Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016--Conference Report--

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I come to the floor today to speak on the issue of climate change. Before I do, I would like to read a quote.

What is a conservative after all but one who conserves, one who is committed to protecting and holding close the things by which we live . . . and we want to protect and conserve the land on which we live--our countryside, our rivers and mountains, our plains and meadows and forests. This is what we leave to our children. And our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it.

These are the words of President Ronald Reagan, and I agree with those words. Climate change is one of the greatest threats to our planet Earth. When I look at my beautiful grandkids, I feel a moral responsibility to leave this world as well as I found it or even better.

We can't continue to ignore the problem of climate change. How will future generations judge us if we deny the reality of climate change and say that it is just too hard to do something that might leave them a safer, cleaner, better world? I don't think they will look on us kindly. Future generations actually count on us.

Climate change is no longer debatable. The facts are in. Climate change is real, and it is not some distant threat. From Hurricane Katrina to Superstorm Sandy, from severe flooding on the Mississippi River in 2011 in Illinois to the historic low water levels just 1 year later and to the devastating drought and wildfires that are searing the West Coast, extreme weather is the new normal.

So why are there still so many in the Chamber who deny the threat of climate change, not to mention failing to do anything to solve the problem? I have said on the floor before, and I will say again, that there is only one major political party in the world today that denies climate change, only one--the Republican Party of the United States of America.

Well, part of the reason is because for decades the fossil fuel industry and those who cater to them have tried to blur this debate, to blur the science, to create divisions among us, instead of looking for what we have in common to try to solve this problem rationally and reasonably.

Make no mistake, there is a deliberate campaign, financed by the fossil fuel industry--a campaign that uses the pseudoscience of manufactured doubt. It is coordinated. I have seen the likes of it before.

In 2006, the major tobacco companies in the United States were found guilty of ``a massive 50-year scheme to defraud the public.'' Decades before, tobacco company research had already shown that tobacco was truly harmful and addictive. Instead of letting science and the moral imperative behind it promote public health, the companies launched an extensive campaign sowing seeds of doubt about the dangers of tobacco.

I know about this firsthand. I was a Member of the House of Representatives about 27 years ago. I introduced a bill to ban smoking on airplanes. It was opposed by the tobacco lobby, and the leadership in both political parties--Democratic and Republican elected leaders in the House of Representatives--opposed me. We called it for a vote, and to the amazement of everyone, it passed. It turns out Members of Congress are the largest frequent flyer club in the world, and they knew how outrageous it was to suggest there were smoking and nonsmoking sections on an airplane.

I led that initiative to ban smoking on airplanes, and I was joined by the late Senator Frank Lautenberg who took up the cause in the Senate, and 26 years ago we banned smoking. It made a difference. We had to fight the tobacco lobby all the way. They denied that nicotine was addictive. They denied there was a linkage between tobacco and cancer. They created a pseudoscience. They paid scientists to come up with theories that said tobacco really wasn't that dangerous.

Well, sadly, we are seeing that same thing today when it comes to climate change. Just as the tobacco industry created a campaign of manufactured doubt to protect their financial interests and profits, a web of fossil fuel industry groups, aided and abetted by one of the very groups that resisted anti-smoking laws, are behind this web of climate denial.

A 1998 American Petroleum Institute, or API, memo has become public. I just read it on my computer upstairs. At the time, the American Petroleum Institute consisted of a dozen lobbyists, think tank members, and public relations gurus. Science wasn't on their side in 1998, so the group decided that misleading the public about the reality of climate change--sowing seeds of doubt about whether there was really climate change underway--was the best way to go. The 1998 API memo claimed that ``victory,'' in their words, would be achieved when ``uncertainties'' about the science became part of the public's perception.

In the year 2000, influential Republican pollster Frank Luntz prepared a playbook for those who wanted to create doubt in the public's mind about climate change. Mr. Luntz wrote:

Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.

So what is taking place right now with the effort of the fossil fuel industry is a deliberate campaign to mislead the American public.

Sadly, this web of denial that started in 1998 is alive and well today. Just last year, at an ExxonMobil-sponsored meeting of the notorious American Legislative Exchange Council, the president of the Heartland Institute stated:

There is no scientific consensus on the human role in climate change. There is no need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and no point in attempting to do so.

This quote is in direct opposition to Earth scientists in one of the world's most highly respected Earth science organizations--the American Geophysical Union, or AGU.

This spring, a group of 254 Earth scientists cited these lies in a letter as one of the many reasons why the American Geophysical Union should decline to accept ExxonMobil's financial sponsorship of their group. The Earth scientists also made clear that ExxonMobil distributed scientifically false and misleading information, are members in or financially support other climate-denying organizations, and donated to climate-denying politicians and past misinformation campaigns.

ExxonMobil is not alone in spending money to influence elections and affect environmental policy. The oil and gas industry pours millions of dollars into election campaigns every year. In the 2012 election cycle, energy and natural resource corporations, their employees, and industry super PACs spent more than $147 million to make sure the right people were elected in congressional seats, in Senate seats, and in the Presidential campaign. During the current election cycle, they have already spent more than $101 million, and they will likely contribute millions more in the 4 months remaining. Experts estimate that, in total, candidates, political parties, and interest groups, including those funded by companies such as ExxonMobil, may spend up to $10 billion on Federal campaigns in 2016--$10 billion.

A poll conducted by the New York Times last year found that 84 percent of Americans believe money has too much influence in American political campaigns. They are right. Our campaign finance system is a mess. America needs a system to elect its candidates that rewards those with good ideas and principles, not just the person who is the most talented in raising money.

I reintroduced a bill last year called the Fair Elections Now Act. This legislation would establish a voluntary, small-donor public financing system for Senate campaigns. We would finally break the back of Big Money's control over the American political system. The Fair Elections Now Act can't solve all the problems facing us, but the bill would allow us to fight back against deep-pocketed special interests by dramatically changing the way campaigns are funded, encouraging small donors and matches for those small donations.

As we grapple with important issues like climate change, we have to recognize the influence of money in our political system and why one major political party in the world today still denies climate change. Until we embrace campaign finance reform and ensure that politicians do not feel beholden to special interests like the oil and gas industry, climate-denying politicians will continue to prevent us from taking action.

It is unconscionable that some very powerful people put their profits ahead of the future of the planet we live on, but we know it is true. If we don't act on climate change, there is no backup plan.

Let me end on a hopeful note. When Pope Francis came to Washington, DC, last September, he called for action on addressing climate change and global warming. The Pope said:

All is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start.

Pope Francis is right. Let's not run away from our responsibility in the Senate or in life to our children and our grandchildren. Let's work toward solving the real challenges of climate change with both political parties. It is not too late to make a new start, to do the right thing, and to protect this planet that we call home.

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