Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013

Floor Speech

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am here, as the Presiding Officer knows, for the 43rd time now, to say it is time to wake up to the threat of climate change. Today I am joined by my colleague from Maine, Senator Angus King, a fellow New Englander, whose State, like Rhode Island, has rich cultural and economic ties to the sea. As carbon pollution changes our oceans, the consequences for our States, for our fishermen, for our economies, for our way of life are very real--far more real than the lives of the deniers.

Here is what we know: The oceans are warming. That is a measurement, it is not a theory. Sea level is rising. That is another measurement, not a theory. And oceans are becoming more acidic. Again, that is a measurement.

In fact, according to research published in the journal Oceanography, the acidity of the oceans is now increasing faster than it has in the last 50 million years. We know what is causing it--carbon pollution. My colleagues can deny and delay and dance all day to the polluters' tune, but these are facts.

The changes are already reaching our marine life. A research paper published in August looked at the changes over time of where species have lived, when they laid their eggs, and how they have grown their shells. The authors concluded that more than 80 percent of the changes documented in the study were consistent with what one would expect as consequences of a warming and acidifying ocean.

Some species are moving toward the colder water of the North and South Poles, moving at about 10 to 45 miles per decade, extending their range. Events that are timed for spring and summer, such as egg laying or migration, are happening on average about 4 days earlier per decade. This means if a parent teaches their child how to fish, where the best spots are, how to dig for quahogs or what time of year to get the traps out, all of that changes by the time that child becomes a parent.

Here is how these changes are affecting Rhode Island, according to Christopher Deacutis, the previous chief scientist of the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program. I will read what he said:

Although regional climate factors, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation, can influence temperature trends, there appears to be an overall increase in annual Narragansett Bay water temperature of about 3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1960. Fish species in Narragansett Bay are shifting, seemingly in step with increased temperatures. Jeremy Collie--

And he is a URI professor.

--and others have shown that cold-water marine species, such as the winter flounder, which used to be the dominant fish species in the bay, are radically decreasing in numbers. Meanwhile, warmer-water species, such as summer flounder, scup, and butterfish seem to be increasing. More southern warm-water species that weren't seen in the past are likely to extend their range north as Narragansett Bay continues to warm. In addition, there seems to be an overall shift from large bottom-dwelling species, such as flounder, to small water column plankton-feeding species, such as anchovies.

That is the end of his quote.

NOAA researchers studied 36 fish in the northwest Atlantic Ocean--fish such as the Atlantic cod and haddock, yellowtail and winter flounders, spiny dogfish, Atlantic herring--and found that about half are shifting northward. Janet Nye, the lead NOAA researcher, said:

During the last 40 years, many familiar species have been shifting to the north, where ocean waters are cooler, or staying in the same general area but moving into deeper waters than where they traditionally have been found. They all seem to be adapting to changing temperatures and finding places where their chances of survival as a population are greater.

Those are long descriptions of the situation. Here are some briefer descriptions. One Rhode Island fisherman told me: ``It's getting weird out there.'' Another said he is seeing ``real anomalies ..... things just aren't making sense.''

Some might say: Who cares about the winter flounder or these other fish, for that matter? Some people don't care about God's world or God's species unless they can monetize them. Let's answer them in the terms they care about.

The winter flounder has been a lucrative catch for Rhode Island fishermen, and according to a variety of estimates commercial fishing generates about $150 million to $200 million of spending per year in Rhode Island and directly supports about 5,000 workers. Recreational fishermen spend over $100 million annually and directly support about 2,000 workers.

Last year the Commerce Department declared the northeast groundfish fishery a disaster. To quote Acting Commerce Secretary Blank:

The diminished fish stocks ..... resulted despite fishermen's adherence to catch limits intended to rebuild the stocks.

The Commerce Department says it is not overfishing that is preventing our stocks from rebounding. Scientists think warmer waters could be the culprit.

The effects of climate change on marine life don't stop with warmer waters. Carbon dioxide emissions are also causing our oceans to become more acidic. Last week two Rhode Islanders came down and visited us here in the Senate: Bob Rheault, the executive director of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, and Dave Spencer, president of the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen's Association. Dr. Rheault told my colleagues about shellfish larvae literally dissolving because of more acidic waters. More acidic waters caused a 70- to 80-percent loss of oyster larvae at an oyster hatchery in Oregon and crashed wild oyster stocks in Washington State. This is an industry worth millions to those local economies.

The problem, as Dr. Rheault pointed out, is that while we know carbon pollution is causing ocean acidification, we don't know enough yet how to protect the shellfish industry. We could help by continuing support for the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act and by supporting funding for the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System. We could support funding for the National Endowment for the Oceans. We need to better understand the changes around us to protect the economic, ecological, cultural, and recreational value our oceans and coasts provide.

Rhode Islanders are already working hard to rebuild our fishing industry. We are managing overfishing and limiting water pollution. We have planned for the future by developing a special area management plan for our coasts and waters. We are working on a shellfish management plan to better support an industry that is growing at 20 percent a year. We have supported world-class oceanographic research with scientists at URI's Graduate School of Oceanography, conducting some of the highest quality long-term research on marine ecology.

My wife Sandra was part of that research tradition at URI, and I can remember as a young husband helping her in her lab and out on the bay.

There was a story recently in the Providence Journal about a lobsterman named Al Eagles, out on his boat near the Newport Bridge recording on a tablet computer the size, gender, and location of lobsters he catches. Mr. Eagles is working with the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation trying to improve the southern New England lobster stock assessment. American lobsters have been, in the past, Rhode Island's most valuable commercial catch. Mr. Eagles said:

The last 2 years it has been very slow. It's been the worst 2 years we've ever had.

In Rhode Island, lobster catches and stocks rose rapidly in the 1990s and then plummeted around 2000.

Again, it is a similar story. Scientists think the lobsters are moving offshore and northward to shelter in cooler waters. As the lobsters move offshore and change their traditional behavior, we need to know more about what is going on. But it gets more difficult. We are doing our level best, from our scientists to our fishermen, from our labs to our lobster boats, to understand. There is now so much more we need to understand. Fisheries and fisheries management, like so many other industries, is going to have to operate in a new reality--a reality of warmer and more acidic seas.

In the colder waters of Maine, as Senator King will explain, a lobster boom continues, but it is not all good news, and Maine lobstermen are already sounding the alarm bells at what climate change will mean for them in the future. The fates of our two coastal economies--Maine's and Rhode Island's--are connected.

The Presiding Officer represents the State of Massachusetts, which is right in the middle of this problem as well. None of our three States can solve what carbon pollution is doing to our oceans alone. Even with our three States working together, we can't solve what carbon pollution is doing to our oceans. Federal action is necessary to reduce the carbon emissions that are warming and acidifying our seas and to help us adapt to the changes we can no longer avoid. Fishermen and scientists know these challenges are real, as does my friend from Maine, Senator Angus King. But we can't act alone. It is time for all of Congress to wake up.

I yield the floor.

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