Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet.) Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for such time as I may consume.

Mr. President, I just wished to address two things. The first is that we are having a continuing discussion about the budget of our country and about the taxes of our country and indeed about the unfair and often upside down nature of our current Tax Code that allows people making hundreds of millions of dollars a year to pay a lower tax rate than a family who earns $100,000 a year.

In the context of that discussion, there is one thing that I think we can do right now that would be important and helpful to the vast majority of Americans, indeed to 98 percent of American families and 97 percent of American small businesses; that is, to assure them that their taxes are not going to go up on January 1.

Assuming we cannot get to a budget agreement before January, then automatically all the Bush tax cuts will end. The Senate has actually passed a law that will allow those tax cuts to be curtailed, to be protected for families who earn $250,000 a year and less. That bill has passed the Senate. It is now over at the House awaiting action by the House.

The Republican-controlled House is in a position, anytime the Speaker chooses to call up that bill, to pass a guarantee of protection from tax increases that will protect 98 percent of American families and 97 percent of American small businesses. I think they should do that. It is simply awaiting their action. There is nothing more we can do in the Senate. We have already passed that bill. It is one step away--Speaker Boehner allowing it to be called up and having it voted on--from becoming law and protecting 98 percent of families and 97 percent of small businesses from a tax increase on January 1.

There is a real likelihood we will have to go beyond January 1 because so many of our colleagues have sworn that oath to Grover Norquist that they will not let taxes go up. He maintains the Bush tax cuts should last into eternity and anything above that would be a tax increase and violate the pledge.

So we may have to wait until January 1, until the actual expiration of the Bush tax cuts vitiates that baseline and allows Republicans to enter into the very same deal they could have before, only now it is a tax decrease from the current rate that would presumably not get them in trouble with Mr. Norquist versus a tax increase from his--I think at this point--illogical and irrational projection of the Bush tax cuts into the indefinite future. So I call on our friends in the House of Representatives to pass that bill and give the vast majority of Americans relief from whatever uncertainty there might be about going beyond the January 1 deadline.

The second issue I wished to address is to respond briefly to my friend from Arizona Senator Kyl, who spoke about the filibuster and the rules changes that are being discussed in this Chamber. He spoke this morning. I had the chance to watch a good part of his remarks on the television.

I wanted to respond in a couple ways. First of all, I have the highest regard for Senator Kyl. We worked closely together trying to get a cyber security compromise. We worked together years ago on the immigration compromise. I have seen him in action on the Senate floor. He is very able. When he has reached an agreement with his colleagues, he is unshakeable and his word is good. I think very highly of him, although we do not agree politically on a great number of issues.

But I did, in an atmosphere of great respect for him, wish to respond in a couple ways. The first is that I believe, at least, that there is a difference between what we are considering with this rules change and the so-called nuclear option that was threatened were respect to judges.

The reason I think that is the case is that I have read the old opinions from previous Presiding Officers in the Senate and Vice Presidents in the past who have said that the way the Senate rules work is that although we are a continuing body, the way in which the rules continue from Senate to Senate is that we are impliedly readopting the rules as soon as we take any business under the rules each new session.

The House behaves differently. The House has new rules each session. It is an entirely new reelected body each session. So they have to open by creating a new set of rules and adopting them. They do that at the beginning of every session. We virtually never do that. The rules continue. How is it that the rules continue? The ruling is that that continue because they are deemed to continue as soon as the Senate takes action under those rules, whatever it is. As soon as they take action under those rules at the beginning of a session, those rules are then deemed to be back in place, and we do not need to readopt them.

But that does mean, at the beginning of each session, there is an opportunity, under the Constitution, to change the rules by a simple parliamentary majority of 51. I do not think that is breaking the rules to change the rules. That is part of the rule. That is how the rules actually work in the Senate, at least that is my belief and my opinion.

Given that, I think arguing that this is somehow breaking the rules or the same as the nuclear option is not quite accurate. This and the nuclear option share the similarity of allowing the Senate to proceed with a simple majority. They do share that similarity. But this is different because we can only do that one early, first moment, as each new Senate comes into session. Some could say that is actually there as a safety valve for situations just like this where one party is consistently, regularly determinedly abusing a rule, but because the other party cannot get to 67 votes, they cannot change or correct the rule to restore the Senate to its proper behavior.

I would note that I think there is virtually nobody in this Chamber who thinks the Senate is operating the way the Senate should. We have had literally hundreds of filibusters, and they are not the old- fashioned filibuster people remember from ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,'' when Senator Jefferson Smith stood at a desk, probably about there in their mockup of the Senate floor, and talked himself to exhaustion, reading from the Bible, reading from the Constitution. He may have even read from the dictionary. I remember there was an old reporter up in the press gallery speaking about this. He talked about it being one of the great examples of American democracy, one lone Senator able to speak until he is exhausted on a point that matters to him.

People may have been frustrated by that kind of filibuster, but there was at least a kind of nobility to it. The filibuster of today is very different. It is a threat from the minority party to bombard something with amendments so it cannot be managed on the floor. It is a threat to filibuster, to which the majority leader has to respond by filing cloture, and when the majority leader is forced to file cloture, the minority gets the benefit. They get 30 hours of debate.

Of course, as we have seen in the Senate, that 30 hours of debate is never used. It just consumes 30 hours of floor time, most of it spent, as the distinguished Presiding Officer and I and others who preside in the Senate notice, in quorum calls, in endless deadly quorum calls with the poor old clerk having to call off the names slowly and quietly in the Chamber and nothing going on.

People who are looking at this on C-SPAN and who dial into the Senate very often see that nothing is going on. That nothing going on is usually the hallmark of the modern filibuster. It is a colossal waste of time. It is intended to be a colossal waste of time. Because if we do that hundreds of times, as our minority has, multiply those hundreds of filibusters by 30 hours each, and they have ruined thousands of hours of Senate floor time.

That disables this institution, and it puts the majority under immense pressure to do the basic business of passing appropriations bills, the very simple operations of government. Very often we hear our colleagues on the other side criticize that we have not passed those. Those are complaints that are made with real crocodile tears because it is the consistent, relentless filibuster that puts the Senate in a position where it does not have floor time to do that work.

I think, first of all, that what we are proposing is slightly different than the nuclear option, even though it shares that characteristic of getting to 51 votes, that it is unique to the rule function of the Senate, that it happens just that once, and that one could argue it is a safety valve that protects against situations like this.

My second point is this is not a good situation for the Senate. We waste immense amounts of time. The filibuster is used constantly. It used to be that Senators filibustered bills that they violently opposed. Now the minority filibusters everything. How often have we had the experience that something is filibustered and we finally break the filibuster and when we actually get to the vote on the actual merits of the bill, it passes with 95 or 98 Senators supporting it.

What do we conclude if you filibuster something that 98 percent of Senators are going to support when it finally gets to the floor? We can only conclude

that it is being used to obstruct and delay. There is too much of that. We have too much business to be done. So I do not think there is anybody who can say the Senate is working in a way that it should under the present practices. If it takes changing a rule to change those practices, I think it will be better for everyone.

I also wish to point out that nobody is saying there should be an end to the filibuster. What we are saying is those who want to filibuster should carry the burden of being on the floor expressing their concerns and actually doing the filibuster. It is one of the great frustrations of those who have to defend against the filibuster that very often the members of the minority party do not even have to show up for the vote. The rule of the filibuster is that we have to get to 60 votes or it fails.

Whether the vote is 60 to 1 or 60 to 40 does not matter. So we get thrown into having to show up and vote on filibusters, and the minority party does not even have to be here. We have heard a Senator say: Well, you know, you guys, you will be here on Monday because you have this vote you have to take. But we do not have to be here, so I am not coming back.

We have had Senators who have actually forced a vote on cloture themselves go away when it came time for the vote, go home, and the rest of us had to be here to do it at that point. The filibuster is just being used to harass colleagues and to create difficulty, and I think that is a real problem and that it is worth pressing through it.

