Sheldon Whitehouse

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, April 18, 2012, was not the first time I spoke on the Senate floor on the dangers of carbon pollution, but it was the first in the weekly series that brings me here today with my increasingly dog-eared sign. Opponents of responsible climate action do best in the dark, so I knew if anything was going to change around here, we would need to shine some light on the facts, on the science, and on the sophisticated scheme of denial being conducted by the polluters. I decided to come to the floor every week the Senate is in session to put at least my little light to work, and today I do so for the 100th time, and I thank very much my colleagues who have taken time from their extremely busy schedules to be here, particularly my colleagues from the House, Jim Langevin and David Cicilline, who traveled all the way across the building. I am not a lone voice on this subject. Many colleagues have been speaking out, particularly our ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Boxer. Senator Markey has been speaking out on the climate longer than I have been in the Senate. Senators Schumer, Nelson, Blumenthal, Schatz, King, and Baldwin have each joined me to speak about the effects of carbon pollution on their home States and economies. Senator Manchin and I--from different perspectives-- spoke here about our shared belief that climate change is real and must be addressed. More than 30 fellow Democrats held the floor overnight to bring attention to climate change under the leadership of Senator Schatz. Our Democratic leader, Senator Reid, has pressed the Senate to face up to this challenge, and thousands of people in Rhode Island and across the country have shown their support. Sometimes people ask me: How do you keep coming up with new ideas? It is easy. There are at least 100 reasons to act on climate. Hundreds of Americans have sent me their reasons through my Web site, Facebook, and Twitter using the hashtag ``100Reasons.'' I will highlight some of their reasons in this speech. What is my No. 1 reason? Easy. Rhode Island. The consequences of carbon pollution for my Ocean State are undeniable. The tide gauge at Naval Station Newport is up nearly 10 inches since the 1930s. The water in Narragansett Bay is 3 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer in the winter than just 50 years ago. Lori from West Kingston, RI, said that is her top reason too. ``We stand to lose the best part of Rhode Island,'' she wrote, ``the 400 miles of coastline, which will be severely impacted, environmentally and economically.'' Even Kentucky's Department of Fish and Wildlife has warned--get this--that sea level rise and increased storms along our eastern seaboard could get so bad that it would trigger ``unprecedented'' population migration from our east coasts to Kentucky. That is serious. Winston Churchill talked about ``sharp agate points upon which the ponderous balance of destiny turns.'' What if we now stand at a hinge of history? Will we awaken to the duty and responsibility of our time or will we sleepwalk through it? That is the test we face. I have laid out in these speeches the mounting effects of carbon pollution all around us, and the evidence abounds. This March, for the first time in human history, the monthly average carbon dioxide in our atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million. The range had been 170 to 300 parts per million for hundreds of thousands of years. Mr. President, 2014 was the hottest year ever measured. Fourteen of the warmest 15 years ever measured have been in this century. Our oceans warm as they absorb more than 90 percent of the heat captured by greenhouse gases. You measure their warming with a thermometer. As seawater warms, it expands and sea levels rise. Global average sea level rose about 1 inch from 2005 to 2013. You measure that with a yardstick. Ocean water absorbs roughly a quarter of all of our carbon emissions, making the water more acidic and upsetting the very chemistry of ocean life. You measure this, too, with a pH test like a third grade class would use for its fish tank. It is virtually universal in peer-reviewed science that carbon pollution is causing these climate and oceanic changes. Every major scientific society in our country has said so. Our brightest scientists at NOAA and NASA are unequivocal. But time and again we hear ``I am not a scientist'' from politicians who are refusing to acknowledge the evidence. We are not elected to be scientists; we are elected to listen to them. If you don't believe scientists, how about generals? Our defense and intelligence leaders have repeatedly warned of the threats posed by climate change to national security and international stability. How about faith leaders? Religious leaders of every faith appeal to our moral duty to conserve God's creation and to protect those most vulnerable to catastrophe. How about our titans of industry? Leaders such as Apple and Google, Coke and Pepsi, Walmart and Target, Nestle and Mars are all greening their operations and their supply chains and calling on policymakers to act. How about constituents? I have talked with community and business groups across the United States. Local officials--many of them Republicans--don't have the luxury of ignoring the changes we see. State scientific agencies and State universities are doing much of the leading research on climate change. If you are a Senator who is not sure climate change is real, manmade, and urgent, ask your home State university. Even in Kentucky. Even in Oklahoma. Flooding puts mayors in kayaks on South Florida streets. New Hampshire and Utah ski resorts struggle with shorter and warmer winters, and Alaskan villages are falling into the sea. Yet, no Republican from these States yet supports serious climate legislation. This resistance to plain evidence is vexing to many Americans. Elizabeth from Riverside, RI, says her grandchildren are her top reason for action. She wrote: I fail to understand the Republican opposition to what is clearly factual scientific information about climate change. Are they not educated? Can they not read? Do they not have children and grandchildren to be concerned about the future they leave? Or is it money that clouds their vision? The truth is that Republican cooperation in this area, which existed for some time, has been shut down by the fossil fuel industry. The polluters have constructed a carefully built apparatus of lies propped up by endless dark money. Dr. Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State University calls it the ``organized climate-denial machine.'' He found that nearly 90 percent of climate-denial books published between 1982 and 2010 had ties to conservative fossil fuel-funded think tanks such as the Heartland Institute. In other words, it is a scam. Dr. Robert Brulle of Drexel University has documented the intricate propaganda web of climate denial with over 100 organizations, from industry trade organizations, to conservative think tanks, to plain old phony front groups. The purpose of this denial beast, to quote Dr. Brulle, is ``a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public's understanding of climate.'' John from Tucson, AZ, says this is his top reason to act: These ``merchants of doubt,'' the professional climate denier campaigners, have lied to us and attacked the people who can help us most; the scientists. Sound familiar? It should because the fossil fuel industry is using a playbook perfected by the tobacco industry. Big Tobacco used that playbook for decades to bury the health risks of smoking. Ultimately, the truth came to light. It ended in a racketeering judgment against that industry. The Supreme Court has handed the polluters a very heavy cudgel with its misguided Citizens United decision, allowing corporations to spend--or, more importantly, to threaten to spend--unlimited amounts of undisclosed money in our elections. More than anyone, polluters use that leverage to demand obedience to their climate denial script. Jan from Portland, OR, said this kind of corruption is her top reason to act on climate. She said: It would be beneath our dignity to ruin our planet just for money. Jan, I hope you are right. There has been progress. The Senate has held votes showing that a majority believes climate change is real, not a hoax, and is driven by human activity. Republican colleagues such as the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the senior Senator from Georgia, and the senior Senator from South Carolina have made comments here recognizing the need to do something. The senior Senator from Maine has a bill on non- CO2 emissions against the relentless pressure of the fossil fuel industry and its front groups. That takes real courage. The President's Climate Action Plan is ending the polluters' long free ride. The administration has rolled out strong fuel and energy efficiency standards. Its Clean Power Plan will, for the first time, limit carbon emissions from powerplants. The United States heads an ambitious international climate effort as well, even engaging China, now the world's largest producer of carbon pollution. Perhaps most heartening are the American people. Eighty-three percent of Americans, including 6 in 10 Republicans, want action to reduce carbon emissions. And with young Republican voters, more than half would describe a climate-denying politician as ``ignorant,'' ``out of touch'' or ``crazy.'' With all this, I think the prospects for comprehensive climate change legislation are actually pretty good. But as Albert Einstein once said, ``politics is more difficult than physics.'' That seems literally to be the case here as Citizens United political gridlock keeps us, for now, from heeding laws of nature. But when the polluters' grip slips, I will be ready with legislation that many Republicans can support: a fee on carbon emissions. Pricing carbon corrects the market failure that lets polluters push the cost of air pollution on to everybody else. A carbon fee is a market-based tool aligned with conservative free-market values. Many Republicans, at least those beyond the swing of the