Floor Statements

Mr. President, any Senator will acknowledge that each of us is only as effective as the staff who support us. For nearly as long as I have been a Member of this body, I have enjoyed the benefit of the considerable abilities and expertise of Stephen Lilley. Stephen's tenure on my staff has drawn to a close, and the U.S. Senate loses a gifted lawyer and a dedicated public servant.

Stephen joined my team in 2008 as a Heyman Federal Public Service fellow and quickly demonstrated a keen understanding of the workings of the Senate and of the Judiciary Committee. Unwilling to part with either his sharp legal analysis or his good humor, we brought him on board full time as a counsel after his fellowship ended. After more outstanding work, he was soon promoted to chief counsel on the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts and later the Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism.

Stephen has ably staffed hundreds of committee hearings and markups and advised me on every issue under the wide-ranging jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee. In particular, he played a key role in the investigation of the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts into the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; he helped me during the confirmation of two Justices to the Supreme Court; he worked with me to promote and defend the role of the civil jury; and he has emerged as one of the Senate's leading experts on cybersecurity and intellectual property, facilitating immensely complex negotiations that brought us to the brink of comprehensive cyber legislation.

In addition to producing great work, Stephen elevated the work of those around him. His diligence, his ability to work well with other offices, his passion for doing right, and--not least--his sharp and dry wit, all made him a pleasure to work with. I particularly wish to thank his wife Jaynie and his daughter Mary Win for supporting Stephen and for sharing him with us.

Stephen's hard work brought him success before his arrival at the Senate, whether at Princeton University, where he graduated summa cum laude; at Yale University, where he earned his law degree; or as a clerk to Judge Thomas Ambro on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Judge Jeremy Fogel on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. I have no doubt he will find continued success in all of his future endeavors.

Theodore Roosevelt reminded us of the credit due to the man who spends

himself in a worthy cause. I gratefully credit Stephen Lilley for his exceptional service to the Senate, the people of Rhode Island, and the United States of America.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. President, this is the 52nd consecutive week we are in session that I have come to the floor to ask us to please, for Lord's sake, wake up to the damage carbon pollution is already doing to our atmosphere, oceans, and climate, and to look ahead, to use our God- given sense, and to plan for what is so obviously coming.

In those weeks, I have spoken about all different aspects of carbon pollution, its effect on sports and our economy; its effect on oceans and coasts; its effect on agriculture and wildfires; its effect on storms and insurance costs. I have spoken about the measurements we can already make of the harm already happening: Sea level rise, which we measure with a yardstick, basically; ocean temperature, which we measure with a thermometer; and ocean acidification--the fastest in 50 million years, according to research published in ``Nature Geoscience''--which we can measure with litmus tests.

I have, I hope, to anyone listening with their logic turned on, thoroughly rebutted the deniers' phony arguments against solving carbon pollution, whether those arguments purport to be based in science or religion or economics or our competitiveness.

I have listed the thoughtful and responsible groups--from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, from Walmart to NASA, from Ford and GM to Coke and Pepsi, from America's garden clubs to just last month our major sports leagues--who understand the truth about climate change and are saying so.

I have done my best to expose the calculated campaign of lies that we are up against and the vast scandalous apparatus of phony organizations and engineered messages that are designed to propagate those lies. I have traced the connections back to, of course, the big carbon polluters and their billionaire owners. I have been obliged to point out that the money of those big polluters and billionaires floods this Chamber, that their lobbyists prowl the outer halls, and that to a sad and disappointing degree this Congress is bought and paid for by that polluter influence.

One factor we have yet to consider is whether as an institution Congress has just become completely irresponsible. Maybe this Congress just cannot operate as an institution at an intelligent level. Some Congresses are going to be smarter and more responsible than others. That is just the natural order of variation. Some Congress is going to be the sorriest Congress ever. Maybe we are it.

Some organizations, like NASA, for instance, are very smart. That is why NASA is driving a rover around on the surface of Mars right now. That is a seriously smart organization.

Some organizations take ordinary people and call them to be their very best, to play at a level above their natural talents, to heed a higher calling than their selfish inclinations. At their best, our military and our churches tend to achieve that.

Some organizations, however, take even the most talented people and drag them down to the lowest common denominator, and stifle the best and bring out the worst in even those very talented people.

I ask people watching, which type of organization do you think Congress is right now? Which type do you think we are? As an organization, it is hard to say anything kinder of Congress than that it is now a really irresponsible organization. We could not even keep the U.S. Government running. Standard & Poor's estimated that our tea party shutdown foolishness cost Americans tens of billions of dollars for no gain--none. We cannot sort out the basics of building and maintaining our American infrastructure. Our own American Society of Civil Engineers gives our country a D-plus for infrastructure.

That is not complicated stuff. Yet we flub it like a football team that fumbles the ball at the snap.

Get a little more complicated and Congress seems to get even worse.

Let me show you just one health care chart. This chart I have in the Chamber shows the average life expectancy--in years--in a country compared to the cost per capita of health care in that country. Together, they make a pretty good proxy for how a country's health care system is doing. This group shown here on the chart represents most of the OECD member and partner countries--our industrialized international competitors.

This, shown here on the chart, is us--way out here, all alone, spending the most by far for results that are mediocre at best. We would save nearly $1 trillion a year if we could just get our per capita cost down to what Norway and Switzerland spend. They are the next two most expensive countries on the planet, and we are $1 trillion a year more laid out per capita. Think of what we could do as a nation, what we could build and invent with $1 trillion a year if we were not wasting it on bad health care. And bad it is. We get worse results in longevity than virtually any modern economy.

Look who beats us: Japan, Great Britain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Norway. Germany does, Italy does, Greece does, Luxembourg does. They all beat us. Chile and the Czech Republic are the two countries we beat for longevity.

Look at the size of that problem--those lives lost, those trillions of dollars wasted--and then look at the quality of the health care discussion we are having in Congress, and tell me this is not a completely irresponsible organization.

That brings us to climate change. Yes, it is complicated, when you are trying to predict and model something as complex as what our climate is going to do in the years ahead. But it is also simple, when you look at the stuff that everyone agrees on, the stuff that you can measure, the stuff that you would have to be a nut or a crank or an eccentric to dispute.

Nobody responsible--nobody responsible--disputes the principle that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere raises the temperature of the Earth, and that it does so through the so-called greenhouse effect. A scientist named John Tyndall figured that out at the time of the American Civil War. I brought his musty old paper in here several speeches ago. Its old leather binding was flaking and peeling. When that report was first published, Abraham Lincoln had just been elected President. In all the years since then, this principle of science has always been confirmed and validated. It is not some questionable theory. The greenhouse effect is real. It would not just be wrong, it would be irresponsible to deny that.

Nobody responsible disputes that for over a century our modern economy has run on fossil fuels and that burning those fossil fuels has released gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The Global Carbon Project estimates that mankind has pumped about 2,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since 1870. That is a pretty solid estimate, and I have never even heard anyone dispute it.

So we know those two things: adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere traps more heat; and we have released an estimated 2,000 gigatons-- 2,000 billion tons--of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Let's go on from there. It is a known principle of science that a significant portion of that multigigaton carbon load is absorbed by the oceans, and that the chemical reaction when that absorption happens into the oceans makes the oceans more acidic. No responsible person disputes either proposition. It is not some theory. It is something that you can actually do and measure in a lab. Again, it would not just be wrong, it would be really irresponsible to deny that.

We also know that the oceans do more than absorb carbon. They absorb heat. Indeed, they have absorbed most of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases--over 90 percent of the heat between 1971 and 2010, according to the recent IPCC report. What happens when the oceans absorb heat? They expand. Thermal expansion is a basic physical property of liquids. It can also be shown in a very simple lab. It is not a theory. Again, it would be not just wrong but irresponsible to deny that too.

It would not just be wrong, it would be irresponsible to deny what those simple measurements and clear principles tell us. But we do. We do. We deny it. Congress will not wake up and address this problem. Like those monkeys: See no carbon, hear no carbon, speak no carbon.

Because we are so irresponsible, because we deny this reality, we are failing to take precautions and, as a result, many people will suffer.

For those of us who love this country and are proud of it, and are proud of our government, and want this country and its government to be a beacon of hope and promise and rectitude, it hurts a little extra for the Congress to be such a failure. It hurts a little extra that we in our generation have driven Congress--the hub of our noble American experiment in democracy, the beating heart of this great Republic--down to that low level.

It is a harsh judgment that this body is an irresponsible failure. But on climate this Congress got it the old-fashioned way; it earned it.

I will close with a final observation. Compare the irresponsibility of this ``see no carbon, hear no carbon, speak no carbon'' Congress with the recent exhortation from Pope Francis. Here is what the Pope said. I will quote him at some length.

There are other weak and defenceless beings who are

frequently at the mercy of economic interests or

indiscriminate exploitation. I am speaking of creation as a

whole. We human beings are not only the beneficiaries but

also the stewards of other creatures. Thanks to our bodies,

God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we

can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical

ailment, and the extinction of a species as a painful

disfigurement. Let us not leave in our wake a swath of

destruction and death which will affect our own lives and

those of future generations.