Another concern that Senator Kyl raised is that people's voices would be silenced if the majority leader had the authority to go directly to a bill without allowing for amendments. Two points on that: First, I, for one, am perfectly open to a rule change that provides for some kind of an amendment process. As the majority leader said earlier, we have our proposal out there, where is yours? If we are going to negotiate, make a counterproposal. If the counterproposal contains a requirement that certain amendments be considered, a certain number of amendments-- germane amendments, one would hope--I think that is something that a great number of Senators on our side would look at with sympathy and, perhaps, with approval.

That is an argument. I don't think it is a sufficient one because I do believe we can address that question, every question.

I would conclude, because I see the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire here, that I think this is an issue we can work out and that we can work out together. I think we can make the Senate a better place, a place where there is more actual debate and more progress and more gets accomplished rather than just this relentless filibuster, this filibuster at all times, of all bills, all appointments, over and over, nonstop, completely jamming up this body and creating these enormous periods of delay while we go through procedural hoops and around procedural circles. We should be better than this, and the American people deserve better than this.

I hope this discussion about changing the rules moves us from where we are right now--which is just wrong; it just isn't working--to a place where we can be a Senate again that requires people who want to filibuster to get up on their feet in this Chamber and say what they have to say until they are exhausted. So be it. I think that would be an improvement on the matters where I would feel strongly enough to filibuster, and I am confident that I would be willing to take that step in the event we were someday in the minority.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as the Senate reconvenes this week here in Washington, many States are still working to clean up the wreckage left behind by Hurricane Sandy, the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, and the States are already making new preparations to protect against future extreme weather events.

Hurricane Sandy will be remembered both for the large area it affected and for the devastation wrought by its fierce winds and massive storm surge--more than 100 lives lost, 8.5 million homes and businesses without power, $20 billion in property damage, and possibly another $30 billion in lost business. Hurricane Sandy was no doubt an extreme weather event and she is likely to be the second costliest Atlantic storm in U.S. history at more than $50 billion.

Sandy slammed into the east coast, causing destruction from the Mid- Atlantic up through New England. The States of New Jersey and New York were hit especially hard, and our thoughts and prayers and our promise of prompt and meaningful support go out to all of those affected across the region.

In my home State of Rhode Island, moderate to major flooding occurred along the entire southern coastline, with some areas experiencing severe erosion and destruction.

Houses were swept off their foundations in our southern coast communities such as Matunuck, shown in this photo I have in the Chamber. As shown in this picture, here is our former colleague in the Senate, now Governor Chafee, inspecting the interior of a house with its front having been washed off. And you can see the neighboring cottage that is in the ocean. Other small cottages have been actually destroyed by the ocean in that location.

Beaches and dunes were driven down by the waves and wind, and thick sand and stone deposits covered up roads, as was the case on Atlantic Avenue in Misqaumicut, which was just being dug out here in this photograph.

Nearly 30 percent of Rhode Island's residents were directly affected by this storm. President Obama granted Governor Chafee's request for a Federal disaster declaration in four of our State's five counties. More than 130,000 Rhode Islanders lost power and 8 cities and towns were forced to implement evacuations. The whole State will be affected by the as of yet unknown millions in damage and lost business.

But Rhode Island is resilient. Some businesses hit hard by Sandy and the subsequent nor'easter have already reopened. Others are working hard to reopen soon. Here in this picture we can see Atlantic Avenue from the sky. And the owners of Paddy's Beach Restaurant, shown here, as well as their neighbors all along the beach, are determined to reopen for the summer tourist season.

I remember walking through this little notch here with the owners of Paddy's, and looking at this scene of devastation around them, and the owners saying: That is not so bad. We can rebuild. We will be back on our feet in no time. They already had friends and volunteers on site with hammers and shovels and saws, cleaning up and getting things put right.

The Ocean State of Rhode Island has a special relationship with the seas, and that special relationship requires that we accept challenges presented by extreme ocean weather, and it is part of our day-to-day life on the coast to be part of that proud and rewarding tradition.

But many of us recognize that this tradition, as President Obama reminded us on election night, is--to quote the President--``threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.''

It is difficult to say whether extreme weather such as Hurricane Sandy was specifically caused by climate change. But we do know that a warming planet increases both the severity and the likelihood of these storms; that it, to use one analogy, loads the dice for extreme weather.

The atmosphere and oceans are getting warmer. We know that. As oceans get warmer, storm systems such as Sandy gather more moisture and energy from them and grow stronger. John T. Fasullo and Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO, estimate that when Hurricane Sandy struck, ocean temperatures along the east coast were nearly 5 degrees above normal, in part attributed to global warming.

Warmer oceans expand. We know that too. This expansion, along with melting glaciers and snowpack, has resulted in a measurable and continuing rise of sea levels along our coasts. And, of course, as sea levels rise, tides and waves and storms and storm surges reach farther inland.

Sandy caused a whopping storm surge. That is the column of water that is formed by the winds and the pressure system of a major storm. That surge peaked at about 5\1/2\ feet in Newport, RI, less than the 9\1/2\ feet in the Battery in Lower Manhattan but still significant.

At the Newport tide gauge, mean sea level is up 10 inches. Mean sea level is up 10 inches from our devastating famous Hurricane of 1938, and these extra inches of sea level increased Sandy's storm surge by at least that amount. Experts predict that the sea level rise will continue up to 3 to 5 feet more in Rhode Island by the end of the century.

If we do not recognize the need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and to prepare our infrastructure for climate change, future superstorms will be even more damaging than Hurricane Sandy. Hurricane Sandy was, in some respects, a preview of coming attractions. By 2100, the ocean will sit higher, be warmer, and feed more moisture and heat into storms. In addition, the oceans will be far more acidic, but that is for another speech.

Tomorrow, the Committee on Environment and Public Works, which the Presiding Officer serves on with such distinction, will hold a legislative hearing on the Water Resources Development Act. I appreciate very much Chairman Boxer's response to storms such as Sandy and the foresight she had to include a postdisaster program in the draft that will help States such as mine recover from extreme events such as Hurricane Sandy.

Also included is the Northeast coastal restoration program aimed at building the natural and manmade barriers and buffers that helped protect our lives, our infrastructure, and our natural resources from great storms such as Sandy.

When average temperatures rise, we can also expect daily temperature records to be broken. When the average sea level rises, we can also expect an increase in peak coastal flooding. In fact, we have seen thousands of daily temperature records broken and costly coastal flooding and the pain and damage caused by these extreme events has inevitably turned the Nation's attention to climate change.

That is why a growing chorus of voices is convinced and concerned about climate change. A University of Texas poll asked respondents in March and then again in July of this year if they thought global climate change was occurring. It is interesting. The percentage of Democrats convinced of global climate change went from 83 percent in March up to 87 percent amid the high heat and drought of the summer of 2012.

Among Independents, the percentage rose from 60 percent in March to 72 percent in July as news of the unusual weather spread around the country. Even among Republicans, the number of believers who acknowledged that climate change was prevalent went from 45 percent to 53 percent. The party whose hallmark in Congress is denial of climate change, that put forward the view that climate change is a hoax, now actually has a majority of voters who recognize this reality. So this Chamber is getting further and further apart from the reality of the public, even from the reality of the Republican public.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Mayor Bloomberg of New York wrote:

Our climate is changing . . . And while the increase in

extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and

around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk

that it may be--given the devastation it is wreaking--should

be enough to compel all elected leaders to take immediate

action.

The only place where denial still prevails is in Congress where polluter

money has such influence. But polluter money cannot change the facts. A study recently published in Science shows that greenhouse gases captured in air bubbles stretching back 650,000 years show that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now 27 percent higher than its highest recorded level at any other point in that time.

This year, an Arctic monitor has registered atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at 400 parts per million for the first time; the first time ever that a carbon dioxide sensor has hit this ominous milestone. For tens of thousands of years, for 800,000 years actually, 8,000 centuries, we have been in a range of 170 to 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Now we are starting to see measures of 400. We are in unprecedented and uncharted territory.

We know we will need to adapt our coastal infrastructure to keep communities safe and prosperous in this changing climate. We will be relocating roads and bridges. We will be bolstering utilities and protecting water and wastewater infrastructure. We will be revising our flood maps and our emergency planning.

The Senate needs to do its part to ready us for adaptation in the face of a changing climate. We can address these issues in legislation such as WRDA and Defense reauthorization, even in the budget debate. But the overwhelming majority of scientists is convinced that our climate is changing, and all the evidence shows they are right.

