Floor Statements

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. President, would the Senator from West Virginia yield for a question? I would like to figure out what the floor process is because, as I follow all of this, it appears to be a colloquy between Senators Manchin, Toomey, Alexander, and Harkin. I am trying to get a sense for how long this colloquy might take so I know when I should be back on the floor.

And Senator Alexander?

All right. Now I know.

I found the discussion edifying, and it was time that was well spent.

Climate Change

Mr. President, we are now reconvened after the election recess, and I am back on the Senate floor for the 79th consecutive week of Senate session to draw the attention of this body to the growing threat of global climate change.

I will first congratulate my Republican colleagues on achieving a majority in the Senate in the coming Congress. With control of the House and a majority in the Senate, Republicans now have great power in Congress. As the well-known saying goes, however, ``with great power comes great responsibility.''

The hallmark of the Republican minority was obstruction--often pointless obstruction, obstruction for obstruction's sake. A rational and fact-based focus on the issues has not been, to put it mildly, their hallmark. That was their choice, and it is the privilege of the minority party in the Senate to behave that way. The minority party in the Senate can choose to simply make themselves antagonists with no policy responsibility. I have to say they did an amazing job of that. But now my colleagues have a majority, and they have the power and the responsibility that comes with that beginning in January.

The touchstone of responsibility is to be responsible. I will concede the Senate could actually become a better place if the new majority, when it comes in, chooses to be responsible and the uniquely partisan obstruction that characterized their role as the Senate minority passes away as they move into the majority.

A key test to this, however, will be whether the Republicans here in the Senate choose to become responsible about climate change; about what carbon pollution is doing all around us, to our atmosphere and to our oceans; about what happens when carbon concentrations in the atmosphere that have varied between 170 and 300 parts per million for as long as we have been a species on this planet suddenly surge to 400 and beyond; about what happens when scientific laws that have been understood since Abraham Lincoln was riding around Washington, DC, in his top hat begin to impose their inexorable effects upon this world.

In the minority, they pretended it wasn't real. Some even said climate change was a hoax. Many said they were not scientists and so they couldn't do anything about it. I would note they are not gynecologists, either, but many have no hesitation about trying to regulate that area.

No one would work on doing anything serious about carbon dioxide emissions. It was not always this way. Republican Senator John Warner was the lead sponsor of the Warner-Lieberman climate bill. Republican Senator John McCain ran for President on a solid climate change platform. Republican Senator Susan Collins coauthored an important cap- and-dividend climate bill with Senator Cantwell. Republican Senator Mark Kirk voted for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill in the House of Representatives. Republican Senator Jeff Flake was an original cosponsor of a carbon fee bill led by former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis that would have placed a $15-per-ton fee on carbon pollution in 2010, more than $20 per ton in 2015, and $100 per ton in 2040. Well, all of that ended. That and more ended shortly after the Citizens United decision when for the first time our elections were flooded with polluter money and flooded with dark money, which is probably polluter money, but because it is dark and anonymous, we don't really know.

So say you are not a scientist. Isn't the responsible thing to sound out scientific opinion? Scientific opinion about climate change is now firmly settled. Climate change is caused by the massive carbon pollution we have unleashed. Every major scientific society in our country knows this and has said so. Here is a list. If my colleagues want to, they can check with them. This is a list from a letter dated October 21, 2009--more than 5 years ago. We have been fiddling around on this since the science was so clear.

I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

I could start with the body that was chartered 150 years ago, actually, to provide us independent, scientific, objective advice--the National Academy of Sciences. If that doesn't suit, try the American Association for the Advancement of Science or the American Physical Society or the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union or the American Medical Association or the American Chemical Society or the Geological Society of America. If none of my colleagues are scientists, check it out. Ask the responsible scientists. Ask the leading scientific societies.

If my colleagues don't believe the measurements--measurements confirm what the scientists know. Sea level is rising, and the rise is accelerating. We measure that with a glorified yardstick. It is already up nearly 10 inches at the Newport Naval Station since the 1930s when we in Rhode Island had the devastating hurricane of 1938. It is similar at Fort Pulaski in Georgia. Go visit Miami Beach, where they just spent hundreds of millions of dollars installing huge, 14,000 gallon-per- minute pumps to keep the city dry as the rising tides flood in.

The ocean is warming. We measure that with a thermometer. Narragansett Bay is nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, mean water temperature, than 50 years ago. That is an ecosystem shift, and it has wreaked havoc with our winter flounder catch, for instance. Warmer waters aren't just in Rhode Island. They have brought the snook--a game fish from the Florida Keys--up into Georgia waters.

The ocean is more acidic, and it is getting more acidic at the fastest rate measured looking back millions of years in the geologic record. If my colleagues doubt that the ocean is acidifying, ask the oyster growers in the Pacific Northwest and Maine. Ask the scientists who study Alaska's salmon fishery about what is happening to

the pteropod, a key food source for salmon.

Here is my challenge to my Republican colleagues who say they are not scientists: Ask the scientists. Ask the scientists at your own home State universities. And ask the folks, by the way, employed by your outdoor industries--the people who see the changes happening around them. Ask your park rangers. Ask your forest rangers.

If a colleague is from North Carolina, ask the scientists at the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences.

If a colleague is from Colorado, ask the scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

If a colleague is from Iowa, ask the scientists at the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research at the University of Iowa.

If a colleague is from Arizona, ask the scientists at the University of Arizona, which hosts the Climate Assessment for the Southwest Program.