The Pope continued:

Here I would make my own the touching and prophetic lament

voiced some years ago by the bishops of the Philippines:

And he quotes them:

``An incredible variety of insects lived in the forest and

were busy with all kinds of tasks. . . . Birds flew through

the air, their bright plumes and varying calls adding color

and song to the green of the forests. . . . God intended this

land for us, his special creatures, but not so that we might

destroy it and turn it into a wasteland. . . . After a single

night's rain, look at the chocolate brown rivers in your

locality and remember that they are carrying the life blood

of the land into the sea. . . . How can fish swim in sewers

like the . . . rivers which we have polluted? Who has turned

the wonderworld of the seas into underwater cemeteries bereft

of color and life?''

Small yet strong in the love of God, like Saint Francis of

Assisi, all of us, as Christians, are called to watch over

and protect the fragile world in which we live, and all its

peoples.

What is our answer to the Pope, to this great Christian leader? In Congress, it is the monkey answer: Hear no carbon, see no carbon, speak no carbon.

We still have time to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.

We can actually do it in painless ways. We can even do it in advantageous ways, in ways that will boost our economy, but we have to do it. We have to wake up. We simply have to wake up.

I yield the floor.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

I am back again for now the 51st consecutive week that the Senate has been in session to urge Congress to wake up to the effects of carbon pollution on the Earth.

Today I wish to talk about how climate change is taking its toll on an important part of our way of our life, some of our long-cherished American pastimes that we do in the great outdoors.

New Englanders--and the distinguished Presiding Officer from Connecticut is very familiar with this--have fond memories of ski trips in Vermont, of ice hockey on frozen ponds in New Hampshire, and of fishing trips off the coast of Rhode Island. All of these activities are fun, they are fulfilling, and they leave us with indelible memories of the wonders of our natural world. But climate change is putting much of that at risk.

The New York Times records that declining snowfall and an unseasonably warm weather were a drag on winter sports and recreational tourism during the 2011-2012 winter. Before the end of the century, they report the number of economically viable ski locations in New Hampshire and Maine will be cut in half. Skiing in New York will be cut by three-quarters. I am sorry to inform the Presiding Officer from the great State of Connecticut that there will be no ski area left in Connecticut or Massachusetts. I assume from the report that means Rhode Island as well, because Rhode Islanders have been skiing our beloved Yawgoo Valley since the 1960s.

As drought and increasing temperatures reduce the snowpack in the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, the future of ski and snowboarding there is also at risk.

The Park City Foundation in Utah predicts an annual local temperature increase of 6.8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2075, which could cause a total loss of snowpack in the lower Park City resort area. Beyond the loss to the skiing tradition in Park City, the report estimates that this will result in thousands of lost jobs, tens of millions in lost earnings, and hundreds of millions in lost economic output.

No part of the country will be immune from these changes our carbon pollution is driving. Studies have found that extremely warm days in the Southeast are on the rise. Ice on the Great Lakes is forming later and disappearing earlier. Rain will continue to decrease on the Great Plains. Wildfire

seasons are getting worse in the West where the snowpack is melting earlier. Sea-level rise threatens Hawaii's famed beaches, and warming in Alaska is degrading the permafrost that entire communities are built on.

Climate change has already changed rainfall patterns and can load the dice for bad weather conditions such as heat waves. This past summer a heat wave prompted the Kenosha public schools in Wisconsin to cancel all outdoor student practices and sporting events. The district stated on its Web site: ``Keeping the best interests of our athletes in mind, we are canceling/rescheduling all contests today.''

According to the Denver Post, this past spring a prolonged drought forced Denver Parks and Recreation to postpone opening of the grass sports fields for soccer and lacrosse, which kept thousands of children and adults from starting their athletic seasons.

For some, warmer temperatures mean more time inside because the air is not fit to breathe. Ground-level ozone, commonly known as smog, forms more quickly during hot sunny days, causing asthma attacks, emergency room visits, and even hospitalizations.

In August, I met with two Rhode Island kids: Nick Friend, a 15-year- old from East Providence, and Kenyatta Richards, who is an 8-year-old from Warwick. They have asthma. They have to stay indoors and avoid being too active on bad air days. We have had six bad air days from ozone this year in Rhode Island. That is 6 days when Rhode Islanders such as Nick and Kenyatta can't enjoy the outdoor activities that are so much a part of our American childhoods.

The effects of climate change aren't limited to hotter days and smog. Oceans are warming, ice is melting, and sea levels are rising. This puts coastal infrastructure such as dams, bridges, and coastal powerplants at risk. It also threatens many of our most beloved and expensive palaces of sport. As far back as 2007, ``Sports Illustrated'' ran a special issue on sports and global warming, saying: ``Scientists project up to a one-meter increase in sea level by 2100,'' warned one article, ``which will alter the shape of the land in low-lying regions of U.S.--including San Francisco Bay and South Florida--and swamp well- known sports venues.'' Places such as the American Airlines Arena and Sun Life Stadium in Miami and AT&T Park in San Francisco are at risk.

As Congress sleepwalks through history, blind to the harmful effects of carbon pollution, responsible groups are acting, including our major professional sports leagues. The NBA, MLB, NFL, and NHL are letters that almost every American knows. These leagues and their teams are cultural institutions. They are also big business with annual revenues in billions of dollars. They take the threat of postponed games and washed-out stadiums seriously.

Earlier this year, the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, which I started with Representative Henry Waxman, to keep attention focused on climate change and what we could do to address it, asked the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the National Football League, as well as the United States Olympic Committee, to tell us what climate change means for their sports. Each of these organizations is awake to the dangers of carbon pollution and each is acting.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig wrote to the task force and said:

I have often said that Baseball is a social institution,

and to that end we recognize our responsibility to be part of

the national effort to preserve our environment. And that is

why MLB and many of our Major League Clubs have adopted

practices that have resulted in clean, energy-efficient

ballparks and environmentally friendly baseball events.

One of those practices is the partial offset of the energy used at all the All-Star Game events, including FanFest, the Home Run Derby, and the All-Star Game, by Green-e Certified energy renewable credits, including wind and solar energy.

On the hockey front, NHL Deputy Commissioner William Daly wrote:

Hockey's relationship with the environment is unique. Our

sport was born on frozen ponds, where to this day--players

of all ages and skill levels learn to skate. For this

magnificent tradition to continue, it is imperative that

we recognize the importance of maintaining the

environment.

The NHL has partnered with ENERGY STAR and the Natural Resources Defense Council to make its own facilities more energy efficient, and it has called on the U.S. Government to develop a nationwide retrofit strategy to help upgrade buildings such as ice rinks and to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Kathy Behrens, executive vice president of Social Responsibility & Player Programs at the NBA, told us:

While Professional NBA games are played inside climate

controlled arenas, most basketball around the world is played

outdoors. If air pollution, extreme heat, and other forms of

climate disruption make it difficult to enjoy or attend our

game and, of much concern, actually threatens the health and

safety of basketball players, fans, and business partners,

that matters greatly to the [NBA].

Pro basketball is working to reduce carbon emissions through improved energy efficiency at its arenas. A number of NBA arenas have achieved LEED certifications and some have installed on-site solar panels. The NBA has also come out in support of standards to reduce carbon pollution from electric powerplants, which is a cornerstone of President Obama's recently announced climate action plan.

On the football front, Adolfo Birch III, senior vice president of Labor Policy and Government Affairs for the NFL, wrote:

Twenty years ago, the NFL became the first professional

sports organization formally to address the environmental

impact of our marquee events--Super Bowl and Pro Bowl.

The program to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions during every Super Bowl has resulted in the planting of more than 50,000 trees in the Super Bowl host communities. The National Football League estimates that the 2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans achieved a reduction of nearly 24,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions or the equivalent of the energy use of 8,000 American homes for an entire year.

The U.S. Olympic Committee has also joined in the fight to reduce harmful carbon pollution. According to USOC CEO Scott Blackmun:

The Green Ring program aims to mitigate the USOC and our

athletes' impact on the environment through a number of

sustainability efforts, an area that is a passion for many of

our athletes. Through Green Ring, we hope to contribute to

sustainability while using our platform to educate and

inspire our constituents to do the same. Our focus is more

action, less carbon.

Other international bodies have also launched aggressive plans to fight climate change. The 2014 soccer World Cup in Brazil is aiming to be carbon neutral by offsetting 2.7 million tons of carbon dioxide estimated to be generated by this year's Confederation Cup tournament and the World Cup next year.

Our major sports leagues thus join a great army amassing on the side of climate action: virtually every major scientific body, the insurance and reinsurance industry, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Academies, NASA, and the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, leading Americans and international corporations, and the American Public Health Association. To them and many others, who are all in this fight, we can add our friends in the world of sports: Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, the National Football League, and the U.S. Olympic Committee. There is a growing chorus of voices from every sector of American society calling for action. Indeed, there is work to be done. The major sports organizations are doing their part because they know that few things define American society like the teams we cheer and the games we play.

