Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to express my concern and my disappointment over the decision by the President to formally withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement.

Though the President announced this decision over 2 years ago, this past Monday marked the first day his administration could send a letter to the United Nations formalizing the year-long withdrawal process. Of course, we know that they did that.

American leadership on climate action is being ceded to other countries before our very eyes. With this move, the President is betraying the trust of the American people and betraying the trust of our international allies in the fight against climate change.

Climate change is a very real and present threat to our environment, to our national security, to our economy, to our health, and to our very way of life. That is why I introduced the International Climate Accountability Act, to prevent the President from using funds to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. This bipartisan bill would also require the administration to develop a strategic plan for meeting the commitments we made in Paris in 2015.

We can see on this chart that the House passed legislation over 6 months ago. It has been 188 days since the House passed their legislation, the Climate Action Now Act. Yet in the Senate the majority leadership has refused to call up this bill for a vote.

The administration's withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement and the general refusal to bring climate change legislation to the floor is out of step with the desires of the American people.

Approximately two out of every three Americans believe it is the job of the Federal Government to combat climate change, according to a recent poll from the Associated Press. The same poll found that 64 percent of Americans disapprove of the President's climate change policies.

Unfortunately, the Senate majority leadership continues to refuse to act on climate change. Yet what we hear from our scientists and experts is that they tell us that we need to act and act now on climate change before it is too late. This poll shows us, as others have, that a supermajority of the American public wants us to do just that.

I have come before this body a number of times in the past to highlight the impact of climate change in my home State of New Hampshire. We see very directly the effects of climate change. The farther north you go, the more you see those impacts. Our fall foliage season is shortened. Our maple syrup production season is disrupted. Our outdoor recreation industries are hampered. Our ski and our snowmobiling industries are hampered. Our lobsters are moving north to colder waters. Our moose population is down 40 percent, and Lyme disease is on the rise.

But today what I really want to highlight are the revelations that have been made clear in recent weeks by our national security experts. A report entitled ``Implications of Climate Change for the U.S.

Dear Mr. President: We write to you as former US national security leaders to offer our support to our uniformed military, civilian national security professionals, and members of the scientific community, who across the past four Administrations have found that climate change is a threat to US national security.

Climate change is real, it is happening now, it is driven by humans, and it is accelerating. The overwhelming majority of scientists agree: less than 0.2% of peer-reviewed climate science papers dispute these facts. In this context, we are deeply concerned by reports that National Security Council officials are considering forming a committee to dispute and undermine military and intelligence judgments on the threat posed by climate change. This includes second-guessing the scientific sources used to assess the threat, such as the rigorously peer-reviewed National Climate Assessment, and applying that to national security policy. Imposing a political test on reports issued by the science agencies, and forcing a blind spot onto the national security assessments that depend on them, will erode our national security.

It is dangerous to have national security analysis conform to politics. Our officials' job is to ensure that we are prepared for current threats and future contingencies. We cannot do that if the scientific studies that inform our threat assessments are undermined. Our national security community will not remain the best in the world if it cannot make decisions based on the best available evidence.

When extreme weather hits the United States, it degrades the fighting force. Just last year, Hurricane Florence caused $3.6 billion in damages to Camp Lejeune, home of the Marines' expeditionary units on the East Coast. You called Florence ``One of the biggest to ever hit our country.'' Stronger storms and storm surges have long featured in predictions about a changing climate. Around the world, climate change is a ``threat multiplier''--making other security threats worse. Its effects are even used by our adversaries as a weapon of war; ISIS used water shortages in Iraq, in part driven by a changing climate, to cement their hold on the population during their reign of terror from 2014 to 2017.

We support the science-driven patriots in our national security community who have rightly seen addressing climate change as a threat reduction issue, not a political one, since 1989. We support the bipartisan finding of the US Congress, which you signed into law on December 2017, stating that ``climate change is a direct threat to the national security of the United States.'' We urge you to trust and heed the analysis of your own national security agencies and the science agencies on which their assessments depend, including the 21 senior defense officials that have identified climate change as a security threat during your Administration. A committee designed to undermine the many years of work they have done will weaken our ability to respond to real threats, putting American lives at risk.

