Sheldon Whitehouse

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, this is the 105th time I have come to the Senate floor to urge my colleagues to wake up to the reality of climate change. I know the Presiding Officer is a veteran of several of these speeches. For far too long, far too many of us in this Chamber have simply dismissed the evidence of climate change. They have ignored the sober warnings of scientists, generals, of doctors, of economists, even of big company CEOs that these risks are real. The warnings are clear: If we continue on our present path, we will leave our children and grandchildren with a world very different from our own and not for the better. By denying the science, dismissing the risks or simply by their silence, Senate Republicans have effectively pledged allegiance to the fossil fuel companies--companies that make a lot of money polluting the atmosphere with carbon emissions and that spend big on politics. Outside this Chamber, however, the American people want action. Americans overwhelmingly favor limits on greenhouse gases and getting more electricity from renewables. It is happening across the country. It is definitely true in Rhode Island, my home State, but it is not just Rhode Islanders. Over this past recess, I went to Tennessee. I found that people in the Volunteer State see the effects, they see the risks, and they see the opportunities that come with climate change. In Knoxville, I met with Mayor Madeline Rogero, and I heard about the great work she is doing. Knoxville is making their infrastructure more resilient to flooding and storms and working to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, partnering with local utilities and citizens groups. Greenhouse gas emissions from the city's operations were down 12 percent in 2014, compared to 2005. Their goal is to make it to 20 percent. Mayor Rogero told me about the risks climate change poses in Eastern Tennessee: changes in the Smoky Mountains parks nearby, programs like Round It Up that help people with utility bills getting hammered by earlier, hotter summer weather. She told me Knoxville wasn't alone. Even little Ducktown, TN, built a 28-kilowatt solar array. I visited Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is researching how climate change will affect Tennessee and the United States and the rest of the world. Let me tell you, they are not doubting climate change at Oak Ridge. They are planning for it. They are modeling warming up to 18 degrees Fahrenheit in the vast boreal forest regions of the Northern Hemisphere. They are concerned about the phony science being propagated by the fossil fuel industry front groups--what I have called the parallel science designed to look like science without actually being peer- reviewed or meeting the standards--and they are saddened to see the public taken in and Congress stalled. They have a brilliant animation of industrial-era carbon emissions climate. If I could use a monitor instead of this piece of cardboard I would show it to you, but I can't. So you will have to find it. You can go to my website where I have a link: whitehouse.senate.gov/climatechange. One employee at Oak Ridge, a Tennessean who had grown up nearby, told me about the recent trouble with fire ants. The fire ant is an invasive species from South America that can deliver a nasty sting. She said growing up she had never seen them--not a worry. Now she has to worry about a swarm of them getting on her children. Normally, cold nights and winter freezes limit the range of the fire ant. But this invasive species has moved north into Tennessee with the warming temperatures. For those colleagues who believe the only values that matter are those that can be monetized, the USDA estimates that U.S. losses to the invasive fire ant are almost $6 billion a year. Fire ants aren't the only invasive pests that benefit from warmer nights and winters. The threat of the invading emerald ash borer and the Asian longhorned beetle means that campers visiting Tennessee can't bring their own firewood into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park anymore. As of March 1, only heat-treated firewood is allowed, certified by the USDA or the State. Climate change threatens the Great Smoky Mountains with much more than invasive species. The national park may lose up to 17 percent of the mammals that presently live there as climate change shifts their habitat and changes the composition of the forest. The Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency says that ``Tennessee's wildlife and natural resources face a serious threat from climate change.'' The agency did a comprehensive assessment of the potential effects climate change would have on the State's wildlife. These are some of its key findings: Tennessee's forests are expected to undergo changes in forest growth and composition. . . . [S]ome high elevation forest types will be dramatically impacted or lost entirely; brook trout populations are expected to decline; migratory songbirds may alter their ranges, with some species disappearing from Tennessee altogether; and larger floods and longer droughts could cause increased erosion, reduced water supply, and the spread of invasive species. Meeting with local environmental leaders and advocates at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, I learned that air quality is another significant problem for the Volunteer State, especially in Eastern Tennessee. Here is a map I got from them showing the counties that still get a D or an F for air quality: Sullivan County, D; Knox County, D; Loudon County, D; Jefferson County, D; Sevier County, F; Blount County, F; Hamilton County, which has Chattanooga in it, F; Cannon County, D; Wilson County, F; Williamson County, F; Shelby County, F. If you fix the carbon pollution from the coal plants, you will fix a lot of these air quality problems, too, and these air quality problems in the famous Great Smoky Mountains. They were smoky enough, I guess, to begin with. This is not helping. I also learned of the threats posed by flooding from storms. In May 2010, a massive storm rolled over Tennessee and caused $1.5 billion damage in Nashville alone. FEMA declared disaster areas in 30 counties and more than 60,000 families received Federal aid. Precipitation has measurably increased in parts of Tennessee during the last century, and as climate change continues, heavy rains and extreme weather are expected to increase. For fishermen, in addition to the warming of the stream water, streams that are blown out by extreme rains are bad for trout fishing. In Tennessee I also saw great hope for climate action. Mayor Rogero is working with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to design a climate change sustainability plan for Knoxville and the area around it, including the lab campus. The laboratory is also a leading research center for advanced nuclear technology, including small modular reactors that could help unlock low-carbon energy with reduced risk of accidents or proliferation. Tennessee is ripe with wind and solar potential, and the famous Tennessee Valley Authority, after a slow start, is getting around to renewables investments and supporting distributed generation. The TVA has learned from things such as having to derate powerplants on the Tennessee River because the river grew too warm to cool the thermal load of the plant and seeing giant demand sways from 12,000 to 35,000 megawatts. I met with University of Tennessee professors who are helping the TVA make the move. The University of Tennessee has entire programs on climate change. They are not denying it. They have professors such as Dean Rivkin at the College of Law, Mary English at the Howard Baker Center, and John Nolt, recently the head of the faculty senate, who has written on the moral importance of counting climate casualties. By the way, Professor Nolt cites studies showing global deaths from the consequences of climate change every year in the range of 140,000, 300,000 and 400,000. But why should we care? Private companies get it in Tennessee. I heard a lot about Wampler's Farm Sausage, headquartered in Lenoir City, which has invested in solar and biomass energy production to cut down on energy bills and provide stability to its business. For them it is about business and the environment. The company sees consumer demand ahead for sustainably produced products. In the words of company president Ted Wampler, Jr., ``being green is going to sell sausage.'' I had a nice dinner with lovely people from the Knoxville Garden Club. Some had come to Congress for the annual garden club trip to urge Congress to take action. They see in their garden the changes that are reflected in the USDA plant hardiness zone for Knoxville shifting in their very lifetimes. A highlight of the trip was the annual meeting of the Outdoor Writers Association of America. I was invited by the executive director, Tom Saddler, and joined a panel with Dr. Cameron Wake from the University of New Hampshire, Hal Herring from Field & Stream magazine, and Todd Tanner, the president of Conservation Hawks. I urge anybody who is listening to this to take 10 minutes and look at the fly fishing clip ``Cold Waters'' on the Conservation Hawk's Web site. It is called co2ldwaters.org, but the trick is there is a ``2'' in the middle. The Web site is co2ldwaters.org. One thing was crystal clear from our panel and from the discussion that followed, and that is this: Real outdoorsmen don't deny climate change. If you don't believe me, believe legendary outdoorsman Yvon Chouinard. Look at the clip at co2ldwaters.org. If we in this Chamber could wake up and stop denying this problem, we could do a lot to help. Real legislative action, such as a price on carbon, could unlock energy innovation and it could make the fat-cat, politician-buying polluters actually compete fair and square on a level playing field with clean energy. Of course they would rather not. They would rather pollute the world and rig the politics to rig the competition so they can keep polluting for free. If you think from my comments that I am mad about the disgraceful political conduct of the oil and coal barons, well, you are right; I am. It is sickening. It is a disgrace. And no, it is not good enough to say just enough good things about climate change to get through a cocktail party at Davos, while you keep your corporate money flowing to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute, and other denial front groups to stop progress at all costs. You can't have it both ways. I will know the Big Oil CEOs are serious when they publicly tell the Wall Street Journal editorial page that it is