Sheldon Whitehouse

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the distinguished Senator from Oregon. I wish to start by sharing the experience I had when I first started running for the Senate and asking people around Rhode Island to give me the chance to represent them here. One unforgettable day was when I was walking along a factory floor and, as I was walking along, I looked down and I noticed there were holes in the concrete pad of the factory floor, and I asked: Why are the holes there? They explained: Oh, well, we used to have manufacturing machinery here. Those are the bolt holes, and we unbolted the machinery and shipped it overseas to a Central American country where the same product is made for the same buyers on the same machine, but it is made by foreign workers. That is the memory I have when I think about these trade agreements, and it is not just that one machine that went overseas. Rhode Island, not a big State, has lost more than 50,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs since 1990. Our State has been on the losing end of these trade deals. People say they are going to enforce the environmental and human rights and labor and safety requirements of these agreements. I have not seen it. I am at the stage where I don't believe it. You will have to prove it to me. You will have to establish a record of enforcing these things before I will believe it. I have been told that for too long. I don't believe the enforcement any longer. I have to say I don't like the process very much either. It is secret. We are kept out of it. Who is in it are a lot of big corporations, and they are up to, I think, no good in a lot of these deals. Look at these private deals in private forums where they can litigate against a government. They secure that right through these treaty agreements. It is outrageous. First of all, a lot of it is done for the sake of pollution. It is the big folks, such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, and Cargill, that brought nearly 600 disputes, pursuing billions of dollars in damages against governments. A former member of the WTO's appellate body said in 2005 the WTO agreements ``allow Member Nations to challenge almost any measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enacted by any other Member.'' So the war on the environment continues through this mechanism. In March 2013, more than one-third of the disputes pending before the World Bank's investment dispute settlement tribunal were related to oil, mining, or gas. Guess what they want. The public health around the world is suffering because of this. In Africa, the tobacco industry has brought these types of claims against the Governments of Gabon, Namibia, Togo, and Uganda. They probably add up to about $100 billion in total GDP--all 4 countries-- which is probably about a quarter of the revenues of Big Tobacco worldwide. So this is a question of pure, raw economic power by massive corporate interests being used to make governments knuckle under on public health issues such as tobacco. That is just wrong. And it can displace the regular governing systems of courts. Chevron was asked to clean up contamination it left behind. It lost in the courts in Ecuador, it lost in the courts in America, and so it went and got a third bite at the apple in front of three private lawyers in one of these forums. Where do you think the motivation is of private lawyers? Who are their clients going to be next? Another government? I don't think so. It will be the big corporate companies. After many States in the United States created a ban on something called MMT, a gasoline additive, as a probable carcinogen, U.S. Ethyl Corporation filed a NAFTA investor-state case against Canada which then reversed its national ban on the potentially carcinogenic chemical. They pick on themselves as well. Under NAFTA provisions, a Canadian company sued the Quebec government over a decision to put a moratorium on fracking. I guess Quebec can't make a decision about fracking any longer because some company can sue it under these agreements which involve private lawyers and were cooked up in the dark in these trade agreements. It is preposterous.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, before we get underway with this colloquy on trade, I wish to respond briefly to what I understand was a presentation made by one of the Republican Senators suggesting that the continued existence of snow disproves climate change. First, that is not the only measure. We can take a look at sea-level rise, which we can measure from Fort Pulaski in Georgia up to Alaska where Lisa Murkowski has acknowledged that climate change is causing sea-level rise, eroding her native villages, to the sea-level rise in my hometown State at the naval station. We can look at the pH changes in the ocean which we actually measure. It is not complicated. Kids measure the pH in their aquarium all the time. We can measure ocean temperature, which is absolutely clear. It involves something called a thermometer. It really isn't all that complicated. And if we want to understand why the existence of snow might actually be consistent with climate change, I urge people to get their personal device here--their iPad, whatever it is they have--and load up the EarthNow! app. The EarthNow! app is run by a group called NASA. NASA is pretty capable. They are driving a rover around on Mars right now. These are folks who know a little bit about what they are talking about. They map the temperature of the planet, and we can see the cold arctic air drawn down to New England, drawn down to our area, and it is in large part because the ocean is warming offshore that we have this snow. So not only does the continued existence of snow not disprove global warming--if you actually know what is going on and take the least bit of effort to understand it--you would see it is completely consistent with global warming as it is understood by scientists such as those from NASA. I will have more later, but let's get on with this other business. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. If you go to Earth-Now, it is actually quite easy to load. You can see how that polar vortex measurably brings the cold air down to New England. If you do not want--this is produced by NASA. These are pretty serious people. So you can believe NASA and you can believe what their satellites measure on the planet or you can believe the Senator with the snowball. The U.S. Navy takes this very seriously, to the point where Admiral Locklear, who is the head of the Pacific Command, has said that climate change is the biggest threat that we face in the Pacific. He is a career military officer, and he is deadly serious. You can either believe the U.S. Navy or you can believe the Senator with the snowball. The religious and faith groups are very clear on this, by and large. I would particularly salute the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has made very, very clear strong statements. We are going to hear more from Pope Francis about this when he releases his encyclical and when he speaks to the joint session of Congress on September 24. I think it will be quite clear that you can either believe the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Pope Francis or you can belief the Senator with the snowball. In corporate America there is an immense array of major, significant, intelligent, and