If a colleague is from Florida, ask the scientists at the University of Florida's Climate Institute.

If a colleague is from Texas, ask the scientists at the Texas Center for Climate Studies at Texas A&M. The Aggies get climate change. Check it out.

If a colleague is from New Hampshire, ask biologist Eric Orff, who worked for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department for 30 years, what is happening to the moose. Ask Mike Bartlett of the New Hampshire Audubon Society what is happening to the purple finch, the State bird.

If a colleague is from Utah, ask the Park City Foundation and, while colleagues are at it, employees at Alta Ski Area, Canyons Resort, Deer Crest, Deer Valley, or Park City Mountain Resort what they foresee for that industry.

If a colleague is from Idaho, ask University of Idaho Professor Jeffrey Hicke how rising temperatures let loose the bark beetle and decimated almost 1,000 square miles of the iconic mountain pine forests.

If my colleagues like big business, if they think only the private sector knows anything, then ask the big property casualty reinsurers such as Munich Re or Swiss Re, who have billions of dollars at stake and have to get this right.

If a colleague is from Georgia, ask the folks from Coca-Cola. If a colleague is from Arkansas, ask the folks from Walmart. If a colleague is from North Carolina, ask the folks at $30 billion clothing maker VF Corporation. They all have a lot of money riding on getting this right, and they are making decisions based on business, not on ideology. So ask them.

If my colleagues trust the military, ask ADM Samuel Locklear, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, who says climate risk is the most dangerous long-term challenge we face in the Pacific.

If my colleagues are looking for some pretty good high-level scientists, they might want to ask NASA and NOAA. Remember NASA? They put a rover safely on the surface of Mars, and they are driving it around on Mars. Do my colleagues think they might know what they are talking about?

If my colleagues need to hear it from Republicans, ask former Republican Treasury Secretaries, such as George Shultz and Hank Paulson. Ask former Republican EPA Administrators such as Bill Ruckelshaus, Christine Todd Whitman, William Reilly, and Lee Thomas. Ask James Brainard, the Republican mayor of Carmel, IN. Ask Bob Dixon, the Republican mayor of Greensburg. Ask Betty Price, the Republican mayor of Fort Worth, TX. Ask Republican mayor Sylvia Murphy and county commissioner George Neugent of Monroe County, FL.

If my colleagues are not scientists, just ask. Do your homework. Exercise this new great responsibility that will come with the great power you have won. But don't pretend climate change isn't real. Even your own young voters know better than that. A majority of Republican voters under age 35 think a politician who denies climate change is ignorant, out of touch, or crazy. Those were the words checked off in the poll. To paraphrase Michael Corleone from that great movie, ``Don't tell me it isn't real, because it insults my intelligence and it makes me very angry.

To our Republicans, I say I want to be your best friend in all of this, the kind of best friend who tells you when you are in no shape to drive and should hand over the keys until you are sober enough to drive safely even if it makes you mad to hear it, the kind of friend who will tell you the truth you need to hear but don't want to hear. And let me say, friends don't let friends deny climate change.

I know the big carbon polluters want this issue to be ignored. But responsibility is knowing when to tell even your friends no. Responsibility is doing what is factual and is based in real science and measurement. Responsibility is doing what is right for your State and for your country in the long run, not just what rewards your supporters--even those really big supporters--in the short run.

Maybe as their friends you might even want to have a little conversation with them because this is only going one way. As Pope Francis just said, God is not ``a magician with a magic wand.'' He put laws of the universe, laws of nature in place, and we don't get a pass on them just because it is politically convenient. How long does ExxonMobil think it can pursue unsustainable fossil fuel goals by fixing the politics? Laws of nature can't be bought or repealed. The Koch brothers are rich enough to buy virtually anything, but even they can't buy new laws of nature. BP went and quietly shut down its solar and wind programs, but carbon still does what carbon does. As your friends, they might need a little intervention from you.

Just so you know, I am not going anywhere. I have homes and businesses being swept into the ocean in my State. I have fishermen who tell me it is getting weird out there in Rhode Island Sound, that the lobsters and fish aren't where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there, that they are catching the kinds of fish their fathers and grandfathers never saw in their nets.

It is getting weird out there. I am not going anywhere. My State is small and coastal, and worse, bigger storms put us in serious danger. I am not ever going to ignore that. I am never going to walk away from this issue. I will never deny what Rhode Islanders see right in front of their faces and what all our expert warnings tell us is only going to get worse.

If you are going to be responsible and not just powerful, you won't deny this issue and walk away either. I promise you this. One way or another, we are going to get this done.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Joseph Majkut, who is an American Association for Advancement of Science fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 576, which was submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I understand that H.R. 4 has been received from the House and is at the desk.

I would ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today it adjourn until 2:15 p.m. on Thursday, November 13, 2014; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; and that following any leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session, as provided for under the previous order.

For the information of all of our colleagues, there will be three rollcall votes at approximately 2:30 p.m. Those votes will be on confirmation of the Moss and May nominations and cloture regarding the child care and development block grant bill. Additional votes remain possible during Thursday's session beyond those three.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

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

Mr. President, I rise today for the 78th time in my ``Time to Wake Up'' series to urge my Republican colleagues that it is long past time to wake up to the growing threat of global climate change.

For those who still deny the science--and believe it or not, that is where some of our colleagues still are--I remind them that virtually every credible scientific authority--and, no, the ones funded by the big carbon polluters don't count--virtually every credible scientific authority has moved beyond the question of whether our climate is changing or whether human carbon pollution drives these changes to now how it is happening and where it is happening.