We in Congress need to wake up and join the fight. It is time to set aside the partisan nonsense and the polluter-fueled fantasies and at last take real steps to reduce our carbon pollution and preserve our distinctly American way of life.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, for the past 25 years, Rev. Rebecca Spencer has provided parishioners at the United Church of Christ's Central

Congregational Church in Providence, RI, with thoughtful, dedicated, and selfless leadership.

I have been blessed to experience Reverend Spencer's inspiring stewardship firsthand. As a member of the Central Congregational Church for the years that I lived in Providence, I saw her regularly touch the lives of her parishioners by providing the spiritual guidance sought by so many in today's fast-paced and sometimes lonely world. And as the first woman in the United Church of Christ's history to become a senior minister without first serving as an associate of the congregation, Reverend Spencer has been a role model for the young women of her congregation who aspire to follow in her footsteps and one day take on leadership roles of their own.

Outside of church, Reverend Spencer has been a leader in Rhode Island's close-knit community. From her work to prevent domestic violence, to her service to our children through the United Way of Rhode Island, to the counsel she provides the Bioethics Committee at Women & Infants Hospital, Reverend Spencer has demonstrated a deep devotion to public service. Her contributions have made our State a better place for all.

Last year, I had the privilege of bringing Reverend Spencer to the Senate floor to deliver the opening prayer as a guest chaplain. Her invocation reminded each of us, particularly those us of elected to represent our fellow citizens, of our responsibility as members of the national and international community:

Gracious and loving God, we thank You for Your presence

with us. You offer wisdom and perspective and grace. We ask

Your blessings to be upon these elected representatives. May

all that we do reflect Your purpose that we live together as

Your children in harmony and freedom. May Your blessings and

our work bring real hope to those who may be struggling or

oppressed.

We do ask for Your special blessings to be with those who

serve our country in the military--at home, at sea, in the

air, and foreign countries. Shield them from danger as they

work for peace.

This is indeed a gift of a new day You have given to us.

May all our endeavors honor You and may we all serve the

cause of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in this

beloved land of ours. May we truly do justice and love

kindness and walk humbly with You, our God.

Congratulations to Reverend Spencer on her 25th anniversary at the Central Congregational Church. Rhode Island is proud to call her one of our own, and I am proud to call her a friend.

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

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

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

Mr. President, I am here because I serve on the conference committee that is charged with negotiating a bipartisan budget deal. The Democrats have come to the table with a Senate-passed budget. The Presiding Officer will remember the long all-night ordeal of that budget.

Our budget replaces the dumb and harmful sequester cuts with balanced deficit reduction. If fact, you do not get much more balanced than the Democratic program. It is half from spending cuts and half from closing loopholes in the Tax Code. Our proposal would add almost $2 trillion more of deficit reduction to the $2.5 trillion we have already done so far.

Let's look at what we have done so far. Of the $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction to date, about $1.5 trillion has come from cuts in what we call discretionary spending; the spending that Congress approves each year that funds most government operations including our military. This is the $1.5 trillion in cuts out of all of the $12.6 trillion in spending.

We got another $600 billion in revenue, mostly from letting the Bush tax cuts expire for very high-income taxpayers. So this thin red line is the additional $600 billion in revenue compared to the existing revenue of the country. As you will see, we have cut far more in spending than we have added in revenues going into this budget discussion.

The remainder of the $2.5 trillion comes from the interest savings that are associated with those, just to make the numbers true up. This circle is here to demonstrate that to date we have yet to touch one dime in the other big budget item, which is loophole spending in the Tax Code.

This is a pretty good-sized chunk of annual spending, about 12 percent of the levels projected in 2010. The fiscal cliff bill that restored the Clinton-era rates to families making over $450,000 added about 2 percent to other revenue projections, to the loophole category which is worth at least $14 trillion, conceivably a lot more, because some of the loopholes are so wide you do not even know what is going through them. The money just shows up in the Cayman Islands. We do not know what we have lost. That remains totally untouched.

What we want to do is take just 7 percent, a tiny slice of this loophole revenue, and bring it back and use it for deficit reduction. That touching the loophole nerve is what has brought the Republicans to a screeching halt. In contrast to our exactly balanced approach--50 percent spending, 50 percent loopholes--Chairman Ryan's budget would 100 percent go after the programs on which low-income and middle-class Americans rely, without touching a single Tax Code giveaway--no balance at all.

But, of course, unbalanced is the Republican way in budgets. For instance, the Republican budget changes Medicare into a voucher program. That is not very balanced. That is not what the American people want. The Republican budget cuts nondefense discretionary spending to levels lower than anything the American public has ever seen since OMB started keeping track. That is an extreme budget and not a balanced approach.

The Republican budget would set annual domestic spending levels below 1962. If you think back to what America was like in 1962, there were no Pell grants. So if any of the pages were thinking of someday getting a Pell grant, that is gone. It did not exist in 1962. In 1962, 30 percent of American seniors lived in poverty. That is the level of spending the Republican budget would take us back to.

The rhetoric has been just as unbalanced as the proposals. Speaker Boehner has said talk about raising revenue is over--over. We have not even started and he says it is over, zero percent out of loopholes. He says the conversation is over. I do not think so. The conversation has not even begun.

But true to the Speaker's rhetoric, the Republican budget puts the burden of deficit reduction back onto Americans who can least afford it, while preserving for corporations and for the people who get the benefit of Tax Code giveaways every single dollar. In his conference committee opening remarks, Chairman Ryan said: If this conference becomes an argument about taxes, we are not going to get anywhere.

Let's take a look at the so-called taxes in this loophole area that Democrats would like to discuss. By the way, we get $975 billion out of that, which is a slice slightly larger than this one and considerably smaller than that one. So where do we get it from? We go to what I refer to as the Republican treasure trove. We go to their Ali Baba's cave of treasure carved aside and saved for corporations and the rich.

We go to the tax earmarks and the special deals, the special interests which year after year have been squirreled away into the Tax Code through their lobbyists and through their numbers. How big can Ali Baba's cave be? Seriously? How much money goes out the backdoor of the Tax Code through these loopholes and deductions? I will show you.

This bar represents $1.13 trillion, which is the amount of revenue collected by the government through the individual income sections of the Tax Code. That is what goes into Uncle Sam's pocket from the Tax Code. Here is what goes out the backdoor in loopholes and deductions: $1.02 trillion. So for every $1 that actually gets collected under the individual income tax, 90 cents goes out the backdoor through the loophole circle.

That is off-limits? Oh, I do not see why. It is a grand total every year of more than $1 trillion. Do not tell me we cannot touch it at all. By the way, when you are talking budget numbers, you multiply by 10. So $1 trillion over 10 years becomes $10 trillion. That is talking some pretty serious money, to pretend, as Chairman Ryan said: If we are going to have an argument about taxes, we are not going to get anywhere. You are not even going to look at $10 trillion and not get anywhere?

On the corporate side, for every $1 in revenues the United States collects, here it is, $242 billion that we actually collect, that goes into Uncle Sam's pocket from corporate income tax revenue, here is what goes out the bookdoor of the corporate Tax Code: $148 billion.

So like individual income, when it comes to corporate income, for every $1 Uncle Sam actually gets in revenues through the Tax Code, 60 cents-plus goes out the bookdoor through loopholes and deductions and other tax gimmicks. So, again, we budget for 10 years. So $148 billion becomes pretty close to $1.5 trillion. That is big bucks. If you add the two together and do it for 10 years, which is what we do in the budget world, and account for modest growth over those 10 years, we are talking about $14 trillion.

We need to do $975 billion in deficit reduction out of loopholes from a $14 trillion number. Do not tell me we cannot find it there. Of course, the $14 trillion does not even count the billions of dollars that corporations and wealthy tax avoiders hide offshore. They do not even go through the gateway of the Tax Code and then out the backdoor.

They do not even get counted in the first instance. They go off to the Cayman Islands, to tax havens, they get hidden in Swiss bank accounts, who knows what, but they do not get subjected to American taxation.

By the way, that is pretty big business. Chairman Conrad, who was our predecessor chairman on the Budget Committee, used to have a slide he would show that showed a picture of a rather bland-looking four- or five-story building, the building in the Cayman Islands that did not look like much, not very big. You could drive by it, you would not particularly notice it. But he would point out in that little building over 18,000 companies claim to be doing business.

He would point out that the kind of business they were doing was monkey business with the Tax Code because nobody could put 18,000 businesses in that little building. None of that stuff gets counted in the $14 trillion, the stuff that goes through the front and then out the backdoor.

So the spending--the earmarks--that gets done through the Tax Code is a very big treasure trove. While much of this tax spending helps low- income and middle-class families, too much of it goes to high-income taxpayers who do not need it but who are clever and connected enough to get special deals, to get their tax earmarks into the Tax Code.

But, of course, the Republicans do not want us to look into their treasure trove. Ali Baba's cave of tax tricks is where the juicy earmarks are for the special interests. If you remember back to the last Presidential campaign, it became public that Mitt Romney had to fiddle his taxes in order to get his tax rate up to a 14-percent tax rate.