responsible corporations that are very clear that climate change is real. They are companies such as Coke and Pepsi; companies such as Ford, GM, and Caterpillar; companies such as Walmart and Target; companies such as VF Industries, which makes a wide array of clothing products; Nike; companies such as Mars and Nestle. So, we have our choice. We can believe Coke and Pepsi and Ford and GM and Walmart and Target and VF Industries and Nike and Mars and Nestle; or we can believe the Senator with the snowball. Every major American scientific society has put itself on record-- many of them a decade ago--that climate change is deadly real. They measure it. They see it. They know why it happens. The predictions correlate with what we see, as they increasingly come true. The fundamental principles--that it is derived from carbon pollution, which comes from burning fossil fuels--are beyond legitimate dispute to the point where the leading scientific organizations on the planet calls them ``unequivocal.'' So you can believe every single major American scientific society or you can believe the Senator with the snowball. I would submit the following. I would submit that, if you looked at the American population and you removed the conspiracy theorists--there are always conspiracy theorists in the American population that come out and deny that the moon landing was real. They have their hobgoblins from time to time. If you remove the conspiracy theorists--and there are people who simply do not accept a lot of scientific truths. They think the Earth is only 6,000 years old. They deny that evolution is real. Fine, they are entitled to that point of view. But it is not one you would want to make much of a bet on. It is not a point of view that is likely to get, for instance, a rover onto the surface of Mars and driven around successfully by scientists. But if people want to have that point of view, they have the right to do it. I just would not put very many bets on how productive that point of view is when you are trying to accomplish something important. Also, remove the people who have financial ties to the fossil fuel industry. So take out the conspiracy theorists, take out the evolution deniers, take out the people who have a financial tie to the fossil fuel industry, and I would be very surprised if you found virtually anybody left who was not prepared to be responsible about climate change. Too many of us see it happening right in front of our faces. The science has been too clear for too long. Frankly, what we are seeing is the rollout of the famous tobacco strategy to delay and deny the day of reckoning because they are making money selling tobacco in the meantime while they create false doubt about the damage their product is doing. Now is an interesting time for that because in Washington, at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District, we just had oral argument on the enforcement of a decision rendered by a U.S. district judge finding that that tobacco scam--the deliberate pattern of lies by the tobacco industry to convince people tobacco really wasn't responsible for cancer and other ill health effects--that that campaign was a civil racketeering conspiracy. That is the law of the United States of America. I would submit that if we look at the civil racketeering conspiracy that the tobacco industry ran, that has been called out by a court of law, and we compare that to what the polluters are saying about climate change, we will see more similarities than differences. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I will yield the floor when the next speaker comes. But while we have a quiet moment, I just want to complete my remarks related to the Senator from Oklahoma and his snowball. I ask unanimous consent to show the Earth-Now Web site on the iPad device that I have.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. How long is it until they sue the State of Louisiana or the State of Rhode Island or the State of Massachussetts or the State of Ohio? It is up for grabs. This is just a private remedy. Since I am on Senator Warren's subject, and since her piece in the Washington Post is something we have all read today, I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. That includes 48 percent of Republicans as opposed to only 24 percent of Republicans who said they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate. So even among Republican voters, the balance tips in favor of climate action. If you look at young Republican voters--as I have said over and over on this floor--under the age of 35, they think climate denial is ignorant, out of touch, or crazy. Those are the words they selected in the poll, not my words. Let's move west to Arizona. The folks at NASA--a pretty reputable organization--have a rover driving around on Mars right now that they control. These are people who know something about what they are doing, and the folks at NASA have made understanding our planet and its systems their life's work. This month their researchers released a study showing an 80-percent chance of a decades-long what they call ``megadrought'' in the American Southwest, a multi-decade drought between 2050 and 2099 unless we act aggressively to mitigate the effects of climate change. Arizona could see half as much precipitation in the second half of the century as it did in the second half of the last century. It is a call to arms to protect the State of Arizona. Finally, here is this morning's newspaper headline: ``As ice melts, the future fades. Climate change may force Alaska natives to abandon their village.'' Lisa Murkowski, the Senator from Alaska, is quoted here. Senator Murkowski acknowledges the impacts of climate change on Alaska's coastal community. So maybe we are beginning to make some progress, but all around the country these effects are ones we have to begin to take more seriously. It is indeed time to wake up. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for the 90th time to urge my colleagues in the Senate to take action on climate change. The science is clearly worthy of our trust, and it is indeed time to wake up. The human contribution to climate change is no longer up for legitimate debate. We know that carbon pollution accumulates in the atmosphere. We know that carbon dioxide traps the sun's heat. We have actually known that since Abraham Lincoln was President. We know that the atmosphere and the oceans are heating up. We can measure that. Ocean acidification and sea level rise are also measurable, and they are caused by carbon pollution. These risks to our environment, to our health, to our economy, and to our national security are every week more apparent. News this week from New York City was that an advisory panel of scientists, engineers, and risk management experts just reported that the sea level rise along that city's shoreline--approximately 12 inches since 1900--may have expanded Superstorm Sandy's flood area by as much as 25 square miles, flooding the homes of some 80,000 people. That is pretty real. The report's prognosis for the future puts the city in pretty deep water. New York City expects its local sea levels to rise by 11 to 21 inches more by 2050 and as much as 6 feet by 2100. When he was mayor, Michael Bloomberg began in the wake of Hurricane Sandy an ambitious plan to shore up New York with levees, with storm barriers, and with other coastal