Climate change is no longer a forecast; it is happening before our eyes, all around us. The latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--made up of the world's top climate scientists--call the fact that our Earth is warming ``unequivocal.'' Just last week the Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization said: ``We know without any doubt that our climate is changing and our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.'' I repeat--he said ``without any doubt.''

It is actually evident to our own eyes now from observations and measurements--not projections or predictions--of increases in global warming air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and a rising global average sea level--a phenomenon that means a lot to my coastal State of Rhode Island and to the Presiding Officer's State of Maine. Back home our constituents, our neighbors, get it. On our coasts they brace against the unrelenting rise of the seas and watch mystifying changes in fisheries they have been familiar with for generations. On the Plains they toil to raise crops under unprecedented drought. In the mountains they watch as ancient acres of forest are killed by the spread of invasive pests. Yet here in Washington we do nothing.

In Rhode Island the waters of Narragansett Bay are getting warmer--3 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer in the winter just since the 1960s. Long-term data from the tide gauges in Newport, RI, just off Naval Station Newport, show an increase in average sea level of nearly 10 inches since 1930 and accelerating. Sea level rise is contributing to erosion and brings storm surges and waves farther inland.

While Washington fiddles, Rhode Islanders act. Early this month more than 200 Rhode Islanders came together in Providence for my annual Rhode Island Energy and Environmental Leaders Day. The event brings together Rhode Islanders in renewable energy and sustainable development businesses, in community development nonprofits; it brings together State and local officials, advocates, and academics to share ideas with each other and with national leaders and Federal agencies on promoting green energy, improving resiliency, and combating climate change.

The innovation taking place in my Ocean State was on full display this year. Rhode Islanders are leading the effort to improve our environment and develop clean technology and energy and prepare for the changes carbon pollution has looming over us. Sheila Dormody, the director of sustainability of Providence was there to discuss the recently released Sustainable Providence plan for making our comparable city cleaner and greener. The plan covers everything from reducing food waste to improving energy efficiency to increasing alternative transportation options. These actions benefit public health and the environment, and they create economic opportunity. These aren't job killers. These are job builders. You cannot send efficiency upgrades or solar panel installation jobs overseas. Those are Rhode Island jobs, American jobs.

Grover Fugate, executive director of Rhode Island's Coastal Resources Management Council, was there to discuss the collaboration they have with the Rhode Island Realtors Association to create a Rhode Island coastal property guide. We need a Rhode Island coastal

property guide because climate change loads the dice for more frequent and more severe storms and hurricanes that put businesses and homeowners along the shore at risk from flooding, erosion, and wind damage.

Superstorm Sandy was a harsh warning. This property guide helps residents and business owners understand the risks and the costs they now face both today and in the future because of the carbon pollution we are doing nothing about. Extreme precipitation, rain bursts, heavy rains or snows have increased 74 percent in the Northeast between 1958 and 2010.

Rhode Islanders have always cared a lot about our Narragansett Bay. We love our bay. We want to protect it. These heavy rains, these sudden rains, these rain bursts, what they do is they drive polluted and nutrient-rich runoff that might otherwise be filtered or captured straight into the bay where it can close beaches and harm the bay's marine life.

Climate change and the carbon pollution mean we will have to work harder in Rhode Island and invest more dollars in a storm water and wastewater infrastructure, and it is not cheap. Our Rhode Island Narragansett Bay Commission, our wastewater utility, is overhauling its sewer and storm water collection to address that overflow during big storms. When big storms hit now, the underground storage tunnel that was completed in 2008 stores up the sewer and storm water until the extra water can be processed and until the capacity in the treatment plant is there to pump it out and process it.

As a result of the first phase of what is called the combined sewer overflow project, the commission estimates that through 2012, 4.6 billion gallons of mixed storm and wastewater that would have been dumped directly into Narragansett Bay untreated were instead processed at the Field's Point Wastewater Treatment Facility at one of our small towns. The town of Tiverton, RI, received funding through the USDA to help pay for upgrades to the town's water system, connecting thousands of residents on inefficient old septic tank systems to a town sewer. Leroy Kendricks, the chair of the Tiverton Wastewater District, told our group that these improvements will protect the Sakonnet River and Mount Hope Bay from mounting levels of pollution.

Julia Gold is the climate change program manager at the Rhode Island Department of Health. Julia explained how the department of health has teamed up with the division of elderly affairs to focus on the effects of climate change on the elderly, collaborating with the departments of environmental management and transportation to pilot a Lyme disease prevention training program for outdoor workers--those ticks spread more widely in warmer weather--and partnered with the Brown School of Public Health to examine correlations between rising temperatures and rising hospital admissions.

You may have seen a segment in the documentary series ``Years Of Living Dangerously'' on the deaths in Los Angeles from heat-related conditions worsened by climate change. This work with Brown University is similar and showing similar results.

These were just a few of the many stories told in Rhode Island at the Energy and Environmental Leaders Day. Not only do Rhode Islanders connect with one another there, but we also have the chance to share our important work with national leaders and hear their perspective on regional and national leaders, as well as get their perspective on regional and national trends.

The first of three keynote addresses came from renowned marine scientist and National Geographic Explorer-in-residence Sylvia Earle. Sylvia is truly a remarkable woman and a legend in oceanography circles. Her passion for our living oceans is just about as deep as those oceans. She reminded us that the oceans are the cornerstone of our human life support system, that indeed the oceans are the life support system for all creatures on our planet, not just the aquatic ones, and that our oceans bear witness to the unprecedented changes carbon pollution is causing. Her bad news was that these threats are grave. Her good news was that never before have we, as humans, been as well equipped with knowledge about our earth and our climate. The oceans indeed are sick but we have the power simply by changing our behavior to help them heal.

