Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts and Senators Whitehouse and Boxer for their great leadership. I am really appreciative of the senior Senator from New York for taking the time to come to the floor to demonstrate his commitment to this issue.

There is an incredible opportunity here for American leadership. In Hawaii, in various places across the State, in 1 month we had 33 record highs--in the month of July. So we all know this is the challenge of our generation, and we all know the next most important step is the full implementation of the President's Clean Power Plan.

I wish to make a couple of points about the particulars of the plan. The first is that this is really done well. Normally, regulatory functions can be a blunt instrument. They can be a little less than careful in terms of how they are going to impact the economy. But this is done with great precision, with great care, and with great interaction with the incumbent utility companies and distribution and generation companies. So this is done with enough flexibility to say: Whatever your mix in terms of energies, we are not going to dictate exactly how you do it at a powerplant level, at a county level, at a city level. All we are saying is you have to meet these targets. And if you meet these targets through distributed generation or wind or solar or geothermal or hydro, that is not the Federal Government's concern.

Our concern is that carbon is a pollutant--and that has been determined by the courts, and it has been determined by scientists--and the Clean Air Act requires that airborne pollutants are regulated. So we are simply going to tell every State: This, like all other pollutants, has to be reduced over time.

I think the EPA took great pains to make sure this was done in a way that wouldn't cause too much upheaval in the economy. This is legally sound. There is no question that the EPA doesn't just have the authority and the discretion to move forward with carbon pollution regulations, they are actually required to under the last Supreme Court decision. And it is doable. Hawaii has a 100-percent clean energy goal. The Northeast has its RGGI program.

California has a cap-and-trade program. And all of our economies continue to grow. It is not that individuals and companies don't continue to have their challenges, but it is not because of our leaning forward into clean energy.

I will make one point about the kind of layering of obstruction. The first layer, which I think we have been successful in the last 6 months at breaking through, is the whole ``I am not sure whether climate change is real.'' Then they sort of pivoted to ``Well, I am not a scientist.'' So I don't think that is going to last for very long.

I think the next layer of obstruction is going to be ``I think climate change is real. I am not sure what percentage of climate change is caused by humans and how much of it is naturally occurring.'' I think we will be able to punch through that opposition.

The next layer of opposition will be this: ``America should wait.'' They will tell us that America should not lead in this, that we should wait for China, that we should wait for India, that we should wait for Germany, that we should wait for Japan. So let me ask this question: Since when does the United States wait for other countries to lead? This is the challenge of our generation, and it strikes me as preposterous that anybody who believes in American leadership would be willing to say ``Let's see what other countries do about this problem first. Why don't we give this a few years?'' We don't have a few years. This is an incredible opportunity for America to display the leadership it has always displayed in the international community. We finally have the high ground going into the Paris discussions. We are on legally sound ground, we are on morally sound ground, and I think politically we are increasingly on sound ground.

I am a full supporter of the President's Clean Power Plan. The one thing that causes me great dismay and I think causes some of the other participants in this colloquy dismay is that we are not even having a debate.

This is the Democrats asking you to come down to the floor and disagree with us. Disagree with the President. Disagree with Gina McCarthy. Tell Sheldon and me that our bill is a piece of garbage and this is what should be done instead. But let's have the great debate in the world's greatest deliberative body. Right now, it is entirely one-sided. If we are going to display American leadership, we need some Republican leadership as well.

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Mr. SCHATZ. Through the Chair, I understand the time for the colloquy is about to expire. Just to respond to the Senator from California, if there is no objection, I would just say that we really do need Republican leadership here. Prior to about 10 years ago, the Republican Party had a long history and an august history of working with Democrats to protect our air and our water, and we are all sincerely hoping we can get back to that place.

I yield the floor.

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