Sheldon Whitehouse

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for the 69th straight consecutive week that the Senate has been in session to try to wake us up to the harm that carbon pollution causes to our oceans, to our communities, to our ecosystem, and to our health. The effects of climate change are all around us, from melting glaciers in our national parks, to drought-stricken land across the American Southwest, to rising seas along my eastern seaboard. In Washington, DC, the iconic cherry blossoms are blooming earlier. Snook, native to South Florida, are being caught off the coast of Charleston; tarpon and grouper off the coast of Rhode Island. This is all happening now--not tomorrow, not sometime in the distant future but now--right now. Projections show that it will get much worse in the coming years unless we wake up and take real action. Happily, this week, the Environmental Protection Agency used its Clean Air Act authority as established by Congress and affirmed by the Supreme Court to propose carbon pollution standards for the country's existing powerplants. Before this, there were no carbon pollution limits--believe it or not--none. As you can see on this chart, the 50 dirtiest U.S. powerplants--this is the whole U.S. powerplant fleet. These are the 50 dirtiest powerplants. They put out more carbon than Korea, which is a pretty industrialized country. They put out more carbon than Canada, our neighbor to the north. I congratulate the administration on developing these smart, sensible limits that will put our Nation on a better path economically and on a better path environmentally. Thank you to the scientists, the engineers, the staffers, the attorneys, and the experts who invested so much time and energy in developing this historic standard. Through an unprecedented public engagement, EPA held more than 300 public meetings, working with stakeholders of all kinds and all across the political spectrum. The result: EPA has put the States in the driver's seat to come up with their own plans to meet State-specific targets. States and power companies will have a wide variety of options to achieve carbon reductions, like boosting renewable energy, establishing energy savings targets, investing in efficiency or joining one of the existing cap- and-trade programs. States can develop plans that create jobs, plans that cut electricity cost by boosting efficiency, plans that achieve major pollution reduction. What is not to like? Already, a diverse array of groups support the new EPA pollution standard. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in a letter to Administrator McCarthy wrote: ``These standards should protect the health and welfare of all people, especially children, the elderly, as well as poor and vulnerable communities, from harmful pollution emitted from power plants and from the impacts of climate change.'' The Catholic bishops went on to point out that ``the best evidence indicates that power plants are the largest stationary source of carbon emissions in the United States, and a major contributor to climate change.'' We are also hearing from 600 State and local elected officials who recently sent a letter to the President in support of the EPA plan. These are the mayors, council members, and State legislators for whom climate change is a day-to-day reality at home right there in their communities. The letter is signed by officials from both red States and blue, including Texas, Iowa, Arizona, and the ground zero of climate change in this country, the State of Florida. The business community has weighed in. Over 125 companies including American giants like Nike, Levi's, and Starbucks sent a letter of support for the new rule. Our support is firmly grounded in economic reality. The new standards will reinforce what leading companies already know: climate change poses real financial risks and substantial economic opportunities and we must act now. VF Corporation is an American apparel manufacturer in North Carolina whose brands include North Face, Timberland, Wrangler, and many others. ``As a company that makes innovative apparel and footwear for people who love the outdoors, we know how important addressing climate change is to our consumers, and therefore, our business,'' said Letitia Webster, VF's director of global sustainability. ``Today's rules provide the long-term certainty that VF needs to continue to invest in clean energy solutions so that we can do our part to reduce the impacts of climate change.'' Major utilities are behind the new rule. Tom King, the President of National Grid, which serves my home State of Rhode Island, said: The Obama administration, through the good work of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and her staff has worked in a transparent manner to craft regulation that promotes environmental and human health through a host of clean energy options. Rather than picking winners, this proposed rule supports market-based solutions. Major public health groups agree. Here is what Harold Wimmer, national president and CEO of the American Lung Association had to say: ``For the 147 million--nearly half of all Americans--already living in areas with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution, curbing carbon pollution emissions is a critical step forward for protecting public health from the impacts of climate change happening today.'' As widespread and broad as the support is for this rule, not everyone is applauding. Big polluters have enjoyed a long and happy holiday from responsibility for the carbon pollution they have dumped into our atmosphere and oceans. This free pollution they have enjoyed emitting is a market failure, a market failure recognized even by groups as conservative as the American Enterprise Institute--a market failure which allowed these polluters to dump billions of dollars in costs and harm on their fellow Americans. They did this to their fellow Americans without apparent shame or regret, and they are fighting desperately to preserve this loophole. They do not want you to know that we can achieve these reductions responsibly. They do not want you to know that we can do this and help our economy. Indeed, before the proposed rule was even available to examine, the climate deniers at the so-called U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it would cost electricity customers hundreds of billions of dollars and zap the U.S. economy of tens of billions in GDP and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Do not believe it. These claims are exaggerated at best and flat out false at worst. Do not just take my word for it. Republicans, citing the chamber's report--of course some of our colleagues jumped to cite that report. When they did, they earned a PolitiFact ``false'' and four Pinocchios from the Washington Post fact checker. The problem with the big polluters is that they only look at one side of the ledger. They ignore the costs of carbon pollution on the rest of us. These costs are real. People see them in their lives, in real lives at home in our communities--damage to coastal homes, roads, and businesses from rising seas and erosion; asthma attacks in children triggered by smog, sending them to the emergency room; forests dying from beetle infestations and swept by unprecedented wildfire seasons; farms ravaged by worsened drought and flooding. Our side of the ledger counts too. If the big polluters were accountants and they filed financial statements that only looked at one side of the ledger, they would go to prison. But this is politics, so without consequence or shame or regret, they ignore the harm they cause the rest of us. If the Chamber of Commerce and the big polluters want to talk about jobs, let's not forget about the jobs they hurt by their carbon pollution. Fishermen in Rhode Island have seen their winter flounder catch nearly disappear in recent decades as the water temperature in our Narragansett Bay has risen 3 to 4 degrees. That is an ecosystem shift for these species. Actually, there are now more jobs in clean, green energy than in oil and gas, more jobs in solar than in coal mining. This rule is a job creator in innovation and clean energy. The polluters just won't count that side of the ledger. It is an old story: tobacco, seatbelts in cars, acid rain, lead paint, ozone depletion, and more. Same old strategy: Muddle the science, manufacture doubt, manufacture cost, exaggerate the costs, and ignore the economic benefits. The Clean Air Act, according to a 2011 EPA assessment, will benefit Americans more than it costs by a ratio of 30 to 1, $30 of value in preventing hospital visits and premature deaths, avoiding missed work and school days, improving environmental quality, helping people live healthier, more productive lives--$30 of value to Americans for every $1 they had to pay in cleanup costs. Opponents of clean air standards have been proven wrong time and again. Here is the bottom line: Excessive carbon pollution is bad for our health, bad for our environment, and bad for our economy, even bad for our national security, if you read the Department of Defense's own Quadrennial Defense Reviews. The largest source of carbon pollution in the United States is powerplants. Until now there were no limits on the carbon pollution these plants could spew into our atmosphere and oceans. This week changes that. If the big polluters don't like the change, many of us will work with them on a legislative alternative. Perhaps as many Republicans support an economywide price on carbon pollution, which could generate a financial benefit for taxpayers and even provide transition assistance to affected industries. But they can't just keep dumping their pollution on the rest of us. Doing so might be free for them, but the costs are too high for us. Their long holiday from responsibility has to come to an end. It is time for them to wake up. A number of my Republican colleagues have come to the Senate floor to respond to the administration's proposal. Those of us seeking to stave off the worst effects of climate change welcome this opportunity to engage in a bipartisan discussion on the challenges of climate change. In the past, Republican colleagues have coauthored and voted for bipartisan climate change legislation. They have spoken out in favor of a carbon fee and, of course, our Republican colleagues represent States such as Florida that are every bit at risk from the effects of climate change as States represented by Democrats. So we think our Republican colleagues could have a lot to offer if they wish to join us in exploring solutions. A number of us have requested that time after votes on Monday, June 9, next Monday, be reserved for us to engage in a robust, bipartisan exchange of views about carbon pollution. We invite all our colleagues, Republican and Democrats, to join us then on the floor. We hope to find the Republican Party in the Senate is not a uniform monolith of climate denial. We earnestly believe the costs of failing to exercise American leadership and solve this carbon pollution problem are very high, terribly high, with ramifications for our health, safety, economic well-being, our food and water supplies, and our national security and standing. I look forward to a vigorous discussion on Monday. I hope my colleagues show up. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am joined by the chair and ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee to discuss a provision of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act conference report, which we will vote on shortly in the Senate. I thank them for their leadership on this important legislation, and rise with them today to discuss one of its provisions. Section 4014 of the conference report, Ocean and Coastal Resiliency, creates a new Army Corps authority to address ocean and coastal ecosystem resiliency. Subject to appropriations, this authority requires the Army Corps of Engineers to work with the heads of other Federal agencies, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Fish and Wildlife Service, State governors and other State officials, and nonprofit organizations, to conduct a study identifying projects in coastal zones to enhance ocean and coastal ecosystem resiliency. State and local leaders often have the best information about the changing conditions of their oceans and coastal zones, and participation by them in the Army Corps' study process is intended to ensure the most effective resiliency projects are identified in the study. In Rhode Island there are numerous entities, from our Coastal Zone Management Agency to our National Estuary Program, the University of Rhode Island, and Save the Bay that would bring important information and expertise to the process for identifying coastal resiliency projects in Rhode Island. In other States I know there will be similar interest. Subject to appropriations, the study and project list will be updated every 5 years, to ensure that best available science and policies are informing project identification and selection. When funding is provided for this program through the appropriations process, the Army Corps may carry out identified projects in accordance with the criteria for existing Corps Continuing Authority Program authorities.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. The conference committee's deliberations were informed by a legal analysis prepared by the Corps of Engineers Counsel regarding the interpretation of Section 4014. I ask unanimous consent that the legal analysis prepared by Scott Murphy, Senior Counsel for Project Agreements and Reports in the Office of the Chief Counsel of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Headquarters, which describes how the Corps would implement this provision, be printed in the Record at the end of this colloquy. The legal analysis, dated May 8, 2014, states that Section 4014 authorizes ``an independent coastal zone resiliency study and follow-on construction authority for projects to the extent they satisfy criteria for projects carried out under four named CAP authorities.'' In other words, Section 4014 relies on the terms and conditions of four preexisting authorities but it is not limited by the authorized levels in those authorities.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the chairman. I look forward to supporting this program in the future and during the appropriations process. Resiliency is important in our estuaries, bays, and barrier islands, because we cannot just restore things the way they were and expect to reap the benefits. These systems are changing too much. Resiliency requires planning for future threats from extreme weather, from rising sea levels and warming temperatures, from development pressure, and from pollution. Coastal ecosystems act as filters, improving water quality so we can swim and fish off our docks; they act as barriers protecting property and lives from storms and storm surges; and they provide habitat for commercially valuable fish, shellfish, and other wildlife. Coastal ecosystems support coastal economies, and I will continue looking for avenues to support restoration and research in this area.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. There has been considerable discussion on the floor about the nominee to the First Circuit, David Barron, that has hinged around his tenure in the Office of Legal Counsel and an opinion he wrote specifying the outer bounds of Presidential authority in the area of defending our national security against Americans who have signed up with organizations that do us harm. I wish briefly to bring to the attention of this Chamber that it is not the only issue with respect to David Barron and the Office of Legal Counsel. The Office of Legal Counsel has indeed had a scandal, and it is indeed related to David Barron, but it is related to David Barron in the best possible way, in that he is the one who cleaned up the scandal. The scandal in question--the Presiding Officer is a former attorney general of her State and she will understand this very clearly--the scandal in question related to the shabby opinions that were written by the Office of Legal Counsel to justify the torture program that was run by the Bush administration. When I say shabby, these were awful opinions. They were hidden from most peer scrutiny because they would not have stood up to peer scrutiny. They made errors as basic as failing to cite Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decisions right on point. There actually had been an incident in which the Department of Justice, where the Office of Legal Counsel is located, prosecuted a Texas sheriff for waterboarding victims in order to get confessions out of them. He was prosecuted as a criminal. He was convicted. The case went to the Fifth Circuit on appeal and in the course of their written decision on appeal, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals of the United States--one row below the U.S. Supreme Court--described the technique of water torture that was used, the waterboarding, and on a dozen separate occasions used the word ``torture'' to describe what was being done. Look for that case in the Office of Legal Counsel. Look for that case in the opinion of Office of Legal Counsel about whether torture is accomplished by waterboarding, whether waterboarding is torture. It is not there. They didn't even cite the case. It was a case they could have found in their own files because the Department of Justice was the organization that had prosecuted this sheriff as a criminal for that act. If you wanted to bring it up as a case and try to find a way to distinguish it, I could accept that. I probably would disagree with that analysis, but the failure to even cite the case, knowing how difficult it would be for the torture program to go forward, I think is a sign of either the worst kind of incompetence or a deliberate fix being put into the opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel. Having served as a U.S. attorney as well, I think the Department of Justice should have the best lawyers in the country, and within the Department of Justice the OLC prides itself on being the best of the best. It was a disgraceful departure of that standard when the torture opinions were allowed to pass. They simply don't meet any reasonable test of adequacy. So on April 15, 2009, the Department of Justice withdrew the Office of Legal Counsel's CIA interrogation opinions. The memorandum for the Attorney General effecting that withdrawal was signed by none other than David Barron. This was the instance of a man who absolutely did the right thing. He helped clean up a terrible mess that had been left at the Department of Justice. We should be proud of the conduct of David Barron at the Office of Legal Counsel. I ask unanimous consent that the 1-page memorandum for the Attorney General signed by David Barron be printed in the Record.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I have come directly to the Senate floor from a terrific event in the Dirksen building where hundreds of people who are concerned about what the carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and oceans gathered to wake up Congress. At 5 o'clock a whole bunch of alarms went off down there, and it was a very exciting, very enthusiastic moment with more than 40 members of Congress showing up to reflect our commitment to getting this done. One of the things I told people at the rally was that we are close to turning this issue around. The barricade of special interest propaganda that has surrounded Congress is eroding. The denial castle is built on sand and the sand is eroding the foundations for that propaganda, washing out from underneath it, and it will collapse soon. Why do I say that? I say that for several reasons. The first reason that I believe we are close to a win is that for a long time the big polluters have had a free shot at the atmosphere and oceans. Pollution costs them nothing, and that has created a mindset of entitlement and it created a mindset in which pollution was viewed as of no consequence. Thankfully, the President of the United States has required the EPA to promulgate regulations that will for the first time put a price on the carbon pollution that is emitted from our biggest power plants, and the 50 biggest power plants in America put out more carbon than Korea. They put out more carbon than Canada. So this is a very serious situation. When they are faced with the regulation, I think that is not just going to reduce their emissions, but it is going to change the way they see the problem, and they will be motivated in a new way to think: ``Wait a minute; what is the best way to solve this problem?'' Once they are no longer free to pollute, once the advantage is taken away, the whole equation changes for them, and I suspect that it will not take long between a polluter change in point of view and a change in point of view on the other side of the aisle in the Senate. The second reason is the politics on this. We have seen a recent poll that I have talked about on the floor before that points out that Republican voters--self-identified Republican voters--if they are under the age of 35 think that climate denial is--not my words, but in the words in the poll--ignorant, out of touch or crazy. So if you are a modern political party and you have built your climate change policy on a theory of denial that your own youth cohort, your own young voters under 35 think is ignorant, out of touch, or crazy, that is what I mean by a castle that is built on sand and that is doomed to fall. The third reason I want to mention here is there is a very significant role for America's corporations because what you get in this body from the so- called self-appointed corporate mouthpieces--the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the so-called U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers--what you get from all of them is flat out climate denial, the absolute hard stuff--just complete denial, absolute ignorance and ignoring of the science, totally in the tank with the polluters and the oil and coal industry. What is interesting is that actually doesn't represent the views of America's corporate community, and it doesn't represent them by a lot. If you look at big brand name American corporations, if you look at Coke and Pepsi, if you look at Apple and Google, if you look at WalMart and Target, if you look at Mars and Nestle, UPS and Federal Express, GM and Ford, look at the entire casualty property insurance industry, look at the bulk of the electric utility industry, look at the entire green energy sector, all of them know that climate change is a real problem, understand the undeniable science of what carbon pollution does to the Earth's atmosphere and to our oceans, and they are doing things about it. They have sustainability policies. They have climate policies. WalMart has probably done more to get rid of the incandescent bulb than any other force on the planet. They are very strong on this issue. But within those great corporations, it tends to be cabined into their corporate business and sustainability divisions. It hasn't really influenced yet the way they communicate with the public, and it certainly hasn't influenced much their government relations. So there is a huge mismatch between the so-called voice of the corporate community, which is really a polluter-paid propaganda effort coming through the Wall Street Journal, coming through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and coming through the National Association of Manufacturers--a huge difference between that and what the underlying leaders of what regular Americans think of as the American corporate community believe. That difference is eventually--like these other forces--going to tear apart the foundation of the denial castle. We have the chance to make this happen and to make this happen soon, and we need to. We absolutely need to. The Presiding Officer is the senior Senator from Connecticut, a