defenses to make that great city more resilient in the face of rising seas. That plan is estimated to cost nearly $20 billion to fortify just one city, albeit a great one--New York City--against rising seas. Let's look south to another major American metropolitan area, Miami- Fort Lauderdale, which also faces daunting projections of rising sea levels. This map I have in the Chamber shows 3 feet of sea level rise in Miami-Dade County. This is before. This is after. As we can see, they have lost acres. All of this back to the coast is gone, acre upon acre of that city. This nuclear power station right here, Turkey Point, and this sewage treatment plant which serves that municipal area have both become islands. I visited Florida last year to hear firsthand about the threats that climate change poses to the Sunshine State. I met Glenn Landers, a senior engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Everglades Division. He has worked on water resources and restoration projects in Florida for nearly 20 years. This is the map he used to show me what just 2 feet of sea level rise would mean for South Florida. There is a lot less of it. Like New York, they have measured almost 1 foot of sea level rise in South Florida in the last 100 years. And like New York, the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact--which is a bipartisan coalition of four South Florida counties--once we get away from this building, it turns out this can actually be a bipartisan issue; that cloud of special interest money that wraps the Congress isn't as apparent when you get to Florida counties. That bipartisan coalition predicts, like New York, again, continued sea level rise. Indeed, the waters around southeast Florida could surge up to another 2 feet in less than 50 years. As we can see, most of the iconic Everglades--which is the largest tract of wilderness east of the Rocky Mountains and home to some of the most rare and endangered species in America--will be under seawater. Now, there is some resemblance between New York and Florida in the threat of sea level rise. But the resemblance to New York diverges when we look at some of the unique features of the Florida peninsula. First is its low elevation. Miami is just 6 feet above sea level. Six feet of sea level rise goes a long way. Second, southern Florida, as the Army Corps of Engineers constantly attests, rests on porous limestone. In New York, levees and dams can be built that will hold the ocean back. They can fortify New York City and wall it in like Holland. In Miami, they would be building those structures on a geological sponge. The rising water will just seep right under. And even in the higher areas that might still stay dry, saltwater will infiltrate the underground drinking water. Of all the people and all the homes in the Nation at risk from rising seas, an estimated 40 percent are in the State of Florida. The Risky Business Project estimates that between $127 billion and $150 billion worth of property in Florida will be under the mean high tide by 2050. You might want to be careful where you buy in Florida these days if you plan to be around a while. If we take into account damage from coastal storms, Florida could face an additional $4 billion in damage per year. Luckily, Florida is home to a number of the country's leading research institutions. Scientific experts at Florida universities are actively researching and trying to plan for the State's changing climate. Professor Harold Wanless of the University of Miami puts it pretty bluntly: Everyone wants a nice happy ending. But that's not reality. We're in for it. We have really done a job warming our ocean, and it's going to pay us back. The Florida Climate Institute is a network of universities and public organizations that provides Florida policymakers and businesses with reliable, region-specific, factual information. The group includes the University of Florida, Florida State, the University of Miami, Florida A&M, the University of Central Florida, Florida Atlantic University, the University of South Florida, and Florida International University. Let me focus on Florida International University in Miami. FIU leads the Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research Program to study the effect of climate change and human activity on freshwater availability in the Everglades. FIU hosts the International Hurricane Research Center on its campus and recently established the Extreme Events Institute, devoted to making communities more resilient to extreme weather. Institute director Richard Olsen, who is an international expert on disaster response and resiliency, has called sea level rise ``a slow onset disaster'' for South Florida. Four professors of FIU's School of Journalism and Mass Communication set up a media outreach initiative called Eyes on the Rise. Students in this program have produced documentaries to air on local television about the effect of sea level rise on local communities, on real estate prices, and on economic growth in southern Florida. FIU is a member of the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, a network of schools taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote climate research. FIU has adopted a plan to bring emissions 25 percent below 2007 levels before 2030. On my Florida visit, Dr. Mike Heithaus, a marine scientist and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at FIU, said: We're really standing here at ground zero. There's just about nowhere else on the planet where there is more at risk from sea level rise so fast. He gets it. They get it. That is why Florida International University is at the fore of climate research and education, particularly as it affects the State of Florida. But there is another member of that faculty who doesn't seem to get it, one of our Senate colleagues, the junior Senator from Florida. He teaches political science part time at FIU. Last month, however, that junior Senator from Florida voted against amendments to the Keystone XL bill stating that climate change is real and that humans contribute to it. Apparently the message from experts across Florida and frankly from experts across campus that manmade climate change, especially sea level rise, is a big problem for southern Florida--well, apparently that message hasn't gotten through. What are Florida's other elected officials doing? Fort Lauderdale mayor Jack Seiler is working with NOAA, State and Broward County officials, and the South Florida Regional Planning Council to protect his city from flooding and climate change. Miami Beach mayor Philip Levine showed me the huge pumps his city has installed to pump out the flooding that comes in on high tides and from storms. Republican mayor Sylvia Murphy of Monroe County, which covers all of the Florida Keys and some of the Everglades, is a remarkable lady, and she has put climate and energy policy at the heart of her 20-year growth plan for the county. She is going to lose a lot of her county if we don't get ahead of this. And the senior Senator from Florida, my friend Bill Nelson, is an outspoken advocate for preserving the Florida coast and the Florida economy in the face of climate change. The Miami Herald recently wrote: South Florida owes Senator Nelson its thanks for shining a bright light on this issue. Everyone from local residents to elected officials should follow his lead, turning awareness of this major environmental issue into action. It is critical to saving our region. So said the Miami Herald. Unfortunately, the junior Senator does not seem to have followed his senior colleague's lead either in shining a bright light on this issue or in turning awareness into action. It is a little bit surprising that, according to a recent New York Times poll, an overwhelming majority of Americans support us taking action on climate change, including half of Republicans. Again, this is not that partisan of an issue once you get away from the polluter money that surrounds this building. Two-thirds of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate for President or for the Senate who explicitly campaigned on a platform of climate action. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to continue for an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, today I wish to thank my friend Senator Bill Nelson for his support of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2014, S. 2839, which I introduced with Senators Portman, Klobuchar, Ayotte, and Leahy in the 113th Congress. Senator Nelson asked to be added as a cosponsor of the legislation in October, but his name was not recorded appropriately. I regret the oversight and wish to recognize Senator Nelson for his ongoing commitment to this important cause. I look forward to working together to address the Nation's opiate epidemic in the 114th Congress.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I might point out that not only are Delaware and Rhode Island both small and mighty, but they are small, mighty, and coastal, which is relative to the topic of my remarks this afternoon. I am now here for the 89th consecutive week that Congress has been in session to urge the Senate to wake up to the risks of climate change and to address the carbon pollution that is causing climate change. We have a particular context for this conversation this week. The Founding Fathers in article I, section 8 of the Constitution granted to Congress a sacred duty, as the Constitution says, to ``provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.'' To that end, we have built the world's greatest military and the most sophisticated intelligence and national security services. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, we undertook the largest reorganization of the Federal Government in half a century to stand up the Department of Homeland Security. We trust these national security agencies and the dedicated professionals who lead them and serve in them to ascertain and prepare for the risks facing our country in an uncertain world. But the tea party wing of the Republican caucus has chosen to hold up appropriations for vital Homeland Security programs--programs that protect Americans from terrorism, programs that help our States prepare for disasters--all to have a quarrel with the President on immigration. Well, when we get to immigration--if our friends on the House side ever get to immigration--we could certainly debate the merits of the President's action. Certainly, we should pass legislation to fix our broken immigration system so the President's Executive actions are no longer necessary. And, by the way, in the Senate we did our job and passed a strong bipartisan bill. But to deny the Department of Homeland Security the resources it needs to safeguard the Nation is foolhardy. Now, it is precisely because of that duty to safeguard the Nation that we should take our homeland security and military professionals seriously when they take seriously the threats posed by climate change. I think we should have a vote on a resolution highlighting the fact findings of our national security, military, and intelligence services about the climate threat. This resolution would express the sense of the Senate that the conclusions of our security professionals are not products of some hoax or deception perpetrated on the American public and that they deserve our respect. That ought to be something every Senator can get behind. Let's look at some of the information. Just last week the administration's 2015 National Security Strategy classified climate change as ``an urgent and growing threat to our national security.'' It is because this is serious that the United States is out there actively cutting pollution and strengthening resilience at home and leading the international community towards stronger carbon pollution standards. The challenge that climate change poses to national security and to emergency preparedness is clearly laid out in the Department of Homeland Security's 2014 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. It describes the effects of climate change as threat multipliers, with the potential to aggravate hazards to American safety and health. For example, higher temperatures may change patterns of disease and the spread of pests and pathogens. Competition for resources can contribute to the kind of social destabilization that engenders terrorist activity all around the world. You don't have to look far to see that today. Extreme weather and temperatures endanger the infrastructure that underpins our economy and way of life--from roads and bridges that now run too close to rising seas, to power and water treatment plants, to telecommunications and cyber networks. As Assistant Secretary David Heyman of the DHS Office of Policy and Assistant Secretary Caitlin Durkovich of the Office of Infrastructure Protection explained to our own Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs just last year: The projected impacts of climate change, including sea level rise and increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events, can cause damage or disruptions that result in cascading effects across our communities, with immeasurable costs in lives lost and billions of dollars in property damage. Why would we not want to take that seriously? We heard just the same message in the Budget Committee just last week from OMB Director Shaun Donovan. Already, the annual number of costly weather-related disasters is going up. According to NOAA, in the 1980s--in that decade--if you look at the number of natural disasters costing $1 billion or more, in each year of the 1980s there were between zero and five. That was the range for the 1980s--between zero and five $1 billion weather events. In the 1990s that rate rose to between three and nine events each year. Then in 2000 it went up to between 2 and 11 events per year. Since 2010, in the category of $1 billion disasters each year, the range has been between 6 and 16. So from the 1980s, it was 0 to 5, until this decade when it is 6 to 16. If people can't take that seriously, they are simply not meeting their responsibilities. Superstorm Sandy caused tens of billions of dollars in damage, including terrible losses in my home State of Rhode Island. Across New England, Sandy destroyed thousands of homes, left millions without electric service, and caused more than 100 deaths across nine States. Of course, we cannot say this one devastating storm was specifically caused by climate change, but we do know that carbon pollution loads the dice for more and more severe extreme weather such as Sandy. Sandy sure showed how vulnerable we are to this kind of catastrophic change. Climate change presents security challenges in every corner of the homeland. To the south, DHS predicts that more severe droughts and storms could increase both legal and illegal movements across the U.S. border--from Mexico, from Central America, and from the Caribbean. My Republican colleagues insist that protecting our border is a top priority--fine. I hope that means they will take seriously the warnings from our national security professionals about the destabilizing effects of climate change and its effects, in turn, on our border. If you move up north to the State of Maine, our former colleague, Olympia Snowe, has just written an article in Newsweek magazine. I will read the opening: In late 2014, fishery regulators announced that for the second consecutive year there would be no shrimp fishery in the gulf of Maine this winter. The culprit: principally warming ocean waters caused by climate change. She goes on to describe another phenomenon that scientists dubbed an ocean heat wave in the spring of 2012 that led to an early molt and migration of lobsters that caused a supply glut and subsequent price collapse. Now if you know anything about Maine, you know lobsters are pretty important to Maine. Senator Snowe's conclusion: ``The message here is clear: climate change is taking dollars and jobs away from fishing communities.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that her article be printed at the conclusion of my remarks. To the far north, melting sea ice opens the Arctic for shipping, tourism, and resource extraction, but also for smuggling and illicit resource extraction and environmental disasters. It is a whole new frontier to be patrolled and protected by our Coast Guard, part of the Department of Homeland Security, at taxpayer expense. Former Coast Guard Commandant ADM Robert Papp, Jr., is now the U.S. Special Representative to the Arctic Region. He has got the job to help manage risk in this remote but increasingly accessible region in the world, and he had this to say about managing the consequences of climate change. Admiral Papp said: 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 39 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 that there are changes happening, but I have to deal with the consequences of that. The men and women of our homeland and national security forces deal in real-world consequences. They don't have the luxury of skirting the evidence or shrugging off serious adult risk analysis. It is just as true at the Department of Defense as it is at the Department of Homeland Security. As ADM Samuel J. Locklear, III, the Navy Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, puts it, it is ``. . . not my venue to debate the politics of any issue. All I do is report what I see and what I think I see, and the implications.'' Admiral Locklear, our chief naval officer in the Pacific Command, has called climate change the biggest long-term security threat in the Pacific, because as he sees it, ``it is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen that will cripple the security environment.'' Our colleagues may think it is funny to ignore climate change in this body while they depend so heavily on funding from the fossil fuel that is behind the pollution. They should listen to admirals who are responsible for our security when they tell us it is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen to cripple the security environment. Last May, the CNA Corporation released a report on the risks climate change poses to our national security. This report was led by 15 generals and admirals from all 4 branches of the United States military. Here is what they said: The national security risks of projected climate change are as serious as any challenges we have faced. That is what they wrote. They continued: We are dismayed that discussions of climate change have become so polarizing and have receded from the arena of informed public disclosure and debate. . . . Time and tide wait for no man. Our military intelligence and homeland security services have been warning Congress for far too long about the risks of climate change. It is a dereliction of duty for this body to continue to ignore this problem. It is time to heed the warning. It is time to responsibly prepare for the clear risk before us, and it is time to wake up. I yield the floor. I see the majority leader is present on the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, may I say how much I appreciate the open amendment process.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Reserving the right to object, may I have one sentence to observe that there appears as yet to be no Republican plan whatsoever to answer the energy chairman's question on climate change-- what do we do--and with that noted, I do not object.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. The National Climate Assessment estimates that by the end of the century the temperatures in the Southern Great Plains will increase up to 9 degrees. Mark Shafer is a researcher at the Oklahoma Climatological Survey who contributed to the National Climate Assessment. He told the Oklahoman newspaper that in a few decades Oklahoma could see 100-plus temperatures every summer. By century's end, daily temperatures could top 100 degrees for the entire summer. As the climate warms, droughts will probably get worse, both more severe and more frequent. Nine Oklahoma professors from Oral Roberts University, Southern Nazarene University, and the University of Tulsa were among 200 evangelical scientists and academics to sign a 2013 letter to Congress imploring us to address climate change. All of God's Creation . . . is groaning under the weight of our uncontrolled use of fossil fuels. . . . The threat to future generations and global prosperity means we can no longer afford complacency and endless debate. We as a society risk being counted among ``those who destroy the earth.'' Those who know the Bible will know that reference to ``those who destroy the earth'' comes from Revelations. I will quote from Revelations: ``And Thy wrath is come, and the time . . . that thou . . . shouldst destroy them which destroy the earth.'' The letter warns that the way we live harms our neighbors, threatening to create more empty wells, devastated cropland, loss of villages, environmental refugees, and disease. I ask unanimous consent to have that letter from the 200 evangelical scientists printed in the Record.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Finally, Mr. President, at the University of Oklahoma Berrien Moore III is dean of the College of Atmosphere and Geographic Sciences. He is also Director of the National Weather Center. Dean Moore of the University of Oklahoma was a lead author on an intergovernmental panel on climate change report, which the Senator from Oklahoma is so fond of disparaging. Dr. Moore's work helped the IPCC earn the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He has won research accolades from NOAA and from NASA. In 2009 Dr. Moore testified before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Here is what he had to say about climate change: On the increasing strength of Earth science, we now can state that global warming is ``unequivocal,''-- There is that word again-- but this simply sets the challenge. We need now-- This is 5 years ago, by the way-- to develop the capability to monitor and thereby manage greenhouse gas emissions through this century and beyond. . . . The challenge is growing and will not go away. The effects of climate change are all too real in Oklahoma, in Rhode Island, and across the Nation. If you don't believe me, go to Oklahoma State and the University of Oklahoma and talk to the scientists I just mentioned. The outlook for us if we fail to act is increasingly dark. But look again at Oklahoma. The Sooner State is the fourth largest producer of wind power in the country. Wind turbines there make progress toward energy independence and they give Oklahoma farmers steady income as a hedge against droughts and extreme weather. So people farm and they get paid for having a wind turbine located on your farm. It is a win-win. Gary McManus, the Oklahoma State climatologist, has given a number of presentations on climate change and its likely effects on his home State. He often prefaces those talks with this admonition: This is the science. It is up to you to decide what you do with it. You can either ignore it or you can use it. In my view, there will be a high price in harm and in infamy to this democracy if we continue to ignore it. So I say let's use it, but first we will have to wake up. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here now for the 88th time to urge this body to wake up to the looming threat of climate change. In the last few weeks, my Republican colleagues have talked about climate change here on the floor more than at any other time since I began giving these weekly speeches. We had heard next to nothing from Republicans about climate change since the 2010 Citizens United decision. That decision let loose the fossil fuel industry to cast an ever darker shadow of intimidation across this town. So this minor outbreak of dialogue, although minor, has been significant. All but one of my Republican colleagues is now on the record saying they agree that climate change is real, and 15 voted that it is caused at least in some part by humans. That is some progress. Yet some still persist in their denial. Our scientists now tell us that warming of the climate system is ``unequivocal.'' Yet we equivocate. Scientists are a careful bunch. When they say something is unequivocal, we ought to take note. The senior Senator from Oklahoma, our chairman of the Environmental and Public Works Committee, however, maintains that human-caused climate change is a hoax. He thinks it is arrogant to say that humans could cause the climate to change. What is really arrogant is thinking we can ignore the laws of nature, the laws of physics, the laws of chemistry, the laws of biology. Whose laws do we think those are? Those laws were given to us by our Creator. They came with this world. They are immutable. These laws of nature dictate that carbon dioxide is the byproduct of our burning of fossil fuels. These laws of nature, fresh from the hands of our Creator, explain why carbon traps heat in our atmosphere-- something we have known since Abraham Lincoln was riding around this town in his top hat. Here in the Senate, we have no human power to amend or repeal those laws--and here in the Senate, we shouldn't cherry-pick from the scientific record. That is not fair play. Here on the floor, the EPW chairman paraphrased a 2013 paper from the journal Nature, saying: . . . there is considerable uncertainty as to whether [increases in extreme climate variability] is occurring. The author of the paper, Dr. Chris Huntingford of the UK's National Environmental Research Council, took exception to his paper being mischaracterized. He said this: Our Nature paper strictly analyzes only year-to-year variability (fluctuations) in temperature. . . . We do not at any point offer evidence against a general on-going background and upwards warming trend. Detection and attribution statistical studies show that the observed average increasing temperatures are almost certainly a consequence of the burning of fossil fuels. In that same floor speech, my colleague from Oklahoma suggested we could relax about climate change because the Munich Reinsurance Company said weather-related disaster losses have declined as a proportion of GDP worldwide. He neglected to mention testimony before our EPW Committee last July by Munich Re's head of risk accumulation in the United States, Carl Hedde, to wit: Due to our history of insuring natural catastrophe, Munich Re was one of the first companies in the industry to recognize the impact that weather-related events and a changing climate could have on its business model and customers. As a nation, we need to take steps to reduce the societal impact of weather events as we see greater variability and volatility in our climate. The senior Senator from Oklahoma has even resurrected the ghost of Climategate, that faux scandal whipped up a few years ago by the polluters and their allies to suggest climate scientists were colluding to exaggerate global warming data. Turned out it was the cooked-up, phony scandal that was exaggerated and not the data. So-called ClimateGate should actually be accurately called ClimateGate-Gate. Yet years later this zombie falsehood still staggers about the floor of the Senate attempting to cast doubt on human-caused climate change. The polluters have relentlessly made it their business to misconstrue the findings of scientific works and to cling to discredited accusations. We would do well to listen to the overwhelming majority of practicing, publishing climate scientists who agree our carbon pollution is altering the climate. Scientists who conduct experiments, who examine data, who arrive at conclusions, who submit their work through peer review, and who make their data accessible for due diligence by other researchers. It is the best science out there. But I am afraid those scientists don't have the ear of the senior Senator from Oklahoma. He showed us whom he listens to. He brought a chart to the floor showing several dozen ``recognized'' scientists--as he called them--who don't buy the climate consensus. That chart was produced by an outfit called the Heartland Institute. You may remember them for associating climate scientists with the Unabomber--a classy group. Their scientists, so-called, included bloggers, columnists, staff of conservative think tanks, a member of the European Parliament, and many scientists who have been funded by the fossil fuel industry. I will side with the scientists affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science over a bunch of carefully selected bloggers. I will trust NASA and NOAA over scientists who shill for the fossil fuel industry. The Heartland Institute is not alone. It is part of a sophisticated network of climate denial propped up by the carbon-polluting fossil fuel industry. It is a front group fueled by the special interests and their dubious experts. Interestingly, if we go to Oklahoma State University, we will find one of the experts on this. Dr. Riley Dunlap at Oklahoma State could tell his Senator all about it. Professor Dunlap is one of the preeminent researchers into the deliberate and coordinated effort by corporate interests to spread denial propaganda and distort public opinion on climate change--what he calls the ``organized climate-denial machine.'' Dunlap and a colleague found that nearly 90 percent of climate denial books coming out of publishing houses between 1982 and 2010--guess what--had ties to conservative fossil fuel-funded think tanks such as the Heartland Institute. The whole thing is a rigged game and a phony, and there is a very good