December 4, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 193 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S6849-S6851]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, atmospheric carbon dioxide just hit 
new records in our atmosphere, the highest in the history of humankind, 
and I rise for the 260th time to call this Chamber to wake up.
  As we venture further into uncharted dangerous climate change, the 
National Council for Science and the Environment issued this report, 
``Climate Science Research in the United States and U.S. Territories.'' 
This report surveys climate research papers from public universities 
across all of our 50 States--every single one of them--to highlight the 
breadth and the depth of climate science coming out of our State 
universities and to showcase the climate science centers and institutes 
that they host.
  Some colleagues pay no attention to the threat of climate change, but 
their home State universities sure do. Ten thousand peer-reviewed 
research papers published out of 80 universities from 2014 through 
2018, that is, on average, 185 peer-reviewed articles published on 
climate change in each State.
  The report says this: ``In every State, public universities invest in 
scholarship and education to advance fields such as climate modeling, 
climate impacts, adaptation, and more. Increasingly, they go on, 
climate science has been integrated into course work on sustainability, 
energy, engineering, architecture, business, and even political 
science.'' One wonders what is the hold the fossil fuel industry has 
over the Republican Party that causes colleagues to ignore the research 
from their own home state universities?
  The report continues: ``Climate scientists are studying a wide 
diversity of topics. They measure carbon dioxide and other greenhouse 
gas emissions. They are studying carbon and the impacts of a changing 
carbon cycle. They are studying impacts of climate change on the 
Nation's food security, crop yields, heat-stress, health impacts, soil 
erosion; on water resources, including water quality, balance, river 
basins, drought, precipitation, mountain snowpack; on impacts to 
critical infrastructure, such as sea level rise on coasts and on 
subtropical islands, to the impact of permafrost thaw on sub-Arctic 
rivers.''
  ``Finally, researchers are also studying the social science of 
climate change, including changing attitudes, polarization, opinions, 
beliefs, and their impacts on framing in the media and on decision-
making.''
  Region by region in every State, the report shows our State 
universities tracking climate change's consequences in fine detail. 
Quoting from the report, in the Midwest, ``Agriculture is a major focal 
area for climate-related research . . . [with] more occurrences of the 
word `agriculture' in climate-related papers from the Midwest between 
the 2014 and 2018 than in any other region.''
  In the Southwest, ``A key focus of scientific research in the 
Southwest region is on the impact to people and ecosystems from heat, 
drought, wildfires, and flooding.''
  In the Southeast, ``The impacts of climate change in the Southeast 
are becoming most visible through the increase of flooding, temporal 
and geographic shifts that affect human health, and growing risks of 
wildfires.''
  In the Southern Great Plains States, ``Scientists in the Southern 
Great Plains are studying climate impact on food systems, sea level 
rise, as well as impacts to unique ecosystems in this region, such as a 
tall grass prairie in Oklahoma.''
  Across all of these regions, red and purple State universities are 
churning out climate research. In fact, conservative States' 
universities are home to some of the most prolific climate science 
departments and institutions. I wish they were listened to by our 
Members here.
  Texas A&M University, the alma mater of climate-change-denying former 
Energy Secretary Rick Perry, produced 256 papers--256 papers--covering 
topics like shifting summer monsoons in the Lone Star State, local 
surface temperature increases, atmospheric changes, and climate 
adaptation strategies.
  North Carolina State University produced 223 climate papers examining 
climate change and atmospheric chemistry, surface ozone, regional water 
research and precipitation, and it is home to the Southeast Climate 
Adaptation Science Center, which helps coastal North Carolina grapple 
with rising sea levels, erosion, and flooding.
  Go to Idaho. Researchers from Boise State and the University of Idaho 
issued 164 climate science papers covering threats like wildfires, bark 
beetles, shifting precipitation, rising temperatures, and disruption to 
ecosystems in National Parks like Yellowstone. Idaho also has two 
academic centers focused on climate change, the Hazard and Climate 
Resiliency Consortium and the Center for Resilient Communities. For the 
staff at these two centers, it is all climate, all the time. For the 
Idaho delegation, it is never climate, ever.
  Let's look at what is happening in the home State universities of 
Republican Senators on our Environment and Public Works Committee. Here 
is what they will find in their university backyards. The University of 
Wyoming produced 124 climate change papers on wildfires, endangered 
species, Yellowstone National Park, and other climate topics--124. The 
university is home to both the State climatology office and an 
atmospheric science department, which does modeling and empirical 
climate research. Its faculty are working on subjects like--quoting 
here the report here--``the role of climate and variability on 
vegetation and fire. Using moderate climate analogs to understand past 
environmental disturbances. Developing Web-based animated maps of 
climate, and development of 3D climate visualization tools to enhance 
learning approaches in the classroom.'' I wonder if our Wyoming 
delegation has visualized that.
  The University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University published 
183 climate change papers on things like Southern Plains grasslands, 
rising temperatures, soil respiration, and much more. OU is home to the 
Oklahoma University Climate Science Center and the Department of the 
Interior's South Central Adaptation Science Center.

  Here is what the dean of the University of Oklahoma College of 
Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences said: ``On the increasing strength 
of Earth sciences we can now state that global warming is 
`unequivocal.''' He said: ``The fact that the planet's warming, and the 
fact that CO2's a greenhouse gas, and the fact that it's 
increasing in the atmosphere, and that it increases in the atmosphere 
due to humans--about those things, there's no debate.''
  I am not sure the Oklahoma delegation here has taken that in yet.
  West Virginia and Marshall Universities have turned out dozens of 
climate change papers on precipitation, drought, