Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks, Senator Merkley be recognized for associated remarks, followed by a brief colloquy between the two of us.

Mr. President, I am grateful to be joined by my wonderful colleague from Oregon, Senator Merkley, for my 222nd ``Time to Wake Up'' climate speech. Although there are thousands of miles between us--on the west and east coasts--Oregon and Rhode Island share a common connection; that is, our oceans. Fisheries and coastal tourism are major drivers of our economies. Our coastlines are vibrant with homes, families, and businesses. We are ocean States.

So we are here to talk about the challenges of human-driven climate change for our oceans and coasts: sea level rise, ocean acidification, deoxygenation, warming, and increased storm surge. Our local agencies and officials and our coastal residents understand the changes that are coming at

them. Not all States are prepared, however, and in the aftermath of severe storms like Hurricane Florence and last year's hurricanes, powered up by higher seas and superheated ocean water, we are seeing the consequences of this failure.

Last month was the 80th anniversary of the Great Hurricane of 1938. The storm barreled through southern New England, destroying roads and ports and businesses and homes. This is a photograph of downtown Providence. That is the roof of a car, and they built cars pretty tall back in 1938. Over 560 people lost their lives in this storm. The National Weather Service now estimates that Providence experienced a storm surge of around 20 feet, which put it 14 feet under water in the downtown area and sustained winds above 100 miles per hour--not gusts, sustained winds. If this storm were to hit Rhode Island now, it would carry ashore at least an additional 10 inches of ocean, thanks to sea level rise since the 1930s. It would probably carry ashore a lot more than that because that 10 inches of water would pile up in the storm surge as it hit.

If we continue to do nothing to slow climate change, by the end of the century, sea level rise will be on the scale of additional feet, not inches.

Hurricane Florence just brought feet of rain, high winds, and massive storm surge to the Carolinas. At around 500 miles wide, it was bigger than Hurricane Katrina, and it dumped more rain than Hurricane Harvey. Sadly, nearly 50 people have lost their lives from the effects of Hurricane Florence, and flooding recovery is still ongoing. The condolences of Rhode Islanders go out to the Carolinas and Virginia.

As Hurricane Florence was building strength and making its approach, researchers were connecting its power to climate change. A team of researchers estimated climate change made Florence's rainfall 50 percent worse than it would have been without the known effects of humankind on the climate. Hurricanes are powered by warmer oceans. One of the study's authors estimated that for every degree Celsius of ocean temperature increase, ``extreme precipitation events can increase by over 60 percent.''

The oceans are warmer. Oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by our greenhouse gas emissions. It is several nuclear explosions worth of heat per second that the oceans are absorbing. By doing that, they spare our land from worse climate catastrophe, but it wreaks havoc in our oceans. Marine heat waves are a new phenomenon--so new that they were first identified and characterized in 2011, but they have already left a permanent scar in our oceans.

Starting in 2014, the northeast Pacific Ocean has experienced inordinately warm temperatures--``the Blob,'' it was called--a mass of warm water around the size of Canada. As the Blob spread toward Alaska, a trail of millions of dead sea birds followed. The warm water drove their prey to cooler waters; unable to adapt to the sudden shift, the birds starved. Starving sea lion pups and toxic algae blooms that poisoned whales were also attributed to the Blob of warm water.

The recent massive coral die-off in the Great Barrier Reef that left half the reef dead was driven by abnormal water temperatures. Dr. Terry Hughes, one of the world's leading coral reef researchers, was quoted in The Atlantic as saying the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem ``has collapsed . . . transformed into a completely new system that looks differently, and behaves differently, and functions differently, than how it was three years ago.''

Marine heat waves are becoming warmer and more frequent, to the point that there is a movement now within the scientific community to start naming and categorizing Marine heat waves much as we do hurricanes.

Warming seas rise, and this will hit coastal properties.

The Union of Concerned Scientists recently released a report that estimated by 2100, ``nearly 2.5 million residential and commercial properties, collectively valued at [over $1] trillion today, will be at risk of chronic flooding.'' These numbers are based on sea level rise alone; storm surge and rain-driven flooding only amplify these risks.

Long before your house is actually flooded, long before you are walking through your kitchen in rubber boots, the value of your house can crash if the house becomes uninsurable or unmortgageable for the next buyer. Freddie Mac has warned of this property value crash in America's coastal regions. Here is what Freddie Mac said: ``The economic losses and social disruption may happen gradually, but they are likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and Great Recession.''

The insurance industry trade publication Risk & Insurance had this to say: ``Continually rising seas will damage coastal residential and commercial property values to the point that property owners will flee those markets in droves, thus precipitating a mortgage value collapse that could equal or exceed the mortgage crisis that rocked the global economy in 2008.''

Despite this warning, the Federal Government has failed to prepare for these coming changes and build coastal resiliency. Congress is used to investing in our coasts only after a disaster. We have let our National Flood Insurance Program fall into billions of dollars of debt. We have let FEMA provide inaccurate and incomplete flood risk maps. And the Trump administration is purposefully blind to climate science, ocean changes, and flood mitigation requirements that would help us get ahead of the changes coming along our coasts.

We are not out of time yet. We still have a chance to avoid the worst consequences of climate change and prepare America's coastal infrastructure for the rising tides. But we have to move past futile and false denial and into action.

It is time, Republicans and Democrats alike, west coasters and east coasters together, to wake up.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

One of the touching features of the Senator's presentation was the summary of the effects on God's creatures--the sea lion pups, the fish, the sea birds, just from this particular episode. You may not have a big heart for an oyster spat, but these are all God's creatures. It is frustrating when people who wear their Christianity on their sleeve show so little interest for the protection of God's creatures.

The other angle on that is that we are taught in the Bible to look out for the least among us. One thing I have noticed is that climate change harms don't fall evenly across the population, that storms and floods are harder for some than for others, and that wealth and poverty dramatically affect the experience of climate change by different people.

I wonder if the Senator would comment on that from his experience.

I believe it was Tom Friedman, the very well-known author, who first wrote comprehensively about the connection between the unprecedented drought in Syria driving farmers and herdsmen away from their former farms and herds--the farms dried up and the herds died off--and into the city, into that conflict, and into that crucible that led to the initial conflict and now to the complete collapse of Syrian society and into an international boxing match of forces.

I yield my time.

I thank Senator Merkley for joining me and for the longstanding passion that he has exhibited for the oceans, the coasts, the forests, and the well-being of the people of Oregon. We are very proud of our State of Rhode Island, but Oregon has a great deal in terms of natural assets to be proud of, and there is no stronger voice for them than the Senator from Oregon.

I yield.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I am here for my customary ``Time to Wake Up'' speech, but before I get into it, given the events of the day, I just want to express my satisfaction with the turn of events in the Judiciary Committee.

As the Acting President pro tempore may know, yesterday was a rather bitter day in the Judiciary Committee, with there being a lot of anger and tribal belligerence and a nominee who was full of partisanship and conspiracy theory and invective. It really was not a good day. Yet this is a funny place, and sometimes, right after we have been at our worst, something breaks that turns things in the right direction.