OK to knock off the climate denial. What I would like is to take their high-priced lobbyists, to take their slippery lawyers, to take their paid-for bogus scientists and put them all up in the high country for a week with Yvon Chouinard or someone like him who really loves and knows the country they are wrecking. It just might be good for their souls. Senator Schatz and I have a bill to level the energy playing field by levying a carbon fee on fossil fuel emissions. In our bill every nickel collected goes back to the American people, and most of it goes back through cutting taxes. When it is time for Republicans to break free of this filthy grip the fossil fuel industry has, we will be there. We will be there, and we will be waiting. Take a look at our bill. It would be a win-win-win for the American people, and it aligns with what so many Republicans outside of Congress are saying about the correct solution to the climate problem. I hope my Republican colleagues, particularly my friends from Tennessee, take a close look at it. Both Senators from Tennessee recognize human-caused climate change. The senior Senator, our friend who has just done such a masterful job of bringing this elementary and secondary education bill to the floor and steering it so far through this process, is a renowned champion of clean energy research and of electric vehicles. Tennessee's junior Senator said in 2009, when cap-and-trade ideas were swirling: I wish we would just talk about a carbon tax, 100 percent of which would be returned to the American people. So there's no net dollars that would come out of the American people's pockets. Gentlemen, that is our bill. I am open to this discussion any time, but let's please not wait too long. As they know at Oak Ridge, as they know in the mayor's offices in Knoxville and Ducktown, as they know at the University of Tennessee, and as the rangers know up in the Great Smoky Mountains, time's a wasting, and we need to wake up. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I expect I will take less than the 20 minutes, just to reassure you, but I want to reserve that much time.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator very kindly.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am on the floor today for the 104th time--one of these days, I am going to get it right--to urge that we wake up to the dangers of climate change. The scientific community has been sounding the alarm for decades. Our most respected scientific institutions are virtually unanimous in their verdict: Carbon pollution from humans' burning of fossil fuels is warming our atmosphere and oceans, raising and acidifying our seas, loading the dice for more extreme weather, and disrupting the natural systems upon which we all depend. They are not alone. Our defense and intelligence communities warn us of the threats these climate disruptions pose to our national security and to international stability. Public health officials warn that greenhouse gas pollution and its effects trigger human health risks. Economists--even very conservative ones--have long recognized the distortion of energy markets ignoring the true cost of carbon pollution. Our government's accountants now list climate change as one of the most significant threats to America's fiscal stability. The new Republican CBO chief even put sea level rise and increased storm activity from climate change into his budget outlook just last week. Of course, voices of faith call to us. They plead that we heed the moral imperatives of protecting God's creation, seeking justice for all people, and meeting our own responsibilities to future generations. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has called for us to ``develop a sense of the oneness of humanity'' and address climate change. The Archbishop of Canterbury recently issued a declaration, along with other British religious leaders, warning of the ``huge challenge'' of climate change and supporting an international climate treaty to be negotiated in Paris this December. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians worldwide, has called climate change ``a matter of social and economic justice.'' More than 350 rabbis have signed a rabbinic letter on the climate crisis calling for vigorous action against climate disruption and global socioeconomic injustice, reminding us that ``social justice, sustainable abundance, a healthy Earth, and spiritual fulfillment are inseparable.'' Last week, Pope Francis, the worldwide leader of the Catholic Church, which is the largest Christian denomination in the world, the largest Christian denomination in the United States, and the largest Christian denomination in my home State of Rhode Island, added his charismatic voice to the call. In the Roman Catholic Church, an encyclical is a papal letter sent to all bishops. It is considered among the most authoritative documents of Catholic teaching. Rather than just an internal communication to the clergy, however, this encyclical of Pope Francis on climate change is explicitly addressed to ``every single living person on this planet.'' It is entitled ``Laudato Si','' or ``Praise Be to You,'' a reference to the ``Canticle of the Sun'' by St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of the environment, friend of the poor, and namesake of this Pope. This encyclical accepts and affirms what we know about climate change: that most is due to the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity; that seas are rising, oceans acidifying, polar ice melting; that weather is worsening at the extremes; and that basic systems of life on our planet home are being disrupted. He writes: [W]e need only take a frank look at the facts to see that our common home is falling into serious disrepair. . . . [T]hings are now reaching a breaking point. . . . [H]umanity has disappointed God's expectations. The Earth herself, he says, ``groans in travail.'' Pope Francis tells us that ``humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production, and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it.'' Specifically, he says that ``technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels needs to be progressively replaced without delay.'' The Pope reminds us that as we in power sleepwalk through this crisis, we are hurting people who have no voice today. First, we harm future generations, leaving them a world that, to use his own words, ``is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.'' ``[T]he world is a gift which we have freely received and must share with others,'' the Pope writes. ``Intergenerational solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice.'' The Pope also emphasizes that when we damage that gift, we inflict particular harm on the poor, who live close to the Earth--outside of our privileged bubble of consumption. They rely on agriculture, fishing, and forestry for their livelihoods and sustenance. As climate change disrupts natural systems, the poor take the hit most directly. As a result, Pope Francis says, we who have profited most from burning fossil fuels owe a debt to the rest of the world. He calls it our ``ecological debt.'' The United States has produced more carbon dioxide than any other nation. Our historical responsibility calls us to help other nations develop cleaner energy, relieve their systematized poverty, and soften the blow of climate change. This responsibility, this call from Pope Francis matters particularly for America, the indispensable and the exceptional nation. Years ago, Daniel Webster described the work of our Founding Fathers as having ``set the world an example.'' From John Winthrop to Ronald Reagan, we have called ourselves a city on a hill, set high for the world to witness, to emulate. Should we ignore the climate disruption we have caused, Pope Francis warns, ``those who will have to suffer the consequences of what we are trying to hide will not forget this failure of conscience and responsibility.'' In saying that, Pope Francis aligns squarely with Daniel Webster's warning from that same speech--his warning about our American experiment in popular liberty: ``The last hopes of mankind, therefore, rest with us; and if it should be proclaimed that our example had become an argument against the experiment, the knell of popular liberty would be sounded throughout the earth.'' Pope Francis's encyclical even has something to say directly to us in Congress. He says: To take up these responsibilities, and the costs they entail, politicians will inevitably clash with the mindset of short-term gain and results which dominates present-day economics and politics. But if they are courageous, they will attest to their God-given dignity and leave behind a testimony of selfless responsibility. Remember the Pharisees. Remember the traders and the money changers in the temple. If we choose to ignore the call of the Pope and of leaders of faith around the world and choose to protect the side that is polluting and destroying, even when we see right before our faces its ravage of our natural world, its harm to the poor, its robbery of future generations, what are we then? What are we then? Jesus himself, the Lamb of God, lost his temper twice, the Bible tells us; once at the Pharisees and once at the traders and money changers in the temple. He went after them with a lash, actually. Are we to take their side now? Must we, in the Senate, serve Caesar in every single thing? Is there no light left here at all? Here in the Senate, the hand of greed lies so heavily upon us. Please, may the Pope's exhortation give us the courage to stand up against the power of these selfish forces and do what is right for our people and for our planet. The fossil fuel industry has been a particular disgrace, polluting our politics as well as our planet. Ever since the Citizens United ruling gave polluters the ability to inject unlimited and untold amounts of money into our elections, the tsunami of their slime has drowned honest debate on climate change. Senators who once supported commonsense legislation have gone silent as stones under the threat of the polluters' spending. Getting past the dark influence of the fossil fuel industry will indeed take some light and some courage, especially on the part of the Republican majority whom they so relentlessly bully and cajole. But we must do it. Again, mankind will not forget this failure of conscience and responsibility. Senator Schatz and I have even offered legislation rooted in conservative free-market principles. We would put a fee on carbon pollution and return all the revenue to the American people. It would reduce carbon pollution 40 percent by 2025 and be a significant downpayment on our ecological debt to the world and, by the way, it would generate significant tax cuts and economic benefits for American families and businesses in the process. I urge friends across the aisle, please, take a serious look at our bill. In seeking a solution to the climate crisis, Pope Francis asks each of us to ``draw constantly from [our] deepest convictions about love, justice, and peace.'' He dares us even ``to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering''--into our own personal suffering--``and thus discover what each of us can do about it.'' He urges us to recognize the systems around us--the financial systems, the industrial systems, the economic systems, the political systems--are drawing us down a destructive and unjust path. But his encyclical to the world illuminates another path--a compassionate path, blazed with abiding faith in the human family, a path toward the preservation of our common home and our common decency. The choice of which path we take will be a fateful one. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, today is my 103rd time coming to the floor to ask my colleagues to wake up to the urgent problem of climate change. Pretty much everyone is telling us climate change is a problem. First of all, there are the scientists, virtually every major scientific society and agency. Then there are our military and national security leaders, leading American companies, doctors, and faith leaders who are all telling us this is a problem and asking us to wake up. The American people understand climate change is real. Nearly 80 percent think that doing nothing to reduce future warming will cause a very serious or somewhat serious problem for the United States. Two- thirds of Americans, including half of Republicans, favor government action to reduce global warming, and two-thirds, including half of Republicans, would be more likely to vote for a candidate who campaigns on fighting climate change. I have visited with voters in early primary States, with people in Iowa, in New Hampshire, and in South Carolina--business owners, teachers, community leaders, and elected officials. There will be no avoiding this issue in the 2016 election. So we might expect Republican Presidential hopefuls to present to the voters their plans for climate action. We might expect the Republican candidates to address this problem in an honest and straightforward manner. But we would be wrong. Republican Presidential candidates who venerate our military turn deaf when that military warns of climate change's national security dangers. Republican Presidential candidates who are conspicuously religious ignore Pope Francis and other religious leaders when they warn of the fundamental indecency of not addressing climate change. Republican Presidential candidates who seek to represent our corporate elite ignore those corporations' own business case for addressing climate change. And Republican candidates who root boisterously for their home State university sport teams ignore the climate change warnings of scientists and researchers at those very same universities. The Republican Presidential primary is a festival of climate denial, with candidates competing to tie themselves in knots to avoid acknowledging carbon pollution. A few even subscribe to the big hoax theory. One candidate wrote in his book that climate science is based on ``doctored data'' and that ``it's all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight.'' Another even claims to know who is behind the hoax. He said: ``The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.'' Wow, he got to the bottom of that. ``This very expensive global warming''--I will delete the word since this is the Senate floor--``has got to stop. Our planet is freezing,'' the same candidate wrote last winter. Then there is the ``who knows'' caucus. One Republican hopeful seems to think we don't really know one way or the other. ``We may be warming, we may be cooling,'' he says. Another has said that people who are concerned about climate change ``don't like to look at the actual facts and data.'' Now there is a really perverse piece of rhetoric, because what do the actual facts and data show? The data show that the amount of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere has risen dramatically, since the onset of the industrial revolution just over a century ago, to the highest levels mankind has ever experienced and the highest levels Earth has experienced in at least 800,000 years. It is a fact of basic science that carbon dioxide traps heat and alters the climate. That has been known since the days of President Abraham Lincoln. The data match and show decades of increase in global temperature. The scientists we pay to know these things say that warming of the climate is ``unequivocal.'' The ocean is warming. Sea levels are rising. Ocean water is growing more acidic. We measure all of that. It is not theory. Those are the facts. At least two candidates, by the way, have compared those who accept the established science of climate change to people who believe the Earth is flat. That is particularly rich when we consider that NASA scientists are among the strongest and most articulate proponents of the science of climate change. Do we really think that NASA scientists believe the world is flat? Do we think the scientists who launched a rover through space, landed it safely on the surface of Mars, and are now driving it around are confused about the circular nature of the Earth? Then there is the ``always changing'' crowd. One Republican Presidential hopeful says: [T]he climate is changing. I don't think the science is clear on what percentage is manmade. . . . And for the people to say the science is decided on this is just really arrogant. Actually, it is just really factual. ``[T]here's never been a moment where the climate is not changing,'' another candidate observed. ``The question is: What percent of that is . . . due to human activity?'' Well, the links of climate change to human activity are something that scientists have studied extraordinarily closely. According to the leading scientific body on climate change, the best estimate is that pretty much all of the recent rise was due to human activity. The lead scientific organization says greenhouse gas emissions, along with human activity, ``are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.'' And, by the way, ``extremely likely'' is defined in that document as 95 to 100 percent certainty. So this gaggle of Republican Presidential hopefuls is willing to take the ``worse than 1 in 20'' bet that human activity is not the dominant cause of recent climate change. Or, as another Republican candidate put it, ``the conclusions you make from that are not conclusive''--whatever that means. Then, of course, there is this: ``I'm not a scientist.'' At least three of the declared Republican candidates have used that line. Imagine if Congress answered other policy questions that way. What is your position on abortion? Oh, I am not a gynecologist. What should we do about health care? Oh, I am not a medical doctor. We are not expected to be experts. We are expected to listen to the experts and to make conscientious, informed, and prudent decisions-- and, oh, are we failing that test. There are even Republican candidates for President who in this American century would abdicate American leadership on the climate crisis. ``Is there anything the United States can do about it?'' one of the Republican candidates asked. ``Clearly, no''--reducing greenhouse gas emissions ``will have zero impact,'' he said, on climate change. Another candidate said: ``A single nation acting alone can make no difference at all.'' I would love to hear Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt conversing about whether America can make a difference. Last week the senior Senator from Oklahoma, whose skepticism about climate change is well documented, was the keynote speaker at the climate denial conference of a creepy outfit called the Heartland Institute. Here is what he told them--and by the way, when I say ``creepy,'' they are the group that put up a billboard comparing climate scientists to the Unabomber--pretty responsible stuff. ``If you look at the Republican candidates,'' he assured the attendees at that forum, ``they're all denying this stuff, with the exception of Lindsey Graham. . . . They're all with the people in this room''--quite a room to want to be with. I am glad that our colleague from South Carolina, Senator Graham, has called for reducing carbon pollution with smart probusiness policies. He has lit a path for other Republican colleagues to follow, and he is not the only one on this path. Prominent conservative thinkers and former administration officials from Nixon, Reagan, and both Bush administrations have voiced support for putting a fee on carbon emissions. Prominent conservatives and libertarians think that we can put a price on carbon, relieve taxes on profits and work, and come out economically for the better. Even setting aside the environmental and climate benefit, just economically, that is a win. So I offered a carbon fee bill last week with our colleague Senator Schatz, what one conservative called an ``olive limb''--doing better than just an olive branch--to conservatives who are ready to address this problem. So Lindsey Graham has articulated one path. There is a different, darker path. It is the path of obedience to fossil fuel interests. The fossil fuel companies, their super PAC allies, and their front groups swing a heavy financial club, and they want to herd Republican candidates down the darker path. Americans for Prosperity, part of the Koch brothers-backed political machine, plans on spending $900 million in the 2016 election cycle--$900 million. Its president, Tim Phillips, threatened publicly that any Republican candidate in the 2016 Presidential campaign who supported climate action ``would be at a severe disadvantage in the Republican nomination process.'' Gee, what might candidates conclude from that? And that is just one part of the fossil fuel political machine. So I ask myself: Why are there all of those preposterous statements by the Republican Presidential candidates? The only conclusion I can reach is to signal that very obedience. We are now at the stage in the Republican Presidential primary where candidates caper and grovel before the fossil fuel industry's political machine, hoping they will be the chosen beneficiaries of fossil fuel election spending. Remember that there is $900 million from just one group. It looks like that earns the industry a lot of groveling and capering. Eventually, the Republican Party is going to have to find its true voice on climate change. It can't continue indefinitely as the political arm of the fossil fuel industry in an environment in which 80 percent of Americans want climate action and a majority of young Republicans think that climate denial is ignorant, out of touch or crazy, according to the words they selected in the poll. Ultimately, the Republican Party is going to have to find its true voice. Until then, America is presented the unseemly spectacle of Republican Presidential candidates fighting to have the best position on climate change that money can buy. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise this evening to introduce, along with my lead cosponsor, Senator Schatz of Hawaii, the American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act of 2015. We announced this legislation this afternoon at an event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, and I want to thank the American Enterprise Institute for their hospitality. I think their interest in this idea clearly reflects the difference between core conservative economic principles and simply being pushed around by the hectoring of the fossil fuel industry. There is a difference between the two, and this bill meets legitimate conservative economic principles. I will start by saying the obvious, which is that climate change is real. It is virtually universal in peer-reviewed science that climate change is real, that carbon pollution from burning fossil fuels is causing unprecedented climate and oceanic changes. Every major scientific society in our country has said so. Our brightest scientists at NOAA and at NASA are unequivocal. The fundamental science of climate change is, indeed, settled. In the details of local application and the extent to which a particular storm is caused by or exacerbated by climate change, in the vagaries of prediction about how things are going to be 10 or 15 years out at those margins, yes--there is always room for conversation and debate at the margins, but the core science of climate change is beyond legitimate debate. It is known science, like debating gravity. Americans get it. In poll after poll, Americans understand that climate change is real, know that humans are the cause, and want their government to do something about it. Climate change is not our only national challenge. The Federal Tax Code, for example, is a mess, with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world, while some take advantage of loopholes to pay far less than others and, indeed, some pay nothing at all. We have an economic recovery that has left far too many Americans behind, and we have a job market that has still not fully rebounded. What if our answer to climate change helped address those other concerns as well? What if that approach was firmly grounded in core conservative economic principles, values such as property rights, market efficiency, and personal liberty? Aparna Mathur of the free-market think tank the American Enterprise Institute conducted an analysis with a colleague from the Brookings Institution showing that a carbon fee could reduce emissions, shore up the country's fiscal outlook, and play an important part in broader tax reform. AEI's Kevin Hassett, Steven Hayward, and Kenneth Greene have pointed out that a carbon fee could obviate some environmental regulations. The idea behind it is extremely simple. You levy a price on the thing you don't want--carbon pollution--and you use the revenue to help with things you do want. Whether they are called neighborhood effects or negative externalities, the effects of carbon pollution harm us all. Conservative economist Milton Friedman wrote that the government exists in part to reduce such harms. When the costs of such externalities don't get factored into the price of a product, conservative economic doctrine--indeed, all economic doctrine--classifies that as a subsidy-- a market failure. Right now for fossil fuel producers, that subsidy is immense, giving them artificial advantage over cleaner energy sources. The International Monetary Fund just postulated that the annual subsidy just in America to the fossil fuel industry is $700 billion. We tend to talk around here in budget cycles of 10 years. That means it is $7 trillion in a budget cycle. That is a subsidy, all right. A carbon fee can repair that market failure by incorporating unpriced damage into the costs of fossil fuels. Then the free market--not industry, not government--can drive the best energy mix for the country, with everyone competing on level ground. That is how Nixon's Treasury Secretary and Reagan's Secretary of State George Shultz sees it. He and the late Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker made the case for a carbon fee in the Wall Street Journal. They wrote: Americans like to compete on a level playing field. All players should have an equal opportunity to win based on their competitive merits, not on some artificial imbalance that gives someone or some group a special advantage. Such as a $700 billion-a-year special advantage. Just last week, even the CEOs of Europe's major oil companies called on governments to institute national prices on carbon. This could be a big economic win. George W. Bush's Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said, ``A tax on carbon emissions will unleash a wave of innovation to develop technologies, lower the costs of clean energy, and create jobs, as we and other nations develop new energy products and infrastructure.'' It is in that spirit that I am introducing the American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act--a framework I hope both Republicans and Democrats can embrace. The bill would establish an economy-wide carbon fee on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. The fee would be assessed way upstream where it is easiest to administer, minimizing the universe of taxpayers and the compliance burden--at the coal mine, at the natural gas processing station, and at the petroleum refinery. Other sources of greenhouse gas emissions would be charged at existing reporting requirements that are rate tied to the carbon dioxide equivalency of each gas. Fluorocarbons are assessed at a special rate that accounts for their high greenhouse potency. Sequestering, utilizing, or encapsulating carbon dioxide earns you a credit. My bill sets the fee per ton of carbon emitted at $45 for 2016. That is the central range of the social cost of carbon as estimated by the Office of Management and Budget. That fee would increase each year at a real 2 percent. When emissions fall 80 percent below 2005 levels, the annual adjustment falls to inflation. Border adjustments for the trade of energy-intensive goods include tariffs on such goods imported from countries with weaker or no carbon pricing--to make sure we protect our industries at home--and rebates for U.S. exporters of energy-intensive goods. We took care to design the border adjustments to achieve harmony with World Trade Organization rules. According to the nonpartisan group Resources for the Future, this carbon fee proposal would reduce U.S. CO2 emissions by more than 40 percent by 2025. In addition to the environmental benefits, of course, a carbon fee also generates revenue. In this case, it would generate over $2 trillion in revenue over 10 years. We intend to return every dime of that to the American people. Here is how. First, the bill lowers the top marginal corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 29 percent. This would cut American corporate taxes by almost $600 billion over the first decade. Second, it provides workers with a $500 refundable tax credit--$1,000 for a couple--to offset the first $500 paid each year in Social Security payroll taxes. The credit would grow with inflation. The tax credits would return over $750 billion to American households over the first 10 years. Third, it would give benefits to Social Security recipients, veterans program beneficiaries, and certain other groups of retirees at the same level as the tax credit. These benefits would total more than $400 billion over 10 years. Finally, the bill would establish a block grant for States, totalling $20 billion in 2016 and growing with inflation, to help with low-income needs, rural households, and transitioning workers. Governors in these States will know best what to do with the funds. In West Virginia, for example, they could use the money to transition coal workers into the technology jobs of the future or to shore up the beleaguered pension plans of coal miners. Rhode Island, on the other hand, might choose to make homes more energy efficient. And we have a reporting mechanism for the public to transparently track where the money is going to assure that it is all going back to the American people. The entire bill is 37 pages long--short, simple, straightforward. It would cut back on the pollution that threatens dramatic changes to our home planet. It would cut taxes. It would end a grievous market distortion. It would start a wave of investment and innovation. With this bill, Senator Schatz and I extend an open hand, or as one Republican former Congressman who cares about the climate change problem said: It extends an olive limb to conservatives everywhere. Whether you want to pursue tax reform or support the free market for energy, or as Senator Graham suggested this week, honestly address the real effects of climate change, this can be a vehicle. I hope my colleagues will agree with me that this is a discussion that we can continue. I look forward to trying to find a way forward that is better than simply ignoring this problem, pretending that it does not exist, and sleepwalking through our moment in history. It is time to wake up. I have an attachment here that summarizes some of the support from conservatives and business leaders for a carbon fee. I ask unanimous consent that this document be printed in the Record.