State which borders mine. Connecticut and Rhode Island share a critical factor, which is coastline. If you follow the logic, such logic as exists in the denial machinery, they will take you off into distant and complex computer models of what the temperature is going to be and what the atmosphere is going to be like 30 or 40 years from now. And yes, that is complicated. In that area there is room to sow confusion. Come to the coast. At the coastline you see sea levels rising because of an immutable law of nature called the law of thermal expansion. The ocean is warming because it has caught more than 90 percent of the excess heat that the carbon has trapped, and when it warms, it expands. It is as simple as that. That means when you go to my State to the Newport tide gauge off the Naval Station Newport, you see it is 10 inches higher than it was in the 1930s. That is a big deal because in the 1930s we had the hurricane of 1938. And if you look back at the devastation that hurricane caused to our coastline and you adjust for what 10 additional inches of sea would do and adjust again for stacking up that 10 inches in what a storm surge would do, you end up with a truly apocalyptic vision of the Rhode Island shore, and it is not deniable. You cannot quarrel about a tide gauge. It is in effect a yardstick nailed to a dock, and the water has gone up 10 inches. To deny that is not just to deny science; it is to deny measurement. I think it is a bit of a stretch for even the most ardent of my denier colleagues to deny measurement. With a thermometer you measure that Narragansett Bay is nearly 4 degrees warmer in mean winter water temperature, and that means a lot for fishermen who used to fish for winter flounder. It doesn't take a very complicated test to determine what the acidity of the ocean is and to measure just the way you would measure the acidity in an aquarium. Our oceans are acidifying at the fastest rate that has been measured in 50 million years. Remember we are a species that has been on this planet as Homo sapiens for a little over 200,000 years. So when you are talking about the steepest rate of acidification in millions of years, that is a dramatic shift in the habitability of our planet. If you want to know who that matters to, go to the west coast, go to the oyster fisheries and look at the wipe-out of young oyster species that took place when acidified ocean water got into the growing oysters and killed them all off. It was simply too acidic for their little shells to survive. These are the harbingers of things to come. These are the undeniable facts. These are the truths the oceans tell us and our coastlines tell us. For all those reasons, I am confident that we will be at serious business to address climate change a lot sooner than the deniers think. The American public simply is not going to put up with a Congress that has become the prisoner to a barricade of special interest propaganda when they know better. Now the American people do, indeed, know better. I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. On my trip through Senator Nelson's State, the Army Corps of Engineers officials in Jacksonville gave me some pretty dire warnings about what the sea level rise portends for Florida, both the punch from storms that will bring the higher seas ashore and the steady encroachment of saltwater. This is a scene from western Boynton Beach after Tropical Storm Isaac in 2012. I don't know if you can see it on the screen, but this sign says ``no wake zone.'' The family put up a ``no wake zone'' sign in their front yard because the cars going by would cause wakes and more damage. The Corps also showed me what 2 feet of sea level rise would do to the Everglades National Park. I went down to the Everglades later on during my visit. This is what it would look like. You can see the green in the Everglades here and all the development up here. Basically, if you add 60 centimeters of sea level rise, or 2 feet, and that is all ocean again, that is a pretty serious change. The Southeast Florida Regional Compact, which is a bipartisan coalition of four South Florida counties, predicts that the water around southeast Florida could surge up to 2 feet in less than 50 years. So that is a preview of the coming attractions ``Everglades Under Water.'' What was interesting was that the local officials, both Republicans and Democrats, were working together. The division that exists in this body doesn't exist down there. Mayor Silva Murphy of Monroe County is a Republican and former Mayor Kristin Jacobs of Broward County is a Democrat. They both know that flooding and access to drinking water are not partisan issues in the way that it divides us here. Here are a couple more examples from my visit. This is Castillo San Marcos, which Senator Nelson will recognize as being in St. Augustine. It is a famous and very beautiful ancient fort. It sits along the water there. If you add 3 feet of sea level rise, it turns from being part of the coast to being its own tiny little peninsula surrounded by flooding. It is the oldest masonry fort in the United States. This is what Fort Matanzas would look like. This is a little fort built by Spanish colonists in 1742. It is right here on this inlet. If you add 3 feet of sea level rise, suddenly it is in the water. It has nothing to stand on. As it is, they have built a wall to protect it from the sea level rise that has already happened, and from time to time the high tides lap over that wall. The Senator said there is the potential for an enormous amount of harm here that could happen to people. One of the scientists I met in Florida said that if we don't do something about this, ``people are going to get hurt and it's going to cost a lot of money.'' That is true. One topic I would like to discuss is how the seawater will affect the freshwater supply of Florida. Senator Nelson is an expert on the geology of Florida and why it is different from my rocky New England coast. I will yield back to Senator Nelson so he can discuss the limestone bedrock problem.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it is a pleasure to be here with the Senator from Florida, and his leadership is truly remarkable. Here is another example on this picture from my tour. This is Broward County. People say it is not real. Ask the owner of this house with the for sale sign. Good luck selling that house with the ocean running through it. That was in 2010. Another Broward County photograph. Commissioner Kristin Jacobs, who was the mayor at that time, gave me these pictures. Again, this is tide. Look at the sky. It is a beautiful day. This isn't rain. This is the tide flooding in, showing what it does to the cars. It is a mess. As Senator Nelson described, because Florida is this limestone, kind of hard sponge, what keeps the saltwater out is the pressure of the freshwater holding it at bay. There is no wall. There is no structure that keeps the water, salt, and fresh balance. It is a hydraulic system. They have built a very complex system of canals, where they have raised the water so they have pressure, so they can push it back. As the sea level comes up, they are losing that fight. So here is a line through Broward County of how far the saltwater has already intruded into the water supply. If we drilled wells on this side of the red line, the water is no good, and all of these wells, the little green spots, all of these water areas are in the way because this line is moving. As one Army Corps engineer in Jacksonville said, Florida is in a box, because as the sea level rises, the way we keep the freshwater available to people is by raising the fresh water, and that keeps what the engineers call the hydraulic head that pushes the sea water back and allows us to maintain freshwater for drinking water purposes, for agriculture, for Florida oranges and grapefruits and all the things we count on. If what we are worried about is flooding, we could only raise the freshwater so far, because if we raise it enough, we have freshwater flooding. There is no way out of that conundrum. There is no way out of that conundrum in Florida. He said, whether it happens in 100 years or whether it happens after the next bad hurricane, that is what is going to happen. That is a terrible predicament. It is not going to get better by pretending it is not real. It is not going to get better by denying it. If we go offshore, we get to the problem of acidification, which happens from the carbon. This is not a theory. People say climate change is a theory. No. The acidification of the ocean from the type of carbon dioxide is something we can do in a lab. It is a scientific fact. It is a law of chemistry. So it happens, and it is starting to hit the reefs and the fisheries as the ocean warms and turns more acid. Mayor Murphy is the mayor of Monroe County. I met her in Key Largo, which is one of the famous world destinations. I said: What is the acidification of the warm air? What does that do to your reefs? She said: Well, the reefs are still beautiful unless you had been out to see them 10, 15 years ago. The reefs are still beautiful unless you had been out to see them 10 or 15 years ago. People see the change. I met with the Snook and Gamefish Foundation in Florida and the marine industry folks, and they are concerned about what is happening there. In fact, the problem goes all the way up the coast. When I came down from North Carolina and South Carolina, the fishermen there told me they are starting to catch snook off the Carolinas. It is one thing when we are catching grouper and tarpon up in Rhode Island, but what they are seeing on the South Atlantic coast is the same thing that a Rhode Islander fisherman said to me about the fishing off our coast. He said: It is getting weird out there. We are catching fish our fathers never saw in their nets in their lives. So when a snook comes up on the line off the Carolinas, that is a sign that something is dramatically changing, and these reefs are changing as well. Last story: Mike Shirley works at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve on the south side of St. Augustine. He moved up there from South Florida. He moved there 7 years ago. When he got there, he said there was one thing noticeable: There were no mangroves. South Florida is covered in mangroves, but there weren't any here. Now, 7 years later, the place is covered in mangroves. All that habitat migrating northward as the oceans and the water warms and it is changing things. He said one other thing. He said: Do you know what we ought to look out for? There is going to be another migration north. It is going to be the people leaving flooded South Florida who can't get freshwater, whose homes are flooded, who can't deal with their car going hubcap deep in saltwater every high tide. They are going to be moving up. It is not just the people from the cold North coming to Florida now, it is people coming from the flooding South who are going to be coming North again. I will say one last thing. The mayors were terrific. Sylvia Murphy, the mayor of Monroe County, is putting climate and energy policy at the very forefront of her 20-year growth plan for the county. Mayor Philip Levine of Miami Beach is hard at work. He says: Sea-level rise is our reality in Miami Beach. We are past the point of debating the existence of climate change. We are now focusing on adapting to current and future threats. Mayor Levine is pushing a $400 million plan to try to make the city's drainage system more resilient in the face of rising tides. From Mayor Joe Riley in Charleston to Mayor Edna Jackson in Savannah, to Mayor Alvin Brown in Jacksonville, to the mayors in South Florida I mentioned, council members, mayors from Pinecrest, South Miami, Surfside, Miami Shores, Cutler Bay, Palmetto Bay, the Seminole Tribe, the local officials, they are all serious about tackling climate change. It is real. They see it in their neighborhoods. They see it in their districts. They see it in their towns. They are away