Floor Statements

Madam President, I rise in support of the TRACED Act, a piece of legislation that will help all Americans deal with the epidemic of robocalls, which afflicts them and their families every single day of the year.

I thank Chairman Wicker for all of his assistance in moving this legislation expeditiously through the legislative process.

I thank my partner, Senator Thune from South Dakota. He and I have worked very hard to reach this moment where Democrats and Republicans can come together on an issue, which we all agree is something that we have to address in a very serious way.

So this question of robocalls and their role in American society, well, it is a daily deluge of calls that Americans experience. It is more than a nuisance in 2019. It is a consumer protection crisis.

Americans across the country face an epidemic of robocalls bombarding landlines and mobile phones. While our phones were once a reliable means of communication, they have been turned against us and are now mechanisms for scammers and fraudsters who wish to do us harm. The numbers are staggering.

In 2018, consumers received an estimated 48 billion robocalls--18 billion more than in 2017. That is 131 million robocalls per day--more than 5 million calls an hour, more than 1,000 calls per second in the United States, and nearly 500 million robocalls to Massachusetts residents alone.

The reality is that we no longer have confidence in our phones. What was once a trusted means of communication, our phone has become a tool for fraud, scams, harassment, and an avenue by which individuals with bad intent can access our homes, our purses, or our pockets at any time.

Caller ID is not trusted. Important calls go unanswered. Innocent Americans are defrauded. Our seniors, in particular, are targeted. Robocalls are a menace. But today, the U.S. Senate is saying loud and clear that robocall relief is in sight.

I am proud to partner with Senator John Thune from South Dakota on the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act, or TRACED Act. Our legislation cracks down on scammers that now account for nearly one-half of all of the robocalls in our country. It is an unbelievable number. One-half of all of the robocalls are now being delivered by scammers trying to take advantage of innocent Americans.

Years ago, scammers needed expensive, sophisticated equipment to robocall and robotext consumers en masse. Today, they just need a

smartphone to target thousands of phones an hour at literally very little expense. So something has changed, and we know it has changed, and this is our opportunity here today to do something about it.

These new technologies allow illegal robocallers to conduct fraud anonymously, depriving both Federal regulators and consumers the ability to identify and punish the culprit. By passing this legislation today, we are sending a clear message to these fraudulent robocallers: Your days are numbered.

Stopping robocalls requires a simple formula, which we have included in the TRACED Act--authentication, No. 1; blocking, No. 2; and tougher enforcement, No. 3.

First, this bill requires telephone carriers to adopt call authentication technologies so that they can verify that incoming calls are legitimate or authentic before they reach consumers' phones. This must be mandatory for every single phone carrier in the United States.

Second, the Federal Communications Commission must require callers to block unverified calls--fake calls--something the Commission has yet to do.

Third, we need to increase from 1 year to 3 years the time for the Federal Communications Commission to pursue penalties for robocallers that intentionally violate the rules. That is the recipe for success, and that is what the TRACED Act does.

This bill we will vote on today has enormous support across the country: 54 State and Territory attorneys general, all of the Commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission and at the Federal Trade Commission, major industry associations, and leading consumer groups endorse the legislation and agree that the TRACED Act is an essential weapon in combating the rise of illegal, fraudulent robocalls.

Senator Thune and I are joined by over 80 of our colleagues in support of this bill. This is not a liberal or a conservative issue; it is an ``everyone'' issue. It affects the elderly, the young, the small business owner, and the student. Our grandparents, our neighbors, our teachers, and our coworkers--today, no one is spared from this consumer protection pandemic.

Senator Thune and I have worked together, but it would not have been possible without the great work of groups like the National Consumer Law Center, AARP, Consumer Reports, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Action, the National Association of Attorneys General, USTelecom, CTIA, NTCA, and so, so many more. These groups joined the chorus of countless Americans who have raised their voices and called on Congress to pass this bipartisan, commonsense legislation, and we thank each and every one of them.

There are no blue robocalls. There are no red robocalls. All there are are robocalls attacking every home in our country and every person walking around with a wireless device on their person. This is something that we finally have a chance today to do something about--to pass meaningful legislation that will begin this process of curtailing this scourge of robocalls that is an abuse of every single American every single day of the year.

We thank everyone for all of their great work on this issue. Again, I thank my great partner, John Thune, and his staff for their partnership on this legislation. I thank my staff--Joey Wender, who is sitting out here on the floor; Daniel Greene; and, as well, Bennett Butler, who is sitting right behind me. They worked on a bipartisan basis with Republican staffers to craft this very important piece of legislation. Again, I thank Senator Thune and I thank Senator Wicker for ensuring that America now has a chance to see that this body is going to work to begin an end to this epidemic.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Thank you, Madam President.

Again, I want to thank the Senator from South Dakota for his great leadership on this legislation. I think it is a start. It is a revolution in the telecommunications industry that we are going to be voting on here today.

I want to thank you so much for your great leadership.

Once again, I thank Senator Wicker and Senator Cantwell for helping to bring this out here to let the American people know we are going to take action to stop this plague from affecting their families.

Thank you so much.

Mr. President, due to a regrettable clerical error, the senior Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, was not added as an original cosponsor and co-lead of S. 1421, the Ghost Army Congressional Gold Medal Act, when we introduced the bill together on May 9, 2019. I wish to clarify that Senator Collins is in fact the lead cosponsor of this important legislation and has been an indispensable partner in this endeavor. I thank her for her leadership in ensuring that the heroic Americans of the 23d Headquarters Special Troops and the 3133d Signal Service Company are appropriately honored for their service as a ``Ghost Army'' during World War II with a Congressional Gold Medal.

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

Madam President, I rise today to address the Senate on the nomination of David Bernhardt to head the Department of the Interior.

I ask unanimous consent that I may use this chart in order to further my goal of making it clear why he should not be nominated and confirmed as Secretary of the Interior.

Madam President, under Secretary Bernhardt, the Department of the Interior will come to stand for the Department of Oil Interests, DOI.

This wheel of Bernhardt's giveaways makes it very clear what the objective of his tenure as the Secretary of Interior will, in fact, entail.

Bernhardt's nomination is just a continuation of the Trump administration's cartel Cabinet. Only a month ago, a former coal lobbyist was confirmed to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Let me say that again. Just last month, a coal lobbyist was nominated and confirmed to be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States--unbelievable. But now Republicans want to install a former oil lobbyist to head the Department of the Interior because, in Trump's administration, it is nothing but foxes guarding the henhouse.

We need more answers about Mr. Bernhardt's lobbying activities. We need answers on whether Mr. Bernhardt used his position at the Department of the Interior to help former clients. The American people need to see the documents associated with Bernhardt's lobbying activities. Most importantly, we should not confirm a former oil lobbyist to lead the very Agency that is tasked with protecting our public lands from despoliation.