Indeed, the evidence shows it appears to be their worst-case scenarios that are the correct ones. We must be willing to take the necessary actions to prepare both for the new normal climate change is bringing and for the new extremes climate change portends.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

I want to ask the distinguished chairman, who referenced the important word, ``compromise,'' if he has spoken about the extent to which this bill reflects not only the original bipartisan compromise between himself and his ranking member, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, but then a second compromise done to reach further to our Republican colleagues that is actually already embedded in this bill. I think it is important for the people who are watching and listening to us to recognize that not only was this an original

bipartisan bill that was the product of bipartisan compromise and discussion, but then a further unilateral step was taken by the distinguished chairman to move even more toward Republican colleagues. So it is not only a compromise but double compromise that is on the Senate floor right now.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 14, 2012, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of Basel III: Impact of Proposed Capital Rules.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a fellow from my office, Mr. Todd Bianco, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. President, the State of Rhode Island has lost a dear and dedicated public servant. Captain Edward D. Pare was a sworn officer of the Rhode Island State Police for 2\1/2\ decades, from 1959 until his retirement in 1986.

Captain Pare was a true son of Rhode Island, born in Coventry, RI. In addition to serving our State, he also served his country in the U.S. Navy, sailing appropriately enough aboard the USS Pawcatuck, named for the river that flows across the southern part of our State.

Captain Pare left an indelible mark on the force. He was captain of detectives for many years prior to his retirement. In this important role, Captain Pare had his hand in every major investigation undertaken by the State police during that period. His leadership and commitment were the hallmarks of his stint with the department and set an example for a generation of officers. Even beyond his retirement, Captain Pare was known in law enforcement circles and across Rhode Island as simply ``The Captain.''

During his tenure with the State police, Captain Pare acted as both the head of the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles and the director of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation. There had been concerns raised about mismanagement and corruption at these agencies. Captain Pare, as the ``gold standard'' of competence, rigor, and integrity, provided public assurance that any such problems would be met and mastered.

Captain Pare's sense of public service was a family value, carried on by his sons, Ed and Steven. During our Rhode Island banking crisis, I had the pleasure of working alongside Ed at the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation, where he worked for the people of Rhode Island for many years in a number of roles, including superintendent of banking and superintendent of the securities division. Steven followed his father's path into the State police, rising in his 26 years to the rank of colonel and serving as State trooper, detective, and superintendent of the force. Steven continues his work in law enforcement and homeland security today as commissioner of public safety for the city of Providence.

Captain Pare is survived by his beloved wife Phyllis, and in addition to Ed and Steven, he leaves behind his daughter Diane, son Gary, and 12 grandchildren. The captain's impact on our communities was profound, and his legacy of integrity and service to others will be remembered by Rhode Islanders for a long time to come.

Mr. President, I am very proud to follow Chairman Conrad on the floor at this time. There is no person in the U.S. Senate who has worked harder on a budget compromise than Senator Conrad has. There is no person who has put out the hand of bipartisan friendship and cooperation more than Senator Conrad has. There is no person who has experienced more frustration of having that hand rejected and slapped away than Senator Conrad has, and there is no person who has contained that frustration and continued to work forward and seek resolution in a dignified way than Senator Conrad has.

The Senate Republicans who took to the floor this morning to criticize Democrats for failing to pass a budget and deal with the impending sequester and tax cuts expiration failed to note that Senate Democrats have, in fact, passed a budget law and a bill that extends the tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses. It is to protect the 2 percent and the 3 percent at the top of the income level that Republicans have refused to allow that bill protecting 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses from tax increases from going forward.

Senate Democrats also support a balanced approach to replacing the sequester and reducing the deficit. What they didn't talk much about but which is very important in this discussion is the Republican Ryan plan for the budget.

This past May, 41 of our Senate Republican colleagues voted in favor of a radical transformation of the America we know. And the Republican- controlled House passed this budget--a budget that would devastate the middle class. The plan would end Medicare as we know it for future retirees. It would reopen the Medicare prescription drug doughnut hole that we closed for current retirees. It would slash investments that America's children depend on, from Head Start to Federal college aid; and it would give the average million-dollar earner a new additional tax cut of, on average, $285,000 each in that million-dollar-plus earner cohort.

The blockade here that is preventing moving beyond the sequester is by Republicans, particularly in the House, refusing to proceed in any reasonable way and, instead, demanding these damaging radical cuts for the middle class.

Let's look a little bit behind the curtain of campaign rhetoric and examine the harm--the personal real-life, real-person harm--that the Ryan budget would inflict on millions of middle-class families and retirees.

In what is one of the extraordinary examples of ``say one thing, but do another'' rhetoric, Mr. Ryan, in his recent nomination acceptance speech, said that ``the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.''

His budget, of course, visibly does exactly the opposite. It slashes taxes for the most well off, while decimating the programs on which struggling families and retirees rely.

Do not take my word for it. Following the House passage of this Ryan budget, the Conference of Catholic Bishops said:

Congress faces a difficult task to balance needs and

resources and allocate burdens and sacrifices.

Just solutions, however--

The bishops said--

must require shared sacrifice by all, including raising

adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other

spending, and fairly addressing the long-term costs of health

insurance and retirement programs. The House-passed budget

resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.

That is what the Conference of Catholic Bishops said. I will state again: ``The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.''

That is not me speaking. That is the Conference of America's Catholic Bishops.

So let's start our look behind the curtain, the curtain of the budget that fails this moral test--that Governor Romney said was ``marvelous,'' to use his word--let's start with the budget's tax theories.

The Ryan budget would lower the top tax rates for both corporations and the highest earning individuals from 35 percent to 25 percent.

According to a Joint Economic Committee analysis, this would result in an average tax cut of $285,000 for Americans earning $1 million a year and more. At the same time, middle-income taxpayers making between $50,000 and $100,000 would see their taxes go up--go up--by $1,300 because middle-class deductions are stripped away to pay for the high- end cuts.

Ryan would also shift, at the corporate level, to a so-called territorial tax system, which would mean that companies that ship jobs and operations overseas would no longer have to pay any U.S. taxes on their overseas profits.

Democrats have tried repeatedly to offer tax incentives to companies that bring jobs home to the United States. And nobody in this body has worked harder on bringing jobs home to the United States than the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Brown.

Well, the Ryan plan would do exactly the opposite. It would tell big corporations that if they move their business operations overseas, they will never pay taxes on those again. The Ryan plan is really a jobs bill for China, for India, for Korea, not for America. It is an offshoring rewards act.

In addition to those upside down tax changes that harm the middle class and raise their taxes to cut taxes for the highest earners in this country, in addition to its inducements to offshore more jobs instead of bringing them home, the Ryan budget would slash $2.9 trillion from our health care programs. Beginning for workers who retire in 2023, Mr. Ryan would convert Medicare to a voucher system, which, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, would ultimately add an estimated $6,000 in annual out-of-pocket costs that our retirees, our seniors would have to fork over.

It is hard to imagine how future seniors living on a fixed Social Security income will be able to maintain health care coverage with these substantial increases in out-of-pocket costs that Mr. Ryan's budget envisions.

If the Republicans are saying they will not make the deal that spares us the sequester unless that deal puts an end to Medicare as we know it, holding Medicare hostage, well, it then takes some ``brass''--to use President Clinton's phrase--to say: We are for the sequester.

The Ryan budget does not stop there. It would repeal the Affordable Care Act and take away access to affordable health insurance for millions of Americans of all ages. And, of course, repealing the Affordable Care Act hits seniors again by reopening that dreaded Medicare prescription drug doughnut hole that we worked so hard to close and that is closed over time in the Affordable Care Act.

In 2011 alone, the Affordable Care Act helped nearly 15,000 people in my home State of Rhode Island save an average of $554 by beginning to close the doughnut hole--millions of dollars out of the pockets of Rhode Island seniors.

That made a big difference for people such as Olive, who wrote to me from Woonsocket. Her husband fell into the doughnut hole last July. Thanks to the new law, Olive and her husband received a discount on their prescription drugs. They saved $2,400. If the Ryan budget passed, they would be stuck paying that full cost again: $2,400 right out of the pockets of Olive and her husband and into the pockets of the drug companies. Gee, who would be for that around here?

In fact, under the Ryan budget, the average senior would be stuck with

$4,200 in additional out-of-pocket prescription costs--a huge transfer of wealth from America's seniors to the big drug companies.

Repealing the Affordable Care Act would not just harm seniors, it would also mean that insurance plans would no longer have to cover young adults up to age 26 on their parents' plans. This moves over 3 million young Americans--just getting out of college, still looking for that first job that has health insurance coverage--back on to the rolls of the uninsured.

The radical Ryan budget would also hurt young people by slashing Pell grants, making college less affordable. Students and graduates are already struggling to pay a record trillion dollars that Americans now owe in outstanding student loans, and the Ryan plan would force students to take on even greater debt burdens.

On top of these specific cuts, the Ryan budget takes an additional $1 trillion in unspecified discretionary spending cuts. Domestic discretionary funding is the money that is used to keep the government operating each year--FBI agents investigating cases, Border Patrol agents working our borders, doctors and nurses treating veterans at the VA, employees mailing out Social Security checks, and many other important programs and functions.

It is already at its lowest level as a share of GDP since the 1950s. It is hard to imagine any Federal investment--whether it is education or housing or highways or law enforcement, you name it--not being jeopardized by such Draconian cuts.

That is why President Reagan's--President Reagan's--former economic adviser said about this Ryan budget plan:

The Ryan plan is a monstrosity.

Ronald Reagan's economic advisor said: ``The Ryan plan is a monstrosity.''

The rich would receive huge tax cuts while the social

safety net would be shredded to pay for it. . . . It is less

of a wish list than a fairy tale utterly disconnected from

the real world, backed up by make-believe numbers and

unreasonable assumptions.

If that is what Ronald Reagan's economic advisor thought about it, think what regular people might think about it.

Ryan's plan isn't even an act of courage; it's just

pandering to the Tea Party.

But that is what is being held hostage on this sequester.

I hope when the election season is over, no matter who wins, that Republicans will work with us--without insisting on a monstrosity, without insisting on the end of Medicare--on a balanced and reasonable plan to reduce the deficit. With a record national debt, now is no time for more tax giveaways to billionaires, as Mr. Ryan proposes, but, rather, it is the time to ensure an America where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone pitches in their fair share, and we go forward as a country together, as we always have in our best days.

I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

Madam President, this week the conservation community mourns the passing of a great American leader, a passionate individual, and an inspiration and friend to many, Russell Errol Train.

President Nixon first named Russell Train as Under Secretary of the Department of the Interior and then as the first Chairman of the new White House Council on Environmental Quality from 1970 to 1973. Russ Train then became the Administrator of the EPA, serving there from 1973 to 1977. He was at the forefront of the legislation that became the bedrock of our country's environmental policy: the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act--laws that keep the American public safe and that protect our American natural resources.

His desire to protect wildlife and habitat predated these years of public service. He founded the Wildlife Conservation Foundation in 1959 and then the African Wildlife Foundation. When

the World Wildlife Fund was established in the United States, he became its first President.

This week the World Wildlife Fund U.S. CEO Carter Roberts described Russell Train as ``a true national treasure and an inspiration to all of us who embrace conservation as their life's work.''

Mr. Roberts went on to say:

Undoubtedly, Russ would prefer that we not spend a lot of

time mourning his passing. He would want us to redouble our

efforts to save the animals and places we care about, to

solve the problems of climate change and resource scarcity,

and to build leadership capacity in those countries where it

is needed most.

So it is with his legacy in mind that I come to the Senate floor today, as I try to do every week, to discuss climate change, the science behind it, and the reality of the changes we are already seeing. This week I will focus on how the carbon pollution that is causing these climate changes is also affecting our oceans and causing an equally threatening problem--ocean acidification.

Sea water absorbs carbon dioxide; and when it does, chemical reactions occur that change the concentration of carbonate and hydrogen ions in a process that lowers the pH of sea water, commonly referred to as ocean acidification.

Since the Industrial Revolution, we have burned carbon-rich fuels in measurable and ever-increasing amounts, now up to 7 to 8 gigatons each year. We have raised the average parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere from 280 parts to 390. By the way, the range for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere for the last, say, 8,000 centuries has been 170-300 parts per million. So we are well outside of that range. Indeed, in the Arctic, measurements have already reached 400 parts per million.

The oceans of the Earth have absorbed more than 550 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That is approximately 30 percent of all of our carbon dioxide emissions. The good news is that absorbing all this carbon has significantly reduced the greenhouse gas levels in our atmosphere. The bad news is that because of all this carbon absorption, the ocean pH has changed globally, representing a nearly 30-percent increase in the acidity of the ocean. By the end of the century, ocean pH is predicted to change further, leading to a 160- percent increase in acidity.

This is where we are so far. This is what is projected. This rate of change in ocean acidity is already thought to be faster than anytime in the past 50 million years. A paper published in Science this year concluded that the current rate of CO2 emissions could drive chemical changes in the ocean unparalleled in at least the last 300 million years.

The authors of that Science study in March warned that we may be ``entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change.'' As the pH of sea water drops, so does the saturation of calcium carbonate, a compound critical to marine life for the construction of their shells and skeletons. Some organisms absorb calcium and carbonate directly right out of the water, others out of the food they ingest, but changes in the concentrations of these chemicals mean the building blocks become less available to make the shells of species such as oysters, crabs, lobsters, corals and the plankton that comprise the very base of the food web.

As oceans get more acidic, it gets harder and harder for these important species to thrive, and it puts at risk the economies that depend on these species.

I thank the leader.

Madam President, I am very happy to allow my colleague from Indiana the time, and I appreciate his good work on cyber security and hope that he and I and others can work toward a legislative solution on that.

My topic had been the acidification of our oceans as a result of carbon pollution now up 30 percent in acidity and projected to increase 160 percent in acidity at unprecedented rates in millions of years. It has been 50 to 300 million years since we have seen this kind of dramatic change in ocean acidity. For species that use calcium carbonate to create their shells and skeletons, such as oysters, crabs, lobsters, and the little plankton that so many other species depend on as the base of the food chain, it becomes harder for these species to thrive.

These unprecedented changes I am talking about in ocean acidity are not happening alone, they are happening on top of dramatically changing ocean temperature that is also driven by carbon pollution.

Just this week on the surface of the Earth, we experienced one of the hottest summers on record. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released this statement about the northeast shelf large marine ecosystem, which extends from the Gulf of Maine down to Cape Hatteras. Here is what they said:

During the first 6 months of 2012, sea surface temperatures

. . . were the highest ever recorded. Above average

temperatures were found in all parts of the ecosystem, from

the ocean bottom to the sea surface and across the region . .

. The annual 2012 spring plankton bloom was intense, started

earlier and lasted longer than average. This has implications

for marine life from the smallest creatures to the largest

marine mammals, like whales. Atlantic cod continued to shift

northeastward from its historic distribution center.

I don't need to tell anybody in the Northeast how important the stability of the cod fishery is right now. That historic fishery is facing significant reductions in catch limits because the population is not rebounding as expected from the reduced catches that fishermen are already contributing to try to solve this problem. Something is causing that failure to rebound, and the unprecedented environmental changes occurring in the ecosystem can't be overlooked as the culprit behind this unexplained phenomenon of failure to rebound.

NOAA cited a 2009 study published in Marine Ecology Progress Series that analyzed survey data in the region from 1987 to 2007. It found that about half of 36 fish stocks evaluated have been shifting northward for the past four decades, with some disappearing from U.S. waters as they move farther offshore.

In Narragansett Bay, in my home State of Rhode Island, average water temperatures have increased by 4 degrees. This amounts to an ecosystem shift. In fact, the bay, once dominated by bottom-dwelling fish, such as winter flounder, is now more populated by open-water species, such as squid and butterfish.