Our climate will continue to change, and the threats will continue to grow. We spent our careers pledged to protect the United States from all threats, including this one. Let's drop the politics, and allow our national security and science agencies to do their jobs. Sincerely, Hon. John Kerry, Former Secretary of State; Hon. Ray Mabus, Former Secretary of the Navy; General Gordon R. Sullivan, US Army (Ret), Former Chief of Staff of the US Army; Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, USN (Ret), Former Commander, US Pacific Command; Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret), Former Supreme Allied Commander Europe; Nancy Soderberg, Former Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs; Hon. Sharon Burke, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy; Hon. David Goldwyn, Former Assistant Secretary of Energy and Special Envoy for International Energy Affairs; Hon. Miranda AA Ballentine, Former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Installations, Environment, and Energy); Leon Fuerth, Former National Security Adviser to the Vice President. Dr. Geoffrey Kemp, Former Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs; General Paul Kern, USA (Ret.), Former Commanding General, US Army Materiel Command; Lieutenant General John Castellaw, USMC (Ret), Former Chief of Staff, US Central Command; Lieutenant General Arlen D. Jameson, USAF (Ret), Former Deputy Commander, US Strategic Command; Lieutenant General Norm Seip, USAF (Ret), Former Commander, 12th Air Force; Hon. Sherri Goodman, Former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Environmental Security); Hon. Chuck Hagel, Former Secretary of Defense; Vice Admiral Richard Truly, USN (Ret), Former Administrator of NASA; Admiral Paul Zukunft, USCG (Ret), Former Commandant of the Coast Guard; General Stanley McChrystal, USA (Ret), Former Commander, US and International Security. Lieutenant General Donald Kerrick, USA (Ret), Former Deputy National Security Advisor to the President of the United States; Tom Hicks, Former Acting Under Secretary of the Navy and Deputy Under Secretary of the Navy for Management; Hon. John Conger, Former Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations and Environment; Eric Rosenbach, Former Chief of Staff, Department of Defense, and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Security; Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, USN (Ret), Former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment; Hon. Alice Hill, Former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Resilience Policy, National Security Council; Major General Randy Manner, USA (Ret), Former Acting Vice Chief, National Guard Bureau; General Ron Keys, USAF (Ret), Former Commander, Air Combat Command; Vice Admiral Philip Cullom, USN (Ret), Former Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Readiness and Logistics. Lieutenant General Kenneth E. Eickmann, USAF (Ret), Former Commander, Aeronautical Systems Center, Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command; Vice Admiral Robert C. Parker, USCG (Ret), Commander, Coast Guard Atlantic Area; Greg Treverton, Former Chair, National Intelligence Council; Major General Jerry Harrison, USA (Ret), Former Chief, Office of Legislative Liaison, Army Staff; Rear Admiral Leendert R. Hering USN (Ret), Former Commander, Navy Region Southwest; Major General Jeff Phillips, USA (Ret), Executive Director, Reserve Officers Association; Rear Admiral Michael Smith, USN (Ret), Former Commander, Carrier Strike Group 3; Rear Admiral Jonathan White, USN (Ret), Former Oceanographer & Navigator, US Navy; Captain James C. Goudreau, SC, USN (Ret), Former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Energy); Brigadier General Steven Anderson, USA (Ret), Former Director, Operations and Logistics Readiness, Headquarters, Department of the Army. Brigadier General Donald Bolduc, USA (Ret), Former Commander, Special Operations Command-Africa; Brigadier General Robert Felderman, USA (Ret), Former Deputy Director of Plans, Policy and Strategy, United States Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command; Brigadier General Carlos Martinez, USAF (Ret), Former Mobilization Assistant, Chief of Warfighting Integration and Chief Information Officer, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force; Joan VanDervort, Former Deputy Director, Ranges, Sea, and Airspace, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Readiness); Commander David Slayton, USN (Ret), Executive Director, the Arctic Security Initiative The Hoover Institution; Hon. Richard Morningstar, Former Ambassador to the European Union; Major General Richard T. Devereaux, USAF (Ret), Former Director, Operational Planning, Policy and Strategy, Headquarters US Air Force; Rear Admiral Sinclair M. Harris, USN (Ret), Former Commander, United States Fourth Fleet; Rear Admiral Michael G. Mathis, USN (Ret), Chief Engineer to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition); Rear Admiral Fernandez L. Ponds, USN (Ret), Commander, Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) 3. Rear Admiral Kevin Slates, USN (Ret), Former Director of Energy and Environmental Readiness Division, US Navy; Rear Admiral David W. Titley, USN (Ret), Former Oceanographer & Navigator, US Navy; Joe Bryan, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Energy); Brigadier General John Adams, USA (Ret), Former Deputy United States Military Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Military Committee; Brigadier General Joseph R. Barnes, USA (Ret), Former Assistant Judge Advocate General of the Army; Brigadier General Stephen Cheney, USMC (Ret), Former Commanding General Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island; Brigadier General Gerald E. Galloway, USA (Ret), Former Dean of the Academic Board, US Military Academy, West Point; Brigadier General Stephen Xenakis, USA (Ret), Former Commanding General, Southeast Regional Medical Command; Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, USA (Ret), Former Chief of Staff to the US Secretary of State.

This letter very directly rebukes the attempt by the President to create a committee within the National Security Council that would undermine military and intelligence judgments on the threats that are posed by climate change. So instead of recognizing those and developing a plan to address them, what the President has been trying to do is to figure out how to undermine those very judgments.

1743 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am not surprised by my colleague's objection. I am, however, disappointed, and I have to disagree, to some extent, with the rationale because in fact this was not a treaty. It was a voluntary, nonbinding agreement that the United States entered into voluntarily.

I am not saying President Trump doesn't have the authority to withdraw from the agreement. I am saying he is wrong to withdraw because it is not in the U.S. national interest to withdraw from this agreement.

There is an international race to develop clean energy technologies and practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and this race exists, in large part, because of the goals that were established in the Paris climate agreement.

Instead of leading the pack in this race, which the United States should be doing, the President has chosen to put us on the sidelines. We are going to watch our allies and our adversaries clamor to fill the void he has created. After decades of American leadership in clean energy technology innovations, other countries are now poised to develop new low-carbon technologies to help countries throughout the world meet their Paris commitments. Those could be American technologies. Those could be American jobs. Instead of being developed in the United States, too many of these new technologies and the jobs that go with them will be developed outside of our shores. This is a missed opportunity for the United States. It is a setback for the American economy and for American workers.

The scientists are in agreement worldwide. Climate change is the single greatest environmental public health and economic challenge our world has ever faced. Right now, watching this President withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, sitting idly by, this Congress is surrendering American leadership in the fight against climate change.

I hope that as time goes by, the President and our Republican colleagues will rethink the position and acknowledge the need to do something to address the climate challenge we are facing and to make sure the United States is in line for those jobs and the new energy economy that is being created.

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, yesterday a bipartisan group met with seven Fortune 500 companies. They were all on the cutting edge of new energy technologies, and everyone around the table said what they need is to see policies at the Federal level that encouraged the development of new energy technologies and what we can do to address climate change.

I like what my colleague said about being able to work together to address this. I hope we can do that, and I am ready to sit down anytime he is to look at things we might be able to agree on that will help us move forward to address climate change. I appreciate his willingness to work in a bipartisan way.

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