from this poisonous place where the polluters control what people are allowed to think and see and do something about. We have to start listening to the American people. We have to start listening to the mayors who inhabit real life and not the political fantasy in this Senate. We have to start dealing with this. Lee Thomas worked for President Ronald Reagan. He was a member of the Reagan Cabinet. He ran the Environmental Protection Agency for Ronald Reagan. Last week he wrote an op-ed--and I know the Senator from Florida saw it--in the Tampa Bay Times urging Florida's leaders to wake up to the changes taking place in the Sunshine State. Here is what he said: ``Whether Democrat or Republican, Florida residents cannot afford to ignore the evidence of climate change.'' That is a Reagan official saying those words. Come on, Republican mayors, Reagan officials. At some point we have to wake up. This is real. Just last year, Thomas joined all the other former Republican EPA heads--four of them--and they wrote this: The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous, and the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes locked in. A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Bob Samuelson just said the same thing in his editorial over the weekend. I will say that the citizens of Florida and the people of the United States are very fortunate to have a Senator such as Bill Nelson, who is aware of this problem, who is fighting hard to solve it, who is listening to his mayors, Republican and Democratic alike, who are telling him what is happening in their home State, and who was willing to bring the Commerce Committee of the U.S. Senate down to a Miami Beach townhall to make sure everybody understands what is going on. He helped bring that message back to Washington and it was a terrific thing. So we will continue working together to get this body to wake up out of its polluter-induced slumber and face the realities that people all across this country are seeing in their daily lives. It is indeed time to wake up. I yield the floor for any final comments the Senator from Florida may wish to make.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Florida is about 1,000 miles from Rhode Island, and it is slightly larger than my home State, but Florida and Rhode Island have a great deal in common, such as a beautiful coastline, an economy and a way of life that is tied to the sea, and as a result risk from the ocean in a changing climate. On my recent trip down the southeast coast, I spent 2 days in Florida and heard firsthand about the unprecedented changes taking place there. Like the folks I met in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, Floridians are worried about the coastal communities they love. They are getting serious about protecting their homes and their livelihoods, and they want their representatives in Congress to get serious. Senator Nelson hears them. He recently took the Senate commerce committee to the Miami Beach townhall to examine the dangers posed by rising seas. Here is what the Miami Herald said about his effort: South Florida owes Senator Nelson its thanks for shining a bright light on this issue. Everyone from local residents to elected officials should follow his lead, turning awareness of this major environmental issue into action. It is critical to saving our region. Senator Nelson and I also held a press conference at Jacksonville's Friendship Fountain with Representative Corrine Brown to highlight these serious implications of climate change. So I am grateful for Senator Nelson's bringing his passion and expertise to the floor today.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for the 67th time to urge my colleagues to wake up to the growing threat of climate change, and today I am joined by my friend and colleague Senator Nelson of Florida, who is a true leader in this fight. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we be able to engage in a colloquy for the next 25 minutes.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the Safety over Secrecy Act, which prohibits courts from enforcing confidentiality agreements in the settlement of civil suits involving hazards to public health and safety. This bill will ensure that plaintiffs in such suits do not have to remain silent about their experiences as a condition of settling their disputes. While confidentiality agreements can be useful tools to protect sensitive information and trade secrets, too often they are used to hide important safety concerns from regulators, policymakers, the news media, public health experts, and the general public. Over the past 20 years, we have learned of numerous cases where court-approved secrecy has shielded serious public health and safety dangers from the public-- putting hundreds, if not thousands, of lives at risk. These cases have involved hydraulic fracturing, or ``fracking,'' asbestos, defective auto components, and ``adverse incidents'' from drugs. Typically in these cases, victims face large corporations that can spend unlimited amounts of money defending lawsuits and prolonging their resolution. Faced with mounting litigation expenses and medical bills, plaintiffs often seek to settle their suits. In exchange for damages, they are forced to agree to provisions that prohibit them from discussing their cases or revealing information disclosed during litigation. Defendants are thus able to keep damaging information from getting out. As a result the public, as well as regulatory agencies, remain unaware of the risks. Let us take fracking, where drillers from Pennsylvania to Arkansas and Wyoming to Texas have entered into cash settlements or property buyouts with individuals who claim fracking has contaminated their water and polluted their air. In the vast majority of these cases, the cost of the awards has been the plaintiffs' silence. As Aaron Bernstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard School of Public Health, put it in an interview, non-disclosure agreements ``have interfered with the ability of scientists and public health experts to understand what is at stake'' in the country's quickly evolving energy infrastructure. Perhaps the most notorious case of fracking hush money is the Hallowich case. In that case, Chris and Stephanie Hallowich's dream house--built on acres of land in southwestern Pennsylvania--turned out to be sitting atop the Marcellus Shale, one of the biggest fracking operations in the country. The previous land owner had leased the mineral rights to various gas companies. Soon after moving in, Chris, Stephanie, and their young children began experiencing headaches, nose bleeds, burning eyes, and sore throats. After complaining for three years of what they concluded were the side effects of contaminated air and water, the Hallowiches brought suit. Without accepting responsibility for any health effects, the companies agreed to pay the Hallowiches $750,000 so that they could move off the property, in exchange for the Hallowiches' promise to remain silent about the case. The case gained international attention when the Pittsburg Gazette obtained an unsealed settlement transcript 2 years later and discovered that the Hallowiches' 7 and ten year-old children had been gagged for life along with their parents under the confidentiality agreement. Needless to say, these gag orders make it difficult to challenge industry claims about the safety of the fracking process. Fracking is just one of many areas where defendants impose secrecy as a condition of settlement. Under current law, judges are not specifically required to consider the public interest when determining the enforceability of confidentiality ageements. In cases involving hazards to public health and safety, and only in those cases, this bill would change that, and would require judges to balance a party's specific interest in confidentiality against the public interest in disclosure of information when approving or enforcing confidentiality agreements. My bill would not prohibit secrecy agreements across the board because there are appropriate uses for such agreements, including protecting trade secrets and other confidential company and personal information. Given its narrow scope, this bill would not place undue burdens on our judges or judiciary system. In introducing the Safety over Secrecy Act, I want to recognize former Senator Kohl and his Sunshine in Litigation Act, which he introduced in various forms between 1995 and 2011. That bill, which I was proud to support in the Judiciary Committee, was a broader version of the legislation I have just introduced. I supported that bill when Senator Kohl introduced it, and I plan to offer my full support when it is introduced again in this chamber.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the Safety over Secrecy Act, which prohibits courts from enforcing confidentiality agreements in the settlement of civil suits involving hazards to public health and safety. This bill will ensure that plaintiffs in such suits do not have to remain silent about their experiences as a condition of settling their disputes. While confidentiality agreements can be useful tools to protect sensitive information and trade secrets, too often they are used to hide important safety concerns from regulators, policymakers, the news media, public health experts, and the general public. Over the past 20 years, we have learned of numerous cases where court-approved secrecy has shielded serious public health and safety dangers from the public-- putting hundreds, if not thousands, of lives at risk. These cases have involved hydraulic fracturing, or ``fracking,'' asbestos, defective auto components, and ``adverse incidents'' from drugs. Typically in these cases, victims face large corporations that can spend unlimited amounts of money defending lawsuits and prolonging their resolution. Faced with mounting litigation expenses and medical bills, plaintiffs often seek to settle their suits. In exchange for damages, they are forced to agree to provisions that prohibit them from discussing their cases or revealing information disclosed during litigation. Defendants are thus able to keep damaging information from getting out. As a result the public, as well as regulatory agencies, remain unaware of the risks. Let us take fracking, where drillers from Pennsylvania to Arkansas and Wyoming to Texas have entered into cash settlements or property buyouts with individuals who claim fracking has contaminated their water and polluted their air. In the vast majority of these cases, the cost of the awards has been the plaintiffs' silence. As Aaron Bernstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard School of Public Health, put it in an interview, non-disclosure agreements ``have interfered with the ability of scientists and public health experts to understand what is at stake'' in the country's quickly evolving energy infrastructure. Perhaps the most notorious case of fracking hush money is the Hallowich case. In that case, Chris and Stephanie Hallowich's dream house--built on acres of land in southwestern Pennsylvania--turned out to be sitting atop the Marcellus Shale, one of the biggest fracking operations in the country. The previous land owner had leased the mineral rights to various gas companies. Soon after moving in, Chris, Stephanie, and their young children began experiencing headaches, nose bleeds, burning eyes, and sore throats. After complaining for three years of what they concluded were the side effects of contaminated air and water, the Hallowiches brought suit. Without accepting responsibility for any health effects, the companies agreed to pay the Hallowiches $750,000 so that they could move off the property, in exchange for the Hallowiches' promise to remain silent about the case. The case gained international attention when the Pittsburg Gazette obtained an unsealed settlement transcript 2 years later and discovered that the Hallowiches' 7 and ten year-old children had been gagged for life along with their parents under the confidentiality agreement. Needless to say, these gag orders make it difficult to challenge industry claims about the safety of the fracking process. Fracking is just one of many areas where defendants impose secrecy as a condition of settlement. Under current law, judges are not specifically required to consider the public interest when determining the enforceability of confidentiality ageements. In cases involving hazards to public health and safety, and only in those cases, this bill would change that, and would require judges to balance a party's specific interest in confidentiality against the public interest in disclosure of information when approving or enforcing confidentiality agreements. My bill would not prohibit secrecy agreements across the board because there are appropriate uses for such agreements, including protecting trade secrets and other confidential company and personal information. Given its narrow scope, this bill would not place undue burdens on our judges or judiciary system. In introducing the Safety over Secrecy Act, I want to recognize former Senator Kohl and his Sunshine in Litigation Act, which he introduced in various forms between 1995 and 2011. That bill, which I was proud to support in the Judiciary Committee, was a broader version of the legislation I have just introduced. I supported that bill when Senator Kohl introduced it, and I plan to offer my full support when it is introduced again in this chamber.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, in 1874, a financier named William Watts Sherman and his wife Annie Wetmore decided to build a house on a plot of land Wetmore had inherited from her father in Newport, RI, just a few blocks from Sheep Point Cove. The couple hired the respected architects H.H. Richardson and Stanford White, and chose the popular Queen Anne's style, which employed steeply sloping rooflines, gables, broad porches, and deep entranceways. But, as is the case with many in Rhode Island, they also wanted to put their own mark on the property--something that would set it apart from their neighbors. So they added new materials, like stucco, shingles, stained glass windows, and an asymmetrical layout to draw the eye in unexpected directions. The house was both fashionable and altogether different, and a new style was born. So it is that ``Shingle Style,'' as it came to be known, is traced back to Rhode Island and the William Watts Sherman House. Today the home is one of more than 21 historic buildings on the campus of Salve Regina University, which has sought to maintain the structures and commission new buildings that complement Newport's distinct architectural tradition. That is why Salve Regina University has been selected for the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art's prestigious Arthur Ross Award for Stewardship. It joins previous recipients that include the New York Botanical Garden in New York, Monticello, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in Virginia, and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts in Washington, D.C. The award recognizes the university's ``astute and indefatigable effort'' to preserve its legacy for future generations and expand upon the defining aesthetic of its campus and surrounding neighborhood. I could not imagine a more worthy recipient. The story of William Watts Sherman House is one of many examples of architectural innovation in the Ocean State, from ``stone-ender'' farmhouses in Lincoln, to vast industrial spaces like Slater Mill in Pawtucket, and to Gilded Age mansions like The Breakers in Newport. We see our own history reflected back to us through these structures, and by preserving them we see more clearly how much has changed and why. I am proud to see an institution that cares deeply about preserving Newport's architectural heritage receive worthy recognition. I applaud Salve Regina's dedication to Rhode Island's rich cultural history and congratulate them on this prestigious honor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here now for the 66th consecutive week the Senate has been in session to ask my colleagues to wake up to the threat of climate change. The topic has become taboo for Republicans in Congress, and so the discussion on climate change is somewhat one-sided around here, but the recent comprehensive National Climate Assessment released this week shows Americans are witnessing the effects of climate change in every State of our Nation. Colleagues, read the assessment. Find out how climate change is affecting every region of the country. In March I visited Iowa, where I heard over and over that Iowans are awake to the threat of climate change and are actually ready to hold Presidential candidates accountable on climate when they go there for the first-in-the-Nation Presidential caucus. Over the April recess I spent 5 days traveling down the southeastern coast of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. I went there to talk to people on that coast firsthand. I met with scientists, students, outdoorsmen, faith leaders, and State and local officials-- people of diverse backgrounds, but all of them have one thing in common: their concern for the coastal communities they love. These folks know climate change is real because they see it where they live. They are not waiting around for this Chamber to get organized. They are acting. Last week I spoke here about the business owners, community leaders, and researchers I met in North Carolina. From there I headed into South Carolina. My first stop was the University of South Carolina's Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences. At the Baruch Institute, I learned how salt marshes--the ocean's nurseries and our first line of defense against storms and hurricanes-- have to adapt to rising sea levels. These marshes retain sediment as the tide goes in and out, and they slowly increase their elevation as the sea level rises, if given enough time. Dr. Jim Morris, director of the Baruch Institute, has been studying these marshes for decades. He is a renowned expert. He explained that sea level rise is starting to happen so fast that the marshes may not keep up. If they can't keep up, then the marsh deteriorates to mudflat, and the mudflat deteriorates to open water, which is already happening in places I visited. That deterioration from marsh to mudflat can devastate coastal property, infrastructure, and wildlife. Business as usual means sea level rise increases of 3 feet or more by 2100. This chart illustrates what the Baruch Marine Institute and surrounding marshes would look like after this sea level change--before and after. It would be pretty much a goner. Next I visited the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, which extends for 22 miles and encompasses more than 6,000 acres of barrier islands, salt marshes, intricate coastal waterways, sandy beaches, fresh and brackish water impoundments, and maritime forest. Sea level rise threatens this area as well. One signal: Last year over 70 percent of endangered loggerhead turtle nests had to be relocated by people in order to prevent them from being flooded. This is a place where these turtles have been nesting for centuries, but now look at how coastal erosion is affecting their nests. These are the turtle eggs, and the coast has eroded. National Park Service officials there told me: This is not just about wildlife. This is about the community. It's about your livelihood and well-being. They are right. According to a foreword in the report titled ``Climate Change Impacts to Natural Resources in South Carolina'' by Alvin Taylor, director of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources--I mean, tell me how people from South Carolina are denying climate change is real when the State published a report called ``Climate Change Impacts to Natural Resources in South Carolina.'' Here is what the report says: Climate-related changes may adversely affect the environment in many ways, potentially disrupting or damaging ecological services, water supply, agriculture, forestry, fish and wildlife species, endangered species, and commercial and recreational fishing . . . Fishing, hunting, and wildlife viewing contributes almost $2.2 billion annually to South Carolina's economy and supports nearly 59,000 jobs. How can they pretend it is not real? Business owners and executives in South Carolina are starting to take action on climate change. There is a South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce, headed by Frank Knapp, who has organized something called the South Carolina Businesses Acting on Rising Seas to raise awareness among businesses and their customers of the threat posed to the Palmetto State. In cities including Charleston and Myrtle Beach, coastal businesses threatened by rising sea levels are displaying strips of blue tape in their window fronts where the water level would be to show their support for taking action. I continued down the coast and visited Charleston's Fort Johnson, where marine research facilities are located for NOAA, the College of Charleston, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, and the Medical University of South Carolina. The tide gauges in Charleston are up over 10 inches since the early 1920s. Deny that all you want. It is a measurement, it is not a theory. This chart shows what Fort Johnson would look like with 3 feet of sea level rise, which is projected for 2100. Nearly all the research facilities at Fort Johnson would be lost ironically to the very seas their research helps us understand. Three feet could actually be on the low end of sea level rise by 2100. This chart of Fort Johnson demonstrates what 3 feet of sea level rise looks like. During my visit at Fort Johnson, I heard from students, faculty, elected officials, and Federal and State employees all working at the leading edge of climate change and adaptation research. One scientist, Dr. Peter Moeller, described how climate change is allowing algae species to grow in waters where they were previously not found. As these algae species migrate to new areas, they encounter bacteria, fungi, and other unfamiliar algae. As Dr. Moeller explained to me, under these conditions, previously nontoxic algae can make dangerous toxins that are novel to science and nature. It almost sounds as if science fiction, but these are the consequences of human-caused climate change. My last stop in South Carolina was at a roundtable discussion at the Coastal Conservation League. There I heard from a diverse group of South Carolinians--researchers, environmental advocates, business owners, and faith leaders--about their efforts to raise awareness to the threats of climate change and to promote clean energy. I learned this: South Carolinians are not afraid to talk about climate change and how it is affecting their State--at least not until they get to Washington. When WCBD-TV in Charleston asked Representative Mark Sanford about my visit to his State, he actually said something quite nice. He said: At our family farm in Beaufort, I've watched over the last 50 years as sea levels have risen and affected salt edges of the farm. I applaud Senator Whitehouse for getting people together in the Lowcountry today to discuss this problem, and while we would likely approach solutions differently, building the conversation is a necessary first step. That is a helpful opening, and I appreciate that. Jim Gandy, chief meteorologist for WLTX Columbia, has been forecasting South Carolina weather for 28 years. He is affectionately known as South Carolina's weatherman. Jim was at the White House this week to interview President Obama about the National Climate Assessment. Through his blog, ``Weather and Climate Matter,'' and his broadcasts, Jim makes weather and climate understandable for his viewers. I spoke with him while I was in South Carolina, and I learned that his TV station thought it may actually take some heat for Jim's discussing climate change on the air, and