Some people gimmick their taxes to try to get their rates down. The rates for people such as Mitt Romney are so low to begin with that he had to play tax games to get his rates up to 14 percent so he would not look too bad as a Presidential candidate. Fourteen percent is a lower tax rate than a solitary hospital orderly pays. The guy who is walking down the linoleum hallways of Rhode Island Hospital at 2 o'clock in the morning delivering supplies pays a higher tax rate than that.

We cannot do anything about that? That is a tax question we cannot discuss? How do Romney and the hedge fund billionaires get away with that? Look in Ali Baba's cave of tax treasures for the carried interest exception. If you want to know where ExxonMobil, which is one of the richest and most profitable corporations in the history of the world, gets its hands into the American taxpayer's pockets and pulls out oil and gas subsidies, look for those Big Oil subsidies in Ali Baba's treasure cave.

Do you want to know why Amazon, Boeing, Carnival Cruise Lines, Duke Energy, PG&E, all companies making billions of dollars in profits per year, pay effective tax rates well under 10 percent? Look at the $150 billion in corporate tax giveaways there in Ali Baba's treasure cave.

Do you want to know how it is that corporate jets get special favored tax treatment compared to the commercial jets that ordinary mortals fly around in? Look at the accelerated corporate jet depreciation schedules in Ali Baba's tax treasure cave.

When the Speaker says that talk about raising revenue is over, look at what he is protecting? The Republican treasure trove of corporate and special interest earmarks heaped up like gold and jewels in the old illustrations in Ali Baba's cave of tax treasures.

We Democrats are knocking at that door. We are saying: Americans pay in deficit reduction $1.5 trillion already. We are offering another $975 billion on top of that.

We are saying that $600 billion came out of tax increases. What about loopholes?

Now we want to go into the cave. The Republicans are getting very anxious. The alarms are ringing at the special interests, and our colleagues are rushing to the trenches to defend the special interests and to defend their cherished tax earmarks. That is why they want to keep revenue--loophole closing--out of the debt and deficit discussion. They know that once we start taking a real look into Ali Baba's cave, some of that stuff will be impossible to defend to the American people.

It wasn't fair when it first went in, it has never been fair through its sordid history in the Tax Code, and it is not fair sitting in the Tax Code now. These are things we should get rid of even if we didn't need it for the debt and deficit. This is special interest crony capitalism at its worst. We intend to have a look at it in these discussions.

If we listened in the Budget Committee, the Republicans said it plainly: Not a penny of tax loopholes can go for deficit reduction. They have said they are willing to move the treasure around a little bit in Ali Baba's cave as long as it all still gets used for corporations and the wealthy. That is not a guess; that is the way the Republican budget is structured. Those are their budget numbers, all of it to lower tax rates for corporations and the rich. They are willing to spread the wealth around as long as it stays in the same hands.

We are at the gates of Ali Baba's cave, this special treasure trove of Tax Code special deals and earmarks for the rich and well connected. We are at the place where the lobbyists wheel the sweet corporate tax deals. We are knocking on the door of the $14 trillion in tax spending that has been left completely untouched in the deficit reduction so far. Our Republican colleagues are getting a little twitchy.

Come on, fellas. Out of nearly $14 trillion in tax spending and earmarks, can't we put just 7 percent of it toward the debt and the deficit? Our proposal is to leave 93 percent of the treasure in the cave. That is not unreasonable. What is unreasonable, what is unbalanced is the Republican desire that not a nickel in loophole closing can go toward our debt and deficit.

I could go through innumerable comments by our Republican colleagues warning us about the dire danger of our debt and deficit, warning about the terrible injustice to future generations, warning about the threat to our national security and to our national welfare; dire, serious warnings about the epic nature of the danger of our debt and deficit and the importance of curing it. When we actually stack it up, it is less important to them than every loophole in the Tax Code.

My point is that people can't have it both ways. They can't be telling the American people that the debt and the deficit is the No. 1 threat to the well-being of our beloved country but is also less important than every deduction every lobbyist ever squirreled away for every special interest in the Tax Code. Both of those cannot be true.

We must persevere to get into Ali Baba's cave of tax treasures in the loophole side of this equation. I hope very much that we will. I think that is nothing more than reasonable, nothing more than balanced. Indeed, one could argue it is actually a lot less than balanced because we only want 7 percent and we would be letting them keep 93 percent. We would be doing far more on spending than we would on revenue and loopholes combined. It is not balanced in the even-steven sense of the word, but at least it is generally fair. The Republican proposal that it should be all spending and zero loopholes is what is unbalanced and what I object to.

I yield the floor, and 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 ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. President, I am here today for now the 50th time to urge my colleagues to wake up to what carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and our oceans. Once a week--50 weeks--every week. Why? Why do I do this?

First, because it is real. It is very real. It is happening. Here is the change in average global surface temperature since 1970. It is pretty hard to deny. Of course, if you are a denier, you will look at it and you will see from the same data that it stopped. The denier who tells you it stopped won't tell you that it stopped five times earlier on the way up. In fact, you could say that climate change has stopped six times since the 1970s, and even went down, but it didn't stay stopped long.

Look at the linear trend for the whole data set from 1970 to 2013. No one can deny over this period the Earth is warming. This decade was warmer than the last, which was warmer than the one before that, which was warmer than the one before that.

Let's look at NASA's entire historic surface temperature record going back to the 19th century. Listen to what University of California Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller has to say about the temperature record.

The frequent rises and falls, virtually a stairstep

pattern, are part of the historic record, and there is no

expectation that they will stop, whatever their cause. . . .

[T]he land temperature record . . . is full of fits and

starts that make the upward trend vanish for short periods.

Regardless of whether we understand them, there is no reason

to expect them to stop.

Here you can see again these short steps in the upward march.

One reason we can't expect these upward steps to stop is that we know what is driving them. What is driving climate change is something even contrarian scientists accept; that is, more carbon dioxide leads to more warming. Simple as that; a 150-year-old established basic principle of physics.

This is the October 1861 edition of the London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. It includes a manuscript by physicist John Tyndall entitled ``Radiation of Heat by Gases and Vapours.'' He says:

[T]o account for different amounts of heat being preserved

to the Earth at different times, a slight change in [the

atmosphere's] variable constituents would suffice for this.

Such changes in fact may have produced all the mutations of

climate which the researches of geologists reveal.

The ``variable constituents'' to which Tyndall refers include carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor. That is from 1861. President Lincoln took office that year. Yet here we are today having to explain on the floor of the Senate the physics of what carbon dioxide does in the atmosphere.

It is not just the principle that is established. There are lots of measurements. The carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now exceeds 400 parts per million. For the last 800,000 years--at least 800,000 years, and perhaps actually millions of years--we have been in a range of 170 to 300 parts per million. That has been the whole of human existence. Homo sapiens have been around for about 200,000 of those 800,000 years, and it is only now--it is only since the industrial revolution--that we have broken out of that safe window that has protected us through that entire history of our species and now we have broken to 400. And that is a measurement.

Look at the oceans. Oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat caused by greenhouse gases over the last 50 years. Absorbing all that heat makes the oceans rise.

Oceans have absorbed about 30 percent of our carbon emissions, which would otherwise be in the atmosphere causing more warming. Absorbing that carbon makes the oceans more acidic, and that is all stuff we measure.

At the Newport tide gauge, sea level is up almost 10 inches since the 1930s when we had our catastrophic 1938 hurricane in Rhode Island. You measure that. It basically takes a ruler.

We are about 3 to 4 degrees warmer in the winter in Narragansett Bay than we were 50 years ago when my wife's URI mentor was doing his doctoral thesis--3 to 4 degrees. You measure that. It takes a thermometer.

And the ocean is acidifying at the fastest rate recorded in 50 million years. You measure that with a litmus test, which anybody with an aquarium does.

It is one thing to be against science, it is another to be the party against measurement. So the polluters and front groups don't talk much about the oceans, but that doesn't change the fact this is real and it is past denying.

That takes me to the second reason I do this, and that is that it is plain old-fashioned wrong when people lie and trick other people, particularly when people are going to be hurt by the lies. And it is worse when there is money behind the trickery--when it is purposeful. Lies cannot go unanswered, and that is another reason that I speak.

There isn't just lying going on. There is a whole carefully built apparatus: phony-baloney organizations designed to look and sound like they are real, messages honed by public relations experts to sound like they are true, payroll scientists whom polluters can trot out when they need them, and the whole thing big and complicated enough to be fooled into thinking it is not all the same beast. But it is. It is akin to the mythical Hydra--many heads, same beast.

One day folks are going to look back at this and those behind it are going to be disgraced for what they did and it is going to be a scandal. That is the third reason I speak. 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 collaborators will be judged harshly. The Republican Party will be judged harshly for letting itself be led astray by them. But--and here is where it truly hurts--the failure of American democracy this is causing will also be judged harshly and will stain the reputation of our great American experiment. We in this generation have been passed this precious experiment by generations before us that fought, bled, and died to put it safely in our hands--and we do this. We foul it, by lying and denying for a bunch of polluters. Some generation we are going to be.

If we believe this world needs America, this matters. Because a world fouled and changed by carbon pollution, in ways we could foresee but denied, will not believe it as much of a need for what a lying and denying America has to offer. This episode will darken the lamp America holds up to the world. We are a great country but not when we are lying and denying it is real. The atmosphere is warming; ice is melting; seas are warming, rising, and acidifying. It is time for the misleading fantasies to end.