Something happened in the Judiciary Committee today, much due to the concerns and the fortitude of Senator Flake, so I want to give him primary credit. I understand the Republican leadership has agreed there will be a weeklong delay in the Kavanaugh vote on the floor and that the FBI will be given a chance to do its job and take a look at the allegations that are out there about his conduct.

This is not only a good thing for the Senate--because I think it releases a lot of pent-up pressure and anxiety and hostility--but it is also a really good thing for the process because the worst possible outcome would be that we would push this candidate through, that he would then get on the Supreme Court, and it would be subsequently shown that these allegations would have been, in fact, true and that he would not have been truthful with us about it and would have lied to the Senate. To clear as much of that cloud off of him as possible, I think, is good for us, good for the Court, good for the country--good for all. So, after a grim and battering day yesterday, I think we had a productive day today. I feel I earned my pay in the Senate over in the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. President, what I want to talk about is a new form of political weapon that has emerged onto the political battlefield in America, and it is a political weapon for which the American system is not very well prepared yet. The new political weapon we see is systematic and deliberate misinformation, what you might call weaponized fake news.

Vladimir Putin's regime, in Russia, uses weaponized fake news all the time for political influence in the former Soviet Union and the modern European Union. Our intelligence agencies caught them using misinformation to help Trump win the 2016 American election. Some also is homegrown. In America, the original weaponized fake news was climate denial, spun up by the fossil fuel industry. The fossil fuel industry used systematic, deliberate disinformation to propagandize our politics and fend off accountability for its pollution of our atmosphere and oceans.

So, for both national security and political integrity reasons, we need to better understand this misinformation weaponry. Guess what. Science is on the case. A comprehensive array of peer-reviewed articles appeared last year in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition and, I am sure, is on the Acting President pro tempore's bedside table for light reading. Dozens of scientists contributed to this report, and I list their names in an appendix to the speech.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my appendix be added at the end of my speech.

What they found is interesting. One piece--tellingly subtitled ``Understanding and Coping with the `Post-Truth' Era''--describes how ``the World Economic Forum ranked the spread of misinformation online as one of the 10 most significant issues facing the world''--the top 10.

``An obvious hallmark of a post-truth world is that it empowers people to choose their own reality, where facts and objective evidence are trumped by existing beliefs and prejudices,'' concludes one article--not a good thing.

This is not your grandfather's misinformation. This is not ``JFK and Marilyn Monroe's Love Child Found in Utah Salt Mine.'' This is not ``Aliens Abducted My Cat.'' This is not fun and entertainment. This is also not people just being wrong. Indeed, ``misinformation in the post- truth era can no longer be considered solely an isolated failure of individual cognition that can be corrected with appropriate communications tools,'' they write.

In plain English, this isn't just errors; there is something bigger going on. Scientists from Duke University agreed.

``Rather than a series of isolated falsehoods, we are confronted with a growing ecosystem of misinformation.''

In this ecosystem, misinformation is put to use by determined factions.

``The melange of anti-intellectual appeals, conspiratorial thinking, pseudoscientific claims, and sheer propaganda circulating within American society seems unrelenting,'' write Aaron M. McCright of Michigan State and Riley E. Dunlap of Oklahoma State.

They note: ``Those who seek to promote systemic lies'' are ``backed by influential economic interests or powerful state actors, both domestic and foreign.'' Let me highlight those key phrases--``systemic lies . . . backed by influential economic interests.'' Like I said, it is not your grandfather's misinformation.

An author from Ohio State writes that this creates artificial polarization in our politics that is not explained by our tribal social media habits. His subtitle, too, is telling: ``Disinformation Campaigns are the Problem, Not Audience Fragmentation.'' He notes these disinformation campaigns ``are used by political strategists, private interests, and foreign powers to manipulate people for political gain.''

``Strategically deployed falsehoods have played an important role in shaping Americans' attitudes toward a variety of high-profile political issues,'' reads another article.

In a nutshell, Americans are the subjects of propaganda warfare by powerful economic interests.

So how is all of this misinformation deployed?

``The insidious fallouts from misinformation are particularly pronounced when the misinformation is packaged as a conspiracy theory,'' they tell us--insidious, indeed. By wrapping deliberate misinformation in conspiracy theory, the propagandist degrades the target's defenses against correction by

legitimate information. Conspiracy theories, the articles notes, ``tend to be particularly prevalent in times of economic and political crises.''

Pulling emotional strings is another technique. Emotionally weaponized fake news is reflected in ``the prevalence of outraged discourse on political blogs, talk radio, and cable news.''

These powerful interests also take advantage of ``the institutionalization of `false equivalence' in so-called mainstream media.'' They sophisticatedly leverage media conventions to their private advantage.

Another tactical observation: To be effective, the misinformation campaign does not have to convince you. It can simply barrage, confuse, and stun you.

One of these articles related the Bangor Daily News assessment of falsehoods coming from the Trump White House: ``The idea isn't to convince people of untrue things, it is to fatigue them, so that they will stay out of the political province entirely, regarding the truth as just too difficult to determine.''

This, of course, is a well-known political propaganda strategy. What the Bangor Daily News saw, the researchers note, is ``mirrored by analysts of Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns.''

McCright and Dunlap describe how weaponized fake news--what they call ``the intentional promotion of misinformation''--is made into systematic propaganda by amplification of what they call the ``powerful conservative echo chamber.'' It is systematic, it is deliberate, and it is supported by a purposeful private apparatus.

This brings us back to what the authors call the ``utility of misinformation . . . to powerful political and economic interests.'' What they conclude, basically, is that the weaponization of fake news is done for profit and with purpose. It has an apparatus of amplification. It needn't convince but simply stun or confuse. Like an insidious virus, it can carry its own conspiracy theory and emotional payload countermeasures against the ordinary antibodies that ordinarily protect us from being misled.

The scientists urge that we must examine these systematic campaigns of false misinformation ``through the lens of political drivers that have created an alternative epistemology that does not conform to conventional standards of evidentiary support.''

Let's unpack that language for a minute. Let's begin with the fact that it is ``political drivers'' that are behind the scheme. This is a tool in a larger battle for political supremacy.

To help win this battle, political actors have ``created an alternative epistemology,'' a separate way of looking at the world; obviously, a way of looking at the world that aligns with their economic interests.

That ``alternative epistemology'' is untethered from the truth. It ``does not conform to conventional standards of evidentiary support.'' It stands on falsehood, on prejudice, and on emotion, not on fact.

What the authors call ``post-truth politics'' has motive and purpose. They write: It is ``a rational strategy that is deployed in pursuit of political objectives.''

In these propaganda campaigns by powerful economic interests, some stuff right now happens a lot more on one political side. Scientists track an uneven distribution of emotion-ridden fake news and misinformation. They say: ``The prevalence of outraged discourse on political blogs, talk radio, and cable news is 50% greater on the political right than the political left.''

Other authors write ``if the political context were to change, we might expect the distribution of misperceptions across the political spectrum to change as well,'' but for now, the weaponized fake news virus predominantly infects the political rightwing and modern conservative politics.

