Global Warming

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise in morning business to respond to the Republican Senate leader who just spoke.

I preface my remarks by making the claim that I have made on the floor now three different times, and I am still waiting for the first Member of the other party to come to this Senate Chamber and to dispute what I am about to say.

The Republican Party of the United States of America is the only major political party in the world today that denies global warming.

I have said it. I am waiting for them to come forward and say: No, there is another one somewhere. One said: Well, we think there is one in Australia.

Really? So the entire world understands that global warming is a challenge except for one political party, the Republican Party of the United States of America.

And what have we seen with global warming? We have seen a change in the world we live in. Weather is more extreme; things are changing.

We have from time to time young people who come and visit the Senate Chamber and sit in the galleries. They are always welcomed, but of course our debate today is about them. It is about the world they will live in and a question of whether it will be habitable, a world they can live in and prosper. Don't we have an obligation, our generation, to leave that world to them and, if nothing else, a world as good as what we inherited from our parents and grandparents?

That is what this debate about. And if we are going to do that, we have to make some changes. Can America make a change? We sure can. We have led the world when it comes to change. This President sat down with the automobile manufacturers, after decades of resistance to the notion of more fuel-efficient vehicles, and hammered out an agreement that now we are driving cars and trucks that take us the same distance and burn fewer gallons of gasoline.

My wife and I drive a Ford Fusion Hybrid, 36 miles a gallon, and we can beat that with other cars, but we are pretty happy with our little Ford. Nobody put a gun to my head and said buy it. My wife and I thought it was the responsible thing to do. Ford made a great product and we bought it.

There was a time on the floor of the Senate when Ford and other companies were in denial. It will never happen, they said. It is happening. America can change for the better with leadership.

I listened to the arguments from the Senate Republican leader today about the impact of change and the impact of doing something about carbon pollution on poor people and working families. I had to come to the floor. I listened to the plaintive pleas of the Republican leader to think about poor people working and the impact it has on them, and I kept remembering it is his political party that has opposed the increase in the minimum wage, an increase in the wage these poor people are earning. They oppose it, with one exception, maybe two. Their party opposes increasing the minimum wage and comes to the floor and says we can't do anything that could hurt poor working families.

First, let them join us in a bipartisan effort to raise the minimum wage. Secondly, I can report one thing that global warming and carbon pollution is producing today. It is producing the No. 1 complaint of children brought to the emergency rooms across America. What is the most common health problem bringing children to emergency rooms? Trauma? No. What is it? Asthma. I go to classrooms across my State, and I say to the children who are there: Hold up your hand if you know anyone who has asthma. Rural schools, urban schools, it is all the same. Hands go up across the classroom. These problems are created by the air we are forced to breathe. Are we going to do something about it? We should.

Our colleague Max Baucus from Montana recently took on the position as Ambassador to China. He and his wife were headed over and we said half jokingly: I hope the air is clean enough to breathe over there, because if you have been to China, you know it is a challenge every single day. Are we going to take a different approach in America? Are we going to set a different example in America when it comes to public health? This is our opportunity.

If we truly care about working families and their children, how can we ignore what is happening? As the air gets worse and carbon pollution increases and asthma increases, health care costs go up. Lives are compromised. I don't want to see that happen. So if we truly care about working families, care about their children and the health of their children. I might also add, care about providing these families with health insurance. Time and again the same party that came to the floor this morning, telling us about working people, has opposed our efforts to extend the protection of health insurance to working families.

Which State is one of the most successful States in the Union in signing up people when it comes to our new health insurance plan, the so-called ObamaCare? One of the most successful per capita States in the Nation happens to be the Commonwealth of Kentucky, represented by the Senator who just spoke on the other side of the aisle. Hundreds of thousands of people in Kentucky now have health insurance through the President's plan, including thousands under Medicaid.

So when we are talking about who is sensitive to the needs of working families, whether it is minimum wage or basic health insurance, I think our approach is one that has proven to be right. Over 6 million Americans have now signed up for health insurance. In my State of Illinois, over 100,000 in Cook County alone now have health insurance, and I have met some of them.

Roy Romanowski--a great Chicago name--Roy, a big barrel-chested Polish musician, was sitting next to me at a health care clinic and he said, Senator, never had health insurance in my life but have it now and patted his wallet. Now he is signed up for Medicaid. A low-income guy, takes jobs as they come along, he has health insurance--he is about 60 years old--and is happy to have it. So when we talk about standing up for working people, this is part of it.

Yes, it is a challenge when we face change. We are a coal-producing State in Illinois. We are going to have to sit down as a State and make a plan that is going to deal with reducing the pollution which is changing our planet. We can do it. I am sure we can, and America should lead the world.

How many times have our colleagues on the other side talked about exceptionalism; that America is such a different and great country. I don't quarrel with that. I don't want to be braggadocios about it, but I don't quarrel with it.

But when it comes to a challenge such as this, of cleaning up the environment, shouldn't America be a leader? Of course. That is what President Obama is asking us to do: State by State, figure out a plan that reduces carbon pollution, reduces the public health hazards children and families are facing because of the pollution, reduces the damage taking place to this environment that is changing the world we live in. That is what a leader does.

It is time for us to try to come together and work together to find a solution.

I yield the floor.

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