A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate regarding global climate change.

Mr. President, I rise in support of a simple and straightforward resolution cosponsored by 20 of our colleagues that would simply express the sense of the Senate that climate change is occurring and that it will continue to pose ongoing risks and challenges to our citizens and to our country. That is all it says. We know we have a problem. We don't pretend to give every solution in this resolution; it simply gives us the point of saying we have a problem.

I am pleased to be joined by two leaders on this issue, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse as well as Chairman Barbara Boxer, the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

We have an obligation to our constituents and to this country to address global climate change. We must tackle the challenge head-on. This is an issue facing all Americans--from farmers struggling with extreme weather from drought, to floods in seaside communities threatened by rising waters, to habitat changes that are impacting our hunting, fishing, and outdoor economy, to businesses trying to mitigate the financial risks posed by the effects of climate change.

It is clear climate change poses a grave threat to food security, the environment, and our national security, as

well as to our businesses. Yet achieving a commitment to at least admit this problem is going on in the Senate has fallen short. That is the point of our direct resolution that simply states the facts--the science--about climate change and the impact it is having on our country.

The resolution draws from the 2014 National Climate Assessment which was drafted by 300 climate experts and extensively reviewed by a 60- member advisory committee and the National Academy of Sciences. The National Climate Assessment states the science very simply. The most recent decade was the Nation's warmest on record and U.S. temperatures are expected to continue to rise. The Department of Defense of this country, of the United States of America, our own Department of Defense 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review reiterates climate change has a destabilizing effect, stating: ``The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world.'' And the Defense Science Board report concluded: ``Climate change will only grow in concern for the United States and its security interests.''

All the resolution says is that it is the sense of the Senate that global climate change is occurring and will continue to cause ongoing risks and challenges to the people and the Government of the United States.

We know the costs. The 2012 drought was the worst drought since 1956 and caused over $30 billion in damage nationwide. The current drought in the Western and Southwestern States is estimated to cost billions and it remains ongoing. Last week there was a newspaper map showing that about 34 percent of the contiguous United States was in at least a moderate drought as of July 22. Those are the numbers. Those are the facts.

We have seen heavy downpours increasing nationally. We have seen hurricanes increasing in intensity. If we continue on our current path, by the year 2050, between $66 billion and $106 billion worth of existing coastal properties will likely be below sea level nationwide, and $238 billion to $507 billion worth of property will be below sea level by the year 2100.

So what are we hearing from the business community? We have conservative businesspeople such as former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under George Bush, Hank Paulson, speaking out. He, along with former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and eight other prominent business and policy leaders, recently released the first comprehensive assessment of the economic risks our Nation faces from the changing climate, including increased coastal storm damage, reduced productivity in some areas of the United States because they have become too hot for outdoor work, strained energy networks, and expanding public health impacts. This report represents an important first step toward a true accounting of the risks of climate change so the American business community can begin to work toward effective climate risk management.

Just this past Thursday, former Clinton Treasury Secretary and cochair of the Foreign Relations Council Bob Rubin wrote an article in the Washington Post advocating that although it is clear that the U.S. economy faces enormous risks from unmitigated climate change, policy and business leaders are not taking into account the cost of inaction, which means decisions are being made based on the broad picture posed by climate change on our economy.

So now we have scientists, business leaders, church groups, and outdoor groups all out in front of this issue. In fact, a recent poll found that 63 percent of Americans believe this is occurring. Sixty- three percent of Americans believe it is occurring. Yet where is the Senate? Where are we?

We have an opportunity today, to pass this simple resolution saying it is the sense of the Senate that global climate change is occurring and will continue to pose ongoing challenges to the people and the Government of the United States.

It should not be that hard for this Congress to simply say that. Think of what the Senate has done in the past. When we saw what was going on in South Africa, it was the Senate that overcame a Presidential veto to approve the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. It was the Senate that took the lead on civil rights legislation. It was the Senate that was willing to put partisan issues aside and take on the Watergate hearings. It was the Senate that took on consumer issues. It was the Senate that passed the Clean Air Act approved by 43 Democrats and 30 Republicans.

We just have to take one step today; that is, to simply tell the world we know there is a problem. We are not here trying to give all the solutions. We know colleagues disagree with this in terms of what we should do, depending on where they are from or what States they represent. But to even start having those discussions, we have to admit there is a problem.

