Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, you either believe it or you don't believe it. Is there such a thing as climate change? Are we going through some change on our planet today? I think so, and 98 percent of the scientists who report on the subject believe the same thing. The evidence is everywhere, isn't it? The extreme weather events that we are seeing are, I think, an indication that something is happening on this Earth that we call home.

The obvious question is this: Do we have anything to do with it? Does the fact that we are alive, functioning, building things, and dealing with traveling by plane and other means have anything to do with what is happening to our planet? I think so.

Can we do something about it? Sure, we know we can. If we are dealing with greenhouse gas emissions that somehow in the atmosphere are raising the temperature of planet Earth, what can we do about those greenhouse gases? We know there are a lot of very simple and obvious things.

I can remember a debate on this floor when we talked about making cars and trucks more fuel efficient and when the folks in Detroit, who are the smartest people running the automobile companies, said: Impossible. You can't do it. Americans will never buy those cars. It just will not work.

Thank goodness we ignored them. We established standards and regulations. Do you know what? Like it or not, we drive more fuel- efficient cars and trucks today, and, frankly, I like it. It was a step in the right direction. It took governmental, congressional prodding to take place, and it made this a cleaner, safer place to live in the United States.

There are other things we can do as well, but, first, we need a basic agreement that there is a problem, that human conduct--the way we live, the way we work, and the way we produce things--has something to do with it, and that we are committed to changing it.

How many nations in the world have agreed with that conclusion? All of them. Wait. All of them except one--this country, this President, who decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. It is a universal, global decision by every nation on Earth except the United States that we do have a climate problem, that we are the cause of some part of it, at least, and that we should do something to change it. This President says he doesn't buy it and doesn't think the science proves it. He and he alone, on behalf of this country, stepped away from this agreement. I think that was a serious mistake.

I am happy to report that Governors across the United States--at least the Democratic Governors--have said they are going to ignore the President when it comes to this, and they are going to set up their own policies. I salute my own Governor, J.B. Pritzker, in Illinois. He is not part of this denial camp that is trying to ignore the problem. He is trying to do in our State, as others are, something to make sure that this planet is more livable, more habitable.

Isn't it amazing that this has become such a partisan issue? There was a time on the floor of this Senate when it was not. I remember when the late Senator John McCain, whom I still honor to this day not only for his service in the Senate but for his service to this country, teamed up with Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman and started proposing ideas to deal with climate change--bipartisan proposals, bipartisan votes. Not anymore, no. We have a big wall down the middle of this Chamber--on that side, climate denial and, on this side, a belief that we should be doing something about it.

We could do something today, couldn't we? Couldn't we take the latest climate assessment from the Federal Government, which spells out the problem and spells out the challenge, and come up with at least a reasonable, bipartisan approach with which to deal with the clear scientific evidence that has been produced by this government as required by law? Of course, we could, but we are not going to. Instead, the Republican Senate leader has decided he wants to make a political move. He wants to put the Democrats on the spot, not to solve the problem but to have something he can talk about in the next campaign.

A group came together and proposed, as they call it, the Green New Deal. I have taken a look at it. I went to Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who is one of the sponsors, and I asked him about it because he is one of the authors. I know Ed Markey. I served with him in the House, and I serve with him in the Senate. He has established credentials when it comes to this issue. He truly cares and has done many, many things to show that caring.

So I asked him: What is this Green New Deal? It is not a law. I mean, it is not a bill that will become a law. It is simply a resolution, which is kind of a statement of purpose, a statement of position. He said to me that it was aspirational--in other words, that the Green New Deal sets out aspirations, targets, and values.

I said to him: Ed, that is a good idea, but I want something that is not aspirational. I want something that is legislational. That is what we do here, right? I am sure he will come up with those specifics.

Yet Senator McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, has decided that we are going to put the Democrats on the spot. Take it or leave it in its entirety--the Green New Deal. Be on the record and vote this afternoon.

I will make it clear to you right now that I think there are parts of that Green New Deal that are excellent and some that I disagree with. At this point in time, I am going to be voting present this afternoon because I believe we should be legislational, and I believe we should be bipartisan.

I have said this on the floor many times, and I will say it again: The only major political party in the world today that denies climate change is the Republican Party of the United States of America. Now, I have waited for some Republican to come to the floor and say: Oh, no, that is not true, Senator Durbin. There are other major political parties that have the same position as we do. Yet no one has come to the floor.

A few months back, one Republican Senator in an elevator quietly said: I think there is a party in Australia that denies climate change.

Maybe that is true, but why in the world have we reached a point at which this is such a partisan issue? Don't we all see what is happening with the weather? Can't we see what is happening in terms of the temperature of this Earth that we live on as it is consistently, year after year, continuing to rise? Don't we realize that it has an impact on this Earth that we live on? Don't we realize that if it continues unabated, the Earth that I am leaving to my children and grandchildren will be a much different place and a much more challenging place? Can't we see the flooding in the streets down in Miami in Florida? Can't we see the melting of the glaciers? Isn't that proof positive that something is happening?

In my part of the world, the Midwest, I grew up with tornadoes. They are so common where I live, we even named sports teams after the tornadoes. When I was a kid--this happened half a dozen times, and I will never forget it--in the middle of the night, Mom and Dad would wake me up and say: The tornado sirens are blaring. Get in the basement right now. Grab your covers and pillow and get downstairs.

We would head down to the basement and wait for the all-clear signal.

Tornadoes were part of our lives, but they were usually confined to the spring and summer months. Just this last December, we had a tornado in Taylorville, IL, 30 miles away from where I live. It wasn't supposed to come this time of year.

Unusual things just like that are happening all over the place, and they are devastating. Don't take my word for it; talk to the people in the property and casualty insurance industry. They make a living trying to guess what the weather is going to be. If they see some horrible weather condition coming, they know it will not be good for their bottom line. I have talked to them. There are some States in which they are unwilling to write property and casualty insurance because of the vulnerability to hurricanes, tornadoes, and extreme weather events. They are making a conscious profit-and-loss business decision based on the evidence before them that something is happening to weather in the United States. They are not in denial. They embrace the concept every day when they decide whether to write insurance and what premiums to charge.

So if the people who do this for a living, who have to show a profit in their company, have come to the conclusion that climate change is for real, why haven't we in the Senate? Why do we instead engage in this political theater we are going to have this afternoon? Why aren't we instead, on a bipartisan basis, sitting down and saying: What can we do? What can we do in terms of conserving energy, in terms of being more fuel efficient, and in terms of being more sensitive to this environment? What can we do?

There are a handful of Republican Senators who have stepped up and said ``We should. We can see climate change where we live,'' but I wish they would become a force to lead their leadership forward into taking this up on a serious basis. This afternoon's vote is just part of a political stunt. It is not a serious effort to deal with climate change. We better do that pretty soon.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Alaska to yield for 10 seconds.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. She was the person I was thinking of when I said there are exceptions when it comes to the partisan divide between us. I stayed for her presentation because I knew what it was going to be, and I wanted it to be part of the Record.

I think Senator Murkowski and Senator Cantwell--whom we recognize on our side of the aisle as one of the real leaders on the subject--can show us the way in the Senate to find a bipartisan approach to deal with this challenge.

Thank you.

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