Let me now point to the wheel of giveaways for more oil--more oil. And that is the goal of his appointment.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of our national treasures that is under threat from Big Oil and the Trump administration. This is the wildest place left in America, and it should not be turned into a drilling playground. Yet Republicans here in the Senate voted in 2017 to hand this special place--the Arctic Refuge--over to Big Oil. Now this administration is trying to hit the gas on drilling there, in one of the Earth's most pristine wilderness areas.

Last year, Mr. Bernhardt said that he would ``expedite'' oil development in the wildlife refuge, and he has worked inside the Department of the Interior to limit environmental review of drilling activities. So let's just imagine gushing oil poisoning the habitat of magnificent creatures like polar bears and caribou, snowy owls and the Arctic fox; rigs and pumps threatening the ancestral homeland of the Gwich'in and Inupiat peoples, which they call ``the sacred place where life begins.''

I have spent my career protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for future generations, and today I will not support the nomination of David Bernhardt to undermine the protections we have worked so hard to put in place. We must stand up for the generations yet to come that cannot yet speak to protect our public lands and our oceans.

At the same time, the Trump administration is trying to roll back the fuel economy standards for the vehicles we drive. In other words, since we put 70 percent of all the oil we consume in our country on a yearly basis into the gasoline tanks of the vehicles we drive in our country, if you increase the fuel economy of every one of those vehicles, it will reduce the amount of oil you need to drill for.

What do the Republicans want to do? What do the oil companies want? What do the Koch brothers want? What does ExxonMobil want? Well, it is very simple. By not increasing the fuel economy standards of the vehicles we drive, we need more oil because cars will consume more in the course of a year. They then say: Ah, let's turn to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--a sacred place--and find more oil, because the vehicles we drive won't be that efficient.

What kind of sacrifice are we going to make in our country because the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil want to have more oil drilled for? We are going to have the Trump administration say: The only way we can justify it is if the cars, the light trucks, the SUVs that people drive are not that efficient; therefore, we need all the oil we can get, even though we are a technical giant and we know we can make these vehicles so much more efficient, so we never have to drill there. That is a sin against the environment and a sin against our country and future generations that should be able to enjoy this pristine area, the wildlife refuge.

Let's move on to another part of the wheel of giveaways--even more oil that will be another giveaway during the Bernhardt time at the Department of the Interior.

On January 4, 2018, the Department of the Interior announced a plan to revise the offshore drilling plan to eliminate protections for the east and west coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the Arctic Ocean. The plan proposed to open up more than 90 percent of the U.S. coastlines to oil and gas leasing.

Since then, the bipartisan opposition has been deafening. All Governors along the east and west coasts have opposed or expressed concerns about expanded oil and gas exploration off their coasts. More than 340 municipalities and over 2,100 elected local, State, and Federal officials have formally opposed offshore oil and gas drilling and seismic airgun blasting in our ocean. But David Bernhardt is not listening to those concerns. Instead, he is listening to his former fossil fuel clients. He is moving ahead with this terrible offshore drilling plan that would threaten State after State with the threat of a spill in the ocean off of those States.

We should not confirm Bernhardt to lead the Department of the Interior. Handing the keys to the beaches of our country, the coastlines of our country, and our fishing and tourism industries in our country over to Big Oil is not what our citizens want. That is the opposite of what we need to do to protect our environment, but that is what David Bernhardt and his fossil fuel friends want.

There is no reason that we have to drill off of the coastlines of our country right where people who are swimming will be watching these oil rigs that are going to be drilling down into those ocean areas off of our beaches to find oil that we don't need. If we increase the fuel economy standards of the vehicles we drive, we will be able to back out the need for all of that additional oil. That is the sin against the environment that is being committed. That is the agenda of David Bernhardt's at the Department of the Interior.

Instead of being the United States of America--a technological giant that invents its way to the new automotive technologies that reduce the amount of oil we need and reduces the amount of greenhouse gasses that go up into the atmosphere--with David Bernhardt as the Secretary of the Interior, partnered with the new coal lobbyist who is running the EPA, we are going to wind up with more greenhouse gasses going up into the air, a reduction in the efficiency of the vehicles we drive, and putting more profits into the pockets of the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil and the auto industry, which also wants to reduce the fuel economy standards of the vehicles we drive. This is a sin against our environment but also our identity as the technological giant of the planet.

We can do this. We can make our cars more efficient. We can have plug-in hybrids. We can have all-electric vehicles. We can create a revolution that avoids the necessity of drilling off of our beaches and drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. We can do this, but that is not what Donald Trump wants. He wants fossil fuel industry representatives at the Department of the Interior and EPA running these Agencies.

David Bernhardt's ties to Big Oil--the very industry he is tasked with regulating--are as deep as an oil well. Those ties should be disqualifying for anyone nominated to head the Department of the Interior. We need to stop the pollution of our democracy by Big Oil interests.

I urge my colleagues to vote no on the nomination of David Bernhardt. I ask my colleagues to consider what we can do to avoid the necessity of despoiling these sacred environmental locations in our country for the oil industry, for the Koch brothers.

This is a big moment, this vote we are about to cast. This is one more step by Donald Trump that will result in far more greenhouse gases going up into the atmosphere, far more danger being presented to places that should be put off limits to the oil industry because of the risk of environmental danger that would result from that permission to drill.

That is why we should all pause and really consider whether we want to go deeper and deeper into an era that is completely avoidable if we unleash the technological might of our country.

When President Kennedy went to Rice University in 1961, what he said was that we were going to have a mission to the Moon and that mission would require us to invent new metals, new alloys, new propulsion systems that did not exist, and that within 10 years, we would have to then bring that mission back safely from the Moon through heat half the intensity of the Sun and do so successfully.

Auto mechanics is not rocket science. We already know how to improve the fuel economy standards of the vehicles we drive. We don't need nuclear physics and we don't need aeronautical engineers to help us do this.

President Kennedy challenged our country, and we responded. President Trump is like J.F.K. in reverse. He is saying that we can't do it; that, instead, what we have to do is, here on Earth, be the leaders in spoiling our most sacred environmental locations.

That is why today is such a monumental opportunity for the Senate to say no on a bipartisan basis to David Bernhardt, who is someone who does not deserve the post of Secretary of the Interior.

I once again urge a ``no'' vote from all of my colleagues.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I wish today to recognize the life of Lilla Weinberger, a beloved daughter, friend, and activist who devoted her life to the causes of democracy and the literary arts.