I urge my colleagues to support this simple, straightforward resolution. I urge them to support it because it is so important to our country.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 524, expressing the sense of the Senate regarding global climate change which was submitted earlier today; that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

I thank Senator Boxer.

We now have 21 cosponsors. We are adding daily. We have cosponsors, of course, from coastal States. States such as Hawaii and Maine see the effect of the water all around them. Independent Senator Angus King is a cosponsor of this resolution. We have Colorado, with Senator Udall and Senator Bennet, who are cosponsors, who understand the risk of wildfire and what they see in their State with climate change. We have States in the Midwest, such as Iowa, with Senator Harkin; Michigan, with Senator Stabenow, the chair of the Agriculture Committee. They understand what drought means to farmers.

This is not just a coastal problem; this is a problem across the United States as we are seeing the disruptions of climate change.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a link to a June 14 report called ``Risky Business, The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States.''

I wanted to follow up on the good words not only of Senator Boxer but my good friend Senator Whitehouse, as he took on some of the words we were hearing from our colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Inhofe, as he talked about collusion of the people in this area-- collusion. I guess he meant with the President of the United States.

I looked at some of the names on this report--Hank Paulson, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under George Bush. I am trying to imagine him colluding with President Obama, and I just can't picture it right now.

Gregory Page is someone I know, the former head of Cargill, the CEO of Cargill, a multinational company--the biggest company in the United States--based in Minnesota. The executive chairman of Cargill is a part of this report warning the business community, looking at what the risks are to the business community. I can tell you he is not colluding with the President of the United States.

Olympia Snowe--talk about an independent--the former Senator from the State of Maine, is part of this group issuing this report. She is not colluding with the President of the United States.

As Senator Whitehouse pointed out, all of these military branches and people from the branches of our military who look at this as a security risk are looking at this and literally following the oath. They are doing what they are supposed to do--their duty, their duty to protect our country--and they see this as a threat to national security, to the United States, a threat to our standing in the world and to the scarce resources we are seeing with water not only in the United States but all across the world--a threat.

This is not collusion. This is science. These are facts. In my State we embrace science. We brought the world everything from the pacemaker to the Post-it note. We are the home of the Mayo Clinic. We believe in science.

What this resolution does is it simply states the science, drafted by over 300 authors, the 2014 National Climate Assessment, extensively reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences, with support, with the facts.

From the Department of Defense, the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review of the Department of Defense states that ``the pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world.''

All this says is let's get the facts straight. It is a sense of the Senate that global climate change is occurring and will continue to pose ongoing risks and challenges to the people and the government of the United States. That is all it says.

We are going to have major debate on how to solve this problem. That debate is going on right now. But unless we can at least get a vote and some support in the Senate for this problem that is happening, when 63 percent of Americans know it is happening, we look silly. The people are in front of us again. The businesses are in front of us. The church groups are in front of us. The scientists are in front of us. The hunting groups in my State are in front of us. It is time that we acknowledge we have a problem and then move on to fix it.

As Senator Boxer posed at the end of her remarks, yes, we will be back. I am someone who likes to get things done, and I believe the first thing we need to do is to get an agreement here on the fact that we have a problem. Once we have done that, we can move on and work on those solutions.

Senator Whitehouse has been a leader in the Senate, has been to those coastal communities not only in Rhode Island but up and down the coast looking at that damage, seeing what is happening in Virginia, and seeing what is happening in Florida.

I yield for the Senator from Rhode Island for closing remarks.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I appreciate very much having had the opportunity to hear those words from what I can only describe as an alternate reality from the one I inhabit, any way. First, let me say the very first paragraph of the resolution is this: Whereas, the 2014 National Climate Assessment stated the most recent decade was the Nation's warmest on record--U.S. Temperatures are expected to continue to rise.

There is some evidence that certain temperatures have been flat for a few years--atmospheric temperatures. What that little rhetorical device omits to consider is two things: One, 93 percent of the heat that comes onto the Earth from global warming goes into the oceans. Maybe 3 or 4 percent actually goes into the atmosphere--93 to 3. So if there is any change in the ocean, which regulates the temperature of the Earth, then it is going to have a pronounced effect on atmospheric temperature. And the ocean continues to warm.

People will say: No, the Earth stopped warming. It has not warmed for 12 or 15 years--whatever they say. No, if you actually look at it, the oceans are continuing to warm. There has been this step in atmospheric temperature at a certain level. The other thing that gets left out when our friends say that is this is not the first step. If you look at the history of how this got to be the hottest decade on record, over and over you can look at the graphs and you see these steps. To pretend that each step is the last one runs completely against the science. So to say we have no warming is just not factual. To say that the government--he used the word colluding--is colluding together, that is a fairly tough word to use. Let me tell you some of the government agencies that are so-called colluding together and believe climate change is real and carbon pollution is causing it.

How about NASA? We trust them to send our astronauts into space. We trust them to deliver a rover the size of an SUV to the surface of Mars safely and drive it around, sending data and pictures back from Mars to us. You think these people know what they are talking about?

We trust NOAA with our weather predicting. That is what they tell us. Nobody is saying they are incompetent at weather predicting. Do not listen when people are warning you about storms. But somehow when they talk about climate change, that is colluding.

How about the U.S. Navy? The Commander in Chief of our Pacific Command, Admiral Locklear, has said the No. 1 threat we face in the Pacific theatre comes from climate change. Is he colluding when he says that? This is a career Navy man whom the people of America have trusted with the security of our Pacific theater. It is exactly consistent with what the Department of Defense Quadrennial Defense Review said both last time--4 years ago--and most recently.

If you want to ignore the Federal Government, if you live in a world in which you think the Federal Government colludes with itself to make up things that are not true--OK, but look at the property casualty insurance and reinsurance industry. They are the people with the biggest bet on this. They

have billions of dollars riding on getting it right. They say climate change is real. Carbon pollution is causing it. We have to do something about it.

So does the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, because they care about the poor and the effect this will have on the people who have the least. So does every major U.S. scientific society--every single one. So you can take a poll or a petition and say it has 30,000 names on it. I am told that among the names on that petition are the Spice Girls and people from MASH such as Dr. Frank Burns. It is almost a comedic effort.

When you say there are 9,000 who have degrees, that is--what--.00003 percent of our population of 300 million? Maybe I got a zero wrong there. The idea that you cannot find 9,000 people who think the Earth is flat is a bit of a stretch. The idea that we should base our policies on a petition that imaginary people are on rather than on what NASA, NOAA, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, every major scientific society, and the entire property casualty insurance and reinsurance industry are telling us is just extraordinary.

If you want to go into the private sector, you have to look no further than Coke and Pepsi. Look no further than Walmart. Look no further than Mars. You can go over there to the candy drawer and you can get wonderful Mars products. It is a huge company. They are going carbon neutral. They are desperately concerned about climate change. Look at Nike, look at Google, look at Apple--American company after American company.

The only place, other than, of course, the 9,000 people who joined the Spice Girls and MAJ Frank Burns on this petition, where denial is anything credible any longer is here in Congress where the money from the fossil fuel industry still has such a pernicious effect. But even among the Republicans--I will close by saying this and yield to my distinguished chairman. Even among the Republicans, they are losing their young voters on this issue. People know better. You poll Republicans who are under the age of 35 and a majority of them will say that somebody who believes in climate denial is ignorant, out of touch or crazy. That is what the young Republicans think about that position. So time is on our side. The day will come when the Senate can face the fact that climate change is real. I want to thank Senator Klobuchar and salute her effort to bring such a noncontroversial proposition to the floor in the form of a resolution--such a noncontroversial and factual proposition. It is a measure of our times and a measure of this body and a measure of the influence on it that it was not adopted by unanimous consent but was objected to by the Republicans.

I yield the floor.

I thank Senator Klobuchar. It has been a pleasure working with the Senator.

This was an important step today. It was the most benign, factual, noncontroversial statement of virtually undisputed facts that one could imagine. Yet, here of all places it was unable to achieve consent.

Let me close by mentioning that this is not something that happens off in some other place; it is happening right in our homes.

In Rhode Island, the tide gauge at Naval Station Newport is up 10 inches since the 1930s. We have had big storms before. We have had big hurricanes before. They do a lot of damage to our State, adding 10 inches of more ocean to our shores. That is serious for my State. That is deadly serious for my State. You can't argue with a tide gauge. It is not complicated; it is a measurement.