McCright and Dunlap writes: ``The Right seems especially adept at using Orwellian language to promote their ideological and material interests via what we would argue are systemic lies.''

So who does this? Weaponized fake news is not cheap. It is not cheap to test. It is not cheap to manufacture, and it is not cheap to distribute. It is also not cheap to maintain a network to put weaponized fake news out there in a way that masks the identity of the economic forces behind the network. This takes money, motive, and persistence, and that means big industrial players.

What authors call the ``800-pound gorilla in the room'' is ``a political system that is driven by the interests of economic elites rather than the people.'' That is big economic elites playing a game of masquerade and manipulation in our politics. The scheme may look like populism. Indeed, part of the masquerade is, it is designed to look like populism, but that is what is going on.

The disinformation campaign is ``largely independent of the public's wishes but serves the interests of economic elites.'' The populist masquerade is part of the disinformation exercise.

These economic elites take methods developed decades ago by one industry to use for another industry today. We see this in the fossil fuel industry-weaponized fake news about climate change--climate denial we call it.

The stakes are very high, with the International Monetary Fund calculating that fossil fuel exacts a subsidy from the American people of $700 billion per year. To protect an annual subsidy of $700 billion per year, you can cook up a lot of mischief.

Where did the fossil fuel climate denial mischief begin? It began in the tobacco industry's fraudulent schemes to deny the health risks of tobacco. Did Big Oil shy away from those tobacco tactics, knowing those tactics were actually found in court to be fraud? No.

Indeed, to quote an article: ``The oil industry has worked to promote doubt about climate change science using tactics pioneered by cigarette manufacturers in the 1960s.''

To protect a $700 billion annual subsidy, you can build a bigger denial scheme even than Big Tobacco, and they did. McCright and Dunlap call this the ``climate change denial countermovement.'' They say its message ``may be the most successful systemic lies of the last few decades.''

They continue:

Briefly, this countermovement uses money and resources from

industry and conservative foundations to mobilize an array of

conservative think tanks, lobbying organizations, media

outlets, front groups, and Republican politicians to ignore,

suppress, obfuscate, and cherry-pick scientists and their

research to deny the reality and seriousness of climate

change.

Other authors write that ``the current polarization of the climate debate is the result of a decades-long concerted effort by conservative political operatives and think tanks to cast doubt on the overwhelming scientific consensus that the earth is warming from human greenhouse gas emissions.''

``To cast doubt'' is the key phrase in that last quote. The authors emphasize that ``climate science denial does not present a coherent alternative explanation of climate change. On the contrary, the arguments offered by climate denial are intrinsically incoherent. Climate-science denial is therefore best understood not as an alternative knowledge claim but as a political operation aimed at generating uncertainty in the public's mind in order to preserve the status quo.''

How did that play out in Republican policymaking? ``[W]hile climate change used to be a bipartisan issue in the 1980s, the Republican party has arguably moved from evidence-based concern to industry-funded denial.''

Let's be clear. Climate denial is not a search for truth. As the evidence piled up that early climate change warnings were accurate, the climate denial campaign did not relent in the face of those facts. Indeed, the scientists relate, ``the amount of misinformation on climate change has increased in proportion to the strength of scientific evidence that human greenhouse gas emissions are altering the Earth's climate.''

It is a fossil fuel upgrade of the fraudulent Big Tobacco strategy. One example is the so-called Oregon Petition, a bogus petition urging the U.S. Government to reject the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming. One article points out that ``the Oregon Petition is an example of the so-called `fake-experts' strategy that was pioneered by the tobacco industry in the 1970s and 1980s.''

Of course, since this scheme isn't real science, it doesn't use real scientific outlets. ``[M]uch of the opposition to

mainstream climate science, like any other form of science denial, involves non-scientific outlets such as blogs.''

Another article notes that this is done on ``websites that obfuscate their sponsor by mimicking the trappings of nonprofits and other more trusted sites.'' Again, masquerade--even camouflage--is part of the problem. I think it goes without saying that in real science it is not necessary to mask the real proponent.

Another signal of the scheme is repetition of falsehood. ``Dozens of studies document an illusory truth effect whereby repeated statements are judged truer than new ones.''

In real science, when someone realizes what they are saying is wrong, they stop saying it. In the weaponized disinformation scheme, you just keep saying it. You maybe even say it more to capitalize on this ``illusory truth effect.''

This, of course, recalls the infamous Big Tobacco declaration: ``Doubt is our product.'' That is a quote from a tobacco memo.

The heart of the fossil fuel industry's scheme is to undermine legitimate science with false doubts. To chip away at the scientific consensus on climate change, they chip away at the foundations of truth itself.

One author sees this as ``the willingness of political actors to promote doubt as to whether truth is ultimately knowable''--think of the President's lawyer, Giuliani, saying ``truth isn't truth''--or ``whether empirical evidence is important''--think of climate denial trying to drown out the truth through repetition of false statements-- third, ``and whether the fourth estate has value''--think of the President attacking the legitimate media as ``fake news'' and the ``enemy of the people.''

The scientific paper concludes: ``Undermining public confidence in the institutions that produce and disseminate knowledge is a threat to which scientists must respond.''

Sadly, real science is poorly adapted to defending itself against weaponized disinformation in the public arena.

Let me conclude with what one article calls a case study in the spread of misinformation. Last year's ``Unite the Right'' rally in Charlottesville, VA, which led to the murder of Heather Heyer, killed by a White supremacist speeding into a crowd, a witness recorded on film the car plowing into that crowd of people. The authors wrote: ``Within hours, conspiracy theories began floating around the internet among people associated with the alt-right,'' attempting to undermine and discredit the witness. Social media posts then appeared ``suggesting [the driver] staged the attack, was trained by the CIA, and funded by either George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or the global Jewish mafia. . . . [T]hose conspiracy theories migrated into more mainstream media. Variations appeared on info wars and Shawn Hannity's show on Fox.'' FOX News, by the way, is a common venue for fake news.

Here is what the scientists chronicle as the ``Fox News effect'':

It has repeatedly been shown that people who report that

they source their news from public broadcasters become better

informed the more attention they report paying to the news,

whereas, the reverse is true for self-reported consumers of

FOX News. . . . [F]or self-reporting viewers of Fox News . .

. increasing frequency of news consumption is often

associated with an increased likelihood that they are

misinformed about various issues.

In a nutshell, the more you watch real news, the more you know; the more you watch FOX News, the less you know--great for the elite merchants of doubt.

The effects of misinformation become measurable by looking at provable falsehoods that people are made to believe.

[A] 2011 poll showed that 51 percent of Republican primary

voters thought that then-president Obama had been born

abroad. . . . [Twenty percent] of respondents in a

representative U.S. sample have been found to endorse the

proposition that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by

corrupt scientists. The idea that the Democratic Party was

running a child sex ring was at one point believed or

accepted as being possibly true by nearly one-third of

Americans and nearly one-half of Trump voters.

All provably false. All propagated until significant numbers of people believed.

So how do we fight back? The researchers offer an array of approaches. ``Russian propaganda can be `digitally contained' by supporting media literacy and source criticism,'' says one.