Lilla Weinberger was born in 1941 in Pasadena, CA. She became involved in the women's movement while at CalArts. After college, she worked at the Library of Congress and carried out research and worked on speeches for President Lyndon Johnson's landmark education legislation. She moved to Lenox, MA, and there, she was integral to the building of the first-ever domestic violence shelter in the Commonwealth.

In 1991, Lilla moved to Sonoma, CA, and founded Readers' Books, which became a cherished institution. She became deeply involved in the independent bookstore community and served on the board of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association from 1997-2003.

Lila was a strong believer in political participation and grassroots democracy. She was an active member of the Barack Obama Presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012. She became the northern California regional head of the Obama campaign in 2012 and later became Obama's field director in Maryland. In 2013, Lilla returned to Massachusetts and became the regional field director for my first U.S. Senate campaign. She was our warrior in western Massachusetts and became an indispensable member of our campaign operation.

I am honored to commemorate the remarkable achievements of Lilla Weinberger, a distinguished leader, our dear friend, and a truly great American.

Mr. President, Samya Stumo, a University of Massachusetts Amherst graduate and resident of Sheffield, MA, was tragically killed aboard Ethiopian Airlines flight 302. Samya, just 24 years old, was a champion of social justice, with a goal of revolutionizing global health. Her undergraduate fieldwork in Peru challenged unjust social services; her master's work in Europe gave a voice to marginalized patient groups living with viral hepatitis; and, most recently, she was working to disrupt the status quo in global health systems to help countries achieve universal healthcare coverage. She strove for all people and patients to be treated as human beings, particularly in context of their culture, family, and individuality. She was a beacon of hope for Massachusetts, the Nation, and all of the lives she has touched.

Mr. President, this afternoon, the Republican leader is bringing the Green New Deal resolution up for a vote on the floor of the Senate. What the Republican leader, however, is not doing is allowing us to have any hearings, any witnesses, any science, any evidence of the massive destruction in our country.

Just from fires and flooding over the last 2 years, there has been $400 billion worth of damage. None of that will ever be heard out here. None of it was heard in a committee because the Republican leader is making a sham of this process. This is not the serious process this incredible issue deserves. The United Nations has made it clear that climate change is now an existential threat to our country and to the planet.

Notwithstanding the incredible damage that is being done to our planet, the Republicans' concern is that the Green New Deal is an existential threat to the Koch brothers, to ExxonMobil, and to all of those polluting companies that do not want to end business as usual. The Republican leader does not want a hearing at which we will learn that we now have 350,000 people who are in the wind and solar industries and that we have 350,000 blue-collar jobs--electricians, roofers, steelworkers--in our country. The Green New Deal would supercharge that even more to our having millions of clean energy jobs in our country.

We can save all of creation by engaging in massive job creation, which is the core of the Green New Deal, and we can do it in a way that ensures we protect people in our country. We have gone now from 80,000 solar jobs to 240,000 solar jobs in just the last 10 years. We have gone from 2,500 all-electric vehicles to 1 million all-electric vehicles in just 10 years. There have been 500,000 new electric vehicles sold this year in the United States--1 year--after only having 2,000 of them sold 10 years ago. We went from 1,000 megawatts of solar capacity to 65,000 megawatts in 2018. That is a revolution in 10 years. We have gone from 25,000

megawatts of wind to 98,000 megawatts of wind in 10 years.

That is the revolution the Koch brothers are afraid of, and that is the revolution the polluters want to stop because it is the existential threat to their business model. That is what the fight is all about out here--the Koch brothers v. the Green New Deal. It is one business model against another, and our business model is the job creation engine of this generation for blue-collar jobs.

Now, who paid for the Republican study that they all came out on the floor to use? It was paid for by the Koch brothers. They put together what they believe are the costs of the Green New Deal. This was not some private, independent group. The Koch brothers themselves paid for the study that the Republicans have used out here on the floor.

The hearings, if the majority leader had ever ordered them to have been conducted, would have just picked out some of the items regarding how much harm had been done to our planet and to our own country in the last 2 years--$24 billion from western wildfires in 2018, $24 billion from Hurricane Michael, $24 billion from Hurricane Florence, $18 billion from western wildfires in 2017, $91 billion from Hurricane Maria, and on and on and on--Hurricane Harvey, $127.5 billion.

This is all climate related. We pay the price for this. There is no exempting America from having to pick up the costs. Shouldn't we be investing in job creation? Shouldn't we be investing in this incredible change that is already taking place in our economy?

The Green New Deal is not just a resolution; it is a revolution that is taking place across our country. That is why people are rising up all across our country. It is because they know we can do this and because they know this is a job-creation engine that absolutely can create millions of jobs and that can absolutely begin the process of having America, once again, be the leader on this issue.

The denier in chief sits in the White House. The denier in chief addressed the United States at the State of the Union for an hour and 20 minutes just 7 weeks ago, but he did not mention climate change and did not mention clean energy jobs. That is why we are in this fight. We are in the fight because, if we don't lead, the rest of the world will not follow. You cannot preach temperance from a barstool. You can't tell China and you can't tell India what to do if you yourself are not leading. We are the United States of America.

President Kennedy challenged our country to have a mission to the Moon. He said in his speech at Rice University that we would have to invent new metals, new alloys, and propulsion systems that did not exist. He said we would have to bring that mission safely back from the Moon through heat that was half the intensity of the Sun and get it completed within 10 years. We did that as a nation. We can do this as well. We can deploy these technologies; we can invent new technologies; and we can create millions of jobs within our country because we are bold--because we are a country that can do it.

The President is, for all intents and purposes, John F. Kennedy in reverse. He says we can't do it. He says we should not accept this challenge. Ladies and gentlemen, the Green New Deal is our accepting the challenge, and we are looking forward to this debate today and every day until election day of 2020. We are going to inject this issue into the Presidential and congressional races of 2020 in a way that ensures that unlike in 2016, when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were not asked a single question about climate change, the candidates will be asked every day about what their plans are.

We say to the Republican leader: Do you believe in the science? Do you believe it is an existential threat? If you do, where is your plan? Where is the Republican plan to deal with the science of climate change?

If you do not believe it is a threat, then, say it. If you do not believe the science, then, say it. But if you do believe the science, then, all we say to you is this: Where is your plan to deal with this challenge?

President Kennedy responded to the challenge of the Soviet Union controlling outer space, and we succeeded. What is the plan of this Republican era to deal with the challenge of climate, an existential threat to our planet?

We thank you for your attention.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the nomination of Neomi Rao to serve as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Ms. Rao is the latest in a string of ultra-conservative judicial nominees who will rubberstamp Donald Trump's far-right agenda. Her record portends a threat to the rights of women and minorities, to consumer protection statutes and regulations, and to the security of our financial institutions.