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise this evening to introduce, along with my lead cosponsor, Senator Schatz of Hawaii, the American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act of 2015. We announced this legislation this afternoon at an event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, and I want to thank the American Enterprise Institute for their hospitality. I think their interest in this idea clearly reflects the difference between core conservative economic principles and simply being pushed around by the hectoring of the fossil fuel industry. There is a difference between the two, and this bill meets legitimate conservative economic principles. I will start by saying the obvious, which is that climate change is real. It is virtually universal in peer-reviewed science that climate change is real, that carbon pollution from burning fossil fuels is causing unprecedented climate and oceanic changes. Every major scientific society in our country has said so. Our brightest scientists at NOAA and at NASA are unequivocal. The fundamental science of climate change is, indeed, settled. In the details of local application and the extent to which a particular storm is caused by or exacerbated by climate change, in the vagaries of prediction about how things are going to be 10 or 15 years out at those margins, yes--there is always room for conversation and debate at the margins, but the core science of climate change is beyond legitimate debate. It is known science, like debating gravity. Americans get it. In poll after poll, Americans understand that climate change is real, know that humans are the cause, and want their government to do something about it. Climate change is not our only national challenge. The Federal Tax Code, for example, is a mess, with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world, while some take advantage of loopholes to pay far less than others and, indeed, some pay nothing at all. We have an economic recovery that has left far too many Americans behind, and we have a job market that has still not fully rebounded. What if our answer to climate change helped address those other concerns as well? What if that approach was firmly grounded in core conservative economic principles, values such as property rights, market efficiency, and personal liberty? Aparna Mathur of the free-market think tank the American Enterprise Institute conducted an analysis with a colleague from the Brookings Institution showing that a carbon fee could reduce emissions, shore up the country's fiscal outlook, and play an important part in broader tax reform. AEI's Kevin Hassett, Steven Hayward, and Kenneth Greene have pointed out that a carbon fee could obviate some environmental regulations. The idea behind it is extremely simple. You levy a price on the thing you don't want--carbon pollution--and you use the revenue to help with things you do want. Whether they are called neighborhood effects or negative externalities, the effects of carbon pollution harm us all. Conservative economist Milton Friedman wrote that the government exists in part to reduce such harms. When the costs of such externalities don't get factored into the price of a product, conservative economic doctrine--indeed, all economic doctrine--classifies that as a subsidy-- a market failure. Right now for fossil fuel producers, that subsidy is immense, giving them artificial advantage over cleaner energy sources. The International Monetary Fund just postulated that the annual subsidy just in America to the fossil fuel industry is $700 billion. We tend to talk around here in budget cycles of 10 years. That means it is $7 trillion in a budget cycle. That is a subsidy, all right. A carbon fee can repair that market failure by incorporating unpriced damage into the costs of fossil fuels. Then the free market--not industry, not government--can drive the best energy mix for the country, with everyone competing on level ground. That is how Nixon's Treasury Secretary and Reagan's Secretary of State George Shultz sees it. He and the late Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker made the case for a carbon fee in the Wall Street Journal. They wrote: Americans like to compete on a level playing field. All players should have an equal opportunity to win based on their competitive merits, not on some artificial imbalance that gives someone or some group a special advantage. Such as a $700 billion-a-year special advantage. Just last week, even the CEOs of Europe's major oil companies called on governments to institute national prices on carbon. This could be a big economic win. George W. Bush's Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said, ``A tax on carbon emissions will unleash a wave of innovation to develop technologies, lower the costs of clean energy, and create jobs, as we and other nations develop new energy products and infrastructure.'' It is in that spirit that I am introducing the American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act--a framework I hope both Republicans and Democrats can embrace. The bill would establish an economy-wide carbon fee on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. The fee would be assessed way upstream where it is easiest to administer, minimizing the universe of taxpayers and the compliance burden--at the coal mine, at the natural gas processing station, and at the petroleum refinery. Other sources of greenhouse gas emissions would be charged at existing reporting requirements that are rate tied to the carbon dioxide equivalency of each gas. Fluorocarbons are assessed at a special rate that accounts for their high greenhouse potency. Sequestering, utilizing, or encapsulating carbon dioxide earns you a credit. My bill sets the fee per ton of carbon emitted at $45 for 2016. That is the central range of the social cost of carbon as estimated by the Office of Management and Budget. That fee would increase each year at a real 2 percent. When emissions fall 80 percent below 2005 levels, the annual adjustment falls to inflation. Border adjustments for the trade of energy-intensive goods include tariffs on such goods imported from countries with weaker or no carbon pricing--to make sure we protect our industries at home--and rebates for U.S. exporters of energy-intensive goods. We took care to design the border adjustments to achieve harmony with World Trade Organization rules. According to the nonpartisan group Resources for the Future, this carbon fee proposal would reduce U.S. CO2 emissions by more than 40 percent by 2025. In addition to the environmental benefits, of course, a carbon fee also generates revenue. In this case, it would generate over $2 trillion in revenue over 10 years. We intend to return every dime of that to the American people. Here is how. First, the bill lowers the top marginal corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 29 percent. This would cut American corporate taxes by almost $600 billion over the first decade. Second, it provides workers with a $500 refundable tax credit--$1,000 for a couple--to offset the first $500 paid each year in Social Security payroll taxes. The credit would grow with inflation. The tax credits would return over $750 billion to American households over the first 10 years. Third, it would give benefits to Social Security recipients, veterans program beneficiaries, and certain other groups of retirees at the same level as the tax credit. These benefits would total more than $400 billion over 10 years. Finally, the bill would establish a block grant for States, totalling $20 billion in 2016 and growing with inflation, to help with low-income needs, rural households, and transitioning workers. Governors in these States will know best what to do with the funds. In West Virginia, for example, they could use the money to transition coal workers into the technology jobs of the future or to shore up the beleaguered pension plans of coal miners. Rhode Island, on the other hand, might choose to make homes more energy efficient. And we have a reporting mechanism for the public to transparently track where the money is going to assure that it is all going back to the American people. The entire bill is 37 pages long--short, simple, straightforward. It would cut back on the pollution that threatens dramatic changes to our home planet. It would cut taxes. It would end a grievous market distortion. It would start a wave of investment and innovation. With this bill, Senator Schatz and I extend an open hand, or as one Republican former Congressman who cares about the climate change problem said: It extends an olive limb to conservatives everywhere. Whether you want to pursue tax reform or support the free market for energy, or as Senator Graham suggested this week, honestly address the real effects of climate change, this can be a vehicle. I hope my colleagues will agree with me that this is a discussion that we can continue. I look forward to trying to find a way forward that is better than simply ignoring this problem, pretending that it does not exist, and sleepwalking through our moment in history. It is time to wake up. I have an attachment here that summarizes some of the support from conservatives and business leaders for a carbon fee. I ask unanimous consent that this document be printed in the Record.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, as the Boy Scout Law tells us, ``A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.'' These values are always worth remembering. Even 8 out of 12 is an achievement. We all know people who don't get to six on their best day. For 50 years, boys and young men have built these important traits under the direction of Boy Scout Troop 6 from Barrington, RI, part of the Narragansett Council of the Boy Scouts of America. The programs and traditions of Troop 6 help Scouts build moral fiber, engender responsible citizenship, and develop maturity and physical fitness. Over the years, the troop has organized or participated in countless activities that have helped the community at large. Scouts from Troop 6 Barrington carry out a community service project every month, including working with the Barrington Land Conservation Trust to clear hiking trails, contributing food and labor to food drives across New England, and assisting numerous nonprofit organizations throughout Rhode Island. More than 100 Scouts from Troop 6 have earned the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest achievement in Scouting. They have distinguished themselves as community leaders, service volunteers, and mentors for their peers. As Boy Scouts of America president Dr. Robert M. Gates put it last month in his address to the Boys Scouts National Annual Business Meeting, ``Every day, in every community in America, scouting is changing the lives of boys and young men teaching them skills and leadership, helping them build character and integrity.'' Thanks to its many dedicated leaders, parents, and volunteers, Troop 6 has provided boys in Barrington with valuable tools and lifelong leadership skills for a half century. I congratulate all the Scouts of Boy Scout Troop 6 and their families on this special anniversary, and I am grateful for their outstanding commitment to their community, to the State of Rhode Island, and to our country. Mr. President, I ask that a list of Eagle Scouts, Scoutmasters, and committee chairmen of Troop 6 be printed in the Record. The list follows:

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am here on the floor today to celebrate a significant event in our country's history and in Rhode Island. Every student of American history knows the story of the Boston Tea Party. We all learned about Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty dumping chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest British taxation without representation. What many students don't know is that down in Rhode Island, more than a year earlier, a group of Rhode Island patriots made an even harsher challenge to the British Empire one dark night in June of 1772. I am here to tell their story. The episode began when amid growing tensions with colonists, King George III moved the HMS Gaspee, an armed British customs vessel, into Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay. The Gaspee and its captain, Lieutenant William Dudingston, were known for seizing cargo and flagging down ships only to harass, humiliate, and interrogate the colonials. As Nick Bunker, author of the book ``An Empire on the Edge'' wrote, this harassment did not sit well with Rhode Islanders, who had grown accustomed to a level of freedom unique in that time. ``Even by American standards, Rhode Island was an extreme case of popular government.'' The chapter in his book in which he describes this is entitled `` `This Dark Affair': The Gaspee Incident.'' Bunker went on to say: ``Out of all the colonies, Rhode Island was the one where the ocean entered most deeply into the lives of the people.'' And we wanted it free. In July of 1663, over 100 years before the Gaspee incident, King Charles II had granted a royal charter establishing the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New England. And the charter said it was ``to hold forth a lively experiment . . . that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained with full liberty in religious concernments.'' The ``lively experiment'' in Rhode Island blazed the path for American freedom of religion, a fundamental right of our great Nation. In Rhode Island, what were then considered radical ideologies of freedom ran very deep. A century later, William Dudingston would learn just how deep, as he went about harassing American vessels and confiscating their cargo. ``The British Armed Forces have come to regard almost every local merchant as a smuggler and a cheat,'' Bunker wrote. Rhode Islanders were fed up with the abuse. Something was bound to give. In March of 1772, local seamen and traders led by John Brown signed a petition against the Gaspee. They brought it to Rhode Island Chief Justice Stephen Hopkins, a political leader in Providence and a relentless advocate for liberty. Nick Bunker wrote: For Brown and Hopkins, the only law they recognized was theirs, laid down by their assembly and their local courts. They saw no role in Rhode Island for the English laws that gave the navy its authority. This is in 1772. Chief Justice Hopkins provided a legal opinion saying that British officers needed to present their orders and commission to Rhode Island's Governor before entering local waters. Well, Dudingston refused and, indeed, threatened to hang ``any man who tried to oppose the Gaspee.'' So the fuse was lit. It all came to a head on June 9, 1772. Rhode Island Captain Benjamin Lindsey was sailing to Providence from Newport in his ship, the Hannah. He was accosted and ordered to yield for inspection by the Gaspee. Well, Captain Lindsey refused. He raced up Narragansett Bay, despite warning shots fired at the Hannah. The Gaspee gave chase and Captain Lindsey, who knew the waters of Rhode Island far better than did Dudingston, steered his ship north toward Pawtuxet Cove in Warwick, right over the shallow waters of Namquid Point. There, the lighter Hannah shot over the shallows, but the heavier Gaspee ran aground and stuck firm. The British ship and her crew were caught, stranded in a falling tide. They would need to wait many hours for a rising tied to free them again. According to Nick Bunker, as night fell, the Gaspee crew turned in, leaving only one seaman on the deck. Spotting an irresponsible opportunity, Captain Lindsey sailed on to Providence. There he enlisted the help of John Brown, the respected merchant and statesman who had led that petition against the Gaspee back in March. Brown was from one of the most prominent families in the city. He ultimately helped found what we know today as Brown University. Brown and Lindsey rallied a group of Rhode Island patriots at Sabin's Tavern, down in what is now the East Side of Providence, along the waterfront. Refreshments, no doubt, were served. Refreshed or not, the group resolved to end the Gaspee's menace in Rhode Island waters. That night, those raiders, led by what Nick Bunker called the ``maritime elite of Providence,'' set out with blackened faces, in long boots, and rowed down the bay with their oars muffled to avoid detection. They made their way to the stranded Gaspee and surrounded it. As Daniel Harrington recounted in a recent op-ed that he wrote in the Providence Journal, ``Capt. Abraham Whipple spoke first for the Rhode Islanders, summoning Dudingston: `I am sheriff of Kent county, [expletive]. I have a warrant to apprehend you, [expletive]; so surrender, [expletive].' It was a classic Rhode Island greeting!'' I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Harrington's article be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. Lieutenant Dudingston, of course, refused Whipple's demand, and instead ordered his men to fire upon anyone who attempted to board the Gaspee. The Rhode Islanders saw their advantage. They outnumbered the British, and they swarmed on the Gaspee. Shots rang out in the dark. Lieutenant Dudingston fell wounded in the arm and the thigh. That night in the waters off Warwick, RI, the very first blood in the conflict that was to become the American Revolution was drawn by American arms-- a little bit more than just tea over the side into Boston Harbor. As the patriots commandeered the ship, Brown ordered one of his Rhode Islanders, a physician named John Mawney, to tend to Dudingston's wounds. Mawney was an able doctor and saved the lieutenant. Brown and Whipple took the captive English crew ashore, and then they returned to the despised Gaspee to rid Narragansett Bay of her detested presence once and for all. They set her afire. The blaze spread, reaching the ship's charges of gunpowder and cannons, setting off explosions like fireworks. Ultimately, the flames reached the Gaspee's powder magazine, and the resulting blast echoed across Narragansett Bay, as airborne fragments of the Gaspee splashed down into the water beneath a moonless sky. Nick Bunker wrote that the British had never seen anything quite like the Gaspee affair. Their attack on the ship amounted to a complete rejection of the empire's right to rule. According to Dan Harrington's op-ed, King George III was furious and offered huge rewards for the capture of the rebels. Inquiries were made and nooses fashioned. But in the end, not one name was produced, as thousands of Rhode Islanders remained true to silence. The site of this historic victory is now named Gaspee Point in honor of this incident and the audacious Rhode Islanders who accomplished it. According to Bunker, the Rhode Island patriots successfully organized ``a military operation 3 years ahead of its time, that arose not merely from a private quarrel but also a matrix of ideas''--the ideas of liberty. Rhode Islanders have made a tradition of celebrating the Gaspee incident. This year marks the 50th annual Gaspee Days celebration in Warwick. Over the years, we celebrate by marching in the annual parade, as we recall the courage of the men who fired the first shots and drew the first blood in the quest for American independence. I would like to thank the Gaspee Days Committee for their continuing efforts to host this annual celebration and my friend, State Representative Joe McNamara, for his work each year in making this event so special. I come to the floor every year at this time to speak about the burning of the Gaspee, because as proud as I am of what those brave Rhode Islanders did back in 1772, I am also disappointed that their story has largely been lost to history outside our little State. I hope these speeches will help new generations to learn about this important American event. In Rhode Island, of course, we will never forget. As Mr. Harrington wrote in his piece in the Providence Journal, ``Through the ages, noble Rhode Islanders have named their daughters Hannah in honor of the ship that long ago led a fledgling young country toward independence and helped create the finest nation ever born of man.'' I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I wish to take a few minutes now to speak about my amendment No. 1693, which responds to the very unfortunate Citizens United decision. January 2015 was that decision's fifth anniversary, and it has had a pretty nefarious effect on our democracy. The premise of the decision was that unlimited corporate expenditures would not corrupt or exert improper influence in our American democratic process because there would be a regime of--to quote the decision--``effective disclosure'' that would ``provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters.'' Well, here we are. Everybody in this room knows that there has been no effective disclosure whatsoever. We live in a world of dark money in which special interests spend tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars in elections to buy influence and to try to make sure that people get their way. There is neither public knowledge nor accountability about that dark money spending. The Louisville Courier-Journal, in an editorial in June 2012, described the problem very well: Money. Buckets of it. Tidal waves that one pundit has dubbed the ``tsunami of slime.'' Well, we who are in this political world have experienced firsthand that tsunami of slime that the Citizens United decision unleashed. In the 2014 midterm elections, the Washington Post has reported that at least 31 percent of all independent spending in those elections was spent by groups that don't disclose who their donors are. You don't know who is behind their money. You know the candidates know who is behind the money. For sure they are going to be told, but the public doesn't know who is behind that money. And that 31 percent doesn't even count what are called issue ads, where somebody says the Presiding Officer, for instance, has a terrible position on this issue and you need to call her and tell her that her position is