Sheldon Whitehouse

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am looking forward to the day when the Senator from Florida and I can be working together on these issues. As he knows very well, the University of Florida teaches the science of climate change. They have courses like Managing for a Changing Climate, Climate Change and Health, Climate Change Science and Solutions, Oceans and Global Climate Change, and many, many others. And it would be great if the science that the University of Florida teaches were also respected and reflected here on the Senate floor. It is more than just the University of Florida getting it right. This also lands in Florida in big ways because while wildfire may not be an issue in the good Senator's State, flooding sure is. And that same cascade of risk that I talked about--starting with climate risk, hitting insurance security, moving into mortgage availability, clobbering property values, and then leading to recession--is well underway in Florida. Some have called it the great climate insurance collapse, and in that very difficult situation, Florida is first and worst into that danger. Climate risk first; insurance collapse, second; mortgage market suffering, third--all of those things are happening. Indeed, the chief economist from Freddie Mac, who is not a green guy--he is a finance and mortgage guy--warned there was a coastal property values crash coming. And as we go through those different stages from climate risk to insurance to mortgages to property values, unfortunately, Florida led the country last year in lost property values, which is at least, in part, I think a function of this risk and how it is hammering Florida homeowners. So you don't really get away from this kind of a general risk. The insurance industry is not lying to everybody. They are not leaving customers who pay their premiums because they don't like the customer. They are leaving customers who pay their premiums because the property is no longer insurable. And what we are seeing here across the United States is massive predictions in insurance rate increase, and Florida is really at the epicenter of that. This dark band is a 200-percent to 300-percent increase, and you see it all along the Florida coast. They are running at about $14,000 already in insurance costs for homes in Florida. Double that--not double it, add 200 percent and add 300 percent. That is actually tripling and quadrupling. You can see how that begins to hammer the home's value. And here, you see a similar problem. This isn't just a cost problem; this is a nonrenewal problem. It is going to end up costing you more money once you are nonrenewed--absolutely. But you also have to go through the immediate hassle and worry and anxiety of finding out how the heck you are going to insure your home once your insurance company has nonrenewed you. And you can see the focus of nonrenewal is along these coastal areas, very heavily in Florida, and then in some of these wildfire areas that we talked about out in California. So this continues to come at us. It is focused on certain geographic areas more than others, but no place more than Florida. So I look forward to working with the good Senator from Florida on finding solutions before the bottom falls out of his insurance, mortgage, and real estate markets. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here with another unanimous consent request, and I appreciate the Senator from Florida, Senator Scott, for being here to participate in this exchange. I keep coming here to try to reinforce the obvious, scientifically clear point that climate change is real, that that is a simple scientific fact. The way this has gone is that I came to the floor earlier this year and asked my colleagues to agree on that simple scientific fact: Climate change is real and, frankly, our fossil fuel emissions are causing it. Well, I guess it is no surprise, but my Republican colleagues would not agree to that fact. So I have returned to the floor, time and again, in hopes that my Republican colleagues could agree to some of the simpler truths contained within that truth. Each time faced with well-documented truths about sea level rise or wide-ranging climate economic fallout, Republicans have objected. Well, climate change isn't stopping or slowing down, and I won't either. So today's simple truth is that climate change is making wildfires more frequent, more intense, and more destructive. My question is, can we not all agree on that? Here is some background. This chart from the National Interagency Fire Center shows that average U.S. acreage burned annually by wildfires has almost tripled in the last three decades, and the upward drift of the chart is pretty obvious. The science proving that climate change makes wildfires worse is both clear and straightforward, and it has been well-known for decades. It is not new. In fact, wildfires are part of a climate upheaval that Big Oil itself predicted. Shell, for instance, in a 1989 confidential planning document, warned that if fossil fuels were not brought under control, ``there would be more violent weather--more storms, more droughts, more deluges. Mean sea level would rise at least 30 cm. Agricultural patterns would be most dramatically changed. . . . Boundaries would count for little--overwhelmed by the numbers. Conflicts would abound. Civilization could prove a fragile