professor at Oklahoma State University who keeps track of it. I also have a fact sheet from the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, its statement on climate change and its implications for Oklahoma. Here is what it says in plain language: The Earth's climate has warmed during the last 100 years. The Earth's climate will continue to warm for the foreseeable future, and much of the global temperature increases over the last 50 years can be attributed to human activities, particularly increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. That is actually a noncontroversial statement among regular scientists. This is no radical with some political agenda. This is a fact sheet from a State scientific agency. It happens to be Oklahoma's. Here is what the agency expects this means for Oklahoma: earlier maturation of winter wheat and orchard crops, leaving them more vulnerable to late freeze events; drought frequency increases, especially during the summer; drier and warmer conditions increasing the risk of wildfires; rain-free periods lengthening with individual rainfall events becoming more intense, with more runoff and flash flooding occurring. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this statement printed in the Record.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Reserving the right to object, during the Keystone debate, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee chair said we should get beyond the discussion as to whether climate change is real--

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I object.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Reserving the right to object--it is not in the form of a question--but, as I said, during the Keystone debate, the energy committee chair said we should get beyond the discussion as to whether climate change is real and talk about what do we do. I will not take more time now than to say that I hope we soon do get to that question: What do we do? With that, I will not object.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, the underlying measure benefits specific investors, specific corporations, and pushes regulatory approval of a specific project. In that sense, it has all the earmarks of the biggest earmark ever. We have learned from other history with earmarks that when you have a project that benefits specific investors and specific corporations and specific entities, there is a valuable premium on having the public know about the campaign contributions relative to that project. This bill requires the disclosure of over $10,000 in campaign contributions from entities that will make more than $1 million off this project. It is the type of transparency that many of my Republican colleagues had been for before they were against it. I urge an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here now for the 87th consecutive week the Senate has been in session to urge action on climate change. We have had an interesting couple of weeks on the Keystone Pipeline, but from a climate change and carbon pollution point of view, this would obviously not be helpful. Indeed, it would be a disaster leading to as much as 27 million--27 million--metric tons of additional carbon dioxide emitted per year. To put that number into some perspective, that is the equivalent of adding 6 million cars and trucks to our roads for 50 years. So it is a very considerable carbon price to pay. We have seen a poster used on the Senate Floor that says it will have no environmental effect. That is not precisely true. Indeed, precisely the opposite is true. This is the environmental effect it will have, and it is considerable. The report referred to went on to say that it would be offset by the fact that this fuel would go out by rail anyway. But that offset was conditioned on a fuel price above $75 per barrel of oil, and we are at $50. So there is no way that conclusion can stand, and the underlying fact is what prevails--27 million metric tons of additional carbon dioxide. It is obviously very bad from an environmental perspective. It is a lot of ``not much'' from a jobs perspective. Every 4 days we add more jobs than the construction of this pipeline just through the economic recovery that is taking place. This is a little bit hard to explain, particularly when you think that this bill is going to be dead on arrival at the White House. We have known from the beginning that this is going to be vetoed. But it has allowed the oil and the fossil fuel industry to show their hands. This is all being done on behalf of a foreign oil company and on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. When we look at what we have been through in the past couple of days, there are some interesting choices the Senate has made if you are a foreign oil company. If you are a foreign oil company, we will let you use eminent domain to extinguish the property rights of farmers and ranchers and take their farms and ranches away. If you are a foreign oil company, we will exempt you from the oilspill recovery fund--the Federal excise tax on petroleum--so you don't have to pay the taxes American companies have to pay. If you are a foreign oil company, we will not require you to use American steel in a pipeline being built across America being touted as a source of American jobs. If you are a foreign oil company, we won't require you to sell it in the American market even though it is touted as a product that will help balance America's energy portfolio. So, so far, not much good to show for all of this but one thing, and that is that this exercise has at last brought the issue of climate change to the floor of the Senate. We have not had much debate about climate change since the Citizens United decision back in 2010 allowed the fossil fuel industry to cast a very long shadow of intimidation across this body. They spend a huge amount of the money that has been freed up by Citizens United. They spend a huge amount of dark money that flows post Citizens United. And since then, the Republican Party has been virtually muzzled on that subject. So having Republicans talk about climate change on the Senate floor was something of a revelation, and I don't think we should underestimate the importance of that or undervalue what was said. The senior Senator from North Carolina came to the floor and said this: The concept that climate change is real, I completely understand and accept. To the point of how much man is contributing, I don't know, but it does make sense that man- made emissions are contributing. . . . the greenhouse gas effect seems to me scientifically sound. The problem is that how you fix this globally is going to require more than just the U.S. being involved. Which I think we all agree with. The senior Senator from Alaska, who is our chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the floor manager on this very bill, agreed, stating that she hopes we can all, quoting her, get beyond the discussion as to whether or not climate change is real and talk about what do we do. I look forward to that discussion about what do we do. It is not enough just to say, OK, we finally concede that climate change is really happening. We really do have to get on to what do we do. Even if you disagree with me that climate change is real and very significant and consequential for our country, if you will spot me that there is just a 10-percent chance that I am