We can look at the experience of Rhode Island fishermen who are hauling up fish such as tarpon and grouper. Fishermen have told me they started fishing on their granddad's boat and they finished on their dad's boat and in their lives they never saw these fish. But because of the warming seas I talked about earlier, these tropical fish are coming up into Rhode Island waters. When the seas warm, they get bigger. It is called the law of thermal expansion. It is not a law we passed; it is a law of God's Earth. To deny that is to deny the fundamental premises of this planet.

If you think the Rhode Island gauge is weird, go down to Fort Pulaski, GA, where I went on my tour of the southern coast. Tides are up there as well, same thing. The ocean is warming, the seas are rising, and it creates much more risk for our coastal communities.

You can go as far away from Rhode Island as you like. You can go to Utah; how about that. The Park City Foundation, which represents the skiing community--a lot of people go to Utah to ski--says climate change is serious, carbon pollution is causing it, and we are going to lose a lot of business because we are not going to have as much snow. It is going to shorten our season and make life much more difficult.

It is the same in New Hampshire, back on our coast. I went up to New Hampshire a little while ago and met with the ski industry. They are seeing much more need to make snow because they are not getting the snow they used to. If you want to go cross-country skiing or if you want to go on a ski mobile tour, they can't make snow on those trails, so they are getting clobbered.

What is really getting clobbered from the lack of snow is that iconic New Hampshire animal--the moose. Evidently, the way ticks breed, snow kills them off, and when the moose are walking around on snow they are protected from ticks, but when the snow is not there the ticks come at them.

I was told in New Hampshire about young moose calves that had not 1 tick on them, not 100 ticks on them, not 1,000 ticks on them--10,000 ticks on them. Adult moose have been found with 100,000 ticks on them. They are sucking so much blood out of these animals that they can't come up, they sicken, and they die. That is from the New Hampshire scientists, including people at the University of New Hampshire, State universities.

Utah Senators can deny this is real and refuse to talk about it, but Utah State universities both have climate change programs, and they both have

people studying climate change. How can their State universities have programs and people studying climate change in their home States and then they come to Washington and pretend it is not real? It doesn't make any sense.

How can a New Hampshire Senator not come here and admit it is real when the University of New Hampshire is so active in all of this?

Florida--I will stop with Florida because Florida is probably the worst of all. Florida is getting hugely hurt by sea level rise. One of our great cities floods at high tide in Florida.

I went down on my visit, and I stopped at the Army Corps of Engineers. People may think that the Army Corps of Engineers is some liberal organization colluding with somebody to do improper stuff and that they can't be trusted, but that is not the way people behave around here on any other subject. When the Army Corps wants to build lakes or dam rivers or build levees or anything else, we have 100 percent confidence in them. We have confidence in the Army Corps of Engineers. So you have to take with a grain of salt some of this skepticism about the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Army Corps of Engineers expert in Florida says that as the sea level rises it shoves saltwater by pressure into the limestone southern Florida is made of. You can actually measure the infiltration of saltwater into what used to be freshwater wells, and the line moves back from the coast as the sea level rises and creates hydraulic pressure. As they try to create counterhydraulic pressure, which they do with freshwater to push back in this hard limestone sponge, they raise the water level for freshwater. They said Florida is in a box. There is no way out. It is either going to flood with sea level or flood with freshwater. There is no way out. This is the Army Corps of Engineers expert in Jacksonville, FL. Why won't our colleague from Florida listen to the Army Corps of Engineers expert from his own State?

We have to get through this, and we will, but it is going take pressure, it is going to take leadership, and it is going to take the kind of leadership Senator Klobuchar showed this evening on the floor. I am immensely grateful to her.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Klobuchar from the bottom of my heart for writing such a sensible resolution. People who do not know Amy Klobuchar, as I know her, may not know that she is terrific at bringing both sides together. She does it every day of the week. I could list all of the issues, but I will not take the time to do that. The record speaks for itself.

But on this one, on this simple statement of fact, our Republican friends will not even let that go. This is amazing. This is not a document that says this is how we should fix climate change or this is how we should address it. She does not get into that. She stays away from that because there are legitimate differences.

Some people say: Let's keep on making more electric cars. Some people say: Let's focus on energy efficiency in our homes. Some people say: Shut down the old coal powerplants. It is dangerous to breathe that air. They are adding to the problem.