In a happy coincidence Sylvia's new documentary called ``Mission Blue,'' which lays out the perilous condition of earth's oceans, was playing the night before at the Newport Film Festival. Sylvia went there and said:

Think of a film about oceans 50 years from now. It will be

based on what we do now.

Our possibilities are terrific. Here is another thing that she said. I will quote her.

The good news sounds like bad news but the good news is

that we know that it is happening. We are the only creatures

on earth with the capacity to dive back into time, put

ourselves into perspective and plan a future based on

evidence, based on knowledge.

So what are we doing now? While Congress snoozes in the snug embrace of the big polluted interests, President Obama has stepped into the vacuum. His chief lieutenant in this effort is EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. She delivered our second keynote.

Climate change, she told our assembled group, is perhaps the most difficult, complex, and necessary issue for us to face. She reminded us that EPA is at its heart a public health agency. So when it comes to the carbon pollution that increases smog and asthma or increases the storms and floods that batter our communities, she says this: ``EPA's job is to protect those that are most vulnerable from this pollution, so it is our job to take action on climate. Period. Full stop.''

Administrator McCarthy led an extraordinary effort to put out the EPA's proposed rule, for the first time limiting carbon pollution from our country's largest source--our powerplants. The rule is revolutionary in many ways, particularly in its adaptability, allowing States and regions to reach their own goals their own way. It is the product of an intensely collaborative process and an enormous amount of give and take. The rollout has been viewed by those outside fossil fuel board rooms as a real achievement.

I commend Administrator McCarthy on moving that rule forward with so much energy. I wish her and that rule Godspeed.

The road ahead offers many obstacles as our third and final keynote speaker reminded us. Jeff Goodell has reported on the energy industry and the changing climate for Rolling Stone magazine, where he is a contributing editor. His many books have explored the inner workings of the fossil fuel industry and the most far-reaching proposals for avoiding catastrophic global warming, among other topics.

Jeff has firsthand knowledge of the complex apparatus of denial supported by the big polluters. The fossil fuel producers are bankrolling entire political campaigns and phony front organizations peddling scientific misinformation.

As Jeff pointed out, these misinformation efforts even involve not just the same strategies but the very same scientists who were involved working for the tobacco industry--the scientists-for-hire who worked for the tobacco industry in its decades-long venture to hide the dangers of tobacco from regulators and the public. They are still at it, but now it is denying climate change, not denying that tobacco is harmful.

Not only do these polluters stall tactics stand in the way of responsible action to cure climate change, Jeff reported they also hold back progress in our energy sector and in our economy, particularly in States and regions that have long relied on fossil fuel jobs. He called on us--he called on his home country--to finally take steps to move these communities into the 21st century economy.

The environmental and energy challenges facing our Nation can seem daunting. When we join together to share ideas and experiences, as we do each year in the Rhode Island Energy and Environment Leaders Day, it is clear that there is a path forward.

Rhode Islanders understand this. They see the challenge, and we are up to it. We are all up to it as Americans. One thing Rhode Islanders will be doing is later this month hundreds of us will board buses and head down to New York City for what will be known as the People's Climate March. Organizers expect as many as a half million people will take part in the historic

citizen action to call attention to the global crisis of climate change. Marchers from Rhode Island, from California, from all across our country, from different organizations, from different industries--a patchwork of America--will be there to demand responsible leadership in the fight against carbon pollution. I will be among them.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, Rhode Islanders have opinions. Life in Rhode Island is a conversation, and in Rhode Island's ongoing public conversation about who we are as a community and as a nation, a thoughtful voice is suddenly missing. Bob Kerr, the long time metro columnist for the Providence Journal, has been let go from the paper.

Bob wrote for Rhode Island's largest paper for 43 years. He spent that time seeking out the people and the stories that made up the fabric of our State and told those stories with empathy, humor, and blunt honesty. One of his fellow ProJo alumni described him as ``the Providence Journal's eloquent everyman.''

When then-executive editor Joel Rawson first asked Bob to write a column, he had one simple instruction: ``I want to hear Rhode Island talking.'' And that is just what Bob gave us, 3 mornings a week for more than 20 years.

Bob Kerr told the story of Rhode Island through the eyes of Rhode Islanders. He found people whose voices were not heard and gave them a giant microphone. He wrote about neighbors. He wrote about poor people. He wrote about musicians. He wrote about people looking for jobs and the people helping them find jobs. He even wrote about politicians. He wrote a lot about veterans. Bob served his country as a marine in Vietnam, and he paid close attention to the way we treat our servicemembers He reminded us to keep fighting for those who fought for us.

Like an adopted conscience, Bob also kept us honest. One of his most popular features was the ``Clemency Coach,'' an imaginary broken-down bus with duct-taped seats and stuck windows that Bob cooked up to, as he put it, ``give people who have done publicly embarrassing things the time to get away and consider ways to make everything OK again.''

``It is a bus bound for nowhere in particular.''

Once a season, Bob would roll out the latest Clemency Coach passenger list, a who's-who of people whose behavior warranted a slap on the wrist or worse. Bob called out public figures and private citizens alike, local notables and national celebrities. I myself was dispatched on the summer run of the Clemency Coach a year or two ago for putting my foot in my mouth here in the Senate.