right--even just a 2- percent chance that I am right--when we consider the possible harms, it is something that grownup adults and responsible people ought to take a look at and come together and decide what to do. We have been through some very notable benchmarks. We hit for the first time last year 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere for more than 3 months. They have been tracking this in Hawaii, at the top of the mountain at the Mauna Loa laboratory for decades now, and 400 parts per million for more than 3 months is a new record. To put that in context: For as long as human beings have been on this planet, all the way back to when we were living in caves, the range of carbon in the atmosphere has been 170 to 300 parts per million. So we are well outside the range that has been our comfortable safe range for human habitation of this planet during our entire human experience, and 400 is a big move when our entire range is only 130 points and now we are 100 parts per million out of that. Some of this lands in the oceans. The oceans have absorbed about a quarter of all our carbon emissions. We can measure their pH level. This isn't complicated. This isn't something we have to do with elaborate computer models. What we see is that the pH level of the oceans is changing rapidly. The oceans are acidifying rapidly. When I say rapidly, they are acidifying at a rate that we have not seen in 25 to perhaps 30 or 50 million years. Indeed, some studies say nothing like this has been seen on the face of the Earth for as long as 300 million years. When we consider that our species has been around for about 200,000 years, that is a pretty long window to be launching new and dramatic changes in our oceans. There is nothing new about the science that supports this. John Tyndall wrote the first report about the greenhouse gas effect to the British Academy of Sciences in 1861. The pages who are here and have studied history will know that 1861 was the year President Lincoln took office. So the scientific community has been aware of the greenhouse gas phenomenon since Abraham Lincoln was driving up and down Pennsylvania Avenue in a carriage with his top hat on. There is not much new that is there, and the latest data is clearer and clearer that we just continue apace to warm the planet. Professor Jonathan Overpeck is at the University of Arizona, and Arizona is certainly feeling the heat. Professor Overpeck said: The global warmth of 2014 is just another reminder that the planet is warming and warming fast. . . . Humans, and their burning of fossil fuels, are dominating the Earth's climate system like never before. It is equally clear, when we look at the oceans, they not only absorb a lot of the carbon dioxide and acidify as a result--they absorb most of the heat. In fact, they absorb 90 percent of the excess heat that has been trapped by the greenhouse gases that we have flooded our atmosphere with. I certainly see that in Rhode Island, where Narragansett Bay's mean winter water temperature is up 3 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit since we had our big hurricane of 1938. That is significant, because it means more likely storms. It is associated with sea level rise. We have 10 more inches of sea level at the Newport Naval Station. So if the 1938 hurricane were to repeat itself now, it would have 10 more inches of sea to hammer against our shores. And that is not a complicated measure, either. We do that with thermometers. So since the Industrial Revolution, human beings have dumped 2 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air and into the atmosphere. Said another way, that is 2,000 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. The notion that has no effect, when we have known since Abraham Lincoln's day that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and when we put that much in and when we can measure that it is at 400 for the first time in human history--connect the dots. How much does it take? It is really pretty obvious. Folks who remain skeptical--well, I know, I am not a scientist. I get that. So ask one. That is all I request. And I don't think that is too much to ask of colleagues. And, by the way, do me one favor. You can ask the scientist that you please, but please don't ask a scientist who is in the pay of the fossil fuel and the denial industry. There are a bunch of them who are out there. They turn up at all the usual denial conferences. They write in the denial journals. They take money from the denial organizations that all have fossil fuel industry funding behind them. Go to someplace neutral. For instance, go to your own State university, like the University of Arizona or the University of Oklahoma. The dean of the relevant department at the University of Oklahoma signed the IPCC report and started Climate Central. Ask your own university. Ask any major scientific organization. All the major recognized scientific organizations in the United States of America are on board, agree that this is real, agree that this is important, agree that it is vital, and believe that we are actually near the tipping point that may make the damage irrecoverable. If you don't want to go to your home State university and if you don't want to go to America's major scientific societies, try NOAA and NASA. Think about NASA for a moment. As I give this speech, there is a Rover that is the size of an SUV being driven around on the surface of Mars. We built a Rover, shot it to Mars, landed it safely, and are now driving it around. Do we think those scientists might actually know something? Do we think they might know what they are talking about? Do we think they might merit our confidence? So ask them and see what they say. Or, if you want, ask some of America's leading corporations. If you are from Arkansas, go and ask Walmart. They will tell you. If you are from Georgia, go and ask Coca-Cola. They will tell you. This is not hard to discover once you get away from that little stable of denial scientists who are so closely affiliated with the fossil fuel industry. I do this every week because we have the arrogance so often here to think how much our laws--the laws that we pass--matter. But the laws that we pass are passing things. They come and they go. They have their time. They are repealed, they are replaced, they fall into desuetude. But some laws last, and those are the laws that God laid down upon this Earth that guide its operations. Those are the laws of physics, the laws of chemistry, the laws of biology, the law of gravity. We cannot repeal those laws. We must face their consequences. And we know the consequences of continuing to emit gigatons of carbon dioxide into our planet is going to launch us into an environment in which the habitability of Earth as we have known it will be put into question. History makes its judgments about every generation. If we do not take calm and reasonable and sensible precautions about this obvious known and admitted risk, then when that risk comes home to roost, we will be duly shamed. So let us avoid that. Let us get to work. Let us take advantage of the opening that the distinguished senior Senator from Alaska and the distinguished senior Senator from South Carolina have opened for us, and let us do what is right by our country and by the judgment that we can anticipate from history. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.