thing.'' That is what Big Oil said about climate change effects from their product back in 1989: ``Civilization could prove a fragile thing.'' This is the underlying temperature increase that is driving the droughts that Shell predicted nearly 40 years ago. So, first, we know that fossil fuel emissions--climate change--is increasing global temperatures. You can't read it. This goes back to 1860. This is a pretty longtime chart in this instance. This is now. So how does it work? What does that heat do to drive wildfires? Well, warmer air draws more moisture out of the soil, out of plants, out of bodies of water. There is a scientific name for this. NOAA calls the phenomenon evaporative demand or sometimes atmospheric thirst. But you don't have to use scientific language to understand it. You just watch a puddle dry up on a hot day. That is what you are seeing. NASA, NOAA, and the Forest Service call drought conditions like these fire weather--fire weather. According to NASA's website on wildfires and climate change, ``human- caused climate change [is] the main cause for increasing fire weather in the American West.'' Now, it is about a quarter of 6 this evening when I read that quote from NASA's website. You might want to start the shot clock on how long it takes for the fossil fuel goons to get in there and change the website. Climate change makes droughts last longer. The Forest Service reports that what was once a 4-month fire season now lasts 6 to 8 months. So there are more opportunities for any spark to start a dangerous blaze. And climate changes make drought conditions worse; that is, drier; that is, with more flammable material. So those fires that do start in that longer season are more likely to become severe. In January of 2025, a collection of wildfires in the Los Angeles metro area burned through over 15,000 homes and businesses, killed more than two dozen people, and poisoned the air with toxic pollution. Mr. President, 2026 is already on track for one of the worst wildfire seasons on record. August wildfires in Spokane, WA, caused over $1 billion in damage and destroyed over 800 people's homes. In July, wildfire smoke blanketed much of the country and degraded air quality for tens of millions of people. Researchers have found that the number of people in the United States who experience at least one extreme smoke day per year is up 27 times in the last decade. So if you used to have one extreme smoke day in your life, now you have 27 in the same period of time. Every county in the continental United States experiences degraded air quality from wildfire smoke at least 16 times every year, and the cost of that is real. Air pollution from wildfire smoke makes people sicker and causes deaths. Scientists have known for decades--decades--that climate change is making wildfires worse. More recently, the data has gotten more precise. We can now connect climate change to specific individual events. In the case of the L.A. fires, scientists from the World Weather Attribution and Imperial College London found that climate change made the weather conditions that drove these fires 35 percent more likely. This kind of analysis is called climate attribution. The National Academies recently released a comprehensive report on the current capabilities of climate attribution, including on wildfires. To no one's surprise, the fossil fuel industry and its allies are already out to discredit this work. In the face of tens of thousands of Americans losing their homes to wildfires, millions more facing skyrocketing insurance premiums as wildfire risk becomes either unavailable or unaffordable, and the risk of crashing home values--because when you can't insure your home, guess what. You can't get a mortgage on your home. And if you are the kind of person who bought your home with a mortgage and needs somebody with a mortgage to buy it from you when it is time to sell, that crashes the value of your home. It destroys its worth. Well, in the face of those facts, the traditional response of the fossil fuel industry is to try and hide the truth, but there is truth, and the truth is climate change is making wildfires more frequent, more intense, and more destructive. And I really hope that we are able to agree on that. Mr. President, so notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 559; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Well, I am sorry that we can't agree on this particular provision because we are working together on so many things so well. But I will have to confess I have real doubts about whether EPA is really trying to put this together, as deadline after deadline slips and slips and slips. So perhaps we will see what happens. But if, for some reason, this CRA should fail, perhaps we can come back again after EPA slips the deadline again and perhaps has baked in some goodies for the PFAS industry along the way. And if we can't do it today, then soon send a bipartisan message to the EPA to knock it off and get about their business with PFAS.