Bob's columns were a mirror that sometimes reflected our shortcomings but also our shared values--our decency, integrity and compassion for one another.

Like his thousands of loyal readers, I am grateful for Bob Kerr's contribution to our Rhode Island community, and I wish him great luck and success in whatever is to come. For years, I have enjoyed, been informed by, been moved by, and learned from Bob's columns. They have helped make Rhode Island a better State and reminded us how good a State we are and can be. I hope he finds some way to keep doing them. He will have at least one reader.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 15, 2014, at 3 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Equality for the District of Columbia: Discussing the Implications of S. 132, the New Columbia Admission Act of 2013.''

Madam President, may I ask that at the conclusion of Senator Walsh's remarks I be recognized?

Madam President, before I given my ``Time to Wake Up'' speech, I want to react to something that was said on the Senate floor about this joint resolution to correct the error of Citizens United. What was said on the floor was that the position of those of us who support this joint resolution and who think Citizens United was wrongly decided, that our position is an attack on the First Amendment, that we are attacking the First Amendment. That may have some rhetorical utility, but it is simply not accurate.

The very question we are here to answer is whether the First Amendment properly allows unlimited corporate spending. It never did. It never did until Citizens United came along. So the question before this body is, Was Citizens United correctly decided?

To say we are attacking the First Amendment is to presume that Citizens United was correctly decided. You don't win an argument by presuming you are right; you win an argument by making the case why you are right.

Frankly, I have great reverence for the First Amendment, and I think it is extremely unfortunate that an argument would be made that is really nothing more than a rhetorical trick and does not respond to the gravamen of the dispute, which is whether the First Amendment should protect unlimited corporate spending when in the history of this country--until the decision by Citizens United--it never had.

Tribute to Aaron Goldner

Before I continue, I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Aaron Goldner. He has been instrumental in helping me research and prepare the ``Time to Wake Up'' speeches, and his fellowship in my office came to an end yesterday.

Aaron earned his Ph.D. in Earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at Purdue University. He came to my office as an American member of the Geophysical Union Congressional Science Fellow, whose research specialty was the development of sophisticated models to help build greater understanding of the past, present, and future effects of carbon pollution on our climate.

He lent his considerable scientific expertise and analysis to these floor speeches. He also did research for legislation and prepared for hearings in the Environment and Public Works Committee. Since we apparently somehow were not keeping him busy enough, he managed to find the time to publish a peer-reviewed article over the summer in the prestigious journal Nature on the climatic conditions surrounding the origination of the Antarctic ice cap.

Aaron said this week as he left that he gained a sense of humor working here, which is probably fitting for a scientist having to deal with this body in its present state.

I gained the benefit of Aaron's hard work and gracious spirit, and the Senate and the American people gained the benefit of Aaron's passion for bringing the best scientific thinking to address our greatest challenges.

Aaron is now taking his talents to the Department of Energy, where he will continue to help our government tackle these important questions. I am grateful for his service in my office and wish him the best success.

Climate Change

The 113th Congress is now winding down, an election is upon us that will decide the makeup of the next Congress, and I am here for the 77th time to say it is time for my Republican colleagues to wake up to the threat of climate change both for the good of our country and our world and ultimately for the good of their own party. No political party can long remain a credible force in our democracy if their position on one of the defining threats of our time is to deny its existence or to plead total ignorance about it. ``I am not a scientist,'' some have begun to say. Well, when it comes to interfering with women's rights, they don't say, ``I am not a gynecologist.'' But when it is carbon pollution, they say, ``I am not a scientist.'' Some would say that if you are not a scientist, all the more reason to listen to the scientists.

Look at what the scientists are saying today. The top person at the World Meteorological Organization, which knows a little bit about this area, just said:

We know without any doubt that our climate is changing and

our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities

such as the burning of fossil fuels.

Here is the point: ``I am not a scientist'' is not the stance of a party that is ready to lead; it is the stance of a party that is beholden to polluting interests, petrified of losing the millions in polluter campaign spending supporting their candidates.

We have heard over and over during the last 6 years that Republicans want President Obama to lead. It is a familiar chorus: ``It is time to lead.'' ``Where is the leadership?'' ``Why isn't America leading?''

One of my Republican Senate colleagues put it this way:

Every American can agree that the light of peace and

liberty would benefit our world. But who will spread it if

not America? There is no other Nation that can, and that is

why, despite the challenges we face here at home, America

must continue to hold this torch. America must continue to

lead the way.

Well, on climate change we are finally leading the way thanks in large part to President Obama's Climate Action Plan and Secretary Kerry's passionate efforts. Yet they criticize the Obama administration's leadership on climate change because other countries, such as China and India, are also big carbon emitters. So Republicans want America to lead except on climate change. On this one issue they would prefer to await leadership from China or India. How convenient that is when you think of all the polluter money funding the Republicans and how badly out of step with America. Just look at the numbers. A recent Wall Street Journal poll showed--notwithstanding years of relentless polluter propaganda--that 61 percent of Americans agree that climate change is occurring and that action should be taken, and 67 percent of Americans support the administration's proposed rule to limit carbon pollution from powerplants.

Here is my personal favorite: A survey conducted for the League of Conservation Voters found that more than half of young Republican voters--to be specific, 53 percent of Republicans under the age of 35-- would describe a politician who denies climate change is happening as ``ignorant,'' ``out of touch,'' or ``crazy.'' That is the young Republican view of the Republican position on climate change.

On September 21 thousands of concerned Americans will converge on New York City for what will be known as the People's Climate March. Organizers expect that as many as half a million people will take part in this historic citizen action to call attention to the global crisis of climate change.

However you look at it, the American people are sending a message loud and clear: They want responsible leadership on carbon pollution. What is the Republican answer? Well, look at the House. Given control of the House, Republicans have already forced over 100 votes to undermine the EPA. That is even more times than they have voted to repeal ObamaCare.

Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, said last week that the Republican strategy next year will be to send the President bills they know he will veto, including approval of the Keystone XL tar sands crude pipeline, and thereby create ``shutdown by veto.''

Over here in the Senate, our Republican leader already threatens--if the Republicans win the Senate--to force onto key legislation what he called ``a lot of restrictions on the activities of the bureaucracy.'' Gee, what agency could he possibly mean? The threat is plain: Give the Republicans polluter-backed, anti-environment legislation or they will shut down the government. Again. This is the Republican version of leadership.

What about out on the campaign trail? Republicans in Congress ignore the public's call for climate action, but

are Republican candidates out there listening to the people or are they listening to the polluters led by the infamous Koch brothers? Look at how much money the polluters are spending on Republicans and take a wild guess. News flash: They are not listening to the people.

The Republican nominee for Senate in Iowa has said of climate change: ``I'm skeptical. It's been changing since the dawn of time. I'm not going to blame it . . . on the human race.''

In New Hampshire the leading Republican Senate candidate recently said that he does not believe manmade climate change has been scientifically proven. Never mind that the underlying science was first measured back when Abraham Lincoln was President.

In North Carolina the Republican nominee has referred to climate change as ``false science.''

Well, in the last year I visited Iowa and New Hampshire and North Carolina, and I saw firsthand how climate change is already affecting those States. I heard over and over deep concern about climate change. I heard about cold-weather sports and tourism threatened by warming temperatures in New Hampshire. I heard about crops threatened by shifting weather patterns and about how a booming wind power industry has emerged in Iowa. In North Carolina I heard about homes and businesses and even air bases threatened by rising seas.

If you doubt me, go to the State universities in Iowa and New Hampshire and North Carolina. They are not denying it. They are actively working on and warning about climate change. Iowa State has an entire climate science program and wants to be a ``leader in the science of regional climate change.'' The University of New Hampshire scientists told me about the danger to New Hampshire's iconic moose from tick infestations because of climate change. Researchers from the University of North Carolina, Duke University, and North Carolina State took me out on a research vessel to see firsthand the effects of climate change on North Carolina's shoreline. The home State universities are clear; it is just the polluter-funded candidates who are denying.

It is the same story across the country. Republicans running for the Senate, from Alaska to Georgia, from Colorado to West Virginia, question or outright deny the established climate science. Figure it out. Do the math. There is overwhelming consensus among knowledgeable scientists that climate change is real and being caused by humans. Denying that fact serves the economic interest of a narrow group of big-spending polluters, and the polluters are spending vast fortunes to support climate deniers.

Senate Republican candidates even attended a secret retreat organized by the Koch brothers earlier this year and praised the Kochs' political network for helping to support their campaign--the polluter political lifeline to the Republican Party.

A lot of blame here attaches to the Republicans' confederates on the Supreme Court--the five Republican-appointed Justices who kicked open the floodgates of corporate special interest spending for Republicans in the disastrous Citizens United decision in January of 2010. With Citizens United in their pocket, the polluters went right to work.

By the 2012 election cycle, the Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics determined that a donor network organized by the Koch brothers spent $400 million to influence that election. This graphic shows the complex apparatus the Koch brothers used to pull those political strings.

In the 2014 election cycle, the government accountability group Common Cause has tallied over $34 million in political donations already from 30 of the country's largest oil, gas, coal, and utility corporations. That does not include the dark money fossil fuel corporations have given to political groups which do not disclose their donors--groups such as the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Koch brothers own so-called Americans for Prosperity organization, or the secretive identity-laundering machine known as the Donors Trust. We don't know how much these groups have actually raised or spent on election activities, but the Koch network is expected to spend nearly $300 million on the 2014 midterm elections.

The Center for Public Integrity reported last week that the Koch brothers are sponsoring 10 percent of all ads in competitive Senate races. That is more than 43,900 Senate ads between January 2013 and last month. Americans for Prosperity alone--that Koch brothers organization--sponsored 27,000 ads. That is one in every 16 ads in all Senate races this cycle. And, of course, those polluter-funded ads make up way more than 10 percent of just the Republican ads. Why is that? Because the focus of this apparatus is on Republicans, on buying and co-opting the Republican Party as the polluters' political instrument.

The numbers are staggering. Let's be clear about one thing: Their intention is not to add to constructive debate on carbon pollution and climate change. The polluters are determined to silence meaningful debate on the catastrophic effects of their carbon pollution, and it is working. There was a lot of Republican activity on climate change until January of 2010 when Citizens United was brought down. And after that, we can't find carbon pollution activity on the Republican side. They have been buried in the threats and the promises of that polluter funding.

Well, climate denial may work for Republicans in the short run if it keeps wide open that spigot of polluter money that is funding Republican candidates. We will see how that works out. But no matter how much money the polluters pour into the Republican Party, even a Republican Senate cannot repeal the laws of science--of physics, of chemistry, of oceanography.

If they win the Senate, it is not just going to be time for them to wake up, it is going to be time for them to grow up. Being in the majority means responsibility, not just obstruction and mischief. Being in the majority means answering your country and the world, not just your polluter funding base. Being in the majority means hearing the vast majority of Americans who want U.S. leadership on climate change, not telling voters the problem doesn't exist or that America should abdicate any responsibility for forging an international solution.