She does not get into that. All she does in this beautifully elegant and simple resolution is state the facts. First, the resolution acknowledges that the National Climate Assessment report, which is congressionally required--the Congress set it up--states that serious impacts are happening all around us. That report was drafted by more than 300 experts. Guess what it shows? This is what she points out. There are more frequent heat waves, wildfires, and droughts. Coming from California, I can tell you, we are in a terrible fire season. We go to bed at night not knowing what we are going to hear in the morning when we wake up about the raging wildfires in our great State.

We see them in all of our neighboring States as well, whether it is Washington, or Oregon or Arizona. The least we can do is acknowledge we have more frequent fires, that we have a terrible drought in the West, and that this is a fact in evidence. It is not a fact not in evidence.

Second, the resolution acknowledges that our top military leaders at the Pentagon have concluded the impacts of climate change are a growing concern. Sometimes when the military makes a statement it is hard to understand it. This one is really clear. Do you know what they say? They say that climate change is moving from a threat multiplier to a catalyst for conflict. Let me say that again. They used to think it was a threat multiplier. So if there was a problem, say, in Syria, where there is a horrific drought--and some people think that whole conflict has a lot of roots in that drought--where it used to be a multiplier, now they are saying it could actually be the reason why there are conflicts.

Now, I cannot believe my Republican friends would cast away the words of our military leaders and stand up here and object to this resolution. All it says is: Climate change is happening. These are the people who say it is happening. It is a risk to the American people if we do not address it.

Now, I will close with this. In our committee Senator Whitehouse had an incredible hearing he organized. It was amazing. I sat through the entire hearing. He invited four former Republican EPA Administrators who served under the last four Republican Presidents: Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George W. Bush. Now, listen to this. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George W. Bush--all of these former administrators said: Climate change requires action now, and it should not be a partisan issue. I ask rhetorically: When did the environment become a partisan issue? When I first got into politics--it was a while ago--but it was completely bipartisan.

We addressed this issue together because the health of the American people, the ability to go to work and breathe clean air and not have an asthma attack or a heart attack, the desire to make sure our kids are swimming in safe, clean water and drinking clean water. This wasn't partisan.

The latest thing we know--and this is critical to put in the Record at this time--is that when we clean up dirty, filthy carbon pollution, we also make sure the air is cleaner to breathe. This is critical. That is why the administration's plan is going to lead to healthier communities. We can't afford to sit around here debating whether climate change is real. We can't afford that.

All we wanted to say in this resolution and all Senator Klobuchar says is that climate change is happening. The experts are telling us. The peer review scientists are telling us. The military is telling us. Everybody is telling us.

Yes, as Senator Whitehouse said, there is a small group of people-- there always has been and there always will be--but we didn't wait before we protected our people from tobacco smoke because 10 percent of the scientists said: No, no, no, it doesn't cause cancer.

I would love to be able to bring back the lives of those lost when the tobacco companies put their dirty money all around the Capitol and stopped us from acting.

I am proud to stand with my friends.

When history is written--trust me on this one--they are going to look at us and say: What did they do? What did they do to step to the plate?

President Obama did, and we are protecting his rules here. But we have a job to do. It all starts with acknowledging that there is a problem. If you don't acknowledge that there is a problem, you will never fix it.

I thank my friend Senator Klobuchar for her leadership, and I hope she will not be deterred because I want to be back on this floor with her, Senator Whitehouse, and others as many times as she is willing to put this forward because it is that important.

I yield the floor.

I reserve the right to object.

Mr. President, I have to say this. The resolution by Senator Klobuchar clearly demonstrates the vast political influence of the President's global warming advocates and what they have been doing over time.

This is not new. This started in this Chamber--let's see, 15 years ago--at the time the Clinton-Gore effort took place in South America and they signed on to the treaty down there. Of course, it never came up to be ratified.

This resolution cites 13 different government agencies that are colluding together to merge their policies to promote global warming, which underscores how effective the environmental activists such as Tom Steyer have been at getting their agenda into the Obama administration.

While some Democrats may be convinced global warming is continuing to occur, the scientific record does not agree. In fact, for the past 15 years temperatures across the globe have not increased. Let's think about that. Is anyone listening here? Temperatures have not increased over the last 15 years. This isn't just--a major magazine had an article on it, ``The Economist'' did, and even the scientists at the

Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 488.

Mr. President, I have a cloture motion at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.

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