``Our recommendation,'' wrote another, ``is to begin by generating a list of the skills required to be a critical consumer of information.'' In essence, we have to adapt new citizenship skills to protect ourselves from weaponized fake news.

Another recommendation is to teach people about the tactic of sewing doubt through disinformation. Where ``typical cues for credibility have been hijacked,'' understanding the tactics will help inoculate people against being taken in by the scheme.

The researchers reported:

Participants read about how the tobacco industry in the

1970s used ``fake experts''--people with no scientific

background, or doctors and scientists with beliefs

unrepresentative of the rest of the scientific community--to

create the illusion of an ongoing debate about smoking's

negative health consequences. Participants who read about the

``fake experts'' type of argument were less affected when

later reading a passage on climate change that quoted a

scientist who referred to ``climate change . . . [as] still

hotly debated among scientists.''

Other authors argued that a comprehensive approach will be needed to debunk climate denial. They note that ``climate denial typically masquerades as `pro-science' skepticism and paints the actual science of climate change as being `corrupt' or `post-moderate.' It is possible that those carefully crafted forms of misinformation will require continued human debunking as well as increased media literacy.''

Last, there is a role for the media. ``At present,'' authors point out, ``many representatives of think tanks and corporate front groups appear in the media without revealing their affiliations and conflicts of interest. This practice must be tightened, and rigorous disclosure of all affiliations and interests must take center stage in media reporting.'' Again, once you out the participants and show the scheme, people can figure it out for themselves.

Recommended media reforms include a ``counter fake news editor [to] highlight disinformation'' or a ``[r]ating system for disinformation'' or ``a Disinformation Charter.''

Science itself is beginning to examine the growing threat of misinformation in American society, which is appropriate since science is so often the target of weaponized misinformation campaigns. More and more, real science must face up to the fact that a new predator roams its territory and adapt new defenses against this predator. The predators may not want to defeat all science. They probably still wants to use their iPhones and drive cars and live in safe buildings and enjoy products and services that science gives us. But they do seek to defeat whatever science challenges the economic interests that fund them.

As I said at the start, the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition is not exactly grocery-store checkout-line reading. Few Americans have read this volume. I am probably the only one in Congress. But its message is important, and that is why I came to the floor to share it today.

Campaigns of lies are dangerous things, like an evil virus in the body politic, and if we want to be a healthy country, we will have to defeat the weaponized disinformation virus. Curing our body politic of the ongoing fraud of climate denial would be a very good start.

I note the deputy majority leader is here on the floor. I apologize for continuing my speech while he is here. I appreciate his productive role in the happy events that I described at the beginning of these remarks.

Before the Senator from Texas takes the floor, I ask unanimous consent that the appendix I referenced be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have the happy occasion to actually pass a law. It is one that I have been working on for some time. So I have taken the opportunity to come to the floor to actually move it through myself. Yet, before I do that, there are a considerable number of thank yous that are in order.

The first and foremost thank you is to Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who chaired the subcommittee hearing that first moved this issue before the Senate in a bipartisan fashion within the Environment and Public Works Committee. It was a really important thing for Senator Sullivan to have done. In part, it solved the problem between the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee over jurisdiction in this area. We are very fortunate that Senator Sullivan served both as the chairman of the relevant Environment and Public Works Committee and also of the Fisheries Subcommittee of the Commerce Committee so that he was in a position to negotiate with himself over jurisdiction and, obviously, come to a happy conclusion.

I thank Senator Inhofe, who was an early sponsor of this legislation. He attended the hearing. I will confess that when Senator Inhofe came to our hearing on the Environment and Public Works Committee on an environmental matter, I was not convinced that it was a positive turn of events for the bill, but Senator Inhofe could not have been more gracious and took a very strong interest in this piece of legislation. He was an original cosponsor, so I thank him as well.

I thank Senator Murkowski. In her being from Alaska, she joined Senator Sullivan. Alaska has a terrific problem with the issue that we are addressing. The issue at hand is marine plastic debris--the plastic waste with which we are filling the ocean. In Rhode Island, we do beach cleanups whereby people go up and down the beach and pick up the plastic trash that has washed ashore. We do those with trash bags. In Alaska, they do those with front-end loaders, dumpsters, and barges, because Alaska faces the Pacific, and there is far more plastic waste and trash in the Pacific. The worst sources for plastic waste and trash are Asian countries, which have

terrible upland waste disposal infrastructure. It ends up in the creek, and it ends up in the river, and it ends up in the sea. So Alaska has had a terrific role.

Senator Murkowski's role was as my coordinate on the Oceans Caucus. She helped to make sure that the Oceans Caucus--a group of 38 Senators--supported this. It was a very bipartisan group, so that provided some added oomph to all of this, if that is not too informal a word to use on the Senate floor.

I also thank my original Democratic cosponsor, Senator Booker.

A lot of people have had a hand in this, and there were a great number of sponsors. I appreciate all of them for their support in all of this.

We have had an interesting time because the bill actually passed the Senate before, but when colleagues saw something moving, they wanted to put things on it. So a few pieces have been added from the House side that relate to maritime safety and a Coast Guard Center of Excellence, which we welcome onto the bill and appreciate now that we have the chance to finally pass it.

I also thank Adena Leibman, of my staff, who has just been very persistent and thorough about making this happen and has worked very well with staff members from the offices involved in having helped to coordinate all of my activities with the Oceans Caucus. She has done a really exemplary staff job. As the Presiding Officer knows, the common description of Senators around here is that we are walking constitutional impediments to the smooth and orderly operation of staff. While Senators may disagree with that from time to time, Adena Leibman certainly does a smooth and orderly operation of staff, and I appreciate her.

Senator Sullivan could not be here. We had hoped to be able to do this together, but I do express to him my very, very strong appreciation for what a really wonderful partner he has been in all of this. Not only are we excited to pass the Save Our Seas Act, but we are already working on SOS 2.0. Just today, in the Environment and Public Works Committee, we held another hearing on marine plastics--this one at the full committee level, led by Senator Barrasso. So I owe Senator Barrasso a thank you.

I find it interesting that at today's hearing, the two leading Republicans on the committee who were there, at the top--Dan and I are more junior--were Senator Barrasso and Senator Inhofe, both of whom were present, both of whom were productive and helpful, and both who suffer this terrible disability of living in landlocked States. They don't actually have a coast. Yet they have been helpful in moving this forward. We also had a terrific coalition of business and other interests.

You have seen the reaction around the world to know how this problem has suddenly emerged onto the national and international stages, and I think we are really in a terrific position, after we pass this bill, to move on, I hope, with equal bipartisanship and alacrity, and pass our Save Our Seas 2.0.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3508, introduced earlier today by Senator Sullivan and me.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I thank the Presiding Officer. Bravo to all who participated in making this possible.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, as I rise for my 220th ``Time to Wake Up'' climate speech, there is abundant evidence that meaningful action on climate change in the United States is unlikely. We have a President who, against all the evidence, claims that climate change is a Chinese hoax. This is the same President who announced last year that he was pulling the United States out of the international Paris Agreement.