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here to take us into the upcoming vote, the Congressional Review Act vote, with respect to an EPA rule related to PFAS. For those of you who aren't following this, PFAS is a dangerous and toxic substance that, I think, Republicans and Democrats alike see as a dangerous and inadequately regulated substance. Unfortunately, it is particularly prevalent in military installations, and particular exposure has been faced by veterans and also by folks who are in our emergency response community--firefighters. Airports get a lot of it because of the firefighting drills that they have to have. It is a very significant problem. There was a rule that required the reporting about PFAS use. Manufacturers and importers just have to say: Here is what we are doing. But it is important to get that information out so that people can understand where the exposure is to these toxic PFAS chemicals. Well, just before--like 4 days before--that reporting window was supposed to open and require the reporting of PFAS exposure, Trump's EPA announced a new interim rule with a delay of the reporting requirement until next year. They delayed it once. That delay ran out. This is the second delay. First of all, I don't think there is any need for a delay. Second of all, there is every reason to believe that the chemical industry is behind weakening PFAS protections during the delay period. That would be consistent with the Trump EPA's favoritism toward any pollutant and any polluter all the time. So here we are with a deadline for reporting. This isn't regulation; this is reporting public information that is being scrapped and extended. I would hope because of the fact that the PFAS contamination danger falls across red and blue States alike that we could send a bipartisan message today, through this Congressional Review Act, back to the EPA, saying: No, you don't get a second delay. Start the reporting right now. If you want to come back and weaken the standard, we will fight you on that, but that is a separate fight. At least let's get the reporting on PFAS contamination out there. So I urge my colleagues to support this Congressional Review Act. I understand that the distinguished chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee would like to respond. So I ask unanimous consent that Senator Capito be recognized and that, at the conclusion of her remarks, I be recognized to go through the parliamentary steps necessary for the vote.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 532, S.J. Res. 187.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, with that, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Last, there is a group called Just Security, which keeps track of what goes on in Federal courts. This is a binder of the cases that they have put together in which a Federal judge is harshly criticizing the integrity or the competence of the Department of Justice. This binder, frankly, should not exist. This is two-sided, by the way. These many cases--it is just astounding. I am not going to ask that this all be put into the Record. But I will note that if you look at justsecurity.org, you can look at their report published on March 19, 2026. It gets regularly updated. And if you want to go through it, you can see truly appalling criticisms by Federal judges of every appointment background against incompetence and dishonesty by the Blanche Department of Justice. Where that really hits the road is with something called the presumption of regularity. You might not know what the presumption of regularity is, but it is a benefit that the government enjoys--that as a matter of policy, the Federal judiciary has determined that the Federal Government is generally so honest and competent that its proceedings will be given the presumption of regularity that the benefit of the doubt will go to the Department of Justice lawyers and to the government Agencies involved. Unless the adversary can prove otherwise, courts will presume that the government has done the right thing. And over and over again, we have seen judges say that presumption of regularity is now shot because there is so much dishonesty and incompetence coming out of the Department of Justice. That is unprecedented. There are hundreds of other reasons to vote against this most reprehensible Attorney General nominee in American history, but the very specific ones about his complicity in the Epstein files screwup and coverup, his being the first senior Department of Justice official in the history of the United States to face a fraud on the courts inquiry, where the judge already decided that the proceeding was a sham and that the parties were in collusion with each other and that the whole thing was done in bad faith, and that that is not an isolated incident--that is part of a pattern of incompetence and dishonesty out of the Department of Justice that has never before happened in the United States of America. If my Republican colleagues want to get behind that--if they are cool with an Attorney General who has that record--that is on you.