Here is how we go forward. First, price carbon right. Make the big carbon polluters pay a fee to the American people, as I have proposed with Representatives Waxman and Blumenauer and Senator Schatz; a pollution fee to cover the cost of dumping their waste into our atmosphere and oceans, a cost which they now happily push off onto the rest of us. I know at present political conditions do not allow us to price carbon, so we must change those political conditions, and we can.

Recently, President Obama changed the calculus for polluters: carbon pollution standards for new and existing powerplants, no more unchecked carbon dumping. Fifty powerplants emit one out of every eight tons of America's carbon dioxide emissions. These 50 dirtiest U.S. powerplants emit more than Canada or Korea. When the big polluters see the costs of complying with those new standards coming down at them, they may take a second look at an economywide carbon fee. Here is a news flash. When the polluters' calculus begins to change, the political calculus in Congress will change too.

Nothing says we have to wait for the polluters to figure this out on their schedule. There are armies on our side. It is not just the environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, League of Conservation Voters, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club or National Wildlife Federation. It is not just virtually every major scientific organization, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union or the American Meteorological Society.

We have faith-based groups such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of the Churches of Christ, Interfaith Power & Light, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. We have fishing, wildlife, and outdoor groups such as Trout Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, and Ducks Unlimited. They are joined by major sports leagues such as the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, and National Hockey League, as well as the American Lung Association--which prefer to see kids playing outside in clean, healthy air.

We have the Joint Chiefs of Staff on our side, joined by NASA, the National Academies, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, even the Government Accountability Office, the congressional watchdog. By the way, about NASA--let's not forget that NASA scientists sent an SUV-sized rover to Mars, they landed it safely on Mars, and they are driving it around on Mars right now. I will put NASA scientists up against the polluters' payroll scientists all day long.

We have insurers and reinsurers whose business depends on understanding the mounting risk of natural disasters, folks such as Munich Re, Swiss Re, Allianz, and the Reassurance Association of America. We have State and local governments that are already active. Nine Northeastern States, for instance, including my own Rhode Island, engage in cap and trade through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Four Florida counties share resources and strategies for adapting to climate change through the bipartisan Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, and those are just two examples of many from around the country.

A coalition of investors worth nearly $3 trillion just wrote to 45 fossil fuel companies seeking explanation about risks facing their fossil fuel investments. Divestment campaigns are popping up at college campuses across the Nation. Major utilities accept the science and are investing in renewables and improving efficiency. Energy companies PG&E, the Public Service Company of New Mexico, and Exelon all quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce after a Chamber official called for putting climate science on trial such as the Scopes ``monkey trial'' of 1925.

America's flagship companies such as General Motors, Ford, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nike, Apple, Walmart, and Alcoa all recognize the serious implications of climate change. This support is latent, though, and it is unorganized. It is time to wake up and to gather our armies. We have to create allied command, assemble our divisions, agree on a strategy, and go into action. That will affect the calculus in Congress.

Most important, we have the American people. Sixty-five percent of voters support the President taking significant steps to address climate change now. Another poll found that 82 percent of Americans believe we should start preparing now for rising sea levels and severe storms from climate change. Those in Congress who would deny science to protect the polluting interests increasingly look ridiculous, even to their own side. Misleading statements in the media, such as the stuff purveyed by the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal, are losing their battle and losing their audience. It is not just time to wake up. People are waking up. Inevitably, the truth will be fully known.

The polls show clearly that climate denial is a losing tactic. Four out of five voters under 35 support the President taking action to address climate change. Fifty-two percent of young Republican voters would be less likely to vote for someone who opposed the President's climate action plan. Even a majority of Texans say more should be done about global warming by all levels of government, with 62 percent of

Texans saying more should be done in Congress. For those last holdout deniers comes this: Fifty-three percent of young Republican voters under age 35 said they would describe a climate denier as ignorant, out of touch, or crazy.

Republicans outside of Congress are trying to lead their party back to reality and away from what even young Republicans are calling ignorant, out of touch, and crazy extremist views. They support a revenue-neutral carbon fee: Republicans such as our former colleagues in Congress, Sherwood Boehlert, Wayne Gilchrest, and Robert Inglis; Republicans such as former Environmental Protection Agency Administrators William Ruckelshaus, Lee Thomas, William Reilly, and Christine Todd Whitman, who served under Presidents Nixon, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush respectively; advisers such as President Reagan's Secretary of State George Schultz, Reagan's economic policy adviser, Art Laffer--known as Reagan's economist--and David Fromm, speech writer for George W. Bush.

Here is what the Republican Presidential nominee had to say 5 years ago:

[I]n the end, we're all left with the same set of facts.

The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention,

especially in Washington. Good stewardship, prudence, and

simple common sense demand that we [act to] meet the

challenge, and act quickly. . . . We have many advantages in

the fight against global warming, but time is not one of

them.

[T]he fundamental incentives on the market are still on the

side of carbon-based energy. This has to change before we can

make the decisive shift away from fossil fuels. . . . [T]here

were costs we weren't counting . . . [a]nd these terrible

costs have added up now, in the atmosphere, in the oceans,

and all across the natural world. . . . We Americans like to

say that there is no problem we can't solve, however

complicated, and no obstacle we cannot overcome if we meet it

together. I believe this about our country. I know this about

our country. And now it is time for us to show those

qualities once again.

It is indeed time for us to show those qualities once again. It is time to wake up. It is time to turn back from the misleading propaganda of the polluters, the misguided extremism of the tea party, and the mistaken belief that we can ignore without consequence the harm our carbon pollution is causing. It is time to face facts, be adults, and meet our responsibilities.

I give these speeches because climate change is real, because the campaign of denial is as poisonous to our democracy as carbon pollution is to our atmosphere and oceans, and because I am confident, I am confident we can do this. We can strengthen our economy, we can redirect our future, we can protect our democracy, and we can do our duty to the generations that will follow us and will look back in shame unless we change our program. But we have to pay attention. We have to wake up.

I yield the floor.

While I was awaiting my turn to speak on the floor, I had the opportunity to hear both Senator Boxer and Senator Baldwin. I commend both of them for very excellent and eloquent remarks and thank Senator Baldwin for her courage and conviction.

I also know that my dear colleague in the House, Representative David Cicilline, is watching this vote very carefully. We hope we will make him, Senator Baldwin, and so many people around this country proud when we take up this vote tomorrow.

I am here today for what is now the 49th straight week in which the Senate has been in session to urge that we wake up to the effects of carbon pollution on the Earth's oceans and climate, that we sweep away the manufactured doubt that so often surrounds this issue and get serious about the threat we face from climate change.

When I come to the floor, I often have a specialized subject. I talk about the oceans and how they are affected by carbon pollution. I talk about the economics around carbon pollution. I talk about the faith community's interest in carbon pollution. Today I want to talk about the role of the media in all of this.

In America, we count on the press to report faithfully and accurately our changing world and to awaken the public to apparent mounting threats. Our Constitution gives the press special vital rights so that they can perform this special vital role. But what happens when the press fails in this role? What happens when the press stops being independent, when it becomes the bedfellow of special interests? The Latin phrase ``Quis custodiet ipsos custodes''--who will watch the watchmen themselves--then becomes the question. The press is supposed to scrutinize all of us. Who watches them when they fail at their independent role?

I wish to speak about a very specific example--the editorial page of one of our Nation's leading publications, the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal is one of America's great newspapers, and there is probably none better when it comes to news coverage and reporting. It is a paragon in journalism until one turns to the editorial page and then steps into a chasm of polluter sludge when the issue is harmful industrial pollutants. When that is the issue, harmful industrial pollutants, this editorial page will mislead its readers, will deny the scientific consensus, and it will ignore its excellent news pages' actual reporting, all to help the industry, all to help the campaign to manufacture doubt and delay action.

As I said before, there is a denier's playbook around these issues. We have seen the pattern repeat itself in the pages of the Wall Street Journal on acid rain, on the ozone layer, and now, most pronouncedly, on climate change. The pattern is a simple one: No. 1, deny the science; No. 2, question the motives; and No. 3, exaggerate the costs. Call it the polluting industry 1-2-3.

Let's start in the 1970s when scientists first warned that chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which were commonly used as refrigerants and aerosol propellants, could break down the Earth's stratospheric ozone layer, which would increase human exposure to ultraviolet rays and cause cancer. As outlined in a report by Media Matters, this is when the Wall Street Journal's editorial page embarked upon what would become a persistent and familiar pattern.

For more than 25 years, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page doggedly printed editorials devaluing science and attacking any regulation of CFCs.

In January of 1976, an editorial proclaimed the connection between CFCs and ozone depletion ``is only a theory and will remain only that until further efforts are made to test its validity in the atmosphere itself.''

In May of 1979, an editorial said that scientists ``still don't know to what extent, if any, mankind's activities have altered the ozone barrier or whether the possibly harmful effects of these activities aren't offset by natural processes. . . . Thus, it now appears, all the excitement over the threat to the ozone layer was founded on scanty scientific evidence.''

In March 1984, we read on the editorial page that concerns about ozone depletion were based on ``premature scientific evidence.'' Rather, it was written, ``new evidence shows that the ozone layer isn't vanishing after all; it may even be increasing.''

In March 1989, an editorial called for more research on the ``questionable theory that CFCs cause depletion of the ozone layer'' and implored scientists to ``continue to study the sky until we know enough to make a sound decision regarding the phasing out of our best refrigerants.''

Again, deny the science.

Predictably, they also attacked the motives of reformers. A February 1992 editorial stated that ``it is simply not clear to us that real science drives policy in this area.''

Finally, playbook 3, they have warned that action to slow ozone depletion would be costly.

A March 1984 editorial claimed that banning CFCs would ``cost the economy some $1.52 billion in forgone profits and product-change expenses'' as well as 8,700 jobs.

An August 1990 editorial warned that banning CFCs would lead to a ``dramatic increase in air-conditioning and refrigeration costs.'' It added that ``the likely substitute for the most popular banned refrigerant costs 30 times as much and will itself be banned by the year 2015. The economy will have to shoulder at least $10 to $15 billion a year in added refrigeration costs by the year 2000.''

A February 1992 editorial warned that accelerating the phase-out of CFCs ``almost surely will translate into big price increases on many consumer products.''

Despite the protests of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, we actually listened in America to the science, and we took action. We protected the ozone layer, we protected the public health, and the economy prospered.

What about all those costs that they claimed? Looking back, we can see that action to slow ozone depletion in fact saved money. According to the EPA's 1999 progress report on the Clean Air Act, ``every dollar invested in ozone protection provides $20 of societal health benefits in the United States''--$1 spent, $20 saved. The Journal's response? Silence. They just stopped talking about it.

Next we will go to acid rain. In the late 1970s scientists began reporting that acid rain was falling on most of our Northeastern United States. Guess what. Again, at the Wall Street Journal editorial page, out came the playbook.

First, they questioned the science behind the problem. A May 1980 editorial questioned the link between increased burning of coal and acid rain, concluding that existing ``data are not conclusive and more studies are needed.''

In September 1982 the editors told us that ``scientific study, as opposed to political rhetoric, points more and more toward the theory that nature, not industry, is the primary source of acid rain.'' Nature is the primary source of acid rain.

A September 1985 Journal editorial claimed that ``the scientific case for acid rain is dying.''

In June 1989 the editorial page argued that we needed to wait--it is always needing to wait--for science to understand, for example, to what extent acid rain is manmade before enacting regulations. During that same period the Wall Street Journal's editorial page also smeared the motive, declaring that the effort to address acid rain was driven by politics, not science.

Consistent with No. 2 in the playbook, in July 1987 the editorial page wrote: ``As the acid-rain story continues to develop, it's becoming increasingly apparent that politics, not nature, is the primary force driving the theory's biggest boosters.''

Wall Street Journal editors also consistently opposed plans to address acid rain because of cost concerns--No. 3 in the playbook.

A June 1982 editorial warned of the ``immense cost of controlling sulfur emissions.''

A January 1984 editorial claimed a regulatory program for acid rain would cost ``upwards of $100 billion.''

These claims were made even as the evidence mounted against their position, even as President Reagan's own scientific panel said that inaction would risk ``irreversible damage.'' Of course, the cost equation of the Wall Street Journal editorial page was always totally one-sided--always the cost to clean up the pollution; never the cost of the harm the pollution caused.

That is the industry playbook, faithfully spouted through the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal--No. 1, deny the science; No. 2, question the motives; and No. 3, exaggerate the costs.

But we made undeniable progress against acid rain despite the efforts of the editorial page. Guess what. The Journal's editorial page suddenly reversed its tune. A July 2001 editorial called the cap-and- trade program for sulfur dioxide ``fabulously successful,'' noting that the program ``saves about $700 million annually compared with the cost of traditional regulation and has been reducing emissions by four million tons annually.'' On this occasion, when its effort had failed, the Journal changed its tune, but until then it was still the industry playbook--No. 1, deny the science; No. 2, question the motives; and No. 3, exaggerate the costs.

With carbon pollution running up to 400 parts per million for the first time in human history, the Journal is using the same old polluter playbook against climate change. The Journal has persistently published editorials against taking action to prevent manmade climate change. As usual, they question the science.

In June 1993 the editors wrote that there is ``growing evidence that global warming just isn't happening.''

In September 1999 the page reported that ``serious scientists'' call global warming ``one of the greatest hoaxes of all time.''

In June 2005 the page asserted that the link between fossil fuels and global warming had ``become even more doubtful.'' This is June 2005, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page is questioning whether there is a link between fossil fuels and global warming.

A December 2011 editorial declared that the global warming debate requires ``more definitive evidence.''

As usual--back to the industry playbook--the motives of the scientists were smeared.

A December 2009 editorial claimed that leading climate scientists were suspect because they ``have been on the receiving end of climate change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.''

As usual, we heard that tackling climate change, tackling carbon pollution, would cost us a lot of money. In August 2009, the editorial page warned ``that a high CO2 tax would reduce world GDP a staggering 12.9 percent in 2100--the equivalent of $40 trillion a year.''

Just last month, October 2013, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal warned that in the face of climate change, ``interventions make the world poorer than it would otherwise be.''

That same October 2013 editorial actually completed the full polluter playbook trifecta by also decrying the ``political actors'' seeking to gain economic control and by questioning the science, saying ``global surface temperatures have remained essentially flat.''

They covered them all in just the one editorial. If only the editorial page writers at the Wall Street Journal would turn the page to the actual news their own paper reports on climate change.

A March 2013 article reported:

New research suggests average global temperatures were

higher in the past decade than over most of the previous

11,300 years, a finding that offers a long-term context for

assessing modern-day climate change.

A piece from the Wall Street Journal news in August 2013 revealed:

Average global temperatures in 2012 were roughly in line

with those of the past decade or so, but the year still

ranked among the 10 warmest on record as melting Arctic ice

and warming oceans continued to boost sea levels.

That takes me to a particular fact about what carbon pollution is doing, and that is our oceans are taking the brunt of the harm from carbon pollution, and it is time to stop looking the other way. But the Wall Street Journal editorial page doesn't often address the effects of carbon pollution on oceans, perhaps because the changes taking place in our oceans are not a matter where the complexity of computer modeling leaves room for phony doubt to be insinuated.

The oceans' recent changes from our carbon pollution aren't projections and they aren't models, they are measurements--simple, unyielding measurements. We measure sea level rise with a ruler. It is not complicated. We measure ocean temperature with a thermometer. We measure ocean acidification on the pH scale. They do not talk about that much in the Wall Street Journal editorial pages. There is no room for phony doubt. So they look elsewhere.

We have the right to expect independent and honest media to teach the American public about the threats facing our oceans and our environment. What a difference good reporting can make. Exemplary and compelling storytelling can and does influence our national conversation and inspire change. Reporters fail when they give false equivalency to arguments on each side of the political spectrum, even though they are not really equivalent. Editors fail when they look at the science, look at the measurements, look at the real threats posed to our world and then fail to tell us the unvarnished truth.

The story of climate change needs to be told. Our oceans need a voice. It seems the big polluters already have one.

I yield the floor.

Before I join the colloquy with Senators Blumenthal and Schumer, I have two bits of housekeeping.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 5 p.m. today all postcloture time on the Griffin nomination be yielded back, and

the Senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate; the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order; that any related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, this is my 48th trip to the floor to remind Congress that it is time to wake up to the threat of climate change.

I am joined by Senators Blumenthal and Schumer because 1 year ago today Hurricane Sandy struck our States with frightening force. Now, a year later, communities across the Northeast have dug out and are rebuilding, but Sandy left a permanent mark on our coasts and on our consciousness.

To be sure, we cannot say that this devastating storm was specifically caused by climate change. However, Sandy showed the many ways we are vulnerable to the undeniable effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and warming oceans--effects that can in turn load the dice for more damaging storms.

As evening fell on October 29, 2012, a storm surge from the largest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded swept against Rhode Island's shores about 5 feet above mean sea level. A few hours later, waters peaked around New York City--about 9 feet above mean sea level. A harrowing night followed for victims of Hurricane Sandy. It was a night that took more than 150 lives and caused $65 billion in physical damage and economic loss.

Hurricane Sandy, or Superstorm Sandy as many remember it, hit 24 States with direct effects. Floodwaters invaded homes and swept out roads. High winds knocked out power to 8.5 million homes and businesses, cutting a swath of darkness that could be seen from space. An entire New York neighborhood was gutted by fires that emergency personnel could not reach through the storm.

Sandy flooded nearly the entire coastline with beaches and dunes driven down by the waves and wind. Displaced sand and stone covered roads like here on Atlantic Avenue in Misqaumicut, RI. Houses were swept off their foundations in Rhode Island's southern coast communities like Matunuck, shown in this photo. Here we see Governor Lincoln Chafee, a former Member of this body, surveying the damage to these homes.