terrible, anti-American, wicked, no good, and that she is awful--and on and on they go. That is an issue ad, and so it doesn't even count. So that whole extra bit--also dark--is not even part of the 31 percent. And the big, obvious thing that the Citizens United decision completely overlooked is that if you give big corporations and hugely wealthy special interests the ability to spend on elections, guess what else you give them. You give them the ability to threaten to spend or to promise to spend, and you know that those threats and promises are never going to be in any regime of effective disclosure. That is the ultimate private exercise of political influence. We have no idea how big the effect is of those silent threats and promises--silent, at least, to the public. The American people are pretty fed up. The New York Times this week reported on a poll, and I will just quote a little bit from the story: The findings reveal deep support among Republicans and Democrats alike for new measures to restrict the influence of wealthy givers, including limiting the amount of money that can be spent by ``super PACs'' and forcing more public disclosure on organizations now permitted to intervene in elections without disclosing the names of their donors. And the story continues: And by a significant margin, they reject the argument that underpins close to four decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence on campaign finance: that political money is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. Clearly, money facilitates speech, but it also facilitates bribery. It also facilitates simply bludgeoning political actors and political parties with pressure. Now, the results here: More than four in five Americans [more than 80 percent of Americans] say money plays too great a role in political campaigns . . . while two-thirds say that the wealthy have more of a chance to influence the elections process than other Americans. That is not healthy when 80 percent of Americans think that money plays too great a part and two-thirds of Americans think that they don't have an equal shot in elections compared to the wealthy. And it is not only Democrats and independents who feel this way. I will continue to read: Those concerns--and the divide between Washington elites and the rest of the country--extend to Republicans. Three- quarters of self-identified Republicans support requiring more disclosure by outside spending organizations. . . . Republicans in the poll were almost as likely as Democrats to favor further restrictions on campaign donations. So if three-quarters of self-identified Republicans support requiring more disclosure by outside political spending organizations, I would hope that I could get support for this amendment which would require some disclosure. It would require any company that contracts with the Department of Defense--and they get big contracts with billions, hundreds of billions of dollars--to disclose all of its campaign spending over $10,000. It is a requirement that would apply to all the corporate officers, the board members, and to anyone who owns 5 percent or more of the company. When there is that much money sloshing around in the defense budget, and when political actors are making the decisions about where that goes, we ought to be able to connect the dots between those corporations and whom they are giving big money to. So this is a very simple disclosure provision. Again, 75 percent of Republicans support increased disclosure, and, in fact, a considerable number of Republicans in the Senate used to support disclosure. Over and over, you see Members who are still here, including the majority leader, who were ardent supporters of disclosure--ardent supporters of disclosure, that is, until it turned out that after Citizens United, the big, dark money tended to come in on behalf of--guess what-- Republicans. So the disclosure principle evaporated, but I think it has to come back. The public is sick of it. It is time we cleaned up the political process from all this dark money. It is totally consistent with the premise of the Citizens United decision. So when the time comes for me to call up this amendment and get it pending, I will do so with the hope that we can find some Republican support for the American people being allowed to know who is spending big bucks to influence elections. We are entitled to know that.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, one other thing I wish to speak in favor of is the amendment of Senator Reed, my senior Senator--Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island--to cut the so-called OCO budget gimmick from the Defense bill. I am on the Budget Committee, and I have heard very passionate protestations from my colleagues on the Budget Committee about the importance of reducing the deficit, not dealing with the national debt, reducing borrowing, deficit spending, and all of that. Well, when it comes to this particular bill, suddenly all of those concerns have gone completely out the window. They are funding a significant portion of this Defense authorization with imaginary money, with an account that is not intended to support ongoing, continuing, baseline defense expenditures, and that is reserved for overseas contingencies and that, therefore, doesn't have to be paid for. So it would be a clear increase to the debt and the deficit to go down this road, and we would very much prefer that instead of using the so-called OCO gimmick to fund this authorization with deficit spending, we sit down and have a mature and consequential discussion between the White House and the Senate and the House on where our spending is going to go and with what accounts we are going to be able to do it. Before we start going account by account through the appropriations process, we have a plan in mind so that we don't find that certain favored accounts get dealt with first and then the rug gets pulled out from under the others. I think that is a reasonable way, and I support Senator Reed's amendment and his notion that we should have a bipartisan plan to replace the arbitrary sequester cuts with a balanced deficit-reduction strategy that includes, among other things, closing some wasteful tax loopholes. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Therefore, it is not in order for me to call up an amendment to the Defense bill. I will come back and get this amendment pending at the appropriate time on the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I understand that we are now in a period of morning business.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, today I am here for the 101st time to urge this body to wake up to the threat of climate change. It is real, it is caused by carbon pollution, and it is dangerous. There is a legislative answer to this problem that my Republican colleagues should consider, and that is a carbon fee. The unpleasant fact here in Congress presently, anyway, is that Congress is ruled by the lobbyists and the political enforcers for the fossil fuel industry. But outside this Chamber, where the fossil fuel industry's power is less fierce, there is considerable conservative support for a carbon fee. Leading right-of-center economists, conservative think tanks, and former Republican officials, both legislative and executive, all say that putting a price on carbon pollution is the right way to deal with climate change. They know that climate denial cannot stand against the facts. As the Washington Post reported last month, prominent thinkers on the right are ``increasingly pushing'' for a climate policy based on conservative principles and on values such as property rights, market efficiency, and personal liberty. They recommend pricing carbon. Jerry Taylor, a former vice president at the CATO Institute now leads his own Libertarian think tank, which is making the case for a carbon fee. He recognized that ``the scientific evidence became stronger and stronger over time.'' He knows climate denial is not an option. He says that ``because catastrophic climate change is a non-diversifiable risk, we should logically be willing to pay extra to avoid climate risks.'' Taylor points out that hedging against terrible outcomes is what we expect in our financial markets. Why should we not do the same for climate change? Conservatives have also long agreed that government should prevent one group harming another. Conservative economist Milton Friedman still tops the reading lists of Republicans in Congress. Republican Presidential hopefuls still invoke his name to show their free market bona fides. Asked whether the government had any role to play in reducing pollution, Friedman said: There's always a case for the government to do something about it. Because there is always a case for the government to some extent when what two people do affects a third party. Friedman is describing what he called ``neighborhood effects'' or what many economists call ``negative externalities.'' A negative externality is when two parties engage in a transaction and the result of that transaction causes damage to a third party--a third party that did not consent to the arrangement. That is an externality, and when the consequence is harmful, it is a negative externality. In a free society, wrote Friedman, government exists, in part, to diminish those negative externalities. When the costs of such negative externalities don't get factored into the price of a product, even conservative economic doctrine classifies that as a subsidy. For the polluters who traffic and burn fossil fuels, that subsidy is huge. In a finding it describes as ``shocking,'' the International Monetary Fund estimated the true costs of fossil fuel energy, taking into account public health problems, climate change, and other negative externalities, and they added it up to a polluter world subsidy of $5.3 trillion a year. The subsidy here in the United States for the fossil fuel industry will hit $699 billion this year. It is no wonder the fossil fuel enforcers wield their clout in Congress so energetically. At $700 billion a year just in the United States, why would the big polluters not want to squeeze one more fiscal quarter, one more year of public subsidy out of the rest of us at $700 billion a year? We usually talk about big numbers here in the Senate over a 10-year period. That is the way our budget works. Over a 10-year budget period, that is $7 trillion. No wonder they are so remorseless. From their point of view, lunch is good when someone else is picking up the tab, and Senate Republicans have been far too willing to let the polluters dine for free. Outside of this Chamber, however, conservative economists