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. And then this isn't just a problem in American legal communities. There is a global magazine called The Economist magazine, which, by the way, does not run liberal. It is a fairly conservative publication. The cover story in the July 18 The Economist is a picture of the Department of Justice logo and the title ``Degradation in progress.'' I ask that The Economist magazine article--there are actually two. One is the opening article that they lead with before they get to the main article; and the second is the main article--the two articles about the degradation of the Department of Justice under Todd Blanche be added to the Record as well. I ask unanimous consent that the articles entitled ``Degradation in progress'' and ``The rule of one'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. And with respect to this litany of criticism of the honesty of the Blanche Department of Justice, I would like to add a ProPublica article entitled ``Federal Judges Chastise Trump's Justice Department for `Unlawful,' `Unethical' and `Unseemly' Conduct,'' whose first sentence begins: Across the country, federal judges are calling out Department of Justice lawyers, questioning in unprecedented ways whether they can be trusted to tell the truth or uphold centuries-old legal norms. I ask unanimous consent that the article entitled ``Federal Judges Chastise Trump's Justice Department for `Unlawful,' `Unethical' and `Unseemly' Conduct'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here today to join the chorus of opposition to Todd Blanche's nomination as Attorney General of the United States. Things that Republicans have purported to care about are disastrous with this guy. Pam Bondi put the blame directly on Todd Blanche for the Department of Justice's foulup with the Epstein files. That foulup was pretty deadly serious for the women who were victims, who had managed to keep that fact private until Todd Blanche and the DOJ fouled that up and put out their names, put out their addresses, put out their photographs, and in some cases put out photographs with very little clothing on--complete disruption of the lives of the victims of Epstein's depravity, complete incompetence from a document- production point of view. And on the other side, this guy actually participated in the Epstein coverup. Remember that there was a witness who spoke to FBI agents about having been assaulted by Donald Trump when she was about 14 years old, physically assaulted and sexually assaulted. She spoke to the FBI at least four times. Those four times were recorded in FBI 302s. A 302 is the FBI name for the witness statement that the agents write up after an interview. So four times this woman has been interviewed about what had happened to her as a girl. Three of those 302s specifically mentioned Donald Trump. In the disclosure that Todd Blanche made under the Epstein files law, the only one of the four that got disclosed was the one that didn't mention Donald Trump. That ought to be disqualifying right there. Luckily, some very sharp investigators realized through, like, gaps in Bates stamp numbers that documents were missing and that the three 302s had not been disclosed. And so Blanche was forced to cough those up. But behind a 302 come the agent notes. And there are still 37 pages of documents relating to that that are still suppressed, that are still covered up, that look to be the agents' notes, which should have been disclosed. So the coverup continued with respect to allegations against Donald Trump. Where else did the coverup continue? Well, the Treasury Department sent to the Department of Justice what are called suspicious activity reports. A suspicious activity report is what you get when international banking transactions look like something funny is afoot, look like there is, for instance, money laundering going on. In this case, it was money laundering and human- trafficking concerns that provoked the suspicious activity reports. You don't have to be a genius investigator to look at a suspicious activity report and deduce it might have something to do with some suspicious activity. It is the title of the report, for Pete's sake. Billions of dollars of transactions were behind those suspicious activity reports. How many were investigated by the Blanche Department of Justice? Zero. Turned a complete blind eye to that whole aspect of the Epstein files, even though the suspicious activity reports were right in front of them. And then he goes running down to Tallahassee to interview Epstein's comrade-in-crime Ghislaine Maxwell. Did he use that interview to develop any new information, to go after people who were culpable in the Epstein files? No. He used that interview to extract exculpatory comments from her about Donald Trump. Oh, that he was a perfect gentleman. And the next thing you know, she is rewarded with a transfer to a Club Fed-type prison. What is the excuse for that? Oh, she was at risk. We felt she was in danger. Well, look, I have been around law enforcement for a long time, and this is the first time I have ever seen a prisoner allegedly in danger be transferred to a less secure setting to solve the problem of danger. Right? You move the prisoner to a more secure setting, not a less secure setting. It makes no sense. So in the Epstein files, Todd Blanche's fingerprints are all over the screwup and the coverup. Then we move on to the slush fund and the Trump family tax fraud amnesty, which was cooked up in a deal surrounding a Federal court proceeding, which was such a mess that the judge in that Federal court proceeding has gone back to look at what the heck happened. She was looking at whether something happened called fraud upon the court. You probably haven't heard of fraud upon the court. It is unusually rare. It is a thermonuclear ethics accusation. We have looked. In the history of the Department of Justice, fraud on the court has not even been alleged against any senior DOJ official--ever. Ever. And here you have a court that opened a proceeding, an inquiry, into whether or not there was fraud on the court, and that is still pending. There is still every reason to believe that Blanche may be found culpable for putting a fraud on the court together to cook up the slush fund tax amnesty scheme. That is pretty unheard of. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon in this Blanche Department of Justice. There is a cascade of criticism from Federal courts about misconduct by this Department of Justice--misconduct that is unprecedented. I will tell you that I was the U.S. attorney for the District of Rhode Island. If judges had used words like this about my attorneys' conduct in their courtrooms, there would have been consequences. At a minimum, there would have been staff meetings. There could have been referrals to the Office of Professional Responsibility. There could have been apologies required to the court. There could have been a reboot, internal office discipline of what is going on with this case. But when a judge says that the government's argument is disingenuous, when the judge says that the government's argument is a pretext for something else, when the judge says that the government has engaged in bad faith, each one of those is a four-alarm fire word. In medicine, there are things that they call never events, things that should never happen in a hospital that you protect against, these are never event words coming from Federal judges. And yet they are commonplace in the corrupted Department of Justice run by Todd Blanche. As to his complicity in the Epstein files coverup, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from Epstein survivors to Senators Tillis and Cornyn be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks. With respect to the destruction of the Department of Justice that he has wrought, I would also ask that we add George Will's column called ``Against Todd Blanche.'' I ask unanimous consent that the article entitled ``Against Todd Blanche'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, just a few quick things. First of all, Medicaid, from the budget discussion this morning, is facing a trillion dollars in cuts. Second of all, that is being done by a redtape bomb being dropped on Medicaid recipients that will fall the hardest on the people least capable of the additional redtape and paperwork who have-- you know, are in addiction recovery, have severe mental health issues, have such disabling physical health issues that it is hard for them to take on the new project of keeping up with the Republican redtape and bureaucracy. And the question of whether it is real or not, you don't have to go any further than looking at the organizations, hospitals, doctors groups, nursing homes, that are having to prepare their finances for that cut. They are not preparing their finances for level Medicaid funding; they are preparing their finances for massive cuts. So that is just the truth of the matter. With respect to the Weather Service, 600 employees are gone. They were driven out by Elon Musk and his little minions, and there are vacancies in meteorological, hydrological, and weather forecasting positions as a result. That is just another fact. And, last of all, my colleague from Wisconsin's view of what is happening with climate change is certainly entertaining in certain circles. But if you want to take a look at what is real, you might want to consider going to the universities in Wisconsin--like the quite renown University of Wisconsin--to see that legitimate climate science is what is taught in Wisconsin's own universities, not the entertaining version that we just heard here on the Senate floor, but the real stuff, taught by the people who really know to students who want to know what the truth is. That is the choice Wisconsin made in its universities. They teach the real stuff, and there is no way you can reconcile the real stuff with the entertaining version of climate that we just heard from the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, simple fact: Climate change is real. It is actually pretty widely known. I think it is a true statement that every person knowledgeable about climate science who is not on the payroll of the fossil fuel industry or its denial operation agrees with that. Actually, a lot of people knowledgeable about climate science who are on the payroll of the fossil fuel industry agree with that. In fact, scientists from Exxon, from Chevron, in a report for API 30, 40 years ago, acknowledged climate science, predicted the harms, and indeed quite accurately predicted the harms we are seeing now. Given that, I came to the floor to ask my colleagues if they could simply agree on that simple scientific fact--climate change is actually real. Well, unfortunately, to no one's surprise, Republican colleagues could not. So I came back to the floor and broke down the big question--the scientific fact that climate change is real--into some of its component truths, the smaller truths that make up the big truth that climate change is real. Each time faced with simple, well- documented truths, such as sea level rise and economic fallout from climate change, Republicans objected. Objectors have protested that they are not climate change deniers. Well, you would never know that from their willingness to consider solutions. Indeed, the objectors are stridently opposed to any--any-- climate