This is the same President who installed the theatrically corrupt Scott Pruitt, who owed his entire political career to the fossil fuel industry, to lead, of all things, the Environmental Protection Agency. When Pruitt's endless string of scandals finally proved too much even for this epically swampy administration, President Trump then made a coal industry lobbyist the Acting EPA Administrator.

The fundamentally rotten bargain at the heart of today's Trump politics is that his party is essentially bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry. This is why you see Republicans seeking to freeze voluntary fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars. If consumers pay more at the pump to fill up, fine--what matters is that the oil companies get to keep pumping.

This is why the Republican Clean Power Plan doesn't really reduce carbon emissions. In fact, the EPA's own numbers show that the replacement plan will result in poorer health for Americans, including 1,400 additional deaths a year, but what matters is that the coal companies sell coal.

Republicans even plan to weaken standards on methane leaks. It doesn't matter that methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas. What matters is that the oil and gas industry doesn't have to spend any money to prevent those leaks.

So there is lots of evidence that meaningful action on climate change in this country is unlikely. Yet on Friday I attended the Global Climate Action Summit, organized by California Governor Brown, to keep up progress reducing carbon emissions and fighting the effects of climate change.

At the summit, States, cities, Provinces, and companies from around the world--indeed, foreign nations--made new announcements about climate change and to reduce carbon emissions. Governor Brown himself signed a law requiring 100 percent of California's electricity to be carbon-free by 2045 and committed that California would be carbon- neutral by the same year. Plus, there is that satellite to measure carbon emissions.

New Jersey announced plans to install more than 3,000 megawatts of offshore wind.

States and cities in India announced plans for thousands of electric buses,

cool roofs, and solar-equipped public buildings.

IKEA, the furniture store, announced that all of its delivery services will be zero emissions by 2025.

That is just a small sample of the new commitments--evidence of the determination of Governors, mayors, CEOs, investors, and NGOs to combat climate change despite the failure of Republican leadership in Washington.

But if we are to have any hope of keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius--or better yet, 1.5 degrees--we are going to need leadership here. We are going to need a Federal price on carbon. That is why last week's announcement from the Climate Leadership Council was so important. The CLC has been working with former Republican Secretaries of State George Shultz and James Baker and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for a $40-per-ton carbon fee and return all of the money raised by that carbon fee to American families in the form of a dividend. This plan shares a lot of similarities with the American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act, which I introduced with Senator Schatz of Hawaii. The CLC plan is supported by many corporations, business leaders, and former Republican officials.

Last week, the CLC announced that its $40-per-ton carbon fee would result in emissions reductions substantially better than our present national targets. The CLC also found that 56 percent of Americans-- including majorities of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans-- support it. Seventy-one percent of millennials support a carbon fee, which shows that carbon pricing is coming. The only question is how soon. Americans intuitively understand that it makes sense to impose a fee on something we want less of, whether it is carbon emissions or cigarettes. When the revenues from those fees are returned to the American people, it is better still.

Last week's climate summit featured a discussion on carbon pricing organized by the business community. The fossil fuel industry and its array of front groups will, of course, attack any effort to put a price on carbon emissions. So having companies like Gap, Exelon, Pacific Gas and Electric, and Steelcase speak out in favor of carbon pricing was a good start. When the business community shows broad-based support for carbon pricing, it will be very difficult to argue that it is bad for business, but let's remember that the fossil fuel companies bring heavy artillery to this fight.

Washington State has a carbon fee ballot initiative right now, which has provoked Big Oil to spend $20 million to defeat that initiative, including companies that claim they support a carbon price. Among the donors are BP, Phillips 66, and others that have contributed over $3 million each to oppose the carbon price initiative. So against that Big Oil blowback, it would sure be nice if Washington State's corporate leaders stood up on this.

Starbucks, after all, has a whole web page about climate change and has committed to purchasing 100 percent renewable energy. Amazon has a web page on its efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, and it, too, is aiming to go to 100 percent renewable.

Jeff Bezos, one of the world's richest people, is investing in clean energy, along with another corporate icon of Washington State, Microsoft's Bill Gates. In fact, Microsoft is hard at work reducing carbon emissions in its operations. It even has an internal carbon price to encourage reductions in carbon pollution.

Boeing has a web page cataloging its efforts to combat climate change by making its airplanes more efficient.

So where are they when it comes to their own home State's plan to actually do something about climate change? As we have seen so often here in Washington, DC, as well, it is radio silence. The interesting thing is that Big Oil is actually tiny compared to Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, Boeing, and the rest of the tech companies, Wall Street banks, insurance companies, consumer goods companies, retailers, and food and beverage companies that all claim to care about climate change--tiny.

The difference is that Big Oil shows up. It shows up here in Congress. It funds its armada of front groups and trade associations and phony think tanks to steer Republicans here in Congress away from anything limiting carbon pollution, just like it is showing up right now in Washington State to kill an initiative that would limit carbon pollution.

Here is the problem: The good guys aren't showing up. They don't show up here in Congress, and they are letting Big Oil outgun them even in Washington State. In my experience, if you don't show up to the game, you don't win. It is as simple as that.

That is the message I took to last week's summit. I truly appreciate business leaders who talk about the dangers of climate change and the value of carbon pricing. I truly appreciate business leaders who work on reducing carbon emissions within their corporate footprint. But it also matters what you do in the public arena. Show up to fight for the policy you already espouse. Show up here in Congress and in Washington State. Challenge Big Oil rather than forfeit the game before it even begins. This is a fight. There are hydraulics in politics. If no one pushes back, the only team on the field will win.

Well, we can't keep having the fossil fuel industry win this fight because we will all be losers in their win. We have to win, but to do that, we will need companies talking a good game to actually show up on game day.

It is not just time to wake up. It is time to show up.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for 1 minute, I would like to make a unanimous consent request that at the conclusion of Senator Portman's remarks, I be recognized, and that at the conclusion of my remarks, Senator Smith be recognized.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator Portman.

Mr. President, I am delighted to be joined today by my colleague Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota. Both my home State of Rhode

Island and her State of Minnesota are heavily involved in the booming renewable energy sector.

President Trump has called climate change a hoax, but no matter how much his administration may try to prop up the old, dirty, dangerous, polluting fossil fuel industry, there is no denying the clean energy revolution.

The rapid growth of renewables has been underway for decades, but it has really accelerated in the last several years. It took global wind and solar developers 40 years to install the first 1 trillion watts of power generation. A recent estimate from Bloomberg found that the next trillion will be installed within 5 years. That is 40 years for the first trillion and 5 years for the second. Part of the reason is that lower costs of renewables mean that building out the second trillion will cost half as much as the first trillion.

This chart shows the year-to-year costs of generating energy from wind, from Lazard. Since 2009, the costs for onshore wind have dropped by two-thirds. Onshore wind costs are down two-thirds in basically a decade.

Here is the same chart for solar power. Utility-scale solar costs have dropped 86 percent over the same time period. ``In some scenarios,'' writes Lazard, ``the full lifecycle costs of building and operating renewables-based projects have dropped below the operating costs alone of conventional generation technologies such as coal or nuclear.''

