of opportunity to act on climate change is closing.'' It is time to wake up. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. My team was led by Emily Enderle, who leads my environmental team. She has terrific credibility in the environmental community, and she knows these laws very well, but even with that it was an enormously complicated task. This was a big bill. I forget the number of changes we actually put into it in the course of that negotiation, but it was 20, 22. It was a large array of changes, so it was a lot of work in a short period of time. Emily, the Senator's staff, and everybody who was involved in that really dove in and worked hard in the best traditions of good staff work in the Senate with the intention to get to ``yes.''

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. We heard a similar appeal from America's largest financial powerhouses last week. Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo released a strong call for governments to come together on a climate agreement. Here is what they wrote: Policy frameworks that recognize the costs of carbon are among the many important instruments needed to provide greater market certainty, accelerate investment, drive innovation in low carbon energy, and create jobs. . . . While we may compete in the marketplace, we are aligned on the importance of policies to address the climate challenge. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that their statement also be printed in the Record.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I know that during our process, our staff worked enormously hard, and the Senator's has been at this for a longer time than just that intense period of negotiation where we moved the bill in our section, so I defer to the Senator to make those comments. I would applaud the Senator's staff and Senator Vitter's, who have been doing a terrific job.