Our Republican colleagues will discover, if they don't know it already--and many do know it already--that former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was right when she recently called climate change the ``most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face as a nation and a world.''

Secretary Clinton went on to say:

The data is unforgiving no matter what the deniers try to

assert. . . . If we come together to make the hard choices,

the smart investment in infrastructure, technology and

environmental protection, America can be the clean energy

superpower of the 21st century. . . . This is about our

strategic position in the world, this is about our

competitiveness, our job creation, our economic growth as

well as dealing with a challenge that we ignore at our

detriment and our peril.

So the choice for Republicans stands before them: America as a clean energy superpower, leading the world, or America bedeviled with polluter-fueled political gridlock and climate denial. Their choice so far is obvious.

I yield the floor.

Does the distinguished Senator from Utah seek recognition?

The Senator from Utah may proceed, if he wishes.

I will take approximately 20 minutes.

I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized after the Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch.

The distinguished Senator from Utah is one of the most distinguished and ablest lawyers ever to serve in this Senate, and his comments about the patent trolls and patent litigation are entitled to great weight.

I thoroughly agree with him that the use of these shell corporations is something we could and should act quickly to get rid of. I think the protection of an end user, such as a coffee shop or a florist or somebody who is not a competitor with a manufacturer or the patent holder, is something we could and should address. I think policing these often extortionate demand letters is something we could and should address. I look forward to working with the distinguished Senator in those areas.

I think when it comes to fee-shifting, that is a very significant step. The principle in the American system of justice that a party pays his or her own lawyer is so deeply engrained in our system of justice that it is actually known as the American rule. To depart from that is something that I think we should do only with a very--let's put it this way. It is a very grave step and I am not sure it is justified in this case. But certainly we could move on the bill that got rid of shell corporations, that protected end users, and that went after these demand letters, and get into conference and, with any luck, something could be done there. But I very much appreciate Senator Hatch's long and sincere interest in this issue.

Mr. President, I rise today for the 76th time to urge my colleagues that it is time for us to wake up to the growing threats of climate change. Not a single State remains unaffected by the unprecedented changes we are already seeing, driven by the excessive carbon pollution we continue to dump into our oceans and atmosphere.

Yet in Washington, our Republican colleagues either parrot the polluter line that climate change is just a hoax, or stay silent. No one will step forward.

It was not always this way. Environmental protection was once a top priority of the Republican Party. It seems remarkable now, but it is true. In the early 1970s, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act were all passed with broad bipartisan support and signed by a Republican President. In the 1980s and 1990s, bipartisan majorities voted to strengthen those laws, led by Rhode Island's Republican Senator, John Chafee, who served as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and whose seat I now have the honor to hold.

Conservation and stewardship were once fundamental principles of American conservatism. From seminal thinkers of the conservative movement to great Republican leaders of the 20th century, the conservative ideal included a commitment to the interests of future generations. Today, under a relentless barrage of unlimited corporate spending in our elections, much and perhaps most of it by polluters, the interests of future generations have taken a backseat to the interests of the oil companies and coal barons.

The disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision let polluters cast their dark shadow over Republicans in Congress who might otherwise work with Democrats on curbing their carbon pollution.

Edmund Burke, an Irish-born member of the British Parliament, is considered by many the father of modern conservatism. Sir Winston Churchill called him ``a foremost apostle of liberty.'' Burke was a staunch defender of our American Colonies and his statue stands here in Washington today. His 1790 conservative manifesto, ``Reflections on the Revolution in France,'' cautioned that we are but ``temporary possessors'' of our society. If individuals are ``unmindful of what they have received from their ancestors or of what is due to their posterity,'' he wrote, ``no one generation could link with another. Men would become little better than flies of summer.''

In our case, flies of a carbon-fueled summer.

Russell Kirk was a distinguished scholar at the Heritage Foundation who none other than President Ronald Reagan dubbed ``the prophet of American conservatism.'' He wrote a 1970 piece for the Baltimore Sun: ``Conservation Activism Is a Healthy Sign.'' Kirk wrote: ``Nothing is more conservative than conservation.''

The noted essayist and Kentucky farmer Wendell Berry, known for what the American Conservative magazine called his ``unshakeable devotion to the land, to localism, and to the dignity of traditional life,'' wrote in 1993:

Our destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship, or

stupid economics, or a betrayal of family responsibility; it

is the most horrid blasphemy.

Berry would also remind us in this Chamber that ``[w]hether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is a party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes.''

No figure in American history embodied the conservative value of conservation more than President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt resented the ``malefactors of wealth,'' as he called them, the timber and mining interests whose ``selfish and shortsighted greed seeks to exploit our natural resources in such fashion as to ruin them and thereby to leave our children and our children's children heirs only to an exhausted and impoverished inheritance.'' To Roosevelt, this great land of ours was the birthright of all Americans--past, present, and future--to be used, to be sure, in achieving our destiny, but not wasted.

He wrote to Congress in 1907:

To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and

exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its

usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our

children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand

down to them.

That is a sentiment echoed by Republican Presidents throughout our history, including President Dwight Eisenhower, whose 1961 farewell address invoked this national legacy. Here is what he said:

As we peer into society's future, we--you and I, and our

government--must avoid the impulse to live only for today,

plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious

resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets

of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their

political and spiritual heritage.