Let's look at winter flounder a little bit more closely. In the 1960s, the biomass of winter flounder in Narragansett Bay was as high as 4,500 metric tons. By 2011, it was down to just about 900. This is the total estimated biomass on the blue line. The red line is the landmass. That is what the fishermen were able to catch and bring in. As my colleagues can see, it went from 1,000 metric tons up to 2,000 metric tons and then, over time, it sagged and returned to 2,000 metric tons, and now it is left to virtually zero. This was a very productive fishery for Rhode Island fishermen and it is now virtually gone.

Past overfishing had a role to play, but so too has the dramatic temperature change and the stock's ability to recover is made all the more difficult by ongoing temperature change as well as acidification.

The changes facing our oceans do not stop at higher temperatures and greater acidity. I wish they did. But as average global temperatures rise, water expands. Water expands as it gets warmer, and new fresh water pours out of the snowpack and ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. Long-term data from tide gauges in our traditional sailing port of Newport, RI, show an increase in average sea level of nearly 10 inches since 1930. At these tide gauges, measurements show that the rate of sea-level rise has increased in the past two decades compared to the rate over the last century. The increase is not just happening, it is speeding up. This is consistent with reports that since 1990, sea level has been rising faster than the rate predicted by scientific models used to generate the IPCC estimates.

Global predictions for sea-level rise range from 20 to 39 inches by the year 2100, with recent studies showing that the numbers could be even higher than that due to greater than expected melting of glaciers and ice sheets.

Our Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council has used these predictions to estimate that by 2100, the sea level in Rhode Island could rise approximately 2 to 5 feet. For our coastal ocean State, that is a dramatic threat.

Sea-level rise and the increase in storm surges that will accompany it threaten at-risk coastal areas, whose roads, powerplants, wastewater treatment plants, and public facilities may need to be reinforced or relocated.

The natural environment there--estuaries, marshes, and barrier islands--has a role. They act as natural filtration systems and they act as buffers against storms, and they are being inundated by rising seas. In Rhode Island, local erosion rates doubled from 1990 on to 2006. Some of the freshwater wetlands near our coast are already transforming themselves into salt marsh as a result of this inundation.

Our Coastal Resources Management Council has documented places such as a beach in South Kingstown, where 160 feet of shoreline has been lost to erosion since 1951 at a rate of 3 feet per year.

In the small but vibrant coastal community of Matunuck, beaches have eroded 20 feet over the past 12 years. The town faces difficult decisions as the only road connecting the community and its restaurants and businesses

is protected by less than a dozen feet of sand. The road provides access for emergency vehicles and it lies on top of the water main. These are not easy concerns for communities with limited resources and lives and livelihoods at risk.

Geo-engineering solutions have been theorized to keep the temperature of the planet in check as a result of global climate change by blocking in various ways the heat of the Sun. These notions may seem somewhat farfetched, but even given that, they will not stop the chemical process of acidification of our oceans. Only curbing global carbon dioxide emissions can do that.

Sadly, our government in Washington these days responds more to dollars than to truth, and the dirty energy dollars are on the march this campaign season. Over the weekend, the New York Times analyzed 138 energy-related campaign ads aired on television. It estimated that over $153 million has been spent this year to promote coal, argue for more oil and gas drilling, and to attack clean energy. With nearly 7 weeks to go before this Presidential election, 2012 ads promoting fossil fuels are nearly 150 percent higher than 4 years ago, and that is with 7 weeks to go, the peak buying season.

Other disturbing details emerged from the New York Times article. Governor Romney, his PAC, and the RNC have received at least $13 million in campaign contributions from fossil fuel industry executives or related groups. Governor Romney has accepted $3 million in contributions from Oxbow, a coal company controlled by William Koch, a brother of David Koch.

Nature could not be giving us clearer warnings. Whatever higher power gave us our advanced human capacity for perception, calculation, analysis, deduction, and foresight has laid out before us more than enough information to make the right decisions. These God-given human capacities provide us everything we need to act responsibly if only we will.

But the polluting special interests appear to rule here. The party of Theodore Roosevelt, the great conservationist; the party of President Nixon, who founded the EPA; the party of John Chafee of Rhode Island, who was instrumental in the passage of the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act; and the party of Russell Train who, as I mentioned earlier, died this week at the age of 92 after a distinguished career in environmental protection in the Republican Party--that party has now become the servant and handmaiden--perhaps ``paid consort'' would be a better way to say it given the money involved--of polluting special interests.

All of this money can alter how Congress behaves, and all of this money can influence the laws we pass, but the laws of nature are not subject to repeal no matter how much special interest money flows into campaign coffers. The laws of chemistry don't care about the filibuster. The laws of physics don't care how Senators vote. Nature will work its will and one day there will be an accounting.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Bill Shuey, Director of the International Institute of Rhode Island. Bill is retiring after nearly three decades of service to the Rhode Island community.

I have witnessed Bill Shuey's effective and innovative leadership since my days as a member of the International Institute's Board of Directors in the 1980s. The Institute's mission is to provide the educational, legal, and social tools immigrants and refugees need to gain self-sufficiency and contribute to their communities--the very building blocks of the American dream. Since taking the helm of the Institute in 1984, Bill has overseen the growth of the Institute's budget and highly skilled staff, as well as its relocation to a new home on Elmwood Avenue in Providence. Bill and his staff have served immigrants and refugees who have come to Rhode Island and southeastern New England from the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Guatemala, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Cambodia, Burma, Laos, Bhutan, Iraq, Lebanon, Armenia, and many other countries.

Bill's father was a school principal who started an American school in Addis Ababa in 1966. In 2000, Bill made him proud when the International Institute founded a K-5 multilingual charter school in Pawtucket. About 300 students now attend the school, which immerses students in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

Thanks to Bill's vision, the International Institute has plans to expand its services further through a merger with Dorcas Place, an adult education organization that focuses on literacy and language skills as well as job training and preparation.

I should mention that Bill's dedication to making a difference in the lives of others carries over into his private life. In addition to being a proud father, step-father, and grandfather, Bill is the foster parent of the son of Cambodian immigrants, who is now a student in law school.

Through building effective partnerships between non-profits, government, and the private sector, Bill has helped knit the fabric of our community in Rhode Island to connect thousands of individuals with the skills they need to become productive members of Rhode Island's workforce and society. Rhode Island has a long tradition of being enriched, culturally and economically, by immigrants who came to our shores with the American dream in their hearts. Bill has helped so many of them get a welcome start. I wish him heartfelt congratulations and gratitude for his years of service to the people of Rhode Island.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about an issue that is extremely important to people in Rhode Island and across the United States: protecting consumers and securing the integrity of Medicare by preventing waste and fraud. Individuals who commit Medicare fraud are not simply stealing from the government, they are stealing from the men and women who have paid into the system their whole lives, they are stealing from our Nation's seniors, and they are stealing from the taxpayers. We have an obligation to ensure that Medicare dollars are spent keeping seniors healthy, and not lining the pockets of predatory opportunists.

In March, I held a hearing in Rhode Island on efforts at the Federal, State, and local levels to identify and reduce fraud in Medicare and Medicaid. I heard testimony from a representative of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, as well as State and Federal law enforcement officials, including Rhode Island's Attorney General, Peter Kilmartin; and the U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island, Peter Neronha. They discussed a number of the efforts underway to identify potentially fraudulent claims, recover improper payments, and use state-of-the-art analytic software to identify and prevent improper payments.

I was pleased to hear about the steps being taken to modernize Medicare's anti-fraud efforts, but there is still much that can be done. In particular, I believe we must crack down on deceptive and fraudulent telemarketing and email schemes that force unwanted and unnecessary medical equipment onto unsuspecting seniors. I have heard from Rhode Islanders concerned about these ``too-good-to-be-true'' offers. During my March hearing, I heard testimony about Medicare beneficiaries receiving unsolicited phone calls from a company called Planned Eldercare, which promised to provide them with free medical products. If a senior agreed to the offer, Planned Eldercare would submit as many claims as it could to Medicare on that beneficiary's behalf, even if the products for which they were submitting claims were not medically necessary or even requested by the senior. This scheme defrauded Medicare out of more than $2.2 million.

These schemes prey on older Americans and rob Medicare of millions of dollars that would otherwise be used to improve the health and well- being of seniors. We must do more to prevent fraud of this kind, which is why I am joining with my colleague, Senator Blumenthal, in introducing the Telemarketing Fraud Modernization Act. This bill would close loopholes in the existing telemarketing fraud statute and update the law to include Medicare, Medicaid, and health care fraud, as well as schemes to fraudulently induce investments--like Ponzi schemes. It would also expand existing law to apply to schemes perpetrated via email, instant messages, and other forms of electronic communication. Updating the telemarketing fraud statute will give law enforcement agencies the tools they need to rein in scam artists, protect our Nation's seniors, and strengthen the integrity of the Medicare program.

I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on this important issue.

Madam President, I am here on the floor again today, as I try to be every week, to speak about the continuing effects of carbon pollution on our planet, on our climate, and on our oceans. We have been away for the August recess, so it has been a while since I have done that.

August has been somewhat eventful. We have had two party conventions, and we have had continued news about what is happening to our climate and to our world.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that July was the hottest month ever in the contiguous United States in their 118 years of keeping records. According to NOAA's State of the Climate reports, nearly 63 percent of the country experienced moderate to exceptional drought in July and August. It is affecting all sorts of folks--farmers, obviously. Unexpectedly high spring temperatures, for instance, decimated the tart cherry production in northwest Michigan where 75 percent of the country's tart cherries are grown. Freezing weather, followed by a warmer than usual spring, destroyed the cherry buds, and more than 90 percent of that crop was lost. Grapes and peaches and apple harvests were also affected. Losses from this are estimated at $210 million, making this year the worst year on the books for Michigan fruit, just to give one example.

Electricity generation, of all things, was also affected. Over the weekend, a Washington Post article documented electricity-generating facilities are struggling to supply consistent levels of electric generation because of these drought conditions. Lake Mead, Hoover Dam's reservoir, fell 103 feet below its targeted capacity. Low water levels have hindered barge transport of coal up the Mississippi River. Eight coal-fired and nuclear power plants in Illinois needed special permission to discharge cooling water that exceeded their Federal clean water permit ceiling of 90 degrees.

NASA scientist James Hansen published a study last month concluding that the 2011 heat waves in Texas and in Oklahoma, as well as the heat wave at that time in Russia, were likely caused by climate change--by the carbon pollution that we are emitting--with the analysis that what the carbon pollution in our climate does is to load the climate dice in favor of more and more extreme storms and extreme conditions like these heat waves.

Last week, the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center and NASA announced together that Arctic Sea ice has reached a record low of 1.58 million square miles--nearly 70,000 square miles smaller than the previous modern low. Of course, there are still weeks to go in the melting season, and so it will be a lower record than that.

In the past three decades the annual average temperatures have increased twice as much over the Arctic as over the rest of the world. The Arctic is really the leading edge for the climate changes that are occurring as a result of our carbon pollution. The average extent of the Arctic Sea ice has declined by 25 to 30 percent, and the rate of that decline is accelerating. Habitats are changing, extreme weather is increasing, species are moving, oceans are warming and rising, and Republicans and special interests are denying. They insist on keeping their heads in the sand. In this case, given the source of much of the denial propaganda, it is probably safe to say that they have their heads in the oil sands.

The conventions that took place over August were instructive. I believe history will look back at the Republican Convention as a disgrace of climate denial in the face of the mounting facts. By contrast, President Obama pointed out clearly, simply, and plainly that carbon pollution is heating our planet, that climate change is not a hoax, that more droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke, that they are a threat to our children's future. I applaud the President for his leadership in this way.

He was not the only Democratic leader to touch on this issue. Senator Kerry--who gave a brilliant and passionate speech on the floor before the August recess--in his remarks said this:

Despite what you heard in Tampa, an exceptional country

does care about the rise of the oceans and the future of the

planet. That is a responsibility from the Scriptures. And

that, too, is a responsibility of the leader of the free

world.

President Clinton, in his wonderful magisterial speech, lauded the agreement the Obama administration made with the management, labor, and environmental groups to double car mileage. He pointed out:

That was a good deal. It will make us more energy

independent. It will cut greenhouse gas emissions. And

according to several analyses, over the next 20 years, it'll

bring another half a million good new jobs into the American

economy.

Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts reminded us of the Romney who understood climate change, who said he was for climate change--I think he meant he was doing something about climate change--back when he was Governor of Massachusetts. He reminded us: Now there's a Romney who believes it is a myth.

Secretary Ken Salazar, who served with real distinction in the Senate, said of the deniers:

Mock our sacred responsibility as stewards of God's Earth.

Their attitude isn't just sad; it's reckless and it's

backward.

Tom Steyer is the cofounder of Advanced Energy Economy. He said this about Governor Romney:

Governor Romney's road to the future will lead to dirty air

and increasing climate volatility, uncertainty over energy

prices and less security, not more.

He contrasted that with President Obama. ``President Obama's road to the future,'' he said, ``will lead us to energy independence, energy security, a safer and cleaner environment, and countless new jobs that can never be outsourced.''

And as silent and mocking as the Republican convention and the Republican candidate were on this issue, they have doubled down since then. Over the weekend on ``Meet the Press,'' Mr. Romney restated that he is ``not in this race to slow the rise of the oceans or to heal the planet.'' His energy plan makes no mention whatsoever of climate change or of promoting renewable energy technology. Instead, it details how the United States can exploit what the platform calls the domestic ``cornucopia of carbon-based energy resources.''

Our platform makes it clear that we take this seriously.

We know that global climate change is one of the biggest

threats of this generation--an economic, environmental and

national security catastrophe in the making. We affirm the

science of climate change, commit to significantly reducing

the pollution that causes climate change, and know we have to

meet this challenge by driving smart policies that lead to

greater growth in clean energy generation and result in a

range of economic and social benefits.

In our national security platform we state:

The national security threat from climate change is real,

urgent and severe. The change wrought by a warming planet

will lead to new conflicts over refugees and resources; new

suffering from drought and famine; catastrophic natural

disasters and the degradation of vital ecosystems across the

globe.

By contrast, the Republican platform calls on Congress to take quick action to prohibit the EPA from moving forward with new greenhouse gas regulations.

We are at history's junction, as shown by these two conventions and these two platforms. The Republicans would take us back into the past on a tide of propaganda and denial to serve the special interests of the polluters. The Obama administration would take us forward to compete successfully in the world for clean energy innovation, clean energy technology, and clean energy jobs. It would allow us to meet our responsibility to our children and grandchildren to leave them a world as good as the one that was left to us. And it would, in addition, show that this great experiment in human liberty, the United States of America, this great democracy, is not for sale.

The findings that we made in our platform I will quote again: ``We know that global climate change is one of the biggest threats of this generation . . . and we affirm the science of climate change'' follows the very strong findings of the American scientific community, indeed the world scientific community. Back in October 2009, a letter from a coalition of respected scientific organizations said this:

Observations throughout the world make it clear that

climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research

demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human

activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are

based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary

assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of

the vast body of peer-reviewed science.

These were esteemed organizations: American Chemical Society, American Meteorological Society, American Society of Agronomy, Botanical Society of America, and many others. They do not think the jury is out on this question. They know that in fact the verdict is in and we now have a responsibility to ourselves and to the future to act.

Recently, Dr. Richard Muller, a converted climate skeptic, released findings from his research--which was, ironically, partially funded by the Koch brothers--that the Earth's land temperature has increased by 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years and 1.5 degrees of that over the past 50 years. He states, ``moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.''

Another benchmark was a monitoring station in the Arctic that measured carbon dioxide at 400 parts per million for the first time. This is 50 parts per million higher than the maximum contraction of carbon in the atmosphere at which scientists predict a stable climate, and it is well outside the 170 parts per million to 370 parts per million range for carbon in our atmosphere that has persisted for the last 8,000 centuries.

Essentially all of human development has taken place within a range of 170 to 300 parts per million in our atmosphere and we just broke, in the Arctic, 400 parts per million for the first time. We are not just off the road and over the chatter strip. We are way out of history's line.

Again, we are at a junction in history. I urge we go forward, that we drive our country toward successful competition for a clean energy future, that we meet our responsibility to our

children and our grandchildren, and that we prove to ourselves and to the rest of the world that our great American experiment in human liberty is not for sale to the polluting industries.