call such an enormous public subsidy a market failure. The price of fossil fuel energy does not match its true costs. That market imbalance artificially favors polluting fuels and their producers-- picking winners and losers, if you will. A carbon fee can make the markets more efficient and level the playing field for different types of energy. Anyone who really believes in a free market should favor a carbon fee. That is what makes it work. Harvard Professor N. Gregory Mankiw has been an economic adviser to President George W. Bush and to Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He has pointed out that a carbon fee can help repair such a market failure and that ``the idea of using taxes to fix problems, rather than merely raise government revenue, has a long history.'' In a 2013 New York Times op-ed, former Republican EPA Administrators Bill Ruckelshaus, Christine Todd Whitman, Lee Thomas, and William Reilly wrote: ``A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.'' A carbon fee can also generate significant revenue, and this could help achieve conservative priorities, such as lowering taxes. Art Laffer, one of the architects of President Reagan's economic plan, popularizer of the famous ``Laffer curve,'' has looked at using a carbon tax to fund a payroll tax cut. He said: ``I think that would be very good for the economy.'' Did you get that? Arthur Laffer, President Reagan's economic adviser, said that a carbon tax, funding a payroll tax cut, ``would be very good for the economy.'' And as an adjunct, he continues: ``It would also reduce carbon emissions into the environment.'' It is a pretty simple idea. You can lessen the tax burden on things that you do want--employment, jobs, profits--and make up for the lost revenue by ending the subsidy of something you don't want--pollution. What is not to love unless you are a big polluter? Dr. Irwin Stelzer, an editor at the Weekly Standard and director of economic policy studies at the conservative Hudson Institute, said that for a tax- swapping carbon fee, ``conservative support would depend solely on a desire to get the economy growing faster by shifting the tax burden from good stuff like work to bad stuff like pollutants.'' The fundamental conservative faith in the free market points to a carbon fee. A carbon fee priced at the true social cost of carbon would allow the market--not the polluters, not the government--to sort out which energy mix is best for society. On this question, Republicans have a choice to make: Are they real conservatives who will support a free market solution or are they the playthings of the fossil fuel industry, which will not pick up this question at all? Well, if you do not like picking winners and losers, then quit favoring fossil fuel to the tune of $700 billion a year just in America and level the playing field with a good, conservative, deficit neutral carbon fee. Level the playing field. That is how George Shultz sees it. George Shultz was President Nixon's Treasury Secretary and President Reagan's Secretary of State. He and Nobel laureate economist Gary S. Becker made the case for a carbon fee in the Wall Street Journal: Americans like to compete on a level playing field. All the players should have an equal opportunity to win based on their competitive merits, not on some artificial imbalance that gives someone or some group a special advantage. That is why Secretary Shultz supports a price on carbon. As an addition, there is also a huge economic win that will result, according to knowledgeable conservatives. Last year, George W. Bush's Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, said, ``A tax on carbon emissions will unleash a wave of innovation to develop technologies, lower the costs of clean energy and create jobs as we and other nations develop new energy products and infrastructure.'' Former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis has become a leading conservative voice in the fight against climate change. He specifically supports using a carbon fee and even introduced legislation when he was in Congress to price carbon and cut payroll taxes, the Laffer combination. Last year, he told the Dallas Morning News that this would create economic opportunity. He said: [W]e are discovering in climate science . . . that there is a risk that we can avoid from the creative innovation that comes from free enterprise. We have a danger and an opportunity. As a conservative, I say what a great opportunity to create wealth, innovate, and sell innovation around the world. By the way, Representative Inglis's dedication to this issue recently earned him the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. I offer him my sincere congratulations. It does, indeed, take courage to come out from behind the veil of skepticism and denial to face the plain truth and to propose real, concrete solutions. That is especially true when the fossil fuel industry wields such relentless, remorseless power over the Republican Party today. President Obama's Clean Power Plan is at last putting an end to the free lunch for the fossil fuel industry. This ought to motivate the industry to rethink its inequitable, subsidy-ridden business model. Which is more efficient, anyway--government regulation or proper market pricing? As American Enterprise Institute scholars Kevin Hassett, Steven Hayward, and Kenneth Greene put it, ``Because a carbon tax would cause carbon emissions to be reduced efficiently across the entire market, other measures that are less efficient--and sometimes even perverse in their impacts--could be eliminated . . . As regulations impose significant costs and distort markets, the potential to displace a fairly broad swath of environmental regulations with a carbon tax offers benefits beyond [greenhouse gas] reductions''--i.e., economic benefits. Republicans in Congress have a real chance to help remake the U.S. energy market under conservative, free market principles. As far back as 1992, former Chairman of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, Martin Feldstein, wrote in the Wall Street Journal: Although a general carbon fuel tax is moot for the moment, the idea will not go away. If carbon dioxide emissions are to be reduced further in the U.S., such a tax will achieve the goal with less economic waste than new bureaucratic hurdles. Why don't today's Republicans abide by this conservative principle? As Douglas Holtz-Eakin, CBO Director under the prior Republican Congress and economic adviser to our friend Senator McCain's Presidential bid, wrote in the National Review, ``In the bad old days, Democrats bad-mouthed trading systems and price mechanisms; Republicans opposed rifle-shot subsidies and mandates. Weirdly, conservatives have a need to relearn these lessons.'' Well, the carbon fee is right in line with Douglas Holtz-Eakin's lessons to be learned. On June 10, I will introduce my carbon fee proposal at an event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute. I hope that once my colleagues see the details, they will take seriously the promise of a free market solution to climate change. For any Senator who wants to engage on this issue, I am interested. I will gladly work with any Republican colleague. What we cannot do is stay in denial. For both our environment and our economy, and indeed our honor, we cannot afford to keep sleepwalking. It is time to wake up. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I understand that the majority leader is on his way here to close out the Senate very shortly. I want to take 1 minute to recognize a significant milestone in the life of one of our colleagues here on the floor. That colleague is our friend Senator Lindsey Graham, and that milestone is his retirement from the U.S. Air Force and Reserve, which he has served for more than 30 years. I think that 30 years of service--particularly 30 years of service overlapping with the responsibilities of being a U.S. Senator--is something that is worth a kind word. The quality of Senator Graham's service was impeccable. He has been awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his service. He has been recognized for his loyalty to the Air Force by being appointed to the U.S. Air Force Academy Board of Visitors. Clearly, his contribution to the U.S. Air Force has been real. But I think Senator Graham would also be the first one to say that he believes the U.S. Air Force made more of a contribution to him than he did to the U.S. Air Force. I think that is one of the reasons he was such a good U.S. Air Force and Reserve officer, and it is also one of the reasons that we have such affection for him here in the Senate. I have to say that I disagree with Senator Graham about a great number of things. He is a very, very conservative Member of the Senate. But we get to know one another in this body. I like Senator Graham. I respect Senator Graham, and I am pleased to come to the floor today to commend Senator Graham for what must be a somewhat emotional milestone as he steps down from the uniform that he has now worn for more than 30 years for our country. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I withhold.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I understand there are issues on the floor that need to be resolved and there are objections pending, but I did wish to speak to this amendment. It is an amendment I hope can either get a vote or, because of its noncontroversial, bipartisan status, perhaps can be added at a time when there is a managers' amendment or some means of dealing with noncontroversial additions to this legislation. So the objection having been made to my request, I will yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I have an amendment which I wish to discuss. About a year ago, we as a Senate, unanimously by a voice vote, ratified four treaties that helped protect American fisheries from illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing around the world. It is called pirate fishing. This was an effort by the Oceans Caucus. It was led by me and then-Senator Begich on our side and Senator Murkowski and Senator Wicker on the other side of the aisle. It was hotlined on both sides and cleared. It is a useful treaty to be in. It is important for our American fishing industry to make sure that they are not being punished or harmed by foreign competitors who are not fishing sustainably, fishing illegally, or violating the laws of the jurisdiction in which they are fishing. Because of their misbehavior, they are able to bring catch to market less expensively than fishermen who play by the rules. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so I may call up my amendment No. 1387.