When you look at the drop in solar costs compared to other resources, you see how dramatic the change has been. This graphic is from the World Economic Forum.

The renewable industry in America has grown to 3.3 million jobs--more than all fossil fuel jobs combined. AT&T has been a leader in this, adopting the World Wildlife Fund's Corporate Renewable Energy Buyers' Principles and signing up under that for 220 megawatts from an Oklahoma wind farm and 300 megawatts from a Texas wind farm, one of the largest corporate renewable purchases in history. So, congratulations, Texas and Oklahoma, for the new home State renewable energy jobs, and AT&T, for your leadership.

In Rhode Island, the Governor's 2018 Rhode Island Clean Energy Industry Report has shown that clean energy jobs have risen by 2 percent since 2014, bringing over 6,600 new clean energy jobs and bringing us to nearly 16,000 Rhode Islanders working in clean energy, and it is projected to continue to grow. We lead also on energy efficiency, ranking third on the American Council for an Energy- Efficient Economy's 2017 scorecard.

In Senator Smith's State of Minnesota, the public utilities commission has required since 1993 that there be a social cost of carbon standard for new infrastructure at $43 per ton of carbon emitted. Minnesota leads in being a State whose public utility commission is factoring the cost of carbon into its decision making rather than making the general public pay for what the carbon-producing utilities should be paying for.

Other States are powering forward. I saw Mr. Bennet on the floor. His State of Colorado Public Utilities Commission just unanimously approved an Xcel Energy program to build out a cleaner energy mix and retire older fossil fuel units. Specifically, they are going to retire 660 megawatts of operating coal, close it down, and replace it with $2.5 billion in new renewables and battery storage. The initial request for bids brought in a flood of new renewable energy proposals below the cost of existing coal and natural gas facilities.

Now, here, because of the politics, political funding, Citizens United, and all the trash that is unleashed in our politics, there is a sharp political divide on climate change and renewable energy brought to you by our fossil fuel friends. But out in the real world, some of the most Republican States are actually at the forefront. The Department of Energy last week released a report showing that Texas is leading the Nation in generation, with over 22 gigawatts of wind capacity. Right behind them are Oklahoma and Kansas, with more than 5 gigawatts of installed wind capacity. Just over 6 percent of the nation's electricity in 2017 was wind nationally, but if you go to Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota, they all have more than 30 percent of their power coming from clean wind power.

Oklahoma is at 32 percent. Kansas is at 36 percent. Iowa is at 37 percent. South Dakota is at 30 percent, and North Dakota is at 27 percent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the Department of Energy reports printed in the Record.

Mr. President, amazingly, this report comes from the same Energy Department currently pushing coal bailout proposals, but that is what you get from helpless, weak leadership from this administration that will not face up either to the scientific reality of climate change or

the economic reality of energy markets.

FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has just finalized a rule for energy storage that could spur as much as 50 gigawatts of additional energy storage across the United States, and that could be a conservative estimate if renewables prices keep along those trajectories we showed before. That FERC rule on energy storage, by the way, is unanimous and bipartisan. The ISO system operators, like ISO- New England, are doing their best to remove obstacles that had kept renewables from competing fairly in capacity auctions and dispatch decisions. This is saving consumers money.

It was reported by Utility Dive that during the July heat wave in New England, distributed solar, which can reduce demand during peaks, saved customers some $20 million.

This is reliable stuff out in Iowa, where Midwestern is the ISO. They figured out the algorithms to treat wind as reliable baseload power, and the FERC storage rule will further enable this transition.

As you can imagine, the fossil fuel industry is not letting this go without a fight. They are up to their usual political mischief to try to protect their $700 billion annual subsidy that they get from polluting for free. Their shady tactics are just as would be expected.

Start with the fossil fuel industry. They put in front of them the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers to screen what is really the dirty fossil fuel industry. Those two groups put in front of them some fake consumer group called the Consumer Energy Alliance, and that fake Consumer Energy Alliance put in front of it something called Kentuckians for Solar Fairness, all in an effort to fight rooftop solar for individuals in Kentucky. That is the kind of nonsense the fossil fuel industry gets up to to try to defend itself. But despite that, you can't stop progress. You can't deny costs. You can't win against energy that is cheaper, reliable, and carbon-free. It is time for us to wake up, throw our weight into clean energy, and move forward into the future, rather than let the fossil fuel industry condemn us to a dirty past.

With that I yield to my colleague, Senator Smith.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, the swearing in of the Rhode Island Legislature early next year will close a remarkable story of a great Rhode Island family. State Senator Paul Fogarty is retiring after 20 years in office. The Fogarty family of northern Rhode Island will have represented nearly 80 years of public service.

Paul was elected in 1998 to fill the State senate seat that was previously held by his brother, Charles Fogarty, Jr. A master plumber by trade, Paul rose to become the chairman of the senate labor committee. Like his brother Charlie, Paul had served on the Glocester, RI, town council before serving in the legislature.

Charlie Fogarty got his start in State government working as an aide to Governor Joe Garrahy in the late 1970s. While a State senator, he served as both majority whip and senate president pro tempore. He was elected Lieutenant Governor twice, in 1998 and in 2002. He is remembered for starting a Christmastime tradition, Operation Holiday Cheer, which delivers care packages of Rhode Island mementos to servicemembers deployed overseas.

In 2006, Charlie won the Democratic nomination for Governor, narrowly losing to the incumbent. He returned to government a few years later to run the State department of labor and training, where he cracked down on unemployment fraud. In 2015, Governor Gina Raimondo appointed Charlie director of the Rhode Island Department of Elderly Affairs. Under his leadership, the State expanded support for Meals on Wheels, and he played an important role in the State's successful repeal of the tax that seniors paid on their Social Security benefits.

Charlie retired earlier this year, after four decades of service to the people of Rhode Island.

Paul and Charlie's cousins shared the public service gene. Ray Fogarty was a State representative from Glocester for 10 years. He would go on to find and lead the Rhode Island Export Assistance Center at Bryant University's John H. Chafee Center for International Business.

Ray's brother Edward Fogarty was an accomplished lawyer, with whom I worked in the State house. He worked as an arbitrator in the Rhode Island Superior Court and clerked in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. However, Ed will best be remembered for his work serving as legal counsel to the speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, to the senate majority leader, and later to the senate president. Ed retired in 2013 and sadly passed away in 2017.

Charlie Fogarty credited his parents with teaching him that ``public service was a public trust.'' Indeed, he and brother Paul followed in their father's footsteps. Charles Fogarty, Sr., had been a State senator from Glocester before them and served for a time as director of the Rhode Island Small Business Administration.

Paul and Charlie's uncle was Congressman John Fogarty, who represented Rhode Island in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than a quarter century. John was a bricklayer and president of Rhode Island's International Bricklayers Union local No. 1 before being elected to Congress at age 27. From his post on the Appropriations Subcommittee for Labor and Health, Education, and Welfare, Mr. Public Health, as he became known, championed the expansion of health research in the United States. During his tenure, the National Institutes of Health grew from a small agency with only three named institutes--for cancer, heart, and dental research--to a larger and more sophisticated operation with institutes devoted to research on mental health, allergy and infectious disease, neurological disease, arthritis and metabolic disease, child health and development, and general medical sciences. As subcommittee chairman during the passage of the Social Security amendments of 1965, John Fogarty was one of the key supporters of the legislation that created the Medicare and Medicaid Programs.