I yield the floor.

The Economy

Madam President, I see the Senator from North Dakota on the Senate floor, and I wonder if he seeks recognition. He is my chairman on the Budget Committee. I am inclined to give him precedence.

Madam President, may I suggest that the Senator proceed, and it would be helpful to me if he could give me an indication, first, of how long he might be and, second, that we enter into a unanimous consent agreement that I be recognized following his remarks.

Perfect.

I thank the Senator.

Madam President, last spring Cathy Hutchison picked up a cup of coffee and took a sip. Now, why have I come to the floor of the Senate to talk about Cathy Hutchison picking up a cup of coffee last spring and taking a sip? Because 15 years earlier, Cathy Hutchison was working in her garden when she suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed.

Cathy did not just lose the ability to use her arms and legs, she also lost the ability to speak. I am sorry to say this condition is not unique to Cathy. It happens regularly enough that there is a medical term for it, locked-in syndrome. That is how Cathy lived for nearly 15 years: alert and mentally sharp but unable to move or speak, a prisoner in her own body.

All of this changed last spring when, for the first time in nearly 15 years, Cathy picked up that cup of coffee and took a sip. Cathy Hutchison is a patient enrolled in a clinical trial at Brown University in Providence, RI. They are testing a neural interface device known as BrainGate.

BrainGate works by placing a small sensor on the brain. The sensor is connected to a computer that interprets the brain's signals to control a specially designed robotic arm. The university researchers asked Cathy to imagine that she was moving her arm in different directions. Then they monitored which neurons fired for those corresponding movements, all in her imagination.

Using this brain wave information, researchers attached a robotic arm to the computer. The computer translated the electrical impulses detected by the sensor in Cathy's brain back into commands to tell the arm what to do.

Cathy communicates through a device that allows her to type using the movement of her eyes, and she typed that she was ``ecstatic'' about the new technology and hopes it can be expanded to one day allow her to walk again.

The BrainGate team is also working to determine if this technology can ultimately be used to help individuals paralyzed by stroke or injury to regain greater independence. BrainGate is an example of what is possible when the best minds in science and engineering come together for the common good.

Researchers from Brown University, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the German Aerospace Center collaborated on this project. Their efforts were supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, as well as funding from the Veterans' Administration, and several private foundations. BrainGate is just one of the most recent in a long list of medical breakthroughs that are made possible by our National Institutes of Health. The NIH is the cornerstone of our commitment to medical research for the benefit of humanity.

Research supported by the NIH has led to medical advances that have saved and improved countless lives while making America the world leader in discovery and innovation. More than 80 Nobel prizes have been awarded for research supported by the National Institutes of Health.

In Rhode Island, Brown University has received NIH grants to support cutting-edge research on a multitude of diseases, including cancer, dementia, and muscular dystrophy. In fact, the scope of projects at Brown that receive NIH support is so diverse that the university describes its NIH-backed research as covering everything from autism to Alzheimer's. Yet there are those in Congress who have suggested cutting the NIH's budget.

Let's be clear about what cutting the NIH's budget means. It means cutting off funding for research that has provided Cathy Hutchison her first taste of physical independence in 15 years. It means telling the millions of Americans suffering from cancer that they have to wait longer for lifesaving research. It means suffocating a vibrant area of innovation and job creation.

Cutting the NIH budget has ripple effects far beyond just one Federal agency. Quite simply, it will hurt job growth. Medical research is one of the fastest growing fields nationwide. In Rhode Island and across the country, cities are undergoing a renaissance sparked by the growth of high-paying careers in medical research.

I have heard friends on the other side of the aisle talk at length about how we need to do more to create jobs. Well, I could not agree more. Now is no time to put jobs at risk by cutting back on the research funding that makes them possible. I know the Appropriations Committee recently reported a bill to the floor that would increase the NIH budget by $100 million for the coming fiscal year. I applaud my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee for their commitment to this vital agency, and I hope we will soon be able to vote on their measure. But there is something looming on the horizon that will render this $100 million increase all but meaningless. I am talking, of course, about sequestration, under which it is estimated that NIH will face not a $100 million increase but a $2.4 billion cut.

I know a lot of my colleagues have discussed the effect that the sequester will have on defense spending, but it is important to remember that 50 cents out of every dollar of cuts that will occur under sequester will come out of nondefense spending, including specifically the NIH.

``Devastating'' is the word that keeps being used when people are asked how sequester would affect our National Institutes of Health. That is how NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins described the effect of a nearly 8-percent cut to the agency's budget. Those who are familiar with science know how important it is in ongoing experiments that there be a consistent data set through the period of the research.

When we interrupt research for financial reasons, we can damage the value of research conducted in other years. I agree with my colleagues that we must reduce our long-term deficit, but when we cut funding that creates jobs and leads to lifesaving medical breakthroughs we are pursuing policies that are the epitome of penny-wise but pound-foolish.

I hope we in the Senate can work together to find sensible solutions that reduce the deficit while maintaining our longstanding commitment to medical research and innovation. We owe that much to Cathy and to the millions of Americans whose futures will be brighter thanks to the research and jobs made possible by our American National Institutes of Health. When Cathy Hutchison interacts with the BrainGate program, it is hard not to get the sense that we are looking into the future, a future where people like Cathy will know that disease or injury will not transform their bodies into a prison.

It was Arthur C. Clarke who said ``any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'' For Cathy, for the BrainGate research team, and indeed for anyone who may one day benefit from this remarkable technology, that sip of coffee last spring taken by Cathy Hutchison was a moment of magic. Let's commit ourselves to providing Cathy, the BrainGate team, and all of those who are relying on us in this body to provide the support they need to keep making magical moments like this possible.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am delighted to follow the distinguished Senator from Colorado and commend him for his persistence and his passion on preserving the wind production tax credit. We have, as he will recall from our previous discussions together on the floor, facilities that we hope to have going up offshore of Rhode Island very soon that will provide a local source of energy for us, reduce our reliance on imported oil, and create significant and well-paying jobs at home. So I am glad to be his wingman in this pursuit and thank him for his leadership.

Climate Change

Madam President, yesterday marked the end of what is expected to be one of the top five warmest months on record. The USDA recently declared nearly 1,400 counties in 31 States, including, I am sure, many in Colorado, disaster areas as a result of the ongoing drought. NASA and NOAA declared the last decade the warmest on record. In 2011, we faced 14 weather-related disasters that totaled more than $1 billion in damage each. We already have several more that have occurred in 2012.

I have come to the floor today to discuss the science of climate change. Virtually all respected scientific and academic institutions have agreed that climate change is happening, and that human activities are the driving cause of this change. A letter to Congress from a great number of those institutions in October 2009 stated that:

Observations throughout the world make it clear that

climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research

demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted

by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions

are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and

contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective

assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science.

If I were to translate that last phrase into layman's terms, it would basically mean if you are saying anything different, we should be looking for your motives.

This letter was signed by the heads of the following organizations: the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Biological Sciences, American Meteorological Society, American Society of Agronomy, American Society of Plant Biologists, American Statistical Association, Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, Botanical Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, and a great many others.

These are highly esteemed scientific organizations, and they don't think the jury is still out on climate change. They recognize that, in reality, the verdict is in, and it is time to act.

Over the weekend, Dr. Richard Muller, professor of physics at the University of California-Berkeley, and also director of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project, and a former MacArthur Foundation Fellow--a so-called genius grant award winner--revealed in a New York Times op-ed how he has become a converted climate skeptic. He cites findings from his research, which ironically was partially funded by the Koch brothers, that the Earth's land temperature has increased by 2\1/2\ degrees Fahrenheit in the past 250 years and 1\1/2\ degrees over the past 50 years. He states:

Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this

increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.

Unfortunately, human emission of greenhouse gases is on the rise. In 2011, the famed Mauna Loa Observatory documented the biggest annual jump yet in carbon dioxide. A monitoring station in the Arctic this year measured carbon dioxide at 400 parts per million for the first time, which is 50 parts per million higher than the maximum concentration at which scientists predict a stable climate. Of course, 400 parts per million is way outside the 170 to 300 parts per million bandwidth that has existed on this planet for the past 8,000 centuries. For 800,000 years, we have been between 170 and 300 parts per million, and now in the bellwether leading-edge Arctic area, we cracked 400 in our climate.

A 2012 report by the IPCC concludes that climate change increases the risk of heavy precipitation. Rhode Islanders are no stranger to heavy precipitation. In 2010, we saw flooding that exceeded anything we have seen since the 1870s, when Rhode Island first started keeping records. At the height of the rains, streets in many Rhode Island cities and towns looked more like rivers than roads. Local emergency workers sailed down Providence Street, a main road in West Warwick, by boat and jet skis--down a main road on boats and jet skis--in order to assist residents trapped by the floodwaters. Of course, we cannot link that exact storm to climate change, but we know that climate change is increasing the risk of extreme weather events like this one. It is loading the dice for more and worse storms.

As a New Englander, I was concerned by a report released this week by Environment America, titled ``When It Rains, It Pours.'' The report found that in New England ``intense rainstorms and snowstorms [are] happening 85 percent more often than in 1948. The frequency of intense rain or snowstorms nearly doubled in Vermont and Rhode Island, and more than doubled in New Hampshire.'' Not only are these inundations happening more often, but the largest events are actually dumping more precipitation--around 10 percent more on average--across the country. For States such as mine, these storms are dangerous, expensive, and cause lasting damage.

We are moving down a troublesome and unknown path. The best we can do now is to prepare for dramatic environmental shifts. We must look to science and scientists and use the best available data to protect and prepare both our natural and built environments, which sustain us and our economy. Ensuring the integrity of our infrastructure in the face of a rapidly changing climate is essential. I want to focus for a minute on that infrastructure. Coastal States face a particularly unique set of challenges, so the infrastructure challenge for Rhode Island is worse than many places. We face what I call a triple whammy, as we must adapt not only to extreme temperatures and unusual weather but also to sea level rise.

As average global temperatures rise, less water will be stored in snowpack and on the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. We also know that at higher temperatures water expands to greater volume, so that leads to a sea level rise, which is predicted to range from 20 to 39 inches by 2100, with recent studies showing that the numbers could be even higher due to greater than expected melting of glaciers and ice sheets. This is not a theory. We are into the realm of measurement.

Long-term data from tide gauges in the historic sailing capital of Newport, RI, show an increase in average sea level of nearly 10 inches since 1930. At these same tide gauges, measurements show that the rate of sea level rise has increased in the past two decades compared to the rate over the last century. This is consistent with reports that since 1990 sea level has been rising faster than the rate predicted by models used to generate IPCC estimates.

Sea level rise is one thing, and the increase in storm surges that will accompany it is even worse and promises to bring devastation to our doorsteps. Critical infrastructure in at-risk coastal areas--roads, powerplants, wastewater treatment plants--will need to be reinforced or relocated. Additionally, our estuaries, marshes, and the barrier islands that act as natural filtration systems and buffers against storms will be inundated, with little time or space to retreat and move inland as they have in the past. The oncoming weather is coming on too fast.

One consequence of rising sea levels is that local erosion rates in Rhode Island have doubled from 1990 to 2006, and some freshwater wetlands near the coast are transitioning to salt marsh. Increased sea level and erosion puts critical public infrastructure at risk. In one example, we have a small but vibrant coastal community, Matunuck, where beaches have eroded 20 feet over the past 12 years. The town has to face difficult decisions as the only road connecting about 1600 residents and several restaurants and businesses is protected now by less than a dozen feet of sand from the ocean. This road, which provides access for emergency vehicles and lies on top of a water main, must be protected. But what are the costs of protecting this piece of road for areas nearby or farther down the shore? Often when you protect one area of beach from erosion by hardening or altering the shoreline, you do so to the sacrifice of other areas. It takes science and data to sort out how to do that right.

These are not easy decisions for communities. To best protect infrastructure and the communities and families who live in these at- risk areas, we have to, as a nation, plan ahead. We have to use the best and most reliable science, and we have to be able to prioritize adaptation efforts.

In North Carolina, the State legislature considered a measure that would have severely restricted the ability of their Coastal Resources Commission to employ scientific estimates of future sea level rise. That is the ultimate case of the ostrich burying its head in the sand-- in this case, the beach sand. This type of thinking will cost money and lives in the future.

In Rhode Island, we are taking a different approach.

We have to if we want to protect public health and safety. Rhode Island has 19 ``high hazard'' dams that have been deemed ``unsafe'' by our Department of Environmental Management. We have 6,000 onsite waste water treatment systems located near the coast, several landfills that may be susceptible to coastal erosion and evacuation routes that could be underwater as sea levels rise.

In 2008, our Coastal Resources Management Council adopted a climate change and sea level rise policy to protect public and private property, infrastructure, and economically valuable coastal ecosystems. The policy states the following:

The Council will integrate climate change and sea-level

rise scenarios into its operations to prepare Rhode Island

for these new,

evolving conditions and make our coastal areas more

resilient.

It is the Council's policy to accommodate a base rate of

expected 3-5 foot rise in sea level by the year 2100 in the

siting, design, and implementation of public and private

coastal activities and to insure proactive stewardship of

coastal ecosystems under these changing conditions. It should

be noted that the 3-5 foot rate of sea-level rise assumption

embedded in this policy is relatively narrow and low. The

Council recognizes that the lower the sea level rise estimate

used, the greater the risk that policies and efforts to adapt

sea-level rise and climate change will prove to be

inadequate.

This policy is already helping the State make smart decisions. For example, when a new pump station was needed at a sewage treatment plant, CRMC looked at sea-level rise models before determining where it should go, avoiding future relocation costs or malfunction in the face of flash flooding and sea level rise.

In 2010, our general assembly created the Rhode Island Climate Change Commission to study the projected impacts of climate change on the State, develop strategies to adapt to those impacts, and determine mechanisms to incorporate climate adaptation into existing state and municipal programs. A draft progress report from the Commission lists many ways the state is planning to adapt to climate change, including: Creating a ``Structural Concept and Contingency Plan to Inundation of the Ferry Terminals and Island Roadway Systems''; creating the ``Central Landfill Disaster Preparedness Plan''; national grid, our electricity and natural gas utility, undertaking a ``Statewide Substation Flooding Assessment''; the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency conducting a ``Hurricane and Flooding Evacuation Study''; and the list goes on and on.

In the town of North Kingston, RI, they have taken the best elevation data available, and modeled 1, 3, and 5 feet of sea-level rise, as well as 1 foot of sea-level rise plus 3 feet of storm surge. By overlaying these inundation models on top of maps identifying critical infrastructure such as roads, emergency routes, railroads, water treatment plans, and estuaries, the town will be able to prioritize transportation, conservation, and relocation projects. They are also able to quantify the costs of sea-level rise. In one small area of the town, 1 foot of sea-level rise would put two buildings, valued at $1.3 million, underwater. Five feet of sea-level rise, however, jeopardizes 116 buildings valued at $91 million.

Similarly, by modeling how sea-level rise will impact estuaries, towns can preserve areas that will stay wetlands or undeveloped areas that will become wetlands in the future, as opposed to areas that will be lost. Estuaries act as nurseries for our hugely valuable fisheries, and protect our homes, buildings and communities from storm surge. There is already limited funding to protect these important ecosystems and this kind of planning promotes efficiency in spending.

Let me close by saying that it is now well past time for us as a country to start making policy that helps us adapt to the emerging scientific reality that our actions indeed do affect our environment. For those of us who are ocean States, the state of our oceans and coastlines is particularly significant, and I urge my colleagues to support our National Endowment for the Oceans, which got all the way into the conference committee on the highway bill before it was taken out in an unfortunate, unwise, and, frankly, unfair maneuver.

We are at a place now where nature could not be giving us clearer warnings. Whatever higher power there is--and we each have our own beliefs on that--that higher power that gave us our advanced human capacity for perception, for calculation, for analysis, for deduction, and for foresight has laid out before us more than enough information for us to make the right decisions. Only a wild and reckless greed or a fatal hubris could blind us to the distress signals coming from our oceans, our atmosphere, and our world. Fortunately, these human capacities still provide us everything we need to act responsibly but only if we will.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.