President Obama granted Governor Chafee's request for a Federal disaster declaration covering four of Rhode Island's five counties. More than 130,000 Rhode Islanders lost power. Eight cities and towns implemented evacuation actions. Nearly one-third of all Rhode Islanders were directly affected one way or another. In a close-knit State such as ours, nearly everyone was touched by Sandy.

Rhode Islanders are resilient and we are recovering. Over $30 million has been paid out to Rhode Islanders for more than 1,000 Federal flood insurance claims. FEMA has approved more than 260 projects for reimbursement. Over $12 million has been put to repairing our State's parks, wildlife refuges, and historic sites. Individuals and families received more than $423,000 in grants to meet their immediate basic needs for housing and other essential disaster-related expenses.

The Federal Government will always play a central role for communities such as ours, picking up after a disaster like Sandy. So it would make sense for the Federal Government to learn from these events and be smart as we plan for future risks.

The Government Accountability Office recently reported on the risks to U.S. infrastructure posed by climate change. Roads, bridges, and water systems are designed to operate for 50 to 100 years. Well, 50 to 100 years from now, our climate and our coastline will be very different. Sandy threw at Rhode Island's shores Atlantic seas that had risen almost 10 inches since the 1930s, against a shoreline that had already retreated more than 100 feet in some locations. As climate change progresses, more and more infrastructure will be exposed to more and more risk.

Earlier this year GAO added to its High Risk List the United States financial exposure to climate change. GAO, our congressional watchdog, now warns that it is fiscally irresponsible to ignore the signs of climate change. The President's Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, and his Climate Action Plan, both call for adaptation to this risk from climate change--particularly for better coastal resiliency and preparedness.

Here is an example of doing it right. When hurricane Katrina hit the I-10 Twin Span Bridge that crosses Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans, it twisted and toppled the bridge's 255-ton concrete bridge spans off their piers and into the lake. The bridge was rebuilt by using Federal Highway Administration funding, but they built it stronger, better engineered, and in some sections they built it more than 20 feet higher.

It makes sense to make sure that our agencies repair American infrastructure to the commonsense standard that it is ready for future risks. Rebuilding to the specs that failed is not common sense. Being deliberately stupid in order to deny climate change is a losing proposition.

Congress can do something smart right now. We could pass the Water Resources and Development Act with the resiliency and restoration provisions that were in the Senate-passed bipartisan bill. Congress could support the President's Climate Action Plan, using our wise Earth's natural protections for our coastal infrastructure.

Of course, even robust climate adaptation won't let us off the hook in some places. New England can build levees and dams to hold the waters back, but the vast low areas of southeastern Florida are porous limestone. Even if you built a giant dike, the water would just seep in through the underlying limestone.

A study last year found that 3 feet of sea level rise, which is what we presently expect, will hit more than 1.5 million Floridians, and nearly 900,000 Florida homes--almost double the effect on any other State in the Nation. So Florida should want to prevent as much climate as possible, and that means cutting carbon pollution.

Ultimately, for the open market to work, we need to include the full cost of carbon pollution in the price of fossil fuels. Anything less is a subsidy to polluters. What Florida should want is for Congress to enact a carbon pollution fee to correct the market, and then return that fee to American families.

Ultimately, inaction is irresponsible, and Americans get it. Eighty- two percent of Americans believe we should start preparing now for rising sea levels and severe storms from climate change.

Young Americans, in particular, see through the phony climate denial message. Three-quarters of independent young voters and more than half of Republican young voters would describe climate deniers as ``ignorant,'' ``out of touch,'' or ``crazy.'' Let me repeat that. The majority of Republican voters under 35 would describe climate deniers as ``crazy,'' ``ignorant,'' or ``out of touch.'' Continuing the climate denial strategy is not a winning proposition for our friends on the other side. Even their own young voters see through it.

Congress should wake up to the alarms that are ringing in nature and to the voices of the American people. One of the loudest alarm gongs was Hurricane Sandy. Voltaire said: ``Men argue, nature acts.'' Well, nature acted, driving epic winds and seas against our shores, and she will continue to act if we continue to tip her careful balances with reckless carbon pollution and shameless subsidies to the big polluters.

We need to wake up as a Congress and take responsible action to protect our homes and communities. We need to remember Sandy and learn her lessons.

I yield the floor for my distinguished colleague from New York.

Mr. President, before I depart the floor, and while Senator Schumer and Senator Blumenthal are still here, I wish to add a point that is a personal observation of mine as a Senator; that is, first the Senator from New York is widely and properly regarded as one of the more formidable presences in the Senate. Having witnessed the difficulties that Senator Blumenthal discussed at getting the Sandy disaster relief out and done, I will say we learned Senator Schumer has an even higher gear when it comes to the urgent needs of his home State and of his coast. When his New York City lies battered and drowned by storm, the work that he did to make sure a reluctant House passed this relief for us was an exercise in legislative craftsmanship and personal vigor that many of us will long remember.

Of course, I have seen Senator Blumenthal fighting for his people in Connecticut, both after Hurricane Sandy and, of course, after the terrible tragedy that Connecticut experienced when a crazed gunman went into an elementary school and began to murder its children. So Senator Blumenthal, in responding to those cares, concerns, and crises of his home State of Connecticut, has been truly exemplary. It has been a privilege for me as a Senator to see these two Senators in action in their causes I just mentioned.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Aaron Goldner and Danielle Schreiber, two fellows in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. President, I join my colleague from Pennsylvania in expressing relief and optimism that, finally, it looks as though we are rid of the wasteful and useless government shutdown we have been put through for the past 2 weeks; that it looks as though we are rid of the dangerous threat of American default that we have faced for the last few days; and let's hope that together we are also rid of the malicious spirit that led us down this evil path in the first place.

A colleague the other day on the Senate floor used the analogy of a fire in an airplane's cockpit distracting the pilots from flying the aircraft where it needed to go as they had to put out the fire.

That is kind of what we have been through these past 2 weeks. I hope we will have no more of our own countrymen lighting fires in the cockpit just to try to get their way. We need as a nation to get our heads up, fly the plane, and ready ourselves for the weather ahead.

The last 2 weeks have been wasted in this useless artificial crisis and has distracted us from real crises, real problems, undeniable problems--things which the Speaker of the House can't make go away by finally allowing a vote but which will require us to work together to solve them. None is more significant to our children than what our carbon pollution is doing to the Earth's atmosphere and oceans. It is not enough just to put out the fire in the cockpit. We have to wake up to the real problems ahead and around us.

I know the Presiding Officer from Ohio is a keen enthusiast and student of history. I recently saw part of ``The Dust Bowl,'' Ken Burns' documentary series. The Dust Bowl calamity was an economic disaster and a human disaster, but it was also described in the show as having been an economic disaster and a human disaster because it was first and foremost an environmental disaster--indeed, one of the two or three most devastating environmental disasters in the United States.

The Dust Bowl happened, creating such disaster for so many good, hard-working families, because, simply put, we messed with Mother Nature. To plant wheat, we tore up the deep-rooted buffalo grass which had protected the prairies for generations. We ignored the cycles of drought which were the Great Plains' history. The result was tragedy and destruction.

There are obvious parallels from the Dust Bowl experience to where we are now on carbon pollution. Most obviously, lesson No. 1, you mess with Mother Nature at your peril. And are we ever messing with Mother Nature. We just broke through 400 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere after at least 800,000 years--which is longer than homo sapiens have been a species--in the range between 170 and 300. Our whole species has come to the success we have seen on this planet in a safe window of 170 to 300 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, and we have now broken out of it. And it is not just 400, it is 400 and climbing.

Let's move from our atmosphere to our oceans. Our oceans are acidifying at the fastest rate ever recorded. We have to go millions of years back into the geologic record to find anything comparable. When we go there, what else do we find when we look back to those points in the ancient geologic record? It isn't pretty. In fact, it is downright ominous.

The second lesson is that the cause of such a calamity can be a perfectly normal activity, just at the wrong scale. Look at the Dust Bowl. There is nothing wrong with plowing. Plowing the Earth is probably the single most valuable action humankind has ever learned to do. Plowing is essential to farming. Yet it was that ordinary activity--plowing--which brought on the Dust Bowl and the vast human tragedy that ensued because it was at the wrong scale.

Similarly, there is nothing inherently wrong with burning fossil fuels. We do it when we drive to the market, and we call it up when we flip on the light switch. Yet burning fossil fuels at too great a scale is leading us to the brink of a new disaster.

What changes and makes it no longer perfectly normal and OK is when we know the consequences of the scale of our activity. Once we know the consequences we are causing, that activity is no longer so benign and responsibility cannot be so easily shrugged off. If only the farmers at their plows had listened to the warnings of the cattlemen and Native Americans and not put every corner of every farm to the plow.

There is a third parallel, which is that there is a lot of lying done when there is money to be made. In the Dust Bowl, land dealers and speculators told farm families that plowing the prairies would make more rain fall. Rain follows the plow, they were told. They had nothing to worry about. And the land speculators sold, and they sold a pack of lies. The race to plow created more speculators and more hucksters and more lies.