solutions, and they have made their opposition clear. The problem is that that comes with consequences. So I will try another simple truth today. It is actually a pair. One, climate change-driven extreme weather events are increasing, and at the same time, the government is dismantling weather monitoring and alert systems. I will ask you to accept those two truths together. I don't think either one is subject to much debate, so I hope we can all agree on that. As I have explained repeatedly and as anybody knowledgeable in this space pretty well knows, climate change exacerbates extreme weather and disaster events. You can see on this chart the billion-dollar disasters from 1980 to today. It gets worse and worse. It includes winter storms, wildfires, hurricanes, and other severe storms; freezes, flooding, and drought. But to make the chart, it has got to be a billion-dollar disaster. Climate change increases both the frequency and the intensity of these events. Scientists have known this to be true for decades now. It has actually developed to the point where the National Academies could release a report just this month making clear that the attribution science--linking extreme weather to climate change to emissions--is advancing. It is now quite well established. So what do we know? We know that the fossil fuel industry is making extreme weather worse. Now we have an even better sense of how much worse; how it is attributable to those companies. I mentioned flooding. Climate change drives flooding in several ways: wetter hurricanes, for one; sea-level rise for another. And I say this as a Rhode Islander: It is not just our coastal communities that are at risk; climate change increases rainfall intensity--powerful rain bursts--that deliver unprecedented upland flooding. That happens because a warmer atmosphere, just as a matter of simple physics, holds more water. This chart shows that, from 1970 to 2025, average rainfall intensity increased by 28 percent. That is a lot more water, and it results in more frequent and intense extreme rainfall, which can occur far away from coasts. Ask Asheville, NC. So how can communities like Asheville know when floods like that are coming? Well, the answer is, government warning systems from our National Weather Service, which is part of the NOAA. Most of us use National Weather Service data every day because smartphones rely on Weather Service data to power the weather apps that we look at. If you have gotten a thunderstorm warning, a tornado warning, or a flood alert on your smartphone, that is the Weather Service and its hundreds of civil servants diligently doing the science, tracking the data, and putting out the warnings. Well, since President Trump took office and unleashed Elon Musk and his team of little DOGE boys, the Weather Service has lost about 600 employees--600. Half of those employees were meteorologists and hydrologists--the people who work on doing the forecasting and the warnings. As climate change-driven extreme weather continues to worsen these dangers, well, that spells trouble, and people need warnings. We can trace the impact of those DOGE losses to the Weather Service already. For instance, at the time of the deadly flooding in Kerr County, TX, last year, the Weather Service's San Angelo office was missing a senior hydrologist, a staff forecaster, and a chief meteorologist. They are just not there anymore. The San Antonio office was missing a science officer and a warning coordination meteorologist. What could possibly go wrong? Well, they found out in Kerr County, TX. In April of this year, East-Central Kansas got a Weather Service tornado warning out with just minutes to spare. Weather forecasters can usually issue tornado warnings hours in advance and then update. They can do those early warnings because, when the government is properly staffed and hasn't had Elon Musk's little minions wrecking it, it can release daily weather balloons in the predawn hours to build the dataset of what is going on. Well, due to staffing cuts, several Weather Service offices now don't have the people to do the predawn launches, so the balloons don't go up until regular office hours. By then, when those balloons went up on April 13, the storms were already on the move. This time, Kansans were warned to seek shelter just in the nick of time, but that is not an acceptable gamble for the U.S. Government. You know, it is pretty basic government stuff to fund and maintain weather monitoring and alert systems, including adequate staff at the weather Agencies. If we can't do that, well, we will see more lives lost as ever more frequent and dangerous climate-driven weather events catch people by surprise because our Weather Service is understaffed and underfunded. We should certainly be able to agree on that. Climate- driven extreme weather is worsening, and the administration is taking down the capabilities for weather forecasting and warnings. Both are true. I hope that we can agree to this one. So, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration and that the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 558. I further ask consent that the resolution be agreed to; that the preamble be agreed to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I won't speak long. David Rosner has died. You have probably never heard of him, but I knew him. His research, along with