Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, the issue we are discussing tonight, frankly, is perhaps the most important issue facing our entire planet. The issue has everything to do with whether we are going to leave a habitable planet for our kids and our grandchildren. I want to thank the Senate Climate Action Task Force, led by Senator Boxer, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Heinrich, and others for helping to bring us down here tonight to discuss this issue.
While it goes without saying that Senator Inhofe and many of us hold very different points of view regarding global warming, I want to congratulate him for having the courage to come down here and defend his point of view. That is what democracy is about. I think he is wrong, but I am glad he is here.
Virtually the entire scientific community agrees that climate change is real, that it is already causing devastating problems in the United States and around the world in terms of floods, droughts, wildfires, forest fires, and extreme weather disturbances. The scientific community is also almost virtually unanimous in agreeing that climate change is caused significantly by human activity.
According to a study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters in May of last year, more than 97 percent of peer-reviewed scientific literature on climate supports the view that human activity is a primary cause of global warming.
What disturbs me very much about this debate is the rejection of basic science. We can have differences of opinion on health care, on the funding of education, on whether we should have a jobs program, on many other issues. But what the U.S. Senate should not be about is rejecting basic science. It saddens me very much that most of my colleagues in the Republican Party are doing just that.
We do not hear great debates on the floor of the Senate regarding research in terms of cancer, in terms of heart disease, in terms of other scientific issues. But for whatever reason--and I happen to believe those reasons have a lot to do with the power of the coal industry, of the oil industry, of the fossil fuel industry--we are suddenly seeing a great debate on an issue the overwhelming majority of scientists agree on; that is, climate change is real; it is caused by human activity.
2012 was the second worst year on record in the United States for extreme weather. Across the globe, the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998. The global annual average temperature has increased by more than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit between 1880 and 2012. Last month the White House released the National Climate Assessment, emphasizing that global warming is already happening, and warning--and people should hear this--that global warming could exceed 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the United States by the end of this century--10 degrees Fahrenheit.
That is extraordinary. If that in fact happens, if we do not summon up the courage to transform our energy system, the damage done by that severity of increase in temperature will be huge.
Also last month scientists reported a large section of the West Antarctica ice sheet is falling apart, and that its continued melting is now unstoppable.
Bloomberg reported on the 1st of June that Australia hit new heat records in May. The 24-month period ending in April 2014 was the hottest on record for any 2-year period, and the 24-month period ending with May of 2014 is expected to exceed that.
But it is not just Australia; it is my home State of Vermont. The Associated Press reported last week that the average temperature in both Vermont and Maine rose by 2.5 degrees over the past 30 years. This is the second highest of any State in the lower 48, after Maine. Maine and Vermont are at the top.
Lake Champlain provides one telling illustration of these changes. It freezes over less often and later in the winter than it used to. Between 1800 and 1900, Lake Champlain froze over 97 out of 100 winters, 97 percent of the time. That number began dropping after 1900. In the past 40 years, Lake Champlain has only frozen over 17 times. These changes impact the ski industry. They weaken our maple industry. They allow pests to survive the winter unharmed and to become more damaging to trees and crops as a result.
These impacts are expected to worsen. According to the 2014 National Climate Assessment, temperatures in the northeast could increase an additional 10 degrees Fahrenheit by 2080 if emissions continue at their current rate. By the end of the century, summers in Vermont--our beautiful summers--could feel like summers in Georgia right now. I love the State of Georgia. It is a great State. But the State of Vermont would prefer to have our summers the way they have been, not Georgia's.
The thing is these new proposed carbon pollution standards are actually quite modest. It is clear to me that if we listen to the scientific community, what they are telling us is there is a small window of opportunity, and it would be rather extraordinary--extraordinary--for us to look our kids and our grandchildren in the eye and to say: You know what. We rejected the science and we let this planet become less and less habitable for you and your kids.
We have a moral responsibility not to do that. It seems clear to me what we should be doing--and I think the scientific community is in agreement--first, we need to aggressively expand energy efficiency all over this country in terms of older homes and buildings. We can save an enormous amount of fuel, cut carbon emissions, lower fuel bills, and create jobs if we do that.
Furthermore, we must move aggressively to such sustainable energies as wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and other technologies. We must invest in research and development to make those technologies even more efficient. In my view, it is a no-brainer to say we must reject the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline once and for all. We need to end tax breaks and subsidies for oil and coal companies, which amount to well over $10 billion a year. We should not be subsidizing those companies that are helping to destroy our planet.
Finally, we need to price carbon through a carbon tax or some other approach so the real cost of burning carbon is reflected in the price. I am very proud Senator Barbara Boxer, the chairperson of the environmental committee, and I introduced such legislation last year.
The bottom line is we are in a pivotal moment in history. This Congress has got to act. It has to act boldly. When we do that, when we cut greenhouse gas emissions, when we transform our energy system, we can save many people money on their fuel bills, we can cut pollution in general, we can cut greenhouse gas emissions significantly, and we can create good-paying jobs all over this country.
The bottom line here is we cannot afford to reject basic science. We have to listen to what the scientific community is saying. We have got to act aggressively, and let's do it.
I yield the floor.
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