Moreover, Ms. Rao utterly lacks the experience to serve on the court that many view as second in importance only to the U.S. Supreme Court. She practiced for only 3 years as an associate at a large law firm. None of her practice was in Federal courts or State courts, before administrative agencies, or involved criminal proceedings.

These are disqualifying reasons on their own, but I rise to speak about Ms. Rao's record on the environment, and the contempt she has demonstrated for fair, reasonable, and commonsense regulations that protect the health of our communities and the safety of our air and drinking water.

Ms. Rao currently serves in the Office of Management and Budget as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OIRA. She is commonly known as the Trump administration's ``regulatory czar.'' This role has her in charge of implementing the Trump administration's anti-environment, climate-change-denying, and polluter-friendly agenda.

Ms. Rao has called climate change a ``dangerous orthodoxy,'' led the Trump administration's efforts to gut fundamental environmental protections, and has misused the regulatory review process for partisan political purposes.

The attacks on the environment that Ms. Rao has launched from OIRA include rolling back national auto fuel efficiency standards, challenging California's Clean Air Act waiver that allowed it to set higher fuel efficiency standards, removing safety rules for fertilizer plants, and rolling back safety rules put in place for oil rigs after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in 2010.

During review of a proposed rollback of the Methane and Waste Prevention Rule, Ms. Rao's office repeatedly pressured the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to adopt fossil fuel industry requests to significantly reduce natural gas leak inspections. This would have doubled the amount of methane released into the atmosphere and, according to the EPA's own determination, conflicted with its legal obligation to reduce emissions.

Ms. Rao's office censored language about the impact of climate change on child health when reviewing a proposed rollback of the Refrigerant Management Program, a program that limited the release of greenhouse gases thousands of times more powerful that carbon dioxide.

Ms. Rao's office approved a proposed EPA rule to roll back public health protections that reduce pollution from wood-burning stoves, despite the EPA's own admission that the new rule would cost nine times as much in harm to public health as it would benefit the industry.

Ms. Rao has overseen the Trump administration's repeal of regulations to address climate change, including a repeal of President Obama's historic Clean Power Plan that would have significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions. By comparison, Ms. Rao has approved a proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan with a rule that would lead to increases in carbon dioxide emissions, asthma attacks, and even death from black carbon, mercury, and other dangerous air emissions from power plants.

It is bad enough that, with Donald Trump, we have a climate-change denier in the White House, and with Andrew Wheeler, we have a coal industry lobbyist running the EPA. We don't need a judge on the DC Circuit whose record demonstrates that she is a sympathetic ally to their anti-environment agenda. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the nomination of Neomi Rao to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. President, today I recognize Frank Moroney, executive director of AFSCME Council 93 and the AFSCME International vice president for the northern New England region. For his entire life, Frank has been a committed and fearless advocate for working people. Now, after four decades of service, he is entering a well- deserved retirement.

Frank began his career with AFSCME in 1967, when he joined Local 1358 as a worker in the Brookline Water Department. He quickly rose through the union ranks, and in 1971, he was elected president of the local. Frank scored two huge victories for his members early in his career. In 1973, he successfully took his local on strike

and received important longevity benefits for its members. He then fought for survivor health insurance benefits for all Brookline's municipal employees, taking the fight to the voters and winning on a ballot initiative.

Frank would build on these achievements as his career progressed, improving the lives of thousands of public employees throughout New England. He secured numerous wage increases, obtained more paid sick leave time, and successfully negotiated the Agency Fee in Maine. In 2012, Frank was appointed as the executive director of Council 93 and as vice president to the AFSCME International Executive Board, where he has served since. It is a leadership position befiting his service and dedication.

On April 1, 2019, Frank will retire as AFSCME Council 93 executive director. Throughout my and Frank's years of service, I have had the privilege of working closely with him and am lucky enough to call him my friend. Frank is irreplaceable, but his successes have left the council strong and one of the most effective AFSCME affiliates in the Nation.

Mr. President.

Mr. President.

Mr. President.

Will the Senator yield for a second?

I would just seek to be recognized and just ask the Senator if the--

--$93 trillion number comes from a Koch brothers-funded organization.

Would the Senator yield and tell us--

Will the Senator yield?

Would the Senator from Alaska yield for a question?

I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. President, I would pose a question to the Senator from Alaska.

Mr. President, through the Presiding Officer, I pose a question to the Senator from Alaska.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I will just make this point through the Presiding Officer, which is that the words ``fossil fuels'' are not in the resolution. No. 2, airplanes are not banned in the resolution. No. 3, there is no guarantee for healthcare for everyone in America in the resolution. No. 4, there is nothing that provides for those who are unwilling to work in the resolution. None of this is true.

We know the Koch brothers paid for this $93 trillion study, and all we are hearing from the Republican side is of a Koch brothers-produced document that is absolutely inaccurate. There is no banning of airplanes. There is no guarantee of Medicare for all. Neither of those is in the resolution. This entire discussion is based upon a completely fraudulent, bogus report that the Koch brothers produced.

What we are trying to say to the other side is we should have a debate about the science, that we should have a debate about the human activity, that we should have a debate about what the solutions are, and that we should bring it out here as a great deliberative body.

Right now, we are debating the Green New Deal, but the Republicans haven't given us any hearings. They have given us no scientists, no witnesses, and no debate. They are just doing this because the Koch brothers have produced a report at a cost of $93 trillion that is completely and totally inaccurate. In fact, with regard to the accusation of the banning of airplanes, PolitiFact has looked at it, examined it, and said it is completely and totally inaccurate.

I think it is difficult to have a debate when the facts here are those which we cannot submit to committees, witnesses, debates. Instead, all we are subjected to is a representation of the Green New Deal that is completely inaccurate. For that matter, the words ``fossil fuels'' don't even appear in the Green New Deal.

This is not right. If the Republicans want to, they should set up a debate. Then we could have it out here on whether the planet is dangerously warming, whether human activity is principally responsible, whether this body should take action in order to deal with that problem, and whether, economically, we can unleash a technological revolution to solve the problem.

That is what we should be debating out here this afternoon, not a whole group of bogus facts that have been produced by the Koch brothers, have been paid for by the Koch brothers, and that are being repeated over and over again on the other side without any Republican saying he actually believes the planet is dangerously warming, that he actually agrees with the U.N.'s scientists who say it is an existential threat to us, that he actually agrees it is largely caused by human activity, and that we, the greatest deliberative body in the world, should have a robust debate. If the Republicans believe it is serious, they should present their own plan for debate on the Senate floor.

I yield to the leader.

I yield to the leader for a question.

Mr. President, the leader has put his finger right on it.

We want a debate. We want to see their plan. We want to know if they agree with the science of the entire United Nations and 13 of our own Federal Agencies that produced an identical report at the end of 2018-- that being, it is dangerous and a great threat to our country, and we have to do something about it.