they were braced for the flow back. It never came. South Carolinians have their eyes open. It is only taboo here in Washington. I continued down into Georgia, to the heart of the Savannah Historic District. Audrey Platt, the former vice-chair of the Garden Club of America's Conservation Committee, invited me to her historic home in Savannah for a local meeting of the Garden Club joined by Savannah Mayor Edna Jackson. Also there was Reverend Mary Beene from the Faith Presbyterian Church who talked about the M.K. Pentecost Ecology Fund they run for ecological stewardship of natural resources. We headed out to Fort Pulaski and Tybee Island. There is a tide gauge at Fort Pulaski. It takes measurements. It is not complicated. It produces clear, irrefutable facts, not theories. At Fort Pulaski, NOAA measures that sea level has risen over eight inches. Projections for 2100 put most of this region under water. This chart shows that sea level rise of 3 feet will devastate the area. Here is Fort Pulaski, GA, and the coast around it. That is what is left with 3 feet of sea level rise. On Tybee Island I had lunch with city officials and council members, representatives of the Georgia conservancy, NOAA scientists, Georgia Garden Club members, and local sustainability directors. The message was clear: Sea level is rising. Oceans are warming. Infrastructure and ecosystems that Georgians depend on are being threatened. One example: According to a University of Georgia biologist, sea level rise will affect the State's oyster crop. The oysters in Georgia thrive at the tidal edge, sometimes above water, sometimes below water, as the tide goes up and down. As rising sea levels come up, it will cause the oyster habitat to shift or leave them vulnerable to predation as they spend more time under water. Being out of the water actually protects them from underwater predators. The people of Tybee Island are preparing. Councilman Paul Wolff showed me the storm-water tide gate, which the City of Tybee put in place to accommodate higher tides and rising seas. He explained to me that the road out to Tybee Island--Tybee Road--which is, by the way, the island's only access road, will be flooded as much as 45 times per year with just one foot of sea level rise, and the city has already put in place a short-term plan for 14 to 20 inches of sea level rise by 2060. What does that do to an island's economy if, 45 days of the year, people can't get there? Down the coast, I visited the University of Georgia's Marine Institute at Sapelo Island and its director Dr. Merryl Alber. Sapelo is a barrier island off the coast of Georgia managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The Marine Institute is a world renowned field station for research into coastal ecosystems. Here I learned how they measure what they call blue carbon, the amount of carbon stored in the salt marsh. They are doing that as part of the National Science Foundation's long-term ecological research program. Salt marsh, as it turns out, are huge carbon sinks. They absorb massive amounts of carbon. But the carbon that is stored there may be returned to the atmosphere and add to the climate problem if salt marshes succumb to sea level rise and have nowhere to migrate. We also heard how the intruding salt water is changing local marsh ecosystems and jeopardizing fresh water supply. Georgia actually runs a Coastal Management Program Coastal Incentive Grant Program to increase knowledge about sea level rise. If Georgia runs a Coastal Management Program Coastal Incentive Grant Program on sea level rise, how can people who represent Georgia in Washington pretend this isn't occurring? I ended the day in Georgia out on the water with Charlie Phillips, who is a terrific character, a great guy to be with--a local, very successful clammer. We went out on his air boat over the marshes that he built himself. He is also very knowledgeable. He is a member of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council that runs the regional fishery. He has been an outdoorsman his whole life, and he needs fresh, clean water for his Georgia clams. Unfortunately, Charlie says that changes in climate are hurting the ecosystem that supports his livelihood--his and his employees. He worries about the future of his business. This is South Carolina and Georgia. When you actually go there, what do you find? Business owners, researchers, faith leaders, and elected officials, all responding to changes that they are witnessing. They understand. They see the risks that climate change poses, and they hope their representatives in Congress will wake up to the danger of climate change, the home-State danger that their constituents are already seeing happening right around them. After seeing the beauty of both South Carolina and Georgia along those lovely coasts, it is painful to see there the early warning symptoms of climate change. It called to mind President Theodore Roosevelt's message from more than 100 years ago to America's schoolchildren. It is sort of old fashioned language, but that was 1907. He said this: [I]n your full manhood and womanhood, you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed. And because of that want, you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted. . . . [A]ny nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal. . . . The people I met in South Carolina and Georgia, along with a huge majority of Americans nationwide, know that climate change is real. They see it happening in their lives, and they want us to take action. It is time for Congress to listen to their voices. It is time for Congress to listen to the fishermen who see the fisheries moving around and the oceans warming. It is time for us to listen to the clammers at the seashore who see the changes in the sea level and know what it means for them. It is time for us to listen to the foresters who see the pine beetle killing forests by the hundreds of square miles, and the firefighters who fight fires in those forests who see the fire season expanding by 60 days. It is time for us to listen to the farmers who see unprecedented drought and flooding. It is time for Congress to listen to the voices of their constituents before we all, in our foolishness and in our folly, must pay the penalty of the prodigal. Indeed, it is time for Congress to wake up. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, last week, Armenians and friends of Armenians around the world solemnly remembered the horrific dislocation and slaughter that began in 1915 and resulted in more than 1.5 million deaths and another half million Armenians driven from their ancient homeland. The Armenian Genocide was carried out by the Ottoman Empire in its waning years amidst the chaos of World War I. For what was an undeniably gruesome period in human history, Theodore Roosevelt called the Armenian Genocide ``the greatest crime of the war.'' It is this terrible chapter, more than any other single event, that led to the Armenian diaspora, including in the United States and my home State of Rhode Island. For generations, the Armenian community has been a strong and hardworking part of our Rhode Island family, producing great leaders in both government and business. Whether at flag raising ceremonies, church festivals, the wonderful St. Vartanantz Annual Bazaar at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet, or at commemorations of the Armenian Genocide at the monument in the North Burial Ground in Providence, Armenians are part of the fabric of Rhode Island. Since achieving independence after the fall of the Soviet Union, Armenia has at last established a foothold for democracy in the Caucasus after centuries of outside domination and totalitarian rule. I have long supported foreign assistance to Armenia to help grow its economy and strengthen its Democratic institutions, and I will continue to do so. But perhaps the most meaningful thing we can do for Armenia and for Armenians in Rhode Island is to help cast a light on that brutal genocide 99 years ago. To this day, too many people are unaware of this tragedy, due in part to the unwillingness of some to call it what it was. But make no mistake; the slaughter of innocent Armenians was genocide, plain and simple. Indeed, our modern term ``genocide'' was first coined to describe both the Jewish Holocaust and the plight of the Armenians under Ottoman persecution. Along with my Rhode Island colleague Senator Jack Reed, I have proudly cosponsored resolutions in the Senate condemning the genocide and calling on the President of the United States to ensure that U.S. foreign policy appropriately and without equivocation reflects the realities of the Armenian Genocide. This solemn recognition is important not only to so many Armenians in Rhode Island and throughout the world, but to our human obligation to the truth.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here, as regular viewers of the C-SPAN network know, for the 65th time, every week that the Senate is in session, to ask my colleagues in the Senate to wake up to the realities of climate change that surround us. Here is what we know: We know the oceans and atmosphere are warming. By the way, that is measurement, not theory. We know sea level is rising. Again, that is measurement, not theory. We know oceans are becoming more acidic--again, a simple measurement. The potential that these changes have to disrupt economic growth and to disrupt global commerce is the subject of my remarks today, and it is those changes that make investors and corporate executives take climate change seriously. We may not take climate change seriously, but corporate executives do. A world of shifting seasons and extreme heat hurts their bottom line. The world of drought-stricken farms and flooded cities, of raging wildfires and migrating diseases is not good for business. A recent article from the World Bank conveys the corporate outlook this way: In corporate boardrooms and the offices of CEOs, climate change is a real and present danger. It threatens to disrupt the water supplies and supply chains of companies as diverse as Coca-Cola and ExxonMobil. Rising sea levels and more intense storms put their infrastructure at risk and the costs will only get worse. Earlier this month executives from major American companies came to Washington for a roundtable discussion at the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, which I lead with Congressman Waxman. Each of the companies present had signed the climate declaration of the Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy or BICEP. They see a low- carbon economy as a smart way to create new jobs and stimulate economic growth. More than 750 companies, nameplate American corporations such as eBay, Gap, Levi's, Nike, Starbucks, and many others have signed BICEP's climate declaration. Kevin Rabinovitch is global sustainability director at Virginia-based candy company Mars, Incorporated, makers of the famous M&Ms, among other things. At the roundtable he told us Mars has a goal of eliminating fossil fuel energy use and greenhouse gas emissions companywide by 2040. In fact, just yesterday Mars announced it will build a 200-megawatt wind farm in Texas that will generate enough energy to power all Mars operations in the United States. I applaud this exciting step for Mars and the bold vision it represents. But Mr. Rabinovitch told the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change: . . . if other companies and governments don't adopt similar science based targets, our efforts will have limited effect on climate change. We cannot do it alone. This is why the business community needs Congress to get off the sidelines, to quit denying rudimentary science and abundant evidence. Improving energy efficiency reduces climate- altering carbon emissions, but it also--these businesses find--reduces operating costs. Colin Dyer, the president and CEO of Jones Lang LaSalle, Incorporated, the second largest publicly traded commercial real estate brokerage firm