Today we have the deniers--a sophisticated, well-honed apparatus of institutions and strategies designed to spread lies, designed to sow doubt, designed to delay action. Today it is done on a scale that makes the Dust Bowl hucksters look like piddling amateurs. It is funded by giant corporations such as ExxonMobil and Koch Industries. It uses the slickest Madison Avenue strategies. It maintains a stable of pet scientists willing to be trotted out and to recite from the polluters' playbook. It operates through a network of false front organizations designed to look more independent and credible than their funders are and designed to hide the money flow.

When history looks back and this story is fully told, I believe this apparatus of lies will take its place beside great American scandals such as Teapot Dome and Watergate. But for now it churns merrily on its way, cranking out the propaganda.

Regrettably, this apparatus has captured large segments of the Republican Party and silenced others. The polluters have maneuvered the question of carbon pollution right into the middle of the Republican Party's culture wars. The fossil fuel industry must be really chortling at having pulled off that fete. But it does not bode well for the Republican Party. Lies are ultimately revealed. The choice to make bedfellows of the polluters will soon enough be very damaging to the Republican Party. For the polluters, they have played the Republican Party for suckers, and they will grin all the way to the bank. They won't care.

The last parallel is the lesson that when you are messing big-time with Mother Nature, things can go precipitously wrong. Mother Nature can turn on you very suddenly. Wheat farming on the plains was a bonanza, with bumper crops year after year. Families who had never owned land, who had never before had a place to call their own, saw golden futures as far as the eye could see as the wheat ripened. And within just a few years the devastation was complete and families' dreams were shattered. The Dust Bowl came on fast.

There is a phrase--``a fool's paradise.'' It is called a fool's paradise because it looks like paradise for a while if you don't look ahead and take the precautions to protect paradise and fend off calamity. Not looking ahead is what gets you to the ``fool'' part.

Young people are looking ahead. Voters under 35, by a ratio of 66 to 27--more than 2 to 1--say that climate change is a problem we need to address. And when asked about climate deniers, 74 percent of Independent young voters said they would describe climate deniers as ignorant, out of touch, or crazy. For self-identified Republican young voters under 35, 53 percent identify climate deniers as ignorant, out of touch, or crazy.

I ask unanimous consent to conclude in 1 minute.

So I ask my Republican friends, how is climate denial a winning strategy when 53 percent of your own young voters think it is ignorant, out of touch, or crazy? How is that looking ahead? We in Congress get elected to look ahead. We don't get elected to put our heads in the sand. We certainly don't get elected to parrot the lies of the special interests.

Well, we are not looking ahead. We are sound asleep here in Congress. We are having a snooze while nature's alarms are ringing all around us. It is time for Congress to wake up. We have a duty. We need to wake up to our duty.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, yesterday we heard very optimistic news about steering away from the brink of American default before it became too late. Majority leader Harry Reid came to the floor and gave very optimistic reports. Minority leader Mitch McConnell came to the floor and gave very optimistic reports. They hinted very strongly that a deal was close, and time was scheduled with the caucuses, presumably to make a presentation of the deal. And then what?

We have had some very interesting speeches and colloquies from our Republican colleagues on the floor. I found the debate as to whether our defense and law enforcement experts had kept an Al Qaeda captive in the right location to be interesting. I found the earlier discussion about the insurance exchange Web sites to be a very interesting discussion. I found the discussion earlier this morning about Iran to be a very interesting discussion. What is even more interesting is what they are not talking about. What they are not talking about is that today the Republican leader pulled out of those very productive negotiations and very optimistic negotiations--pulled out of those negotiations that promised an end to this crisis. I find that absolutely stunning. I am amazed, while we are in a situation where we are that close to resolving this crisis and avoiding the catastrophes that have been predicted, that one side would simply walk away. I don't blame the minority leader. The information I have is that he was asked to do so, that the message came from the other side, from the Speaker; that Speaker Boehner torpedoed the productive bipartisan Senate negotiations that were at the brink of resolving this crisis.

Instead of the bipartisan successful process, Speaker Boehner has wanted to interrupt and bring in the same partisan House process that has been a disaster for us over and over--100-percent partisan, 100- percent politics.

We have sent bills over to the House. Those bills have never been brought up for a vote. They have been monkeyed with before they have brought them up, but House Members have never had the chance to vote on a Senate-approved measure, which would have ended this. That is the Speaker's choice. It is the so-called Hastert rule, which means that unless a strong majority of the Republicans are for something, he won't give Democrats a chance to even vote, let alone to be a part of the negotiations.

Here in the Senate we have bipartisan negotiations, with the leaders from both sides still with optimism and hope. On the other side, we have a leadership that won't talk to the Democrats, has purely made partisan decisions about whether something should come to the floor, and has not yet brought a Senate bill to the floor for a clean vote. It is a nightmare over there. And the strategy has not worked, in case they did not get the memo.

Holding the economy hostage was a terrible choice for the Speaker. Causing the shutdown was a terrible choice. Holding the credit of the U.S. Government hostage has been a terrible choice. To use words that were used on the floor this morning by one of our Republican friends, it was a ``fool's errand''--it was a ``fool's errand''--that put the party ``in a ditch.''

Well, unfortunately, because he is the Speaker, it is not just the Republican Party that is in the ditch. The whole country is in the ditch as this default looms. Some of them are trying to get out of the difficulty they find themselves in by pretending that the default is not real. We have default deniers now side by side, I guess, with the climate deniers and the other deniers. They deny that October 17 is the real date when anything might go wrong. They deny that anything bad will actually really happen if the U.S. Government defaults. They deny--if we just pay the Treasury bills and leave other things unpaid-- anything really bad will happen.

Treasury bills get sold in an auction, in a market. If you are going to that auction to buy Treasury bills and you see a government that is not paying Social Security recipients on time, that has massive liquidity and cashflow problems as a result of the debt limit failure, we may say: Yes, we will pay you first, but are you really going to pay the same rate for that security of that country while that country is facing all of these other problems? It is a preposterous notion. It is the type of notion that you can only believe when you absolutely need to believe it for your ideological purposes. Reality simply does not support a notion like that. If you are living in a cocoon world of extremist ideology, you can come up with thoughts like that. And if you are only talking to other people who think the same way, you can kind of agree that thought makes sense. But there is a little problem. Reality wins. Reality always wins.

They are playing with dynamite over there, and they are pretending that it is not even dangerous. It would be one thing if we understood that they respected how very dangerous the stunts are that they are pulling in the House Republican leadership. It is even more dangerous when they do not appear to know the danger they are causing for our economy.

I hope we will get back to work here in the Senate right away with a bipartisan solution to this rather than allowing the House and the Speaker to wreck the opportunity we had as late as yesterday in order to play dangerous partisan games. We do not have the time for that, and it is the wrong thing. It is the wrong thing in a very immediate way in terms of the damage it will do to our economy, to the world economy, to people across this country whose interest rates are pegged to Treasury bills, to anybody who depends on an economy where people have confidence that the United States is a solid investment and have confidence that our economy is going to grow. The default puts all that at risk. It creates real economic hazards for our country. But the method of getting us here has additional hazards, and I would like to close by talking about them.

From the very founding of this Republic, we have prided ourselves on our distinct American system of government. We have fought for it. We have protected it. It has seen us through world wars, civil wars, great depressions, great recessions, all types of calamity. What it fundamentally is--the phrase we use probably as much as any other about our country is that it is a government of laws. It risks being turned into--by a very small faction in one party in one House in one branch of government--a government not of laws but of threats, a government where the person who can make the scariest threat wins.

It does not matter that what they are objecting to was passed in the regular order, passed by both Houses of Congress, signed into law by the President, approved by the Supreme Court. It does not matter that it was the center of the last Presidential election and that their point of view lost convincingly. What matters to them is if they can make dangerous enough threats, they may be able to try to get their way anyway--anyway. That is not the way a government of laws behaves. That is the way a government of threats behaves.

If we go down the road of a government of threats, we will be taking a very big step away from our American heritage, away from the procedures of our American Constitution, and away from the values that have seen us through hundreds of years of growth and pride. It is a dangerous point, and the fact that they are willing to do that, the fact that they are willing to not only wreck the economy but to wreck the status of this country as one that is run by a government of laws

and turn it instead into a government of threats, shows how shallowly they wear their patriotism on their sleeves. It is bunkum patriotism to put the real values of this country into the hopper and turn us into a government of threats instead of a government of laws.

A great judge, a Supreme Court Justice, once said: Procedure is the bone structure of a democratic society. Breaking those bones to make your point is no way to enhance our democratic society.

So I hope the majority leader and the minority leader will resume their negotiations right away. I hope, frankly, they have begun already and I just do not know about it yet. But we have to get going. And if the minority leader is unwilling to tell Speaker Boehner: No. Knock it off. You have done enough damage already. We are going to solve this in the Senate, and we are going to sit down and have a bipartisan compromise--if he is unwilling to say that, then we need to come back to the floor and we need to bring up the bill the Republicans filibustered on Saturday that would have gotten us out of this pickle. Time is short. We have to get moving. If our colleagues on the other side then want to filibuster--to filibuster--the solution to this debt limit crisis, they will have shown their hand in a very dangerous way.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.