So where is the Republicans' plan? What is their answer? Of course, they don't have one. They want to bring out the Green New Deal with no hearings, no witnesses, and no science when they should be bringing out their own plan.

The leader is right. It is just, basically, a condition they have, and the number they are using--the $93 trillion in terms of the cost of the Green New Deal--is a Koch brothers-produced number. It is their group that put it together. So how could we possibly be having a serious debate about something the Koch brothers have produced, in terms of dealing with global warming, since they are central players in this dangerous warming of our planet?

I yield to the leader.

The leader is correct. No solutions, 5 years, and it is more dangerously warm on the planet. Four hundred billion dollars' worth of damage was done to our country in the last 2 years. We had fires out in the West, flooding, $400 billion worth of damage--and the consensus among scientists is that it is only going to grow worse as each year goes by--and still no answers. Nothing on the floor from the Republicans, nothing that would deal with the problem, and no admission that it is caused by human beings and that we can do something about it.

We don't know the answer.

We don't know the answer.

We don't know the answer.

And I would be glad to yield the floor to any of them who would be willing to be recognized, but, through the leader, the problem is that they keep talking about a $93 trillion cost, which is a report from the American Action Forum, a partisan, rightwing group funded by the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove as a sister group to his Crossroads USA 501(c)(3). That is what we are now debating out here on the floor, and not the science.

I would yield to any of my friends on the other side of the aisle who have concrete, positive proposals for dealing with the crisis of climate change in our country and on the planet.

Mr. President, I rise in defense of the internet. This is a fight for innovation, for entrepreneurialism, for the American economy, a fight for free speech--the cornerstone of our democracy--a fight for the most powerful platform for commerce and communications in the history of the planet. This is a fight for net neutrality.

Today nearly every Member of the Senate Democratic caucus introduced a bill, the Save the Internet Act, to put net neutrality rules back on the books. Congressman Mike Doyle is leading the same effort over in the House.

In the Senate, we have already successfully passed the proposal. The newly introduced Save the Internet Act and the Congressional Review Act we approved last Congress will have the same effect--overturning the Trump administration's FCC's wrongheaded decision and restoring the open internet order.

Last May, in a historic, bipartisan CRA vote of 52 to 47, in the Senate on this floor, we sent a message to President Trump about what a free and open internet means, free of corporate control, open to all who want to communicate, engage, and innovate. We made clear this Congress will not fall for President Trump's special interest agenda and his broadband baron allies.

This bill does what the American people want. It restores the rules so people are not subject to higher prices, slower internet speeds, and even blocked websites because the big broadband providers want to pump up their profits. With this bill, we will do right by the people who sent us here and fight to protect the internet as we know it.

This is a fight which we can win. There is tremendous power on this issue. Republicans and Democrats alike agree we need net neutrality so the sky is the limit. Support for our position will only continue to grow.

The critics claim the sky hasn't fallen since the FCC repeal, so why do we need net neutrality at all?

The answer is simple. There is pending litigation right now in the DC Circuit Court challenging the FCC's repeal. So there is every reason in the world why they would not change their practices until the legal matter is settled in court. Any prudent business would act cautiously when there is an issue pending before a court, but once the issue is resolved in court, there are no rules. They can do what they want.

In fact, I attended the court hearing and listened to 5 hours of oral argument. I saw firsthand how the FCC and

broadband industry used tortured logic to defend the repeal of net neutrality and reclassification of broadband.

I also organized an amicus brief with 100 other Members of the Senate and House in defense of the net neutrality rules. I am confident we will prevail in court. Net neutrality is just another way of saying nondiscrimination, just another way of saying big companies can't discriminate against small companies; that big companies can't discriminate against small individuals; that they have equal access to the internet. They don't have to pay extra to gain access. Net neutrality means nondiscrimination. Those are the rules we need for the internet in order to see explosive economic growth because of the new ideas that are able to be introduced and at the same time so democracy can flourish because every voice is treated equally on the internet.

So whether it is in the Halls of Congress or in the courts, we will not stop fighting until net neutrality is fully restored. We are on the right side of history, and we will not give up this fight until we have won.

I thank you for the time.

At this point, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for his comments. I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly with the sentiments that the gentleman from New Mexico just uttered and the others, the Senator from Rhode Island and the Senator from New York.

This is an emergency situation for the planet. How do we know? We know because the U.N. scientists at the end of 2018 issued a report saying that climate change is an existential threat to our planet. Our own U.S. scientists in the end of 2018 issued their own report. This is the Trump administration's scientists, much to his chagrin, who said: ``We must act to avoid substantial damages to the U.S. economy, environment, and human health and the well-being over the coming decades.''

These are earth-shattering science reports about the state of our planet. These are doomsday reports, which the scientists of our own country and the world are giving to us. Yet just 3 weeks ago, the ``Denier in Chief'' stood before the Congress and delivered a message to the American people--not by his words but by the words he did not utter, because in an hour and 20 minutes, President Trump did not even mention the words ``climate change.'' He did not even mention the words ``clean energy revolution.''

President Trump, further, has sent to us a new person to be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Who is Andrew Wheeler? He is a former lobbyist for the coal industry. That is what this Senate will be voting on--a coal lobbyist to take over the environment of our country, as the scientists of our country tell us that we are facing an existential threat if we do not take urgent actions today.

Our majority leader yesterday called the Green New Deal ``foolish and dangerous.'' Well, with all due respect to my Republican colleagues, the only thing foolish and dangerous about the Green New Deal is to ignore the $400 billion in damages over the last 2 years from supercharged storms and wildfires, to ignore the tens of trillions of dollars in the damage that we will see from climate change in the United States by 2100 if we do not act, and the hundreds of trillions of damage across the entire planet if we are not the leader in creating a clean-energy revolution.

What is dangerous, I say to the leader, is sending our men and women in the military overseas to protect tankers of oil that are coming into our country from the Middle East. Superstorms, wildfires, rising seas, and other extreme weather events are the impacts of climate change if we do not act boldly to stop it. It isn't just dangerous; it is an existential threat to our planet, not from politicians or political scientists but from real scientists--``the'' scientists--the Nobel Prize-winning scientists of the whole planet and in our own country. They are telling us we are in danger, and this body has to take positive action to deal with it.

We have a ``Denier in Chief'' in the White House. We have a Republican leader who has brought climate bills to the floor while he has been leader, but they have been bills to make the climate even more dangerous--the Keystone Pipeline bill and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil. The Republicans are today going to confirm a coal lobbyist to head the Environmental Protection Agency, which is the Agency charged with protecting the planet.