Citizens United fossil fuel cudgel, have endorsed exactly that idea. Let's have a real debate about it. It is time. I will be announcing my carbon fee proposal on June 10, during an event at the American Enterprise Institute. Climate change tests us. First, it is an environmental test--a grave one. We will be graded in that test against the implacable laws of science and nature. Pope Francis has described a conversation with a humble gardener who said to him: God always forgives. Men, women, we forgive sometimes. But, Father, creation never forgives. There are no do-overs, no mulligans--not when we mess with God's laws of nature. Behind nature's test looms a moral test. Do we let the influence of a few wealthy industries compromise other people's livelihoods, even other people's lives, all around the planet and off into the future? It is morally wrong, in greed and folly, to foist that price on all those others. That is why Pope Francis is bringing his moral light to bear on climate change, and to quote him: ``There is a clear, definitive and ineluctable ethical imperative to act.'' Our human morality is being tested. Lastly, this is a test of American democracy. All democracies face the problem of how well they address not just the immediate threat but the looming ones. America's democracy faces an added responsibility of example, of being the city on a hill. In a world of competing ideologies, why would we want to tarnish ours? This is the top reason for Ralph from Westerly, RI. He wrote: Someday, world leaders will look back on this time that something should have been done to save the planet. . . . We had the chance but let it slip through our fingers. We have all done something wrong in our lives. Some things we do that are wrong don't cause much harm. But there is not an oddsmaker in Vegas who would bet against climate change causing a lot of harm. And some things that we do wrong we get away with. But there is no way people in the world won't know why this happened when that harm hits home. There is no way the flag we fly so proudly won't be smudged and blotted by our misdeeds and oversights today. Think how history regards Neville Chamberlain when he misjudged the hinge of history in its time. At least Chamberlain's goal was noble: peace, peace after the bloody massacres of World War I, peace in his time. Our excuse is what--on climate change? Keeping big polluting special interests happy? Anybody who is paying attention knows those special interests are lying. Anybody paying attention knows they are influence-peddling on a monumental scale. And while the polluters have done their best to hide that their denial tentacles are all part of the same denial beast, people all over who are paying attention have figured it out. One day, there will be a reckoning. There always is. If we wake up, if we get this right, if we turn that ponderous balance of destiny in our time, then it can be their reckoning, and not all of ours. It can be their shame, not the shame of our democracy, not the shame of our beloved country, not the shame of America. As we close in on this weekend, on Memorial Day, we will remember those who fought and bled and died for this great Republic. The real prospect of failing and putting America to shame makes it seriously time for us to wake up. Mr. President, once again, I thank my colleagues for their courtesy in attending this 100th speech. I yield the floor. (Applause, Senators rising.)

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here today for the 99th time to remind us that we are sleepwalking our way to a climate catastrophe, and that it is time to wake up. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States, recently announced an ominous milestone. This March, for the first time in human history, the monthly average of CO2 in our atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million. This chart shows the global concentration of carbon dioxide over the last few years as measured by NOAA. The level varies with the seasons. The Earth sort of inhales and exhales carbon dioxide as the seasons pass. But overall, we can see the steady prominent upward march of CO2 levels, rising right here to above 400 parts per million for the month of March 2015. Scientists at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii first measured an atmospheric concentration of CO2 above 400 parts per million in 2013--for the very first time. It reached up and it touched 400 parts per million for the first time and then receded again. Now, 2 years later, as we continue dumping carbon pollution into the atmosphere, the average weekly air sample from NOAA's entire global network of sampling stations measured an average--a month-long average--of 400 parts per million for the entire month of March. That is a daunting marker. Global carbon concentrations haven't been this high for at least 800,000 years, much longer--much longer--than humankind has walked the Earth. Every year, that concentration increases. The fact that increasing levels of carbon in the atmosphere warm the planet has been established science for 150 years. Science on this was being published in scientific journals when Abraham Lincoln in his top hat was walking around Washington. We have pumped more and more carbon pollution into the atmosphere, and we have measured corresponding changes in global temperatures. Now, there is some mischief afoot, people who cherry-pick the data to create false impressions--to create false doubt. Well, the honest thing to do is to look at all of the data. When we look at all of the data, we see long-term warming. We see warming so obvious that scientists call the evidence unequivocal--unequivocal. That is about as strong a science word as we can have. Evidence of the changing climate, the consequences of unchecked carbon pollution, abounds: more extreme weather, rising sea levels, and warming and acidifying oceans--all as predicted. These changes are already starting to hurt people, through more severe heat waves, parched fields, flooded towns and homes, altered ecosystems, and threatened fisheries. We have certainly seen the fisheries change at home in my State of Rhode Island. We are already starting to pay the price of our continued and reckless burning of fossil fuels. Dr. James Butler, the Director of NOAA's Global Monitoring Division, says: Elimination of about 80 percent of fossil fuel emissions would essentially stop the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but concentrations of carbon dioxide would not start decreasing until even further reductions are made. We need to cut our use of fossil fuels, we need to cut energy waste, and we need to generate more of our energy from clean and renewable sources. We need to do it, and we can do it. We have the technologies and the policies available right now. We can choose to level the playing field for clean energy, to make polluters pay for the climate costs of their pollution, and to move forward to a low-carbon economy-- the one with the green jobs, with the American innovation, with the safer climate. But we are not going to get there with business as usual. That brings me to the fast-track trade bill, which, I am glad to say, failed its procedural vote in the Senate this week--a bill that would make it easier for the administration to commit the United States to new sweeping trade agreements. The first agreement waiting to get through is the Trans-Pacific Partnership--some call it the TPP--which is being sold as ``a trade deal for the 21st century.'' But when it comes to climate change, the fast-track bill and the Pacific trade bill aren't 21st century solutions. They are business as usual. Past trade deals have not been kind to workers in Rhode Island. I have been to Rhode Island factories and seen the holes in the floor where machinery had been unbolted and shipped to other countries for foreign workers to perform the same job for the same customers on the same machines. That is what we saw from trade bills. The trade advocates always say it is going to be wonderful, but then what do we see? Jobs offshored again and a huge trade deficit. Past U.S. trade deals have required participating countries to join some multilateral environmental agreements, including agreements to protect endangered species, whales, and tuna; to help keep the oceans free of pollution; and to protect the ozone layer by reducing the use of HFCs and other ozone-depleting gases. But I haven't seen much enforcement, and everywhere we look things are getting worse. I am not impressed. When it comes to climate change, the fast-track bill is silent. There is no mention of, let alone protection for, commitments the United States and other countries might make to cut carbon pollution. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the main international agreement for dealing with climate change. The Senate ratified this treaty in 1992, and since then, under various administrations, the United States has taken a leading role under the framework to reach global accord and, particularly, to work to reach a global accord in Paris later this winter. The Paris accord is perhaps our last best hope to put the world on a path that avoids severe climate disruption, even climate catastrophe. That fast-track bill and the Pacific trade bill ought to enable and support our trade partners to live up to their climate agreement. Those bills ought to protect countries that act to address climate change. In particular, they ought to protect them from the threat of trade sanctions or from corporate challenges seeking to undermine sovereign countries' climate laws. These 21st century agreements on trade ought to match our 21st century commitments on climate, but they don't. Fast-track is silent on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and on climate change more broadly. Fast-track provides no protection for our own or any other country's climate commitments. And we have heard nothing to suggest the Pacific trade bill will be any better. What we do know about the Pacific trade bill is not encouraging. The Pacific trade bill, in its agreement under negotiation as we see it now, includes the horrible investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, called ISDS, a mechanism that allows big multinational corporations and their investors to challenge a country's domestic rules and regulations--outside of that country's judicial process, outside of any traditional judicial process, outside of appeal, outside of traditional judicial baseline principles such as precedent. Increasingly, these ISDS challenges are being turned against countries' environmental and public health standards. Fossil fuel companies such as Chevron and ExxonMobil have brought hundreds of disputes against almost 100 governments when those governments' policies threaten corporate profits. In fact, more than 85 percent of the more than $3 billion awarded to corporations and investors in disputes have come from challenges against natural resource, energy, and environmental policies. Last week, on the floor I compared the Big Tobacco playbook--that is the one that was found by a Federal court to be a civil racketeering enterprise--to the fossil fuel industry's scheme to undermine climate action in the United States. The comparisons are self-evident. Well, the tobacco industry is in on the trade challenge game as well, challenging countries' antismoking measures under the guise of protecting free trade. If a country wants new health or environmental rules, big multinationals can use this ISDS process to thwart them. They don't necessarily even have to bring the challenge. Just threatening to seek extrajudicial judgments in the millions or even billions of dollars from panels stacked with corporate lawyers can be enough to make countries stop protecting the health of their citizens. We have seen the polluters use these tools already. This is not conjecture. It is what is happening. Why open U.S. climate regulations to this risk? Why put our commitment to climate action at the mercy of these sketchy panels? What will keep the fossil fuel industry from threatening smaller countries in Paris to discourage them from climate accords? Where are the safeguards? Why should we accept trade deals that do not keep safe from that kind of threat a country's legitimate efforts to control carbon pollution? Why give the polluters this club? It is not news to Congress that the fossil fuel industry does not play fair; it plays rough. We see that every day. The fossil fuel industry has used Citizens United to beat and cajole the Republican Party in Congress into becoming the political arm of the fossil fuel industry. The party that brought us Theodore Roosevelt, the party that brought us the Environmental Protection Agency, the party of my predecessor, John Chafee, who is still revered across Rhode Island as an environmentalist, has now become the political arm of the fossil fuel industry. It is not its high point in history. It is a party that lines up behind climate denial. If the fossil fuel industry is willing to impose its will that way on the Congress, why would we trust them with this ISDS mechanism to threaten and bully governments around the rest of the world? A 21st-century trade deal ought to acknowledge the 21st-century reality of climate change. We have right now the technology and the ingenuity to address this problem and to boost our economy into the future. For the first time in years, we have international momentum to address this threat. But it does not make sense to act on climate change in Paris and undermine climate action in our trade deals. We need to wake up to that little problem, too. 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 am here for the 98th time to urge this body to stop sleepwalking through history. Climate change is real, it is already harming the United States, and it is time for the Senate to wake up and address this threat. The science that links carbon pollution to global warming is nothing new. It dates back to President Lincoln. In the century and a half since, we have measured changes in the climate that scientists virtually unanimously say are caused by our burning of fossil fuels. Atmospheric carbon is now measured at 400 parts per million--higher than ever in our species' history. Our oceans are warming and acidifying. Those are measurements again. We are experiencing the warmest years ever recorded. More measurements. And rising seas are lapping at our shores. In Rhode Island, we measure nearly 10 inches of sea level rise since the 1930s. These are all measurements, not projections. These are facts, not theories. If we do not act soon to cut carbon pollution, we can reasonably expect the consequences to be dire. Yet, the fossil fuel industry continues its crafty, cynical campaign of denial and delay. Big Coal, Oil and Natural Gas, and related industries, such as the Koch brothers' companies, profit by offloading the costs of their carbon pollution onto the rest of us. They traffic in products that put health and safety at risk, and they don't tell the truth about their products. Sound familiar? Well, it should because the fossil fuel industry is using a familiar playbook, one perfected by the tobacco industry. Following this same playbook, Big Tobacco fought for more than four decades to bury the truth about the health effects of its product. Well, the government has a playbook, too. It is called RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The elements of a civil racketeering case are simple. The government must allege four things: The defendants No. 1 conducted No. 2 an enterprise No. 3 through a pattern No. 4 of racketeering activity. Conducting means everything from directing to aiding and abetting the activity. An enterprise can be any form of association or a common scheme. Pattern means continuity of the scheme and--for civil RICO particularly--the prospect of ongoing conduct. Racketeering activity simply means a violation of designated Federal laws, including the Federal mail fraud and wire fraud statutes. In 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil RICO lawsuit against the major tobacco companies and their associated industry groups. The government's complaint was clear: The tobacco companies ``have engaged in and executed--and continue to engage in and execute-- a massive 50-year scheme to defraud the public, including consumers of cigarettes, in violation of RICO.'' Big Tobacco spent millions of dollars and years of litigation fighting the government, but finally, through discovery, government lawyers were able to peel back the layers of deceit and see what the big tobacco companies really knew all along about cigarettes. In 2006, Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia decided the case. In a nearly 1,700-page opinion, she found the tobacco companies' fraudulent campaign amounted to a racketeering enterprise. According to the court: Defendants coordinated significant aspects of their public relations, scientific, legal, and marketing activity in furtherance of the shared objective--to . . . maximize industry profits by preserving and expanding the market for cigarettes through a scheme to deceive the public. The parallels between what the tobacco industry did and what the fossil fuel industry is doing now are striking. In fact, we can go back and reread those judicial findings about tobacco, substitute the words ``fossil fuel,'' and exactly describe what the fossil fuel industry is up to. That is without the benefit of discovery, where litigants get to demand the production of documents and take the depositions of potential witnesses and require answers under oath. What a treasure trove that would produce. We know that the prospect of action on climate change is a business risk for fossil fuel companies. Serious action on climate--a transition to clean, low-carbon energy--threatens to cut into polluters' market and profits. The match between the fossil fuel industry and Big Tobacco is pretty good in terms of the business risk presented if the public were to be really aware of the harm. They have a motive to deceive. We know that in the case of both tobacco and fossil fuels, the industry joined together in a common enterprise and coordinated strategy. Remember the finding in the tobacco case that defendants coordinated significant aspects of their public relations, scientific, legal and marketing activity in furtherance of the shared objective. How about the fossil fuel industry? In 1998, as the Clinton administration was building support for international climate action under the Kyoto Protocol, another group was up to something else. That group was the fossil fuel industry, its trade associations, and the conservative policy institutes that often do the industry's dirty work with clean faces. They met at the Washington office of the American Petroleum Institute. Their plan? To organize a scheme to create doubt about climate change and to undermine public support for American participation in the Kyoto agreement. A memo from that meeting was leaked to the New York Times. The memo documented the polluters' plans for a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign to undermine climate science. What was the project's goal? To ensure that--and I will quote the memo here--``a majority of the American Public, including industry leadership, recognizes that significant uncertainties exist in climate science, and therefore raises questions among those (e.g. Congress) who chart the future U.S. course on global climate change.