BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I thank our great leader on the Environment Committee for his visionary work on this issue. I am here for the same purpose today. I am here to talk about climate change, about our climate crisis, and about the mistake it would be to put Andrew Wheeler in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Climate change is an existential threat to our country and to the planet. We know this because the world's leading scientists, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, just made that warning late last year. It is an existential threat to the planet.

The U.N. report told us we have very limited time until we are past the point of no return, and the most catastrophic impacts of climate change are irreversible.

Our own Federal scientists across 13 Agencies also just warned in the National Climate Assessment that the impacts of climate change are not in the future, but they are happening in our communities right now.

Here is what all 13 U.S. Federal Agencies said. They said our efforts do not yet approach the scale necessary to avoid substantial damages to the economy, environment, and human health. These are Earth-shattering reports about the state of our Earth. These are the doomsday reports about what happens if we do not take bold action.

The dire consequences of climate change, in fact, are arriving. A tenfold increase in ice-free summers in the Arctic, 99 percent loss of coral reefs, and a doubling of species lost around the world. In the Northeast, in worst-case scenarios, by the end of the century, both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Logan Airport will be under water, and over 20 percent of Boston's population will face flood risk.

The climate emissions are not slowing down. In 2018, emissions increased 2.8 percent. We have the ``Denier in Chief'' in the White House, and this week Republicans in the Senate are poised to confirm a coal lobbyist to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

During his confirmation hearing, when I asked whether he agreed with the conclusions of the National Climate Assessment report, Mr. Wheeler said he still needed additional briefings before he could make a public comment on it. Let me repeat that. The nominee of Donald Trump to run the Agency charged with protecting the planet from climate change had not even sufficiently reviewed the climate report from our own Federal Agencies before his confirmation hearing. He also said he considered the report to be a representation of the worst-case scenario and that what we face is ``a climate issue.''

Well, the worst-case scenario is one in which the Republican Senate will confirm a former coal lobbyist to head the Environmental Protection Agency. The worst-case scenario is the Trump administration's plans to roll back the Clean Power Plan and the fuel economy emission standards, the single largest steps we have ever taken to address climate change. We are in a worst-case scenario, and we need to dramatically change course.

That should start by not confirming Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist, to run the Agency charged with protecting our planet. Andrew Wheeler's answers on the climate crisis should be disqualifying. His record as a coal lobbyist should be disqualifying. We should come together and reject Andrew Wheeler as the head of the EPA.

The impact of climate change on ordinary families on their health, on our Nation, on our security, and on our future is too urgent. We must be bold. We must be ambitious.

That is why I have introduced the Green New Deal resolution. It lays out a serious, bold, aspirational set of goals that meet the scale of the threat we are facing. It is a set of principles, not prescriptions. The Green New Deal will allow us to engage in massive job creation to save all of creation. It calls for a massive 10-year mobilization to transform our climate, our economy, our democracy. It is about jobs and justice.

An overwhelming number of Americans support climate action, and a majority of Americans support a Green New Deal. Never in our history have the interests of all Americans been so united in a single issue: climate change.

From the air we breathe to the jobs that employ us, to the neighborhoods we live in, to the economy we operate within, climate change defines our existence. This is the time for serious solutions. Global temperatures are the highest in recorded history. Wealth inequality is at its highest point since the era of the Great Depression. The erosion of our coastlines, the erosion of earning power of workers, the pollution of our planet, the pollution of our democracy by Big Oil and Koch brothers financing, the relationship between these ills and injustices is undeniable, but the challenge is not insurmountable.

It will only be through a historic intergenerational commitment to end climate change that we create the kind of democracy that works for all Americans. This Green New Deal mobilization will make the United States the global leader on clean energy and climate action.

This mobilization will be the greatest blue-collar jobs program in a generation. This mobilization will be an opportunity to repair the historic oppression of frontline and vulnerable communities that have borne the worst burdens of pollution from our fossil fuel economy-- these communities that also will be the most affected and the least able to respond to the impacts of climate change. The Green New Deal represents an opportunity to lift up all workers and all communities.

President Roosevelt was right when he said about the New Deal that ``statesmanship and vision, my friends, require relief to all at the same time.''

We are talking about a historic, 10-year mobilization that will mitigate climate emissions and build climate resiliency. We have acted on this scale before, and we must do it again.

We have already laid the foundation for our climate future. In 2008, we had only 1,200 megawatts of total solar capacity in the United States. Today, we have 65,000 megawatts. In 2008, we had only 25,000 megawatts of total wind capacity. Today, we have 98,000 megawatts of wind capacity. In 2008, there were only 2,500 all-electric vehicles in our country. Today, we have 1 million, with 500,000 new all-electric vehicles to be sold this year. Most of all, what we have seen over the past 10 years is a growing movement for climate action. In wind and solar, we now have 350,000 people who are employed. That didn't happen 10 years ago; it is happening today.

The Green New Deal is not just a resolution; it is a revolution. Republicans and climate deniers are taking mathematical liberties to say it would cost too much to act, but the cost of inaction on climate will be far higher. Over just the past 2 years, the cost of storms and the cost of fires in our country created over $400 billion in damages. By the end of this century, it will be tens of trillions of dollars that we will lose. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we start today, we can avoid the worst, most catastrophic consequences. For those who say we can't afford to act to address this crisis, I say we can't afford not to.

The question is, Will any Republican stand up to fight for these goals? The Republican Party is about to confirm a coal lobbyist to run the Environmental Protection Agency. That is where we are in 2019, with the worst scientific reports coming from the U.N. and our own scientists--a threat of an existential risk for the planet--and we are about to confirm a coal lobbyist.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have to be bold the way President Kennedy was in 1962 when he called for a mission to the Moon to be accomplished within 10 years. He said it would not be easy. He said we would have to invent metal that did not exist and propulsion systems that did not exist. He said we would have to bring that mission back safely through heat half the intensity of the Sun, and we would have to do so safely within 10 years so that we could control outer space. We did that, ladies and gentlemen, and we can do it again.

We have to accept this challenge. We can do it. We can unleash an innovation revolution in our country, and again we will do it to save all creation by engaging in massive job creation, a blue-collar revolution hiring millions of workers to do this job.

I thank you, Madam President. This is a very important week before us.

I yield back to my colleague.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MARKEY. I just want to say that there is no climate warrior like Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island. He is up every day of his life on this issue, and when he speaks, he speaks with authority. I just want to say what an honor it is to be here today.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT