Safe Climate Caucus

Floor Speech

Mr. CLEAVER. Mr. Speaker, recently someone said to new EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy that she was not living in the read world with regard to climate change.

My question today is if those who are questioning whether she lives in the real world would say the same thing to the survivors of the typhoon of Biblical proportions that just devastated the Philippines where 4,000 people have been impacted. This was the strongest land-falling typhoon on record.

And I am wondering if they would tell people whose homes were hit by the unusually late Mid-Western tornados this past weekend that they are not living in reality. Sixty tornados were reported, eight people were killed, and the damages are estimated to be at least $1 billion.

Weather-related losses and damages have risen from $50 billion to almost $200 billion annually over the last decade.

Putting our heads in the sand will not stop the reality that our climate is changing and that human beings are a part of the reason.

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