John served until his death in 1967. Dr. Howard Rusk wrote in the New York Times, ``No one in the history of this country has done more to promote more and better health services, more and better health facilities, and more and better health research than Representative Fogarty.'' In Rhode Island, no fewer than five health and educational facilities have been dedicated in John Fogarty's name.

The deep commitment of the Fogarty family to the public welfare, instilled across generations, has been borne out in countless ways. Paul's son Brendan Fogarty even worked as a State senate page during high school and college. For now, there will be no Fogartys in State government. Our State and our Nation are all the richer for their passion and dedication to public life. Rhode Islanders are grateful for the lasting legacy of the Fogartys of Glocester.

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

Mr. President, I am very grateful to my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Udall, for joining me today for my 218th ``Time to Wake Up'' speech. Senator Udall is a formidable advocate for conserving public lands and protecting endangered species--helping to ensure that future generations will inherit a healthy and beautiful planet. These lands and creatures Senator Udall fights so hard to protect are under direct attack from the current administration and the heavy hand of industry that guides it both through regulatory rollbacks and other efforts to weaken protections for special places and special wildlife. These species and places are also under siege from the consequences of climate change.

Just last week, both the Washington Post and The Atlantic reported on a recent study in the prestigious journal Science. The titles of their articles were foreboding--``Climate change could render many of Earth's ecosystems unrecognizable'' from the Washington Post and ``No Ecosystem on Earth Is Safe from Climate Change'' from The Atlantic. The study looked at historic vegetation and temperature records to predict how global warming will transform our world.

Dr. Stephen Jackson, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey and the lead author, told The Atlantic:

Anywhere on the globe, the more you change climate, the

more likely you are to see major ecological change. Having

this kind of change occur at such a massive scale in such a

short period of time is going to create unprecedented

challenges.

Dr. Dorothy Peteet, a researcher with NASA who commented on the article, said: ``There are notable effects of climate change we are seeing today . . . and they will probably be much more exacerbated in the future.''

From the mountains to the sea, from the North Pole to the South, climate change is wreaking havoc on our natural systems and the living creatures that rely on them for survival. A study from Global Change Biology earlier this year found ``a strong association between rapid climate warming and declines of bird and mammal populations . . . showing that population declines have been greatest in areas that have experienced most rapid warming.''

Birds are often seen as sentinels of an ecosystem's health and are especially vulnerable to climate change. In particular, migratory birds, some of which travel thousands of miles each year to breed, rely on a delicate balance of temperature cues and food availability to successfully make their impressive journeys.

Here on the east coast, Delaware Bay enjoys an annual visit from the rufa red knot, a bird with a body not larger than a teacup but whose wings carry it on a more than 9,000-mile journey from Tierra del Fuego on the southern tip of South America to the Canadian Arctic. After spending the summer nesting in the north, they make their return trip back south to winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

On the northward journey, the red knots make a straight leg from the coast of Brazil to Delaware Bay. Think about that. These tiny birds take off from the coast of Brazil, and they fly all the way to Delaware Bay. They lose as much as half their body weight on this arduous trip, but Mother Nature provides a bounty for them upon their arrival.

Delaware Bay is the largest horseshoe crab spawning area in the world, and each May, millions of horseshoe crabs take part in a mating ritual that predates the dinosaurs. Each female horseshoe crab can lay up to 90,000 eggs, and horseshoe crab eggs make excellent fuel for little birds relishing a pause in their long journey. But warming waters and shifting seasons threaten to knock the timing of both species' cycles out of whack. If the environmental signal comes too early or too late and these little birds fly all that way and they get to Delaware Bay and the horseshoe crabs aren't there, that will shake the species.

Predictability in seasonal changes affects the survival of much of the world's wildlife. In 2014, the National Audubon Society published a comprehensive review of how climate change would affect the ranges of nearly 600 North American bird species. More than half of the species studied are at risk of losing more than 50 percent of their current range to climate change by 2080. Around a quarter of the species studied could see their range shrink that much by 2050.

Mr. President, may I interrupt my remarks for a moment? I see the minority leader on the floor. If he seeks recognition, Senator Udall and I have time to do a pair of climate speeches. I am more than happy to interrupt and have him do what he needs to do.

I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the leader's remarks, I be recognized and resume my remarks and that at the conclusion of them, Senator Udall be recognized.

Mr. President, as I resume my remarks, we head westward to the tallest peaks of the Rockies, where, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Northern Rocky Mountains have been warming more than three times as fast as the global average over the past 100 years.

A 2014 Union of Concerned Scientists report warned that the Rocky Mountains will ``become even hotter and drier,'' which will lead to increased

wildfire, reduced snowpack, and declines in the keystone trees that define the Rocky Mountain forests.

A recent study by U.S. Forest Service and Oregon State University researchers found that species like the pygmy rabbit, wolverine, Canada lynx, and snowshoe hare, which have specific habitat requirements, will be particularly vulnerable. Some mountain amphibians are even at risk from a harmful, invasive fungus that thrives in warmer temperatures.

The increased spread of disease and invasive species is a recurring theme of climate change. Animals and plants that are already stressed from depleted food and changing temperatures are more susceptible to disease, and stressed ecosystems leave openings for invasive species to move in and take over. After hitting U.S. shores in the early 2000s in wood packing material, the invasive and injurious emerald ash borer has spread to around 30 States and has destroyed tens of millions of ash trees in its wake. In July, my Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management discovered this invasive species in our State.

We look seaward from Rhode Island, and coastal States like ours are facing a red menace in their waters--the harmful algae blooms known as red tide. Florida is battling a devastating toxic algae bloom that has, according to Quartz, ``killed masses of fish, 12 dolphins, more than 500 manatees, 300 sea turtles, countless horseshoe crabs, [and] a whale shark'' as of August 22. Those were just the ones whose bodies came ashore. Locals and tourists alike are greeted with decaying marine life along the docks and beaches and with air that is tainted with the algae's toxins. Quartz writes that this year's ``red tide in Florida doesn't just make the issue of global warming visible; it's an all-out sensory onslaught.''

Though algal blooms occur annually in Florida, this year's bloom is a harbinger of the shifting reality of climate change. The Washington Post notes: ``As air and ocean temperatures increase, the environment becomes more hospitable to toxic algal blooms.''

In addition to these warmer water temperatures, climate change also spurs heavy downpours, which wash more fertilizer from farms and lawns into the water, providing nutrients that spur the growth of the algae. Sea level rise expands the area of shallow coastal waters, where warm temperatures and ample sunshine bolster growing algae.

The oceans are experiencing ``marine heat waves.'' According to a recent review in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, these extended periods of elevated sea-surface temperatures ``have caused changes in biological production, toxic algal blooms, regime shifts in reef communities, mass coral bleaching, and mortalities of commercially important fish species, with cascading impacts on economies and societies.''