in the world said: Cost savings alone represent a compelling benefit of sustainable design, construction, and management. Jones Lang LaSalle put smart building management technology to work for the consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble. According to Dyer: P&G earned back its initial investment in the technology in three months and saw average energy cost savings of 10 percent annually. The program, which is being expanded, also improved building systems reliability, supported the company's broader sustainability programs, and actually increased employee productivity. Smart executives also understand how much their customers care about this. Rob Olson, vice president and chief financial officer of IKEA, said this: From talking to our customers, we know that Americans are increasingly concerned about climate change as they experience events like Hurricane Sandy and the drought in California. They want to reduce the amount of energy they use in their home and they care about reducing waste and using less water. This is not a new message from America's corporate sector. Last year the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change wrote to over 300 businesses and organizations about carbon pollution and climate change. The response was encouraging. Coca-Cola, headquartered in Georgia, wrote: We recognize climate change is a critical challenge facing our planet, with potential impacts on biodiversity, water resources, public health and agriculture. Beyond the effects on the communities we serve, we view climate change as a potential business risk, understanding that it could likely have direct and indirect effects on our business. Walmart, founded and headquartered in Arkansas, wrote this: ``We're committed to reducing our carbon footprint and we're working with our suppliers to do the same.'' Here is what Walmart said in its 2009 sustainability report: Climate change may not cause hurricanes, but warmer ocean water can make them more powerful. Climate change may not cause rainfall, but it can increase the frequency and severity of heavy flooding. Climate change may not cause droughts, but it can make droughts longer. Every company has a responsibility to reduce greenhouse gases as quickly as it can. Currently, we are investing in renewable energy, increasing efficiency in our buildings and trucks, working with suppliers to take carbon out of products and supporting legislation in the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Serious business leaders are looking for serious answers to the looming economic crisis of climate change. An article last month in the Harvard Business Review entitled ``How to Survive Climate Change and Still Run a Thriving Business'' outlines recommendations for companies looking to strengthen their supply chains and better understand their consumers. Serious business leaders are also fed up with the denial apparatus that is run by the big carbon polluters. Major utilities PG&E, the Public Service Company of New Mexico, and Exelon all quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce after a chamber official called for putting climate science on trial similar to the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Large tech companies such as Apple and Yahoo also left the chamber. One of the companies that came in to the Bicameral Task Force was North Carolina-based VF Corporation. You may not have heard of VF Corporation, but you have sure heard of their major brands. They make Lee, Wrangler, Nautica, North Face, and many other name brands. Letitia Webster is their director of global corporate sustainability, and they have a global perspective on climate change. Their customers around the world are concerned about climate change, particularly their younger customers, and VF wants to meet those customers' expectations for good citizenship. VF also needs cotton for all their clothing and they are worried about climate disruption to the cotton supply chain. ``Research tells us that continued climate change will make it more and more difficult for farmers to manage cotton crops and for companies to manage their supply chains.'' VF also provides very high performance clothing and equipment to high-performance outdoor athletes who train and compete in places where climate changes are already evident. Those athletes see the same changes as the 100 winter Olympic competitors from 10 countries who signed a letter of warning about climate change. Letitia Webster mentioned in particular the Khumbu Icefall which has closed Mount Everest to climbers for the first time. She is not the only one. John All, a climber, scientist, and professor of geography at Western Kentucky University told the Atlantic magazine: I am at Everest Base Camp right now and things are dire because of climate change. . . . The ice is melting at unprecedented rates and [that] greatly increases the risk to climbers. You could say [that] climate change closed Mt. Everest this year. Tim Rippel is a climbing guide, and he blogged from Everest's base camp: As a professional member of the Canadian Avalanche Association, I have my educated concerns. The mountain has been deteriorating rapidly the past three years due [to] global warming and the breakdown in the Khumbu Icefall is dramatic. Ms. Webster warned of the costs of inaction, saying, ``It's too expensive not to take action.'' This is a North Carolina company, and I hope its message gets through to elected officials who represent North Carolina. Senator Hagan has already spoken passionately about the need to act on climate change. She gets it, but her colleagues on the other side of the aisle remain silent. I visited North Carolina over the recess as part of a tour of the effects of climate change along the southeast coast. I flew out to where sea level rise is gnawing away at North Carolina's Outer Banks. I visited the marine science facility at Pivers Island, where scientists from Duke University, the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State, East Carolina University, and of course NOAA, are studying aspects of sea level rise in North Carolina and the effects of ocean acidification on microbes that form the basis of the food web. These are some of the world's leading scientists. They all know that these changes are driven by carbon pollution. There is no doubt. Unless North Carolina's elected officials think that their own universities are part of the big hoax some of our colleagues talk about, they had better pay attention to what is happening on the North Carolina coast. I met with the North Carolina Coastal Federation at their coastal education center in Wilmington, NC. It was a bipartisan group joined together in concern over the exposure of their coastal communities to the rising seas. The ``North Carolina Sea- Level Rise Assessment Report'' prepared in 2010 by the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission's Science Panel on Coastal Hazards says: The most likely scenario for 2100 AD is a rise of 0.4 meters to 1.4 meters (15 inches to 55 inches) above present. By the way, that is what they call bathtub measures. That doesn't take into account what 55 inches of extra sea will do when it is heaped against the shore by a storm surge from a big tropical storm or hurricane. I hope their congressional delegation in Congress is listening. The biggest power producer in North Carolina is Charlotte-based Duke Energy. Duke worked through the U.S. Climate Action Partnership for climate change legislation. Duke actually pulled out of the National Association of Manufacturers because of that organization's denial of climate change. Duke's then-chief executive officer Jim Rogers said: We are not renewing our membership in the NAM because in tough times, we want to invest in associations that are pulling in the same direction we are. He said that NAM, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Republicans ``ought to roll up their sleeves and get to work on a climate bill. . . . '' Duke Energy might want to also consider whether North Carolina politicians are pulling in the same direction. This is not complicated. Load up carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and you load up heat in the atmosphere. We have known that since Abraham Lincoln was President. This is not a new discovery. Load up the heat, and the oceans warm up. That is not some theory either. You can measure it--with thermometers. When liquid warms, it expands, unless my colleagues want to repeal the law of thermal expansion. As the ocean expands and ice melts, up goes the sea level. It is up 6 inches at the tide gauge in Wilmington, NC, since 1954. If my colleagues want to deny the 6-inch increase in the tide gauge in Wilmington, NC, let me explain to them what the North Carolina assessment says about how you measure sea level rise: [Sea-level rise] can be directly measured in a straightforward way. The longest record of direct measurement of sea level comes from tide gauges. A tide gauge is a device built to measure water level variations due to tides and weather, and to eliminate effects due to waves. A tide gauge can be as simple as a long ruler nailed to a post on a dock. More sophisticated instruments, like those used by NOAA, are usually placed in a stilling well, or a pipe, that protects a float connected to a recording device from waves. As tides rise and fall, the float's motion is recorded. It is not complicated. Good luck denying that. When you fly over the North Carolina coast, you see lots of investment along the seashore. There are lots of houses, lots of hotels, condominiums, restaurants--an entire seafront economy that the larger North Carolina economy very much depends on. What are my colleagues from North Carolina going to tell them about climate change: Don't worry. It is not real? Good luck with that. They are already measuring the sea level rise. Those small businesses in North Carolina want to protect their storefronts from sea level rise just as VF Corporation wants to protect its cotton supply from drought. These North Carolina companies get the economic threat that climate change presents. The frustrating thing here is that we can strengthen our economies and businesses by tackling the problem of climate change and sea level rise head-on, and we can leave things better, not worse, for the generations that will follow us--perhaps the simplest obligation that we hold, and one, by the way, at which we are presently failing. But if we are going to stop failing at that obligation and tackle this problem head-on, we have to wake up to reality. We have to put aside, once and for all, the toxic polluter-paid politics that infect Washington. The denial campaign that is run by these polluters is as poisonous to our democracy as carbon pollution is to our atmosphere and oceans. America is suffering as a result of Congress being tangled in a web of lies and surrounded by a barricade of special interests. We have to break through that. It is a matter of truth, it is a matter of honor, and it is a matter of being effective at these real problems. I yield the floor and thank the Presiding Officer, and I note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask unanimous consent that all time be yielded back.