Republican President Gerald Ford, who once worked actually as a National Park ranger, said this in 1975:

We have too long treated the natural world as an adversary

rather than as a life-sustaining gift from the Almighty. If

man has the genius to build, which he has, he must also have

the ability and the responsibility to preserve.

And, of course, no one is more revered by today's Republican Party than Ronald Reagan. His conservative credentials are unassailable and GOP candidates for elected office strive mightily to out-Reagan each other at every turn. In 1984, Reagan put this question to his fellow Republicans:

What is a conservative after all but one who conserves, one

who is committed to protecting and holding close the things

by which we live? . . . And we want to protect and conserve

the land on which we live--our countryside, our rivers and

mountains, our planes and meadows and forests. That is our

patrimony. That is what we leave to our children. And our

great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as

we found it or better than we found it.

President Ronald Reagan's words would make him a fringe liberal candidate in today's extremist Republican Party.

In Congress, we have been boxed in by a barricade of special interest propaganda and we refuse to admit the plain evidence piling up before our eyes. We know with ever greater certainty what our carbon pollution is doing to the climate, what it is doing to our atmosphere, what it is doing to our oceans. And we know with ever greater certainty what that means for the planet and future generations. What do Republicans in Congress today have to say to our heirs, to our children and grandchildren?

``Catastrophic global warming is a hoax,'' says one of my Republican colleagues.

``It's not proven by any stretch of the imagination,'' says another.

A third dismisses the issue altogether, saying, ``A lot of this is condescending elitism.'' That is the voice of today's Republican Party.

But what does the next generation have to say back to these Republican voices of denial? More than half of young Republican voters said they would describe a politician who denies climate change is happening as ignorant, out of touch, or crazy--not my words, their words in the poll: ignorant, out of touch, or crazy. That is what the next generation says back to the Republican voices of denial.

Unfortunately, if one is a Republican in Congress today, it is more likely than not that one either holds that view or is afraid to say otherwise. According to one analysis, 58 percent of congressional Republicans in the 113th Congress have denied or questioned the overwhelming scientific consensus that the Earth's oceans and atmosphere are changing in unprecedented ways, driven by our carbon pollution. This includes, I am sad to report, every single Republican member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. And where there is not denial, there is silence.

Outside these barricaded walls, it is different. Outside Congress, more and more Republicans acknowledge the threat of climate change and call for responsible solutions. Former Members of Congress, free now from the polluters' thrall, implore their colleagues to return to their conservative principles. Former Representative Bob Inglis, for example, invokes the tenets of conservative economics. Here is his quote:

If you're a conservative, it is time to step forward and

engage in the climate and energy debate because we have the

answer--free enterprise. . . . Conservatives understand that

we must set the correct incentives, and this should include

internalizing pollution and other environmental costs in our

market system. We tax income but we don't tax emissions. It

makes sense to conservatives to take the tax off something we

want more of, income, and shift the tax to something we want

less of, emissions.

Sherwood Boehlert and Wayne Gilchrest, former Republican representatives from New York and Maryland, also argue for a market- based approach to reducing carbon pollution. Here is what they said:

We could slash our debt by making powerplants and oil

refineries pay for the carbon emissions that endanger our

health and environment. This policy would strengthen our

economy, lessen our dependence on foreign oil, keep our skies

clean, and raise a lot of revenue.

Top advisors to former Republican Presidents have joined the chorus. William D. Ruckelshaus, Lee M. Thomas, William K. Reilly, Christine Todd Whitman all headed the Environmental Protection Agency during Republican administrations. They all recently testified before the Environment and Public Works Committee that it is time to get serious about climate change. Here is how they put it in a New York Times op- ed. They wrote:

As administrators of the EPA under Presidents Richard M.

Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W. Bush, we held

fast to common-sense conservative principles--protecting the

health of the American people, working with the best

technology available and trusting in the innovation of

American business and in the market to find the best

solutions for the least cost.

These former officials recognize both the wisdom of properly pricing carbon and the truculence of the opponents who stand in the way of progress. ``A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions,'' they say--``the best path''--``but that is unachievable in the current political gridlock in Washington. . . .'' I would interject that political gridlock is the product of big-spending polluters who profit from the gridlock that they create. But let me continue with what the EPA Administrators said: ``But we must continue efforts to reduce the climate-altering pollutants that threaten our planet. The only uncertainty about our warming world,'' they wrote, ``is how bad the changes will get, and how soon. What is most clear is that there is no time to waste.'' Four Republican EPA Administrators.

One day folks are going to look back at this time and we are all going to be judged very harshly with all the dread power that history has to inflict on wrong. The polluters and their instruments will be judged harshly, and the Republican Party will be judged harshly for letting itself be led astray by polluters from its most basic conservative values. Unless they step up, Republicans will leave--to borrow language from Russell Kirk--``[t]he principle of real leadership ignored, the immortal objects of society forgotten, practical conservatism degenerated into mere laudation of private enterprise, economic policy almost wholly surrendered to special interests.'' That is about as good a description of where they are right now as I could muster, and it comes from the conservative Russell Kirk.

We cannot do this alone, not with the numbers that we have. Republicans and Democrats alike must approach this climate problem head on with the full conviction of our ideals, but working together, working in good faith, and working on a common platform of fact and common sense to protect the American people and our American economy from the looming effects of carbon pollution.

We must rise to our duty here and place our own natural resources, our own American international reputation, and our legacy to future American generations first, ahead of the poisonous influence of the polluters that so dominates this debate now.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.