his colleague Gerry Markowitz, helped expose the role of the lead paint industry in poisoning millions of children. He was a great public health researcher. Here is his book with Gerry Markowitz, which I just took down from my Senate bookshelf, where I keep it: ``Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution.'' David had smarts, and he had discipline, and he had guts. The smarts made him and Gerry path-breaking researchers. The discipline made their research incontrovertible, and the guts helped him weather the response, all too common, from American industry when faced with inconvenient truths: to lie, to bully, to disparage. Well, that behavior did not defeat David. His work stands. As I said, I won't speak long. I will instead ask unanimous consent that three obituaries be printed in the Congressional Record appended to these remarks. One is his obituary in The Lancet, the distinguished medical publication. The second is a reminiscence by his professional peer Bruce Lanphear. And the last is a Substack reminiscence by his daughter Molly. David was a special man. He did special work. I was proud to have worked with him.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am not going to go through a rebuttal of the factual misstatements to which we have just been treated, but I will add that I have objections to the IRA bill as well. We can all have objections to parts of the IRA. But the fact is that fossil fuel emissions continue to cause harm; they continue to cause danger. And the warnings that I have described are now very real. We can do nothing about it, and that has been the plan in the Senate ever since Citizens United dialed up the fossil fuel industry to influence us with dark money. But if we are going to do something about it, we must start somewhere, and I would recommend that we start with some really simple facts, like the ones that I brought to the Senate floor just now. These are serious warnings. Senators who wish to change the subject or distract us or prevent us from responding in any way to these serious warnings--well, that is everybody's choice. But I do think these warnings are serious enough that they merit attention. So if you don't like my suggestion, let's do something different. But let's just not sit here and do nothing.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I therefore ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 557; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. But I have a terrible singing voice, and so I will spare the Senate the embarrassment of that particular performance.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, before I start, let me offer the Presiding Officer my best wishes for a very, very happy birthday. I might regale you with singing ``Happy Birthday.''

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I appreciate my fine colleague from Indiana State whose Indiana University teaches the science of climate change. But I would like to say that this is not an attack on Florida; this is a warning to Florida of what is happening, what is already demonstrably beginning to happen as a result of sea level rise, worse hurricanes, and heavier storm bursts. I just want to make sure that characterization is clear. Florida is entitled to be warned about this risk. It is a risk we all share. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, climate change is real. Simple proposition. Earlier this year, I came to the floor and asked my colleagues if they could all agree on that simple factual proposition. Well, they could not, so I return to the floor in hopes that our Republican colleagues could at least agree to some of the simple truths that make up the larger truth of climate change. I asked if we could agree, for instance, that sea levels are rising as a consequence. There is really no dispute about that, but Republicans objected. I asked if we could agree that the oceans are warming as a consequence. There is really no dispute about that either. In fact, they are warming by about 20 zettajoules a year. Nevertheless, Republicans still objected. So I shifted my focus to economic threats. I asked if we could agree that climate change is driving up the cost of homeowners insurance or that it threatens home values. Very clear propositions demonstrated in real life. But, again, Republicans objected. Well, the closer these threats are to your home, the harder they become to deny. So let me try a narrower simple truth today: Florida's insurance market is gravely stressed by climate risks. That is it. Can we all agree on that? I have explained many times that climate change is driving an increase in severe storms, including hurricanes. This chart tracks billion-dollar climate disasters in the United States between 1980 and today. The pattern is crystal clear. As you can see, these events and their costs are increasing. According to NOAA, of all the climate-driven disasters since 1980, hurricanes have caused the most damage--over $1.5 trillion total adding all that up--with an average cost of $23 billion per event. And hurricanes hit southeastern States--particularly Florida--the hardest. Between 2020 and 2024, nine hurricanes hit Florida causing $244 billion in damages in Florida alone. They went on often to create more damage in other States--but $244 billion in Florida. So what does the data show is happening in Florida insurance