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I understand the time is controlled now by the Republicans. When Senator Hoeven arrives, I will yield the floor to him. But in the meantime, I thank Senator Nelson for his leadership in this area. Let the record reflect that although Rhode Island may call itself the Ocean State, Florida has its fair share of coastline as well. The effects on Florida's coast are really very significant. Because time is short and because I see Senator Hoeven has arrived and because Senator Nelson is a modest individual who would not want to brag on himself, let me say one thing and then I will come back later and discuss my Easter southern climate tour at greater length. The Miami Herald is a very significant newspaper in Florida, and it attended and reacted to the Commerce Committee hearing Senator Nelson led in his home State. I want to read from two short sections that opened by saying: For South Floridians, the topics of climate change and rising sea levels are no longer to be dismissed as tree- hugger mumbo-jumbo. Pause next time you hear that parts of Miami Beach or the intersection of A1A and Las Olas Boulevard have flooded because of . . . high tides? Let the light go off atop your head: It's science, stupid. On Tuesday, Florida Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson brought illumination to Miami Beach--Ground Zero for our unique coastal battle with Mother Nature. It concludes with these last few words: South Florida owes Senator Nelson its thanks for shining a bright light on this issue. Everyone from local residents to elected officials should follow his lead, turning awareness of this major environmental issue into action. It is critical to saving our region. If we don't, we'll soon have water--not sand--in our shoes. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Thank you very much. Climate Change Madam President, I am now here for the 64th time to ask my colleagues to wake up to the threat of climate change. It was almost exactly 2 years ago in April 2012 that I began speaking on the floor every week that the Senate is in session. I have tried to make a compelling case for my colleagues. First and foremost I have relied on the overwhelming scientific evidence and the near unanimity of the scientific community. Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that the increase of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere due to human activities is driving unprecedented changes, and, of course, they are changes that Americans see all about them in their lives now. If 97 doctors told you that you needed surgery, who among us in our right mind would heed the advice of the three doctors who said they were unsure and we should delay the treatment? I have talked about global warming. I have talked about the weirding of the weather--heat waves, extreme downpours, drought, shifting seasons. I have talked at length about the devastating toll on our oceans, which hold such peril in my home State, Rhode Island, the Ocean State. Our oceans are warming, rising, and becoming more acidic, and all of that is undeniable. It is measurable. It threatens our coastal communities and marine species alike. I have described the potential for deep economic disruption in industries such as fishing and farming or inundation or wildfire. I have looked at the threat to human health. I have conveyed the deep concerns of corporate leaders who understand that climate change is bad for business and of faith leaders who appeal to our moral duty to conserve God's creation and to spare those who are most vulnerable to catastrophe. I have answered the claims of those in this Chamber who deny the reality of climate change and the need for action, and I have called out the network of fossil fuel propaganda that seeks to mire this Congress in phony manufactured doubt. I have been joined by colleagues who share my commitment to rouse this Congress from its oil- and coal-induced slumber, including the historic all-night stand on the floor that reached hundreds of thousands of Americans. But unfortunately, it seems we still have some ways to go. I could stand here until I am blue in the face supplying the Chamber with reasoned arguments and scientific facts on climate change, and some here in Congress would ignore it because they reject information from scientists and they ignore empirical evidence. So maybe it is time to bring in some muscle--the American military. Climate change threatens our strategic interests, our military readiness, and our domestic security in many ways. It is a serious national security issue. Don't take my word for it. Our top military commanders and strategic planners at the Department of Defense say so. Four years ago the Department of Defense released the Quadrennial Defense Review, clearly linking for the first time climate change and national security. The 2010 review concluded that the effects of climate change can contribute to increases in regional instability driven by demand for food, water, and natural resources, and to extreme weather events which will increase the need for humanitarian aid and disaster relief, both within the U.S. and abroad. Then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen put it this way. I will quote him: The scarcity of and potential competition for resources like water, food, and space, compounded by the influx of refugees if coastal lands are lost does not only create a humanitarian crisis, but it creates conditions of hopelessness that could lead to failed states and make populations vulnerable to radicalization. That is the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Last year 9 retired generals and admirals joined 17 former members of the House and Senate and several former cabinet level officials and issued this warning. They said: The potential consequences to climate change are undeniable, and the cost of inaction, paid for in lives and valuable U.S. resources will be staggering. The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review was released last month in tandem with the Department of Defense budget request, and it is just as straightforward in its warnings on climate change. I will quote: Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large. . . . Climate change may exacerbate water scarcity and lead to sharp increases in food costs. The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world. The second installment of the current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report, released just last week, echoes what our own military leaders are already telling us. According to the report, ``Climate change can directly increase risks of violent conflicts in the form of civil war and inter-group violence by amplifying well-documented drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and economic shocks.'' In response to our changing climate, the Department of Defense is conducting a comprehensive assessment of the risks to U.S. military installations. This is not a trivial effort and it is not being undertaken without cause. The Pentagon is also working with other nations to strengthen the network of humanitarian assistance for disaster response. The reach of our military stretches to every corner of the globe and so do the effects of climate change. Our commanders recognize the need to adapt in every theater. Much has been made of the U.S. military and diplomatic pivot to the Pacific region. While ADM Samuel J. Locklear, commander, U.S. Pacific Command, has called climate change the biggest long-term security threat in the Pacific because it ``is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.'' The head of our Pacific command is describing this as the most likely thing to happen to cripple the security environment. The threat extends from pole to pole. Former Supreme Allied Commander and Commander of U.S. Forces in Europe James Stavridis is wary of the ongoing reduction in Arctic sea ice. He states, ``This will present potential problems, from oil spills, dangers to wildlife, search and rescue for commercial shipping and tourist boats, and open zones of maneuver for the navies of the Arctic nations to interact.'' Our American military leaders are clear in sounding this alarm. In Congress some of us are taking these warnings seriously. The Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, which I lead with Congressman Waxman, invited national security experts to share their perspective on climate change. Retired Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Stephen Cheney is CEO of the American Security Project, founded in 2005 by former Senators John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, Gary Hart, and Warren Rudman. He stressed that climate change is not a new issue within national security issues and that the United States must engage the world on this issue, which of course we cannot do while we are paralyzed by false denial. Retired Army BG Gerald Galloway spoke of the risk extreme weather events pose to military installations. He said: When communities and installations are unaware of their vulnerability to these events, the results can be disastrous. A failure to be prepared shifts the military's focus from maintaining a constant level of readiness to dealing with each of these climate change impacts as they occur. Both floods and increased temperatures can bring training to a halt or restrict critical movements. This message was echoed by retired Army CPT Jon Gensler, who described the difficulty of maintaining our readiness, particularly in responding to ever-increasing requests for disaster-related humanitarian assistance. The consensus is clear from the people to whom we have entrusted our national security: Climate change is a serious threat to national security and to global security for which we need to plan and prepare. That is the message Secretary of State John Kerry brought to an audience in Jakarta, Indonesia, earlier this year. He said: In a sense, climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction. . . . The fact is that climate change, if left unchecked, will wipe out many more communities from the face of the earth. And that is unacceptable under any circumstances--but it is even more unacceptable because we know what we can do and need to do in order to deal with this challenge. Yet Congress sleepwalks, refusing to listen, refusing to speak of it, refusing to act when duty calls us to act, when history calls us to act, and when decency calls us to act. I have a book in my office written by Geoffrey Regan. It is entitled ``Great Naval Blunders: History's Worst Sea Battle Decisions from Ancient Times to the Present Day.'' It is an interesting book to read. It is a long history of episodes of folly and error that have ended in disaster. It contains the account of a fleet of British naval ships docked at harbor as a great typhoon bore down on them. The ships' captains knew the typhoon was so strong that it would tear the ships loose from their anchors and wreck them. They knew their only safe strategy was to up anchor, head out of the harbor, and try to weather the storm at sea, but none of the captains wanted to be the first ship to leave the port so they all stayed and the typhoon swept down and they were destroyed. Regan calls this ``an error of judgment that will forever remain a paradox in human psychology.'' We can make those kinds of errors of judgment, and for those captains and crews, the error was fatal. Facing certain destruction, those sea captains refused to take the action that they knew was necessary to save their ships, to save themselves, and to save their crews. I think of that story as we stand in the Senate unable to respond to what is looming down on us from climate change. The science could not be clearer. It is grownup time around here, and we need to take it seriously. The fact that one side of the aisle can't even use the word ``climate change'' is a terrible sign. John Wayne, a great American actor whom we all know, had a number of wonderful roles in his life. One of John Wayne's roles was to play Sergeant Stryker in the movie ``Sands of Iwo Jima.'' In that movie, Sergeant Stryker had a memorable phrase: ``Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid.'' We have all the information in front of us that we need to avoid being stupid. Collectively, that is what we are being. Similar to those captains, knowing what is bearing down on us, we are somehow unable to take the action that will protect us, our country, and will protect our children and future generations. There is no better way to describe it than through the words of Sergeant Stryker: ``Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid.'' It is time to wake up. I yield the floor.

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