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the memo printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. If anything, the fossil fuel industry's climate denial scheme has grown even bigger and more complex than Big Tobacco's. The shape of the fossil fuel industry's denial operation has been documented by, among others, Drexel University Professor Robert Brulle. Brulle's follow-the- money analysis shows how the fossil fuel industry perpetuates climate denial through a complex network of organizations and funding that is designed to obscure the fossil fuel industry's fingerprints. It is quite a beast. This is the climate denial beast. Polluter money and dark money are its lifeblood. PR front groups are its organs, and lies and obfuscation are its work. Look at the complex interconnection of the beast's major players. The green diamonds are the big funders--the Koch-affiliated foundations, the Scaife-affiliated Foundations, the American Petroleum Institute. The blue circles are the who's who of tea party, libertarian, and front groups who have wittingly or not become the flacks for the fossil fuel industry--the Heartland Institute, the Hoover Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the Mercatus Center, to name just a few. Think how much trouble someone must have gone to to set all this in play. Think how important the purpose would have to be to them to take all that trouble. What was the purpose of this network? To quote directly from Dr. Brulle's report, it was ``a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public's understanding of climate.'' That sounds a lot like the judge's findings in the tobacco racketeering case: ``Defendants have intentionally maintained and coordinated their fraudulent position on addiction and nicotine as an important part of their overall efforts to influence public opinion and persuade people that smoking is not dangerous.'' The coordinated tactics of this network, Dr. Brulle's report states, ``span a wide range of activities, including political lobbying, contributions to political candidates, and a large number of communication and media efforts that aim at undermining climate science.'' Compare that to the findings in the tobacco case: ``Defendants coordinated significant aspects of their public relations, scientific, legal, and marketing activity in furtherance of the shared objective.'' So that is the beast, and big money flows through it. Brulle's report chronicles that from 2003 to 2010, 140 foundations made 5,299 grants totaling $558 million to 91 organizations that actively oppose climate action. For decades, the tobacco industry did the same thing. In the tobacco case, Judge Kessler found that the ``defendants took steps to fund research designed and controlled to generate industry favorable results, and to suppress adverse research results.'' Look at the recent affair with Dr. Willie Soon, a scientist who consistently publishes papers downplaying the role of carbon dioxide emissions in causing climate change. Through the Freedom of Information Act, we know that Dr. Soon has received more than half of his funding from oil and electric utility coal interests. His fossil fuel backers include the American Petroleum Institute, ExxonMobil, the Charles G. Koch Foundation, and the Southern Company. Most recently, he has been getting his funding through Donors Trust, the dark money identity- laundering operation that anonymizes corporate and polluter money. By the way, the biggest mark in the whole beast is right there, and that is Donors Trust. The manipulation of science is pretty egregious. Some of Dr. Soon's research contracts gave his industry backers a chance to see what he was doing before he published it. Some of these contracts even had clauses that promised Dr. Soon's fossil fuel backers would receive ``an advance written copy of proposed publications...for comment and input.'' The New York Times reported that in correspondence with his fossil fuel funders, Dr. Soon referred to the scientific papers he produced as ``deliverables.'' Deliverable, indeed. The fossil fuel industry has had to work against mounting evidence to cover up the risks for as long as possible; The same with Big Tobacco. Again, to quote Judge Kessler's decision in the tobacco case, ``Despite overwhelming evidence from a wide range of disciplines including statistics and epidemiology, pathology and chemistry, clinical observation and animal experimentation, as well as their own internal research, Defendants continued to claim `no proof' and continued to attempt to create doubt about the scientific findings.'' The Federal racketeering complaint opened up discovery into the files of the tobacco companies and showed finally and unequivocally that for decades the tobacco industry knew about smoking's harm while it continued public relations campaigns to deny that smoking was harmful. Discovery is a powerful tool. Sanctions for hiding evidence from a court are steep. So time and again, it is discovery that finds the real smoking guns in corporate records. Remember when New York's attorney general discovered internal emails from analysts at Merrill Lynch that showed the company promoting stocks to its customers that they internally described as ``junk''? The fossil fuel industry is engaged in a massive effort to deny climate science and deceive the American public. They have been at it for years, and the clearer the science becomes, the harder the polluters fight. Gary Wills used to work for William F. Buckley at the National Review and recently described this effort as ``their kept scientists, their rigged conferences, their sycophantic beneficiaries [and] and their bought publicists.'' Imagine what a little discovery into the beast would reveal about the schemes and mischief of the climate denial apparatus, about what they are telling each other in private while they scheme to deceive the public. The truth will eventually come to light. It always does. But here in the Senate, we should not wait for a court case before taking action. The evidence is clear. We have a legislative responsibility to address climate change and to do that now. The facts are clear as day right before our eyes, despite the fossil fuel industry's efforts to deceive and deny, despite their persistent big political spending and bullying. We just have to wake up to the facts and to our duty. I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Mr. President. I rise today to speak in opposition to the Republican so-called budget. I call it a ``so-called budget'' because I do not believe even Republicans would actually pass appropriations consistent with it. It looks to me like it is just a show to keep extremists on the right happy. My guess is that practical Republicans cannot wait for President Obama to bail them out by negotiating appropriations higher. Recently, we have seen impressive examples of committee bipartisanship. In Foreign Relations, Senator Corker brought a unanimously bipartisan Iran resolution out of the poisonous turmoil surrounding that issue. In the HELP Committee, Senator Alexander brought a unanimously bipartisan education bill out of committee on an issue that has long been contested. Even the intensely divided Environment and Public Works Committee brought out a chemical regulation bill with a strong bipartisan majority. But Budget? No chance. Instead of working with Democrats on a real budget, Republicans produced a partisan ideological showcase. They cut programs for seniors, for low-income families, and for other vulnerable citizens and protected the wealthiest Americans from contributing even one dime in deficit reduction. As we have seen in the past, Republicans care about deficit reduction only when it involves cutting programs for people who need help. But can they find a single tax loophole to cut? Not one. This budget follows the Ryan budget off the cliff of shielding every single subsidy and giveaway in the Tax Code. No special interest tax loophole is too grotesque for them. Big Oil tax subsidies, special low rates for hedge fund managers, private jet depreciation, for goodness' sake--tax giveaways that amount to nothing more than taxpayer subsidies for the wealthy and well connected--this budget loves and protects them all. Not only do the Republicans protect every tax loophole, they propose eliminating the estate tax--a tax that only affects families worth over $10 million--the top 0.2 percent. You may have heard a lot about the 1 percent. Well, this budget does even better than that. It confers a great, wonderful, fat favor on the top 0.2 percent and, at the same time, the budget will allow the taxes to increase on 13 million lower- and middle-income households--households with 25 million children. That is a $300 billion tax giveaway to that 0.2 percent--to basically 5,000- some of the wealthiest families in America. And that big gift to those 5,000-and-some wealthiest families is paired with a tax hike for millions of families who are just getting by. And, of course, it is lower-income and middle-class families who would suffer the most from the Republican spending cuts. Medicaid, food stamps, Pell grants, and job training all get axed. They hand Medicare over to private sector vouchers and kick 16 million Americans off of health insurance plans they obtained through the Affordable Care Act. Today, across this Capitol, breast cancer advocates are asking for our support for investment to help cure that deadly disease. This budget cuts research for breast cancer and other deadly diseases. It slashes funding for nursing homes, including those that care for seniors with Alzheimer's. It even supports a 20-percent across-the- board benefit cut for disabled Americans--a 20-percent benefit cut for disabled Americans--by doubling down on the senseless House rule that can be used to create an artificial crisis and prevent a routine Social Security fix. As for the investments that keep our Nation competitive in an increasingly global economy, all are attacked. From scientific research to education to infrastructure, the Republicans offer a radical plan of cuts. In a nutshell, their behavior proves that the deficit is just a pretext for them to cut programs that Republicans have always opposed-- programs that create jobs, support the middle class, and offer lifelines to the most vulnerable Americans. Even transportation infrastructure--our roads and bridges--gets whacked. Much of our highway system dates back to the 1950s, and roads and bridges across the country are in dire need of repair and replacement. This budget fails to provide any new funding for infrastructure. It does not even ensure that current funding levels will be maintained. This matters because the current funding authorization for highway and transit projects expires at the end of the month. That will imperil construction projects and jobs just as we enter the busy summer highway construction season. There is no plan to deal with that that Republicans have announced--no bill in any committee. In the budget, Republicans had an opportunity for a big win-win. They could have upgraded America's roads and bridges and supported millions of jobs. Ranking Member Sanders even offered an amendment that would have paid for infrastructure investments by closing some of these corporate tax loopholes. All Republicans had to do was vote yes. But corporate tax loopholes were too important, and roads and bridges did not matter. They chose to protect their cherished tax giveaways for special interests. Today the clock still ticks toward a looming highway jobs shutdown. This will hurt a lot of States. It will particularly hurt my home State of Rhode Island. We are a historic and densely populated State. We have aging and heavily used infrastructure. Lots of our roads and bridges are in poor condition. One study found that the average motorist in Rhode Island pays an extra $637 per year for car repairs and operating costs because of potholes and bumps and other bad road conditions. It is not just Rhode Island. This is true also across the country. Nationwide, poor road conditions are estimated to cost our country more than $100 billion a year--over $500 per motorist. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives America's bridges a grade of only C-plus. It gives our roads a D. Where is the plan to address this? Where is the plan to help the working Americans who have to spend $500 or $637 a year because we do not take care of our roads and highways? There is none. Well, I understand that the Republicans in the Senate have been in the minority for a long time and old habits die hard. But the responsibility of a majority is to be responsible. Republicans passed up the opportunity to be responsible in their budget with highway funding. This should not be that difficult. They could start by looking at the bipartisan 6-year highway bill approved last year in the Environment and Public Works Committee. My recollection is that it was approved unanimously. That bill would have provided the certainty that our State departments of transportation need to plan for the big multiyear, job-creating projects that our years of deferred maintenance have brought due. The extremist Republican budget under the Senate rules does not need Democratic support, and it appears that the Republicans do not even want Democratic support. Under the Senate rules, this budget will pass this Chamber. The good news about that is that the budget is merely political theater. The penalty for violating this budget is a 60-vote point of order. Nowadays it takes 60 votes to pass an appropriations bill. So in effect the penalty is a nullity. So there is really nothing to violating the budget. The real budget will be sent to us through the Appropriations Committee, and the real numbers will be negotiated upwards, and the Republicans will be relieved of the human responsibility for what would happen if this budget were actually to guide our appropriations. That is the good news. The bad news is that it is a missed opportunity to try to work in any kind of a bipartisan fashion. It is a missed opportunity to address issues that Americans agree on, such as maintaining our bridges and highways. I hope very much that my friends on the other side of the aisle will begin to work with Democrats on addressing, with some semblance of bipartisanship, our constituents' needs in that regard. With funding set to expire in just a few weeks, and with no Republican plan on the horizon to address it, we should at least begin with a bipartisan conversation about a long-term highway bill. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Chris Stavish, an education fellow, and Karen Armitage, a health policy fellow, both in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, the evidence of climate disruption caused by carbon pollution is clear and overwhelming. Yet the Senate is sleepwalking through this history. I am here today for the 97th time to say that we must wake up. Climate disruptions are felt in every corner of the globe, from the ocean floor to the reaches of the atmosphere and from pole to pole. Indeed, the United States is an Arctic Nation. We have been so since Secretary of State Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1878 for about $7 million. From our vantage point at the Arctic Circle, we are witnessing some of the direst climate disruptions. The Arctic region has been warming now for decades, twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Alaska's warmest year on record was 2014, going back to at least 1918. Here I am talking about measurements, not a theory. This year the Alaskan winter was so mild that the start of the famous Iditarod race had to be moved from Anchorage to Fairbanks, more than 300 miles to the north, so that the mushers could find snow and hard, frozen rivers to sled on. The Arctic Biodiversity Assessment, a project drawing on more than 250 scientists from 15 countries, detailed the risk to the iconic wildlife and landscape of the Arctic. The report's chief scientist said: Polar bears and other highly adapted organisms cannot move further north, so they may go extinct. We risk losing several species forever. The report is clear. Climate change is the most serious threat to Arctic biodiversity and to its fisheries and tourism. Arctic warming has wreaked havoc on the ice cover of the Arctic terrain and ocean. Look at the Greenland ice sheet. In 2012, the National Snow and Ice Data Center recorded melting over a larger area than ever in more than 30 years of satellite observation. Here is a map of the average annual days of melting across the Greenland ice sheet from 1979 to 2007. That is the average. Here is 2012. Some areas, such as along here, the southwestern coast, saw more than 120 days of melting in 2012. Scientists estimate that the water pouring out of this ice sheet accounts for 30 percent of current global sea level rise. If the entire Greenland ice sheet were to melt, the seas would rise 6 meters. Here is what 20 feet of sea level rise would look like for the east coast. Much of Rhode Island's coastline here would be lost. Florida, ground zero for climate change, would lose the entire southern region of the State. Here is Miami, completely underwater. Here is Tallahassee's new oceanfront. Sea ice in the Arctic, not just land ice, is also in full retreat. Our scientists at NASA track disappearing sea ice using satellites. Since NASA started measurements in 1979, Arctic ice coverage has diminished in almost all regions and seasons. The winter record low ever--ever--was this March. The ice is not just a feature of the Arctic landscape. It supports the way of life of Native people. Thinning ice, dangerous to traverse, threatens traditional sustenance such as quail hunting. Sea ice protects the shoreline from powerful ocean storms and waves. As that ice barrier fades away, land and infrastructure flood and wash away. Entire villages are facing wholesale relocation, as Senator Murkowski from Alaska has indicated on the floor. It is the climate that has sustained them for generations that is being disrupted. A new national security theater has opened in the Arctic as melting ice frees up the Northwest Passage for transportation and shipping, for new fishing grounds, and for its natural resources. The Departments of Homeland Security and Defense need new strategies and equipment to protect American interests in this new theater. In 2013, the Pentagon released its ``Arctic Strategy.'' Then Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, the former Republican Senator, said: Climate change is shifting the landscape in the Arctic more rapidly than anywhere else in the world. While the Arctic temperature rise is relatively small in absolute terms, its effects are significant--transforming what was a frozen desert into an evolving navigable ocean, giving rise to an unprecedented level of human activity. His words are echoed by former Coast Guard Commandant ADM Robert Papp, Jr., who is now the U.S. Special Representative to the Arctic Region. It is his job to help manage risk in this remote but increasingly accessible region of the world. He had this to say about the disruptions of the Arctic climate: I am not a scientist. I can read what scientists say, but I am in the world of consequence management. My first turn in Alaska was thirty-nine years ago, and during the summertime we had to break ice to get up to the Bering Strait and to get to Kotzebue. Thirty-five years later, going up there as commandant, we flew into Kotzebue at the same time of year; I could not see ice anywhere. So it is clear to me there are changes happening, but I have to deal with the consequences of that. Last weekend, Secretary Kerry headed to the Canadian city of Iqaluit to assume the chair of the Arctic Council on behalf of the United States. The Arctic Council is the international forum for Arctic nations to work together to ensure a secure and sustainable Arctic future. Secretary Kerry made it clear that climate disruption would be a focus for America's chairmanship, saying plainly: The ability of future generations to be able to adapt, live, and prosper in the Arctic the way people have for thousands of years is tragically but actually in jeopardy. . . . So if we want to know where the problem begins, all we have to do is look in the mirror. Secretary Kerry sees this problem for what it is and knows we need to lead in addressing climate change. Congress, too, should seize the opportunity to do big things, to understand the changes that are occurring, and to protect against these climate disruptions. Our executive homeland and national security leaders must deal in real world consequences. So should we. They do not have the privilege of shrugging off serious risk analysis; neither should we. But the big polluters and their front organizations ignore the consequences of carbon pollution, cherry pick the evidence, and traffic in denial, doubt, and delay. Deniers are quick to point out that Antarctic sea ice is increasing while Arctic sea ice is melting. But the fact is that, overall, the globe is losing sea ice at a rapid peace. Since satellite measurements began, the planet has been losing sea ice at an average rate of 13,500 square miles per year. The deniers usually also leave out the melting of the great ice sheets of Antarctica. Remember, see ice floats on the sea and its melting does not much raise the sea level. Ice sheets rest on land. Their melting adds to the seas. Scientists now warn that the melting of some of those massive Antarctic ice sheets may have ``passed the point of no return.'' Rhode Island has already experienced nearly 10 inches of sea level rise. The implications of an Arctic ice sheet melting are measured in feet, not inches. Many thought that the Alaska Purchase was a mistake. Some called it ``Seward's folly.'' But Secretary Seward had vision when he secured Alaska for the United States, and now it is a treasured part of this great Nation. We in Congress, in the Senate, should try to see through the haze of polluter influence and muster some vision ourselves on what scientists and world leaders alike call the greatest challenge of our time. The United States should be leading--not stalled by special-interest politics. Secretary Kerry knows we should lead. He has made fighting carbon pollution a priority for the State Department in the lead-up to the global climate talks in Paris this fall. More than 100 Democratic Members of Congress sent a letter last month to the President, supporting U.S. leadership in these talks. We told the President: ``We stand ready to help you seize this opportunity to strengthen the global response to climate change.'' But what do our Republican colleagues try to do? They try to undermine American leadership. The majority leader openly warned other countries that the United States would not be able to meet its climate plan and that they should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal. It is past time to take action. The price of being wrong on this will be very high, particularly if the reason turns out, in the eyes of history and of our fellow nations, to have been partisan politics and special-interest influence. One of America's great powers is the power of our example. What a sickening example we are setting now. Our inaction is our folly. It is, indeed, time to wake up. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Greg Pollock, who is serving as a legislative fellow for national security issues this year for Senator Reid, be granted floor privileges for the duration of 2015.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, as Americans celebrate the 35th Earth Day this week, I rise for the 96th time--I seem to be coinciding with the Presiding Officer's schedule so he has been treated to his share of these speeches--to urge this body to wake up to the threat of climate change. It is real, not a hoax. It is caused by carbon pollution, and it is already making changes that we are already seeing in the world around us. We must cut our carbon pollution to prevent even bigger climate changes--changes in our atmosphere, oceans, and human habitat-- potentially unprecedented in the history of our human habitation of this planet. Yet the polluters who are producing this problem would have us do nothing. They make money when we do nothing. So we do nothing. The polluters run a racket. They all float onto us the costs and damage from their fossil fuel product--the costs of heat waves, of sea level rise, of ocean acidification, of dying forests, and more. The polluters happily dump those costs onto everybody else. And to keep this profitable racket running, the polluters spend huge sums on lobbying and politics, particularly right here in the Congress. As one author has written, ``rivers of money flowing from secret sources have turned our elections into silent auctions.'' And the polluters get what they pay for. The Republican Party in Congress has become the political arm of the fossil fuel industry. The polluters also spend huge amounts on a big, complex PR machine to churn out doubt about the real science and cook up some paid-for science. Documents recently discovered by Greenpeace show that one scientist, whose work consistently downplayed the role of carbon pollution and climate change, received--get this--more than $1.2 million from oil and coal interests over the last decade. Those nice people at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation gave him at least $230,000. In recent years, his grants came through Donors Trust, the front group that funnels money from oil, coal, and other special interests. Well, what do we know? We know that financial incentives affect people's behavior. Does anyone doubt that? That is life. That is why politicians have to disclose their political contributors, the gifts and benefits they receive, and even personal financial information. That is why regulatory agencies and scientific journals require scientific submissions to make plain who funded the work. That is why expert witnesses' funding sources are relevant in court proceedings. And that is why Upton Sinclair once said: ``It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'' So we know that money talks. That is not news. What else do we know? Well, we also know about that industry playbook to keep safety regulation at bay by funding phony science and manufacturing doubt about legitimate science. That is not news, either. That has been around for years. The tobacco industry campaign to mislead the public about the health effects of cigarettes was so fraudulent it was determined in Federal court to be a racketeering enterprise. Think about that--an industry campaign of deception about the risks of their product that persisted for years and was ultimately determined in Federal court to have constituted a racketeering enterprise. Does it sound familiar? And tobacco is not alone. The lead paint industry shut down its trade association, the Lead Industry Association, rather than answer questions under oath in a court proceeding. Entire books have been written documenting this industry's strategy, for example, ``Merchants of Doubt,'' which has recently been made into a documentary, or ``Doubt is Their Product,'' or ``Lead Wars,'' or ``Deceit and Denial.'' So we know the strategy. Finally, we know something else. We know that a network of front organizations with innocent-sounding names has emerged to propagate the baloney science. This phenomenon has been well documented by Dr. Robert Brulle at Drexell University, among others. His follow-the-money analysis diagrams the complex flow of cash to these front groups that industry persistently tries to obscure. Well, here is what makes sense to me: If it is important enough for them to want to hide it, it is important enough for us to want to know about it. So Senators Boxer, Markey, and I sent a letter to about 100 companies, trade groups, and other organizations affiliated with the fossil fuel industry. We asked whether they spent money to support climate research. It sounds reasonable, based on those three things that we know. Well, oh, my, what a fit of caterwauling that drew from the rightwing PR machine. Today, I will give a recap of the outrage highlights. It is a ``witch hunt,'' said the far-right Heartland Institute, ``what fascists do.'' We are ``ethically challenged . . . mental midgets,'' said Heartland's president. He later called this little letter ``harassment . . . abuse of authority and misrepresentation of the facts.'' Heartland, by the way, is that classy group that put up a billboard comparing climate scientists to the Unabomber, just to give an idea of their credibility. Finally, ``[S]hame on you,'' read Heartland's response to our letter, which Heartland called a ``campaign to stigmatize and demonize.'' The rightwing John Locke Foundation said our letter was ``trying to McCarthyite'' them. Rightwinger Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation said it was ``an abuse of power.'' Investor's Business Daily got so excited they mixed up their metaphors to say we were both ``inquisitors'' and ``stalk[ers],'' out to ``intimidate'' and ``threatening peaceful citizens.'' They scoffed, ``as if it were any of [our] business'' to know if polluters are funding the science. Keeping that Spanish Inquisition theme going, the Washington Times called us ``climate change Torquemadas.'' So it looks as if we hit the full faux-outrage quadrifecta--witch hunts, fascism, McCarthyism, and even the Spanish Inquisition. But then they got really serious, and they unlimbered the ultimate rightwing malediction. We were accused by the Cato Institute of--cover your ears, young pages--having ``a widespread faith . . . in government's ability to solve problems.'' Well, Cato made its position on climate change clear, saying that for us ``to believe that man's emissions of carbon dioxide are warming the planet'' was a ``bias'' and that the legitimate science endorsed by everyone from NASA to the Department of Defense to every legitimate scientific society--every major legitimate scientific society in the country--all of that was ``propaganda,'' and that we, of course, were climate alarmists. Cato also sent us a letter in response to our inquiry, telling us we cannot ``use the awesome power of the federal government to cow'' Cato and others. Cow? According to the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which sadly has become a front for the fossil fuel industry, we were ``trying to silence'' the other side. Although, I have to confess, it is not clear how the other side would be silenced by simply having to reveal whose payroll they are on, which is all we asked. Let's be clear, our letter didn't suggest that industry scientists should be silenced--just that the public should know if those scientists are being paid by the very industries with a big economic stake in the issue. Let's test how much the rightwing front groups care about the suppression of scientific information. Let's look at their outrage over the reports of public employees in Florida being told--by the government no less--not to talk about climate change. Interviews by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting with current and former employees, contractors, and volunteers at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection revealed that the administration of Republican Gov. Rick Scott issued an unwritten rule banning official use of the phrases ``climate change'' or ``global warming.'' Those reports have been corroborated by employees of other State agencies. We have heard stories of retribution against State employees who dare discuss climate change, of climate change-related projects being put on the back burner, and even of the term itself being edited out of official documents, including those produced by a university scientist. It sounds like suppression of science. Where was the outrage from the right? Where were the comparisons to fascism and McCarthyism and the Spanish Inquisition for this actual government- sponsored suppression of scientific information? Guess what. There was none. It is not just Florida. Recently, the Republican members of Wisconsin's Board of Commissioners of Public Lands voted to prohibit the professional staff ``from engaging in global warming or climate change work.'' The Wisconsin timber industry, as Senator Baldwin and I have both pointed out, sees the threat climate change poses to Wisconsin forests, including, among other things, the frozen winter roads that loggers use to move their equipment around that warmer weather melts and turns to impassable muck. But the Republicans in charge of those lands have simply ordered State officials to ignore climate change, suppressing the science--plain and simple. Where was the outrage from the rightwing groups that had fits about our little request for some transparency about what scientist is on whose payroll? Where was the outrage? There was none, which shows that the real issue has nothing to do with scientific freedom. The real issue here of freedom is the freedom of big, dishonest special interests to hide whose hand is in the puppet. Here is where it really gets ironic. The enormous multibillion dollar polluting industries whose front groups accuse us of bullying--of being fascists and intimidators and Torquemadas--over our little letter are the very ones pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into elections, much of it secretly, for the plainly avowed purpose of threatening and punishing elected officials who might dare to cross them and acknowledge the dangers of carbon-driven climate change--of all people to be complaining. Americans for Prosperity, to give one example, a Koch brothers venture, has said that Republicans who support any action on climate change will be put at a ``severe disadvantage'' in the 2016 elections. That is a serious threat, given the Koch brothers' pledge to spend $900 million in this election cycle. Yet that same Americans for Prosperity Foundation blasted our little letter as ``an attempt to silence those whose views do not meet with your approval.'' Please. Really? Against a $900 million campaign threat and a stable of paid-for scientists, against that massive screen of fossil fuel front organizations spouting industry propaganda, our little effort at getting a little transparency about who is funding the phony-baloney climate denial science--that is a raindrop against a torrent. We do indeed need to wake up. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am very pleased and also very proud to follow the senior Senator and my colleague and to join Senator Reed in congratulating our Providence College men's ice hockey team on winning its first-ever national championship. The Friars edged out Boston University 4 to 3 a week ago Saturday night in PC's first trip to the Frozen Four in 30 years. The BU-PC event was a southern New England showdown that brought more than 18,000 hockey fans to Boston's TD Garden. Playing so close to home, PC had plenty of support from the stands. They also had a little bit of good luck, but it was more than luck that put Providence College over the top. Those kids played their hearts out, and forward Brandon Tanev's go- ahead score in the third period to seal the win was no fluke. The Friars earned that victory, and Rhode Islanders couldn't be more proud of them. Head coach Nate Leaman said that when it gets to be that late in the season and when there is that kind of championship pressure, ``You win,'' he said, ``with guys that are gritty. . . . '' Well, Senator Reed and I are excited to join Providence College president Father Brian Shanley and the entire PC community in celebrating this historic win. Congratulations to Coach Leaman and his staff, to goalie Jon Gillies, who was named Frozen Four Most Outstanding Player, and to all the PC players who fought so hard all season to this wonderful result. As junior forward Noel Acciari, a native of Johnston, RI, put it, ``We might be a small State, but we're hard workers.'' Well done, Friars. You are, indeed, hard workers and your hard work paid off. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, the distinguished majority leader, the senior Senator from Kentucky, is resolutely opposed to any serious conversation about climate change. Under his leadership, the Republican Party in the Senate has exactly zero legislation for addressing carbon pollution in any serious way. The majority leader has even written to Governors around the country urging defiance of the climate change regulations of the U.S. Government, namely, the Environmental Protection Agency's forthcoming clean power plan to cut presently unregulated carbon pollution from our powerplants. I thought I should take a look at what Kentucky is doing about climate change. It turns out that Kentucky is already crafting a plan for complying with President Obama's clean power plan. Why are they doing that? In a statement, the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet said it was because ``the overwhelming majority of our stakeholders are telling us to make preparations to submit a plan.'' The overwhelming majority of Kentucky stakeholders are telling the State of Kentucky to submit a plan. Kentucky has an energy and environment secretary. His name is Dr. Len Peters. Dr. Peters does not mock or disparage the EPA. Indeed, he praised the EPA at a recent national climate change conference for the flexibility and openness of its rulemaking process. Dr. Peters began his talk by saying, ``I'm from Kentucky and I'm not a climate science denier.'' Setting aside compliance with the administration's clean power plan, Kentucky actually had its own climate action plan, written all the way back in 2011. The Kentucky climate action plan sets forth more than 40 actions to address climate change. It would reduce Kentucky's greenhouse gas emissions by 1.3 billion metric tons between 2011 and 2030. The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife within that climate action plan has its wildlife action plan. The wildlife action plan opens its chapter on climate change by quoting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Around here a lot of fun is sometimes made of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, at least on the other side of the aisle. But Kentucky's Department of Fish and Wildlife quotes them as follows: ``[W]arming of the climate system is unequivocal.'' That is the Commonwealth of Kentucky, quoting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Kentucky wildlife action plan goes on to report that--and I will quote it again--``Climate change has the potential to exacerbate existing conservation threats . . . in Kentucky by altering both terrestrial and aquatic systems.'' As you know, I am from the Ocean State. I am very concerned about what climate change is doing to our oceans and what it is doing to our coasts. Kentucky is landlocked. So imagine my surprise to read the Kentucky wildlife action plan's discussion of sea level rise. Sure enough, it is in there. Here is what the Kentucky wildlife action plan says about sea level rise: ``With the predicted increases in severity of hurricanes and tropical storms, coupled with potential shoreline losses in Florida and throughout the eastern seaboard, people may begin migrations inland,'' it says. It continues, ``If and when these events occur, Kentucky may experience human population growth unprecedented to the Commonwealth.'' That is Kentucky's statement on this. I hope the majority leader will appreciate why I am so insistent that we tackle this climate change problem when his own home State projects that people in our coastal States will be so grievously affected by climate change that we may have to flee to landlocked Kentucky. The State government of Kentucky is not alone. Kentucky's cities-- Lexington, Louisville, Frankfurt, Bowling Green, and Villa Hills--have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, quoting the city of Lexington, ``to act locally to reduce the impacts of climate change by lowering (manmade) greenhouse gas emissions.'' Lexington, KY, actually proudly notes that the Sierra Club has designated Lexington a cool city for signing the U.S. mayors agreement. Maybe in time the Sierra Club will designate Kentucky's senior Senator a cool Senator. Here is hoping. Even fossil fuel companies in Kentucky get it. Columbia Gas of Kentucky has a climate change link on its Web site that says ``Meeting the Climate Challenge.'' Columbia Gas of Kentucky pledges to ``address climate change issues through business activities which promote sustained economic growth in a manner consistent with [our] environmental obligations.'' Columbia Gas of Kentucky also pledges to ``promote adoption of reasonable policies addressing climate change,'' including ``appropriately crafted legislation on climate change.'' Regrettably, their Kentucky Senators have responded with exactly no legislation on climate change, appropriate or otherwise. Local Kentucky news station WFPL brought on a climate scientist from NASA not too long ago who said that scientists have exhaustively studied the numerous signs of climate change--the warming oceans, the melting glaciers, the changing temperatures--and narrowed it down, and the only culprit to explain what is happening is increases in mankind's carbon emissions. The NASA scientist on the Kentucky radio station compared it to the TV show ``CSI.'' He said, ``We've looked at all the different suspects . . . and there's only one suspect that's still in the picture,'' and that is human carbon emissions. Kentucky Woodlands Magazine reports that ``the world is changing right before our eyes. . . . our natural systems are changing as a result of a warming climate.'' Indeed, the author says that ``we are experiencing some of the `predicted' effects today.'' They include an observed shift in Kentucky wildflower seasons. The article warns that ``climate change is happening as you read this article,'' and it describes the result as ``global climate weirdness.'' One thing we know about Kentucky is that it is renowned for its horses. So I turned to Horse & Rider magazine and found an article on climate change and horses' health. The article noted climate change's effects, including ``more intense extreme weather events and the altered timing, intensity and distribution of precipitation.'' Horse & Rider magazine asked the question of ``how climate change might affect our horses' health.'' For the answer to that question, Horse & Rider magazine turned to Dr. Craig Carter of--guess what--the University of Kentucky, who said, ``It's a scary thing to watch.'' Because ``climate change affects all forms of life,'' he said, ``mosquitoes, ticks, flies and other insects are moving northward'' in describing how that move affects crops and trees and disease vectors such as West Nile virus. This University of Kentucky expert cited specific concerns for equine health, but he also offered this reminder: ``It's not just horses (and people) at risk; crops are being affected, as are trees, due to beetle infestations. Climate change affects all forms of life.'' Since so many of my Senate colleagues say they are not scientists, I concluded my Kentucky review where scientists gather: at Kentucky's universities. Paul Vincelli is a professor at the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service. He says: In the scientific community, it is widely accepted that the global climate is changing and the human activities which produce greenhouse gases are a principal cause. Greenhouse gases have a strong capacity to trap heat in the lower atmosphere, even though they are present at trace concentrations. Dr. Vincelli concludes: This trapped heat is driving many of the recent changes in the Earth's climate, including rising temperatures in the oceans, on Earth's surface, and in the lower atmosphere. Dr. Vincelli, University of Kentucky. Another University of Kentucky summary produced by Vincelli and his colleagues says this: Scientific evidence that our global climate is warming is abundant . . . Practicing scientists consider the evidence of human-induced global warming to be extremely strong. The University of Kentucky climate summary said: In fact, 97 to 98 percent of the most knowledgeable experts--scientists who actively publish research papers in climate science--are convinced that global warming is occurring and is caused primarily by human activities. They go on to note that ``a consensus of 97 to 98 percent . . . is remarkable.'' That summary adds the following warning: Regardless of what you may read on blogs or in the media, there is almost no meaningful scientific controversy on these points. There is just the controversy here in Congress. Let's now move on to Kentucky State University. Kentucky State University is pleased to appoint a climate change fellowship to ``engage college students in climate change education and action'' and to provide ``in-depth training on climate change, how to best teach the basics of climate change.'' Maybe a little of that around here might be in order. Over at Western Kentucky University, they host the Kentucky Climate Center, which is the State climate office for Kentucky, on their campus in Bowling Green. Eastern Kentucky University offers concentrations in environmental sustainability and stewardship, including courses on global climate change, and its Environmental Research Institute's Web site on climate change links you right to the IPCC work on climate change that is so often derided here in Congress. Obviously, Eastern Kentucky University doesn't think the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is unreliable. Northern Kentucky University does even better. Former Northern Kentucky University president James Votruba signed the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, pledging Northern Kentucky University to ``an initiative in pursuit of climate neutrality,'' i.e., having ``no net greenhouse gas emissions,'' if necessary by ``using carbon offsets or other measures to mitigate the remaining emissions.'' In 2010, Northern Kentucky University adopted an action plan calling on every department and all members of the Northern Kentucky University community to do their part to help the university achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. My tour of Kentucky's great centers of higher learning leads me to one last Kentucky university--one that is unique in that its Web page display of notable alumni includes none other than our distinguished majority leader, Senator McConnell. This is the University of Louisville. The University of Louisville goes out of its way to expose its students to the reality of climate change. Professor Keith Mountain is chair of the University of Louisville Department of Geography and Geosciences. He has lectured on ``Stewardship in a Time of Global Climate Change,'' a talk about ``how climate change is a measurable reality and how people have contributed to the trends.'' That is the chair of the University of Louisville Department of Geography and Geosciences. The University of Louisville has also brought in Lonnie Dupre, ``mountain climber, polar explorer, and a climate change activist,'' to describe for University of Louisville students ``his personal witness of the detrimental effects of global climate change over 25 years of polar exploring.'' They brought in prize-winning ecologist Diana Wall for a University of Louisville Biology Department lecture series to talk about ``fragile soil systems and their role in climate change.'' University of Louisville students have been involved, too, in Climate Change Teach-Ins, where students, faculty, and staff join together ``to inform, inspire and educate others about the climate change crisis.'' One student concluded, ``The university needs more events similar to the teach-in to raise awareness about climate change.'' I hope they will consider raising awareness among their alumni as well. Let me close this discussion with two slides that were prepared for Kentucky's Governor's Conference on Energy and the Environment for a presentation on ``Kentucky and the President's Climate Action Plan.'' This is a depiction of our country's energy mix broken out by renewables, natural gas, coal, petroleum, hydroelectric, and nuclear. We can see there are a lot of layers in the cake. This layer represents coal in the U.S. energy mix as of 2012. This is Kentucky's energy mix. As we can see, it is a black wall of coal. Even Wyoming, which produces more than four times as much coal as Kentucky, has a more diverse energy mix than this. Could they do better? I think so. There is a song called ``Warm Kentucky Sunshine.'' Kentucky has a town named Sunshine. There is even a cocktail called a Kentucky Sunshine. But we would never know it from their energy mix. That is one of the reasons that Kentucky's efforts to prepare for the Clean Power Plan are so promising. So before our distinguished majority leader, the senior Senator from Kentucky, asks all of the other States to throw in the towel on conforming to the U.S. Government's plan for dealing with carbon pollution, I would ask that he acknowledge that his own State recognizes climate change as a problem and as an opportunity and that Kentucky is trying to do something about it. As to the possibilities, ask Senator Grassley, whose State has 28 percent wind energy. Look at Kentucky's mix. Iowa has 28 percent wind energy. As to the possibilities, the distinguished majority leader could ask his deputy majority leader, Senator Cornyn of Texas, whose home State has more than 10 percent wind energy and a solar industry providing more than 330 megawatts, more than 7,000 jobs, and rapid growth. I hope Kentucky doesn't decide to change its present course and to throw in the towel without even trying. We can do this. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, the ranking member of the Budget Committee is not on the floor, so let me take this opportunity on behalf of the Democratic members of the Budget Committee to express my appreciation to our chairman. We obviously disagree on the substance of this budget, as the votes reflect. Indeed, we think it is an awful budget. But I think I speak for all of us when I say how impressed we have been by the calm and civil and courteous and patient manner in which the chairman has led us through a very substantively difficult issue. I wish to join him on behalf of the Democrats on the Budget Committee in thanking all of the relevant staff--the parliamentary staff, the committee staff, the floor staff--who have supported us through this process. Our chairman is a very courteous gentleman.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. The Supreme Court specifically left the disclosure of these sources of these secret contributions to Congress. So the Supreme Court actually has given us this job. I urge that we take it up.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, this amendment would establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund that would make it more difficult for corporations and billionaires to secretly influence our elections through secret contributions and also to prevent such entities from evading campaign finance law, including by making false statements to Federal authorities and agencies. I can tell my colleagues, if you are not sick of the secret money floating into our elections, your constituents are. So listen to your constituents. Give this a vote, and let's get started on fixing this grave American disgrace.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on our side?