Mr. President, just last week one of the world's most well- known spiritual leaders, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, visited the Capitol. He talked about the moral imperative to protect the planet we call home. The Dalai Lama…
Mr. President, just last week one of the world's most well- known spiritual leaders, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, visited the Capitol. He talked about the moral
imperative to protect the planet we call home. The Dalai Lama spoke with passion and longing of his native Tibet, where mountain snows melt in spring to feed the rivers to provide Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan with water.
The Himalayas are sometimes called the ``third pole'' because they contain nearly a third of the world's nonpolar ice. But in recent years, manmade climate change has caused milder winters, less snow, and less water for 1.3 billion people living downstream from Tibet.
In the Western United States we face a similar problem. For more than a decade drought has plagued the Colorado River, both upstream and downstream--the lifeblood of a number of Western States, including Nevada, California, Arizona, and other States.
During this period of time, we have had some so-called average snows in the Upper Colorado but none of it reaches the river. The climate has changed. Milder winters have meant less Rocky Mountain snowpack and less spring runoff to feed the river. Combined with more extreme summer heat and other issues connected with climate change, the shrinking western snowpack threatens the water source for more than 30 million people. Far more than 30 million people, because 38 million people in California are affected very adversely because of what is going on with the Colorado River.
The seriousness of this climate problem is not lost on the average American. The vast majority of Americans believe climate change is real. They believe it is here.
A quarter century ago the first President Bush promised to use ``the White House effect'' to combat the ``greenhouse effect.'' That is what President Bush said, but not much has happened, I am sorry to say.
Despite overwhelming scientific evidence and overwhelming public opinion, climate change deniers still exist. There are lots of them. They exist in this country. They exist, I am sorry to say, in this Congress--in the House and in the Senate.
So I am very grateful to Senator Schatz, Senator Whitehouse, and the chairman of the very important environmental committee, Senator Boxer, and many other Senators who will join this climate change debate and presentation tonight for standing up against the deniers.
Climate change is real. It is here. It is time to stop acting as though those who ignore this crisis--for example, the oil baron Koch brothers and their allies in Congress--have a valid point. They don't. Climate change is here. Climate change has brought harsh and drastic situations all over our country.
In the last few years alone, the Midwest has experienced the most punishing drought since the Great Depression. Wildfires have ravaged the West, with places burning which have never burned before. The mighty Mississippi nearly ran dry, and barge traffic had to be brought to a stop because the river wasn't deep enough for them to travel.
While record droughts affected some parts of the United States, torrential rains and extreme thunderstorms struck others. Temperatures topped 60 degrees in Alaska in January. February brought a blanket of snow and ice to Atlanta, GA--the South.
In other parts of the world, glaciers and ice sheets which have been frozen for tens of thousands of years are melting and melting quickly. Fires have consumed vast forests and monsoons and superfloods left millions homeless all over the world. Since this new year, the United Kingdom has had its wettest winter perhaps ever but far more than in the last 100 years. Tokyo, Japan, in a period of a little over 2 weeks, got 4 years' worth of snow. Australia experienced its hottest summer in the history of Australia.
The vast majority of scientists say this is just the beginning of the ravages of our world changing. Dozens of reports from scientists around the globe link extreme weather to climate change, and the more extreme climate change gets, the more extreme the weather is going to get. Everyone has to understand that. It is easy to see the urgency to confront climate change, but this challenge is also an opportunity--and it truly is.
We have the ability now to reduce our reliance on oil and other fossil fuels, increase our production of clean energy, and create good- paying jobs which can never be outsourced. We have the ability to choose the kind of world in which we live. We have that choice.
In Nevada we have done some good things. We have chosen clean renewable energy as we retire older polluting powerplants. We only have one left. We imported millions of tons of coal.
I remember I was in the House of Representatives and one powerplant was on its way out. Al Matteucci, attorney for Nevada Power, was telling me that little powerplant was importing 2 million tons of coal a year. I said: What are you talking about? I thought, 2 million tons of coal? But that is the way it was, just one relatively small powerplant. We are no longer doing that in Nevada. We have only one coal-fired plant left, and we have done this by going of course to some natural gas, but we have done so many good things with renewable energy. With geothermal we finally passed California. We are the most productive State in the Union with geothermal energy.
We have done other things with renewable energy. This old plant I just talked about, where millions of tons of coal came in every year, why are we getting rid of that? For lots of reasons. But one reason is this polluting powerplant, built on Paiute Indian land in Moapa, NV, about 35 miles outside of Las Vegas, during the Johnson administration was closed.
Next week, a week from this coming Friday, we are going to have a groundbreaking on the Moapa land, where they are going to have hundreds and hundreds of jobs because they are going to produce huge amounts of energy through solar, and that energy is going to go to California. We have huge amounts of solar energy all over the State of Nevada and we are shipping it to California because California did the right thing. They passed a law saying by a certain period of time one-third of all their power must come from renewable sources. This is a progressive State. It is important, and we are helping them meet those demands, but we are also doing a lot to produce our own energy.
I talked about this powerplant. The powerplant, Moapa, at this Indian reservation, is the first solar project to be built on tribal lands-- certainly in Nevada and likely in the whole country.
The largest solar plant in the world opened last month on the Nevada- California border, the largest one in the world. Dozens of geothermal wells on public lands power the cities of Reno and Sparks in northern Nevada. Because some of Nevada's best renewable energy resources are located in the rural areas, we recently completed a power line connecting renewable energy sources. It was part of the Obama program to help stimulate the economy, which certainly has done that all over the country, but it certainly has done it in Nevada. We have this power line connecting the northern part of the State and the southern State for the first time ever.
What is being put into that power line? Renewable energy. Solar, wind, geothermal. This power line connecting renewable energy resources with the people and businesses that need them and making the electric grid more efficient is a part of what we used to talk about all the time, a smart grid. It is actually here. Nevada is the first place where we actually have Federal programs which got us the smart grid. We have permission to take this power line from northern Nevada to southern Nevada, now into the great Northwest.
So we are doing some good work. This is what the smart grid is all about. Nevada has proven it is very easy to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, which is good for the economy and good for the environment.
But as the Dalai Lama said:
We have the capability and the responsibility to act. But
we must do so before it is too late.
He went on further to say:
This . . . is not just a question of morality or ethics,
but a question of our own survival.
I believe him.
I ask unanimous consent that following my opening remarks the following Senators be recognized for up to 90 seconds in the order listed: Durbin, Schumer, Murray, Boxer, Whitehouse, Schatz, Feinstein, Wyden, Nelson, Cantwell, Cardin, Klobuchar, Udall of Colorado, Udall of New Mexico, Shaheen, Merkley, Bennet, Franken, Coons, Blumenthal,
Heinrich, King, Kaine, Warren, Markey, Booker, and Gillibrand.