markets as a result? First, data I collected as chair of the Senate Budget Committee shows that Florida has, by far, the highest insurance nonrenewal rate in the country--that is the rate at which insurers say to their customer: I am sorry. I know you have been a good customer. We have been insuring you for years, but your property is now so endangered that we can no longer insure you. We are done. You have got to go find new insurance. Florida: Highest nonrenewal rate in the country. Second, Florida has, by far, the highest average premiums in the country--by some estimates, approaching $14,000 per year. Economists expect these costs to continue to rise. This chart predicts future insurance rate increases as high as 300 percent in coastal Florida in the next 30 years--the period of a mortgage entered into today. Just do some quick math. If it is $14,000 now, a 300 percent increase, four times as much, you add--call it a $56,000 annual expense to own a home, and you run a present value of that simple math, that all comes off the value of the home. Even at these high premium rates, many home insurers in Florida are at risk of insolvency. After catastrophic hurricane losses in recent years, many of the major insurers--including Farmers, Progressive, and AAA--all left the Florida market entirely leaving behind small, local, and less stable insurers. Many of those small, local, and less stable insurers have gone bust when claims come in. This insurance problem creates a mortgage problem in Florida. Banks won't finance a home mortgage unless the home is protected by insurance. When banks originate mortgages, they often flip them to government- sponsored entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So, a new problem: Fannie and Freddie will only purchase mortgages which are protected by an insurer and only if that insurer has a requisite financial stability rating. Well, to obtain a financial stability rating, insurers pay a rating agency. Given the insolvency risk in the Florida insurance market, how do insurance companies there obtain the stability rating required by Fannie and Freddie? Most go to an operation called Demotech. Mark my words, you will hear a lot more about Demotech as this situation worsens. Demotech has rated nearly all of these small, local companies that it covers ``A'' or above. Well, it turns out these ratings are too good to be true. A recent investigation by the Wall Street Journal found that insurers rated by Demotech are 30 times more likely--30 times more likely--to become insolvent than those graded by other rating companies. So if Fannie and Freddie were to stop accepting mortgages with a high-risk Demotech-rated insurer, the Florida real estate market would come to a shuddering halt. This is the share of the insurance market in Florida rated by Demotech. This is what is left of the traditional ratings, and this is Citizens Property Insurance, which, because it is State-backed, doesn't require ratings. It has its own separate problems. But this Demotech problem is real. Almost 20 percent of Demotech- rated insurers in Florida have gone insolvent in the last decade--20 percent; 1 in 5, gone. An insolvent insurer is, of course, a disaster for homeowners who have to wait, eventually, to be paid by a State-run organization--the guaranty fund--that takes over for the failed, insolvent insurance. Well, two problems result from that. One, the delay in paying claims destroys neighborhoods. It is great to get paid by your insurance company when you have a major claim and your house is wrecked, but if the money doesn't come soon, you can't rebuild and the neighborhood doesn't come back. And we see that in Florida now. Two, other Floridians are on the hook for all those claims. The guaranty fund transmits that cost to other Florida policyholders. Now, Citizens Property Insurance--this one--the State-backed insurer of last resort, has a similar backstop when it can't pay claims, but in real life, those levees to prop up Citizens are often going to be uncollectible. There are credible scenarios in which the losses of Citizens Property Insurance exceed its ability to pay claims, and the assessment scheme fails. Those are plausible scenarios. Well, to defend, Citizens engages in periodic depopulation efforts where it hands off to those same popup, politically connected, Demotech-rated local insurers tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of homeowners. Boom--the homeowner is dumped into an insurance company she has never heard of. It is a cascade happening. The climate crisis clobbers home values, drives up insurance prices, and causes insurance insolvency in climate- risky areas across the country but nowhere so more than Florida. This is a crisis for families in Florida. The human stories behind this are heartbreaking, and it is growing into a crisis for all of us. Florida's insurance market is the canary in the American climate risk coal mine. As climate change gets worse and risks spread, other States will find themselves in a similar position--my own, being a coastal State, amongst them. So can we all agree on this simple truth: that Florida's insurance market is gravely stressed by climate risks? Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of that proposition, S. Res. 556; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote scheduled for 5:30 be allowed to begin immediately.