The reality is that the Republicans have no plan to deal with the climate crisis. That is why they want to short circuit this debate on the Green New Deal. Let's have a hearing. Let's hear from experts. Let's hear from scientists. Let's have the evidence in the U.S. Senate. Then we can decide--but, no, there will be no debate in the Senate on science. There will be no debate on the harm that is going to be done if we do not act. Instead, in the same period, there will be just an attempt to confirm a coal lobbyist to take over the Environmental Protection Agency and to derail any real debate on the Green New Deal. That is who they are.

Why is that? It is that the Green New Deal is dangerous. It is dangerous for the status quo to just continue to remain in place on climate change. It is dangerous for the Koch brothers and those who are used to killing every climate debate before it gets a chance to start. It is dangerous for those who want us to limp into a frightening future with no plan and no protections in place. It is dangerous for those who benefit from the continued devaluation of our workers, from the historic oppression of vulnerable communities, and from the continued destruction of the environment. That is who would think the Green New Deal is dangerous.

The Democrats want to support working families and support a safe climate future in which all communities are protected. We welcome debate on proposals for how to get there, but the science is clear on what we need to do and the magnitude of the response that we have to unleash in this country.

The Republicans may think the Green New Deal is just a resolution, but it is more than that. It is a revolution, and it cannot and will not be stopped. The science is driving this. It is an intergenerational concern that we are heading toward a catastrophe on this planet that could have been avoided, but we as a nation have stood on the sidelines and have allowed it to happen.

Ladies and gentlemen, this vote that we take as to whether Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist, should be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency goes right through the heart of whether we are going to respond to the magnitude of this challenge. I do not know how anyone can vote for Andrew Wheeler given the science that has been presented to us, given the danger that we now know, given the catastrophe that is going to be created if we don't change course. This is just doubling down on a disaster. Andrew Wheeler is going to be the architect of the Republican plan to ensure that we do nothing about this climate catastrophe. The consequences could not be greater, but the political ramifications in the 2020 elections are going to be great as well. We will see a revolution that rises up across this country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am here today to talk about climate change and about our climate crisis.

Climate change is an existential threat to our country and the planet. We know this because the world's leading scientists--the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--just made that very warning last year. The U.N. report told us that we have very limited time until we are past the point of no return and the most catastrophic impacts of climate change are irreversible. Our own Federal scientists across 13 Agencies also just warned in the ``National Climate Assessment'' that the impacts of climate change are not in the future but are happening in our communities right now. Here is what all 13 Federal Agencies said: ``Our efforts do not yet approach the scale necessary to avoid substantial damages to the economy, environment, and human health.''

These are Earth-shattering reports about the state of our Earth. These are the doomsday reports about what will happen if we do not take bold action.

The consequences of climate change will be dire: a tenfold increase in ice-free summers in the Arctic, a 99-percent loss of coral reefs, and a doubling of species lost around the world. In worst-case scenarios in the Northeast, by the end of the century, both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Logan Airport will be underwater. Climate emissions are not slowing down. In 2018, greenhouse gas emissions in the United States increased by 2.8 percent. We have a denier-in-chief in the White House.

This week, Republicans in the Senate are poised to confirm a coal lobbyist to be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. It is unbelievable that we will confirm a coal lobbyist to be the head of our environment in our country. Andrew Wheeler's denial of the climate crisis should in and of itself be disqualifying. His record as a coal lobbyist should be disqualifying.

We should come together and reject Andrew Wheeler as the next head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The impact of climate change on ordinary families, on their health, on our Nation, on our security, and on our future is too urgent.

The United Nations tells us that climate change is an existential threat to the planet. It is the national security, health, economic, and moral issue of our time--of all time. We have a responsibility to act. We must be bold. We must be ambitious. That is why I have introduced the Green New Deal resolution, because it lays out a serious, bold, and aspirational set of goals

that meet the scale of the threat. It is a set of principles and not prescriptions. It challenges this country to find solutions to this problem.

The Green New Deal is a climate plan about net-zero emissions. The Republican climate plan is in zero existence. They don't have a climate plan. Republicans don't like the Green New Deal because they don't like a functional government. Republicans don't like the Green New Deal because they don't like climate science. Republicans don't like the Green New Deal because their allies--the oil companies, the coal companies, and the corporate polluters--don't like wind power or solar power or all-electric vehicles or the millions of blue-collar jobs they can create. We can save all of creation by engaging in massive blue- collar job creation in this country. Republicans don't like the Green New Deal because clean energy is a direct threat to the interests and the bottom line of Big Oil and King Coal.

The Green New Deal isn't just a socialist manifesto. It isn't pie in the sky. It isn't a takeover. It isn't any of the misinformation and distortions that Republicans and their fossil fuel allies have called it. The Green New Deal isn't, as the Republican leader called it this morning, ``the far left's Santa Claus wish list dressed up to look like serious policy.'' If it were, then Republicans in this Chamber wouldn't care enough about it to spend their entire morning remarks on it, and the majority leader wouldn't be threatening to bring it to the floor without any hearings, without any expert testimony, without any amendments, and without any science.

Let's have the debate. Let's have the hearings. Let's bring in all the experts. Let's let the U.N. testify. Let's let our own scientists and every one of the Federal Agencies in America testify. Let's bring in all of the corporate executives right now on wind, solar, all- electric vehicles, and storage batteries in our society. Bring them in. Let's hear the stories. Instead, what we have is just an attempt to short-circuit the debate.

They may not believe climate change is an existential threat to human kind, but they are smart enough to know that the bold goals of the Green New Deal are an existential threat to the Koch brothers and all of their other corporate polluter and fossil fuel allies.

Let me just read some of what is in the Green New Deal that Republicans are opposed to: securing for all people of the United States for generations to come clean air and water, climate and community resiliency, healthy food, access to nature, and a sustainable environment.

Are Republicans opposed to access to nature? That is in the resolution. Are Republicans opposed to clean air and water? That is in the resolution too. Do you know what is not in the resolution? Ending airline travel. Do you know what is not in the resolution? No more cows.

Do you know what is not in the resolution? A prohibition on nuclear energy or carbon capture and sequestration. The Green New Deal resolution is bold, and it is aspirational in its principles, but it is not prescriptive in its policies.

Let's look at some of what is actually in this resolution: to create millions of good, high-wage jobs--I guess Republicans don't believe in that; to invest in the infrastructure and industry of the United States to sustainably meet the challenge of the 21st century--I guess Republicans don't believe in that; guaranteeing universal access to clean water, supporting family farming, cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites, ensuring economic development and sustainability on those sites--I guess Republicans don't believe in those either. Those are all part of the Green New Deal and climate solutions.

We already know that Big Oil and King Coal and other fossil fuel companies don't want to compete with clean energy because that is a direct threat to their business plan.

Clean energy makes the air we breathe cleaner, it saves consumers money, it makes us safer, and it creates jobs.

In his remarks, the Republican leader called the Green New Deal ``foolish and dangerous.'' With all due respect to the leader and my Republican colleagues, the only foolish and dangerous thing about the Green New Deal is to ignore the $400 billion in damage to our country over the last 2 years from supercharged storms and wildfires all over California and all over the West.

To ignore the tens of trillions of dollars in damages we will see from climate change in the United States by 2100 is something that ultimately, from my perspective, is foolish and dangerous. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. Ignoring what is happening, ignoring the warnings from all of the top scientists in the world and in the United States and continuing on the same pathway--that is foolish, that is dangerous, and that is going to cost us tens of trillions of dollars in damages that would have been otherwise avoided if we unleashed a technology revolution in our country that would create millions of new jobs.

It is also dangerous to send our men and women in the military overseas to protect tankers of oil coming from the Middle East to the United States. We are still bringing in oil from Saudi Arabia. We are still bringing in oil from other countries in the Middle East. What if we could dramatically increase the fuel economy in the vehicles we drive? What if we could accelerate the pace to use all-electric vehicles? Wouldn't it be great if we could say that the day arrived when we never have to see another tanker of oil from the Middle East coming into our country? Would that not make us safer? Would that not give us better control of our own foreign policy and where we send young men and women in uniform? I think it would.

I think it would be foolish and dangerous not to take that pathway. The superstorms, the wildfires, the rising seas, and the other extreme weather events--the impacts of climate change if we do not act boldly to stop it--that isn't just dangerous; that is an existential threat. That is what the world's scientists have called it.

The Green New Deal is dangerous for the status quo of doing nothing on climate change. It is dangerous for the Koch brothers and those who are used to killing off every climate debate before it gets a chance to start. It is dangerous for those who want us to limp into a frightening future with no plan and no protections in place. It is dangerous for those who benefit from the continued devaluation of our workers, the historic oppression of vulnerable communities, and from the continued destruction of the environment. Those are the ones who would think the Green New Deal is dangerous.

We want to support working families and support a safe climate future where all communities are protected. We welcome a debate on proposals for how to get there, but the science is clear as to where we need to end up.

The Republicans may think that the Green New Deal is just a resolution, but it is a revolution. It is a revolution. Young people want a green energy revolution in our country. They know we can do this. They know that all of these new technologies can be invented; all of these new technologies can be deployed.

It is not just a resolution; it is a revolution. All across this country, when the Republicans have refused to bring their climate plan out there because theirs is a party of science denial--the President is the ``Denier in Chief'' on climate science--then we are going to allow this problem to worsen and worsen and worsen.

Do you know who should know best? Donald Trump, because within 30 years, according to the science, Mar-a-Lago is going to become Mar-a- Lagoon. It is right on the coast. It has already begun to happen. It is just going to continue.

The President might be able to protect his property, but we are going to lose tens of trillions of dollars for the properties of other Americans because he decided that he was going to deny the warning that the scientists have presented to us.

When I was a boy, lying on the rug, looking at President Kennedy on the television, he challenged our country to send a mission to the Moon and to return that mission safely to the United States within 10 years.

When he gave that speech at Rice University, he made very clear in the speech that we would have to invent new metal alloys that did not exist. We would have to invent new transmission systems that did not exist, that we would have to return that mission safely from the Moon through heat half the

intensity of the Sun. We would have to complete it within 10 years, and we would have to do it not because it was easy but because it was hard. We had to be bold.

Because the challenge from the Soviet Union was so great, the United States did not have an option. Failure was not an option, and we completed that mission.

Well, the same thing is true here for a Green New Deal. Failure is not an option. The consequences will be catastrophic for our planet and for the United States of America, and the solution is to unleash this green energy job-creation engine. We now have 350,000 solar and wind workers in the United States. It is up from almost nothing in 2008. It has already happened over 10 years.

We had only 1,000 megawatts of solar in our country in 2008. We now have 62,000 megawatts of solar.

We had only 25,000 megawatts of wind. We now have 98,000 megawatts of wind.

We had only 2,000 all-electric vehicles in our country in 2008. We now have a million, and between Tesla and all of the other companies, they are going to sell 500,000 just this year in our country. They have invented new metals. They have invented new battery systems. They have invented new propulsion systems in order to solve those problems, but we still have a long way to go.

It is imperative that we put the tax breaks for wind and solar, for all electric vehicles, for batteries on the books and make them permanent because this problem is going to be solved only if we can convince the smartest young people in our country that all of the incentives, all of the policies are there and that their country has their back and wants them to solve the problem in the same way that our whole country had the back of NASA in the 1960s. If we do that, we will be successful. There is no question about it in my mind.

I am a technological optimist, and I hate the pessimism of the other side. I hate this ``can't do'' mentality that they have, especially given what has happened in the last 10 years in electric vehicles and wind, solar, and storage technology breakthroughs. It is just really sad to hear this.

I think, ultimately, something is rising up across this country. Young people, especially, know it is time for the revolution. They know it is time to close the door on this era where all we do is indiscriminately use the atmosphere as a sewer for all of this carbon and all of these greenhouse gases.

I am very confident that one way or another this body will start to act or it is going to become one of the top two or three election issues in 2020 because this generation knows that the planet is running a fever. There are no emergency rooms on planets, and it is going to take action in this body in order to put the policies in place, in order to preserve this planet and hand it on better than we found it.

The challenge is great. The Green New Deal sets the framework for laying out how serious the problem is and how bold the action has to be to deal with that serious problem for our planet.

If we do it right, I think future generations will look back on ours in the same way we now look back on President Kennedy and that generation, and they will know that they discharged their historic responsibility to our country and to the planet.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I thank our great leader on the Environment Committee for his visionary work on this issue. I am here for the same purpose today. I am here to talk about climate change, about our climate crisis, and about the mistake it would be to put Andrew Wheeler in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Climate change is an existential threat to our country and to the planet. We know this because the world's leading scientists, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, just made that warning late last year. It is an existential threat to the planet.

The U.N. report told us we have very limited time until we are past the point of no return, and the most catastrophic impacts of climate change are irreversible.

Our own Federal scientists across 13 Agencies also just warned in the National Climate Assessment that the impacts of climate change are not in the future, but they are happening in our communities right now.

Here is what all 13 U.S. Federal Agencies said. They said our efforts do not yet approach the scale necessary to avoid substantial damages to the economy, environment, and human health. These are Earth-shattering reports about the state of our Earth. These are the doomsday reports about what happens if we do not take bold action.

The dire consequences of climate change, in fact, are arriving. A tenfold increase in ice-free summers in the Arctic, 99 percent loss of coral reefs, and a doubling of species lost around the world. In the Northeast, in worst-case scenarios, by the end of the century, both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Logan Airport will be under water, and over 20 percent of Boston's population will face flood risk.

The climate emissions are not slowing down. In 2018, emissions increased 2.8 percent. We have the ``Denier in Chief'' in the White House, and this week Republicans in the Senate are poised to confirm a coal lobbyist to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

During his confirmation hearing, when I asked whether he agreed with the conclusions of the National Climate Assessment report, Mr. Wheeler said he still needed additional briefings before he could make a public comment on it. Let me repeat that. The nominee of Donald Trump to run the Agency charged with protecting the planet from climate change had not even sufficiently reviewed the climate report from our own Federal Agencies before his confirmation hearing. He also said he considered the report to be a representation of the worst-case scenario and that what we face is ``a climate issue.''

Well, the worst-case scenario is one in which the Republican Senate will confirm a former coal lobbyist to head the Environmental Protection Agency. The worst-case scenario is the Trump administration's plans to roll back the Clean Power Plan and the fuel economy emission standards, the single largest steps we have ever taken to address climate change. We are in a worst-case scenario, and we need to dramatically change course.

That should start by not confirming Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist, to run the Agency charged with protecting our planet. Andrew Wheeler's answers on the climate crisis should be disqualifying. His record as a coal lobbyist should be disqualifying. We should come together and reject Andrew Wheeler as the head of the EPA.

The impact of climate change on ordinary families on their health, on our Nation, on our security, and on our future is too urgent. We must be bold. We must be ambitious.

That is why I have introduced the Green New Deal resolution. It lays out a serious, bold, aspirational set of goals

that meet the scale of the threat we are facing. It is a set of principles, not prescriptions. The Green New Deal will allow us to engage in massive job creation to save all of creation. It calls for a massive 10-year mobilization to transform our climate, our economy, our democracy. It is about jobs and justice.

An overwhelming number of Americans support climate action, and a majority of Americans support a Green New Deal. Never in our history have the interests of all Americans been so united in a single issue: climate change.

From the air we breathe to the jobs that employ us, to the neighborhoods we live in, to the economy we operate within, climate change defines our existence. This is the time for serious solutions. Global temperatures are the highest in recorded history. Wealth inequality is at its highest point since the era of the Great Depression. The erosion of our coastlines, the erosion of earning power of workers, the pollution of our planet, the pollution of our democracy by Big Oil and Koch brothers financing, the relationship between these ills and injustices is undeniable, but the challenge is not insurmountable.

It will only be through a historic intergenerational commitment to end climate change that we create the kind of democracy that works for all Americans. This Green New Deal mobilization will make the United States the global leader on clean energy and climate action.

This mobilization will be the greatest blue-collar jobs program in a generation. This mobilization will be an opportunity to repair the historic oppression of frontline and vulnerable communities that have borne the worst burdens of pollution from our fossil fuel economy-- these communities that also will be the most affected and the least able to respond to the impacts of climate change. The Green New Deal represents an opportunity to lift up all workers and all communities.

President Roosevelt was right when he said about the New Deal that ``statesmanship and vision, my friends, require relief to all at the same time.''

We are talking about a historic, 10-year mobilization that will mitigate climate emissions and build climate resiliency. We have acted on this scale before, and we must do it again.

We have already laid the foundation for our climate future. In 2008, we had only 1,200 megawatts of total solar capacity in the United States. Today, we have 65,000 megawatts. In 2008, we had only 25,000 megawatts of total wind capacity. Today, we have 98,000 megawatts of wind capacity. In 2008, there were only 2,500 all-electric vehicles in our country. Today, we have 1 million, with 500,000 new all-electric vehicles to be sold this year. Most of all, what we have seen over the past 10 years is a growing movement for climate action. In wind and solar, we now have 350,000 people who are employed. That didn't happen 10 years ago; it is happening today.

The Green New Deal is not just a resolution; it is a revolution. Republicans and climate deniers are taking mathematical liberties to say it would cost too much to act, but the cost of inaction on climate will be far higher. Over just the past 2 years, the cost of storms and the cost of fires in our country created over $400 billion in damages. By the end of this century, it will be tens of trillions of dollars that we will lose. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we start today, we can avoid the worst, most catastrophic consequences. For those who say we can't afford to act to address this crisis, I say we can't afford not to.

The question is, Will any Republican stand up to fight for these goals? The Republican Party is about to confirm a coal lobbyist to run the Environmental Protection Agency. That is where we are in 2019, with the worst scientific reports coming from the U.N. and our own scientists--a threat of an existential risk for the planet--and we are about to confirm a coal lobbyist.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have to be bold the way President Kennedy was in 1962 when he called for a mission to the Moon to be accomplished within 10 years. He said it would not be easy. He said we would have to invent metal that did not exist and propulsion systems that did not exist. He said we would have to bring that mission back safely through heat half the intensity of the Sun, and we would have to do so safely within 10 years so that we could control outer space. We did that, ladies and gentlemen, and we can do it again.

We have to accept this challenge. We can do it. We can unleash an innovation revolution in our country, and again we will do it to save all creation by engaging in massive job creation, a blue-collar revolution hiring millions of workers to do this job.

I thank you, Madam President. This is a very important week before us.

I yield back to my colleague.

Would the Senator yield?

I just want to say that there is no climate warrior like Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island. He is up every day of his life on this issue, and when he speaks, he speaks with authority. I just want to say what an honor it is to be here today.

Mr. President, today I recognize Robert Kraft of Massachusetts, the 2019 Genesis prize laureate. Recognized as the ``Jewish Nobel'' prize, organizers grant the award each year to an extraordinary person recognized for their outstanding professional achievement and making a significant contribution to improving the world and inspiring young Jews through their dedication to social justice and philanthropy. I believe the Genesis prize committee made an excellent choice in selecting Mr. Kraft.

While known to most as the owner of the New England Patriots, Mr. Kraft, along with his late wife Myra, has for decades spoke out and donated generously to organizations combating prejudices, including anti-Semitism. Most recently, Mr. Kraft announced that all proceeds of the match between his Major League Soccer team, the New England Revolution, and the Chelsea Football Club will benefit initiatives to combat the disturbing trend of rising anti-Semitism and hate crimes in the United States and around the world. Upon receiving the Genesis prize, Mr. Kraft announced he would donate the $1 million monetary award to efforts to combat anti-Semitism.

Mr. Kraft is a true ``patriot'' in all senses of the word. The Commonwealth, country, and global community owe much gratitude to Mr. Kraft. I congratulate my dear friend Robert Kraft on his lifelong efforts to further the Jewish value of tikkun olam, to heal the world.