That is ``science-ese'' for a pretty tough formula for coastal communities.

Indeed, a marine heat wave is responsible for the dramatic coral bleaching that occurred in the Great Barrier Reef, killing about half of the reef since 2016. In recent weeks, San Diego recorded its highest seawater temperature, around 80 degrees Fahrenheit, since measurements started in 1916.

The Nature study attributed 87 percent of modern marine heat waves to human-caused climate change. They warn that these heat waves ``will become very frequent under global warming, probably pushing marine organisms and ecosystems to the limits of their resilience and even beyond.'' Couple these extreme heat spells with ocean acidification, deoxygenation, and changes in ocean circulation and currents, and you are looking at a perfect storm for coral reefs, fisheries, and ocean wildlife.

Marine and atmospheric heat waves are also contributing to the rapid opening of Arctic sea ice. The iconic images of starving polar bears have brought this concern home for many, but sea ice also provides protection for narwhals, hosts algae that feed Arctic cod and whales, and provides an interstate highway of sorts for wolf and fox populations. This ice is the crux of the Arctic ecosystem, and it is falling apart.

For the first time since scientists started monitoring the Arctic's sea ice in the 1970s, the waters north of Greenland are breaking through the usually permanently frozen ice cover. Until now, this area had been assumed to be the Arctic ice's stronghold--the strongest and oldest ice plane in the Arctic. But spikes of warm temperatures earlier this year allowed the weakened ice to be pushed from shore, leaving it vulnerable to wind and waves.

Dr. Walt Meier, with the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, called this loss of sea ice ``a pretty dramatic indication of the transformation of the Arctic sea ice and Arctic climate.'' A researcher with the Norwegian Meteorological Institute put it even simpler, calling it ``nice and scary.''

I will now yield to my friend the Senator from New Mexico in the hopes that at some point this body will find the sense and the courage to address this problem as we see its manifestations from north to south, from pole to pole, and from the depths of the sea to our highest mountaintops.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I look across the Senate and see Senator McCain's desk silent, draped in black, under a vase of white roses, and it breaks my heart. I am here to say my farewell, and I have a bit of a predicament, which is that I am a very ordinary man, here to try and give tribute to a very extraordinary man.

John McCain was an extraordinary man--extraordinary in his suffering and resilience, extraordinary in his ideals and principles, extraordinary in his courage and devotion, and extraordinary, too, in the devotion he engendered.

We met when I was a new Senator and he already a legend. His battles for campaign finance reform and against corrupting earmarks were legendary. He could make a point here on the Senate floor with legendary drama and punch and declarative force. He could also be unreasonable, and he took a completely unreasonable liking to me. Our politics did not match. I could offer him nothing. Yet he befriended me, and, as so many colleagues know, John's friendship was a treasure.

John showed courage in many ways, but he showed real courage in friendship. When an attack was mounted on one of Hillary Clinton's staffers, he came straight to the floor to defend her publicly. When someone attacked the character of Senator Obama at a political event, he said: No, I know him. He is a good family man.

Loyalty attracts loyalty, and John was loyal. We traveled a lot together--to Afghanistan and Iraq, to Munich, Mali, Mongolia, and Macassar, to many, many places but, most poignantly, to Vietnam.

My dad served 5 years in Vietnam. He told me about his colleague, Admiral McCain, whose son was a POW, who had been shot down and wounded terribly but refused early release. As a boy, I went with my father to Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon the night our POWs returned from captivity. John had left straight from Hanoi and did not pass through Tan Son Nhut, but I witnessed how frail and ill and pale and battered his fellow POWs were as they clamored out of the helicopters into the glare of the TV lights.

I was ready to revere any man who had been through that, and to find that this man was so friendly and cheerful and feisty and irreverent-- that put me irrevocably into the McCain fan club. I noticed I was not alone. One telling measure of a man is his staff. John attracted people of exceptional talent and ability, who became so devoted they would walk through fire for him.

John attracted the admiration of foreign leaders, not just from great powers but from remote and struggling countries. When we traveled in Libya, John was received like Lafayette. He had been there when it counted, when freedom there was in the offing. He was beloved in Ukraine. He had spoken at the Maidan when freedom there was in the offing. He spent an icy New Year's Eve with Ukrainian troops on their frontline.

In Vietnam, John was revered. I don't know any celebrities, but I do know what traveling with a celebrity is like because I have traveled with John McCain in Vietnam. The statue that stands in Hanoi by the lake where he was shot down calls him an air pirate, but he was treated everywhere as a hero. And you had to know he liked the air pirate thing.

Wherever we went in the world, he wanted to meet with prisoners, with the opposition, with whoever was pursuing freedom for their country. John McCain was America's most vigorous and loyal ambassador of freedom.

He was fiercely proud that one place he was not welcome was Russia. Putin had banned him. ``No more holidays in Siberia,'' John laughed. Mark my words, one day even Russia will turn toward freedom, and when it does, John McCain will be revered there.

John made a big difference in a great many ways, but the one I want to close with is the Senate.

Senators are often stuffy. John was not. If there was ever a Senator entitled to take himself seriously, it was John. Yet he didn't. He effervesced the stolid Senate, to the occasional annoyance of some of our colleagues. Here, too, John engendered lifetime loyalty and affection and respect. Lindsey and Joe and Kelly were his great amigos--none greater than Lindsey, but many of us loved him well.

Millions of Americans saw John McCain give the famous C-SPAN thumbs down that put an end to repeal and replace. They probably did not see what happened next. Having just cast what was a devastating vote for many of his colleagues, he went back to his seat. From my seat here across the Chamber, I saw John's colleagues gently start moving toward him. They may have hated his vote, but there was nevertheless this gentle flow of bodies moving to stand around and near him. His friend Dan Sullivan of Alaska was one who came down from the back row just to stand near John in the aisle. Hate the vote; love the man. This place can be complicated.

John could be annoying. In Munich, accepting an award for John, his beloved Cindy said: ``I love him--most of

the time.'' His temper could be explosive. I read once of a man nicknamed for a South American volcano because he ``constantly fumed and regularly erupted,'' and I thought of John. He loved a good fight and was eager to pile in. ``A fight not joined is a fight not enjoyed,'' he would say.

An extraordinary man is not a flawless man, and in his full humanity, John gave the rest of us mortals hope. You need not be perfect to try to be extraordinary. Well, he was extraordinary. I think we all found in him qualities of affection, principle, courage, and drama that were extraordinary. And at the end of the day, as compass needles turn toward true north, you knew where he would be pointing.

I will quote some of his last public words here:

Though the true radiance of our world may at times seem

obscured, though we will suffer adversity and setbacks and

misfortune--never, ever stop fighting for all that is good

and just and decent about our world and each other.

I will never forget and will always treasure our friendship, but what I will revere is the way John McCain pointed true north at what was good and just and decent about our world and each other.

His hero, Robert Jordan, in ``For Whom the Bell Tolls,'' said, as he died, ``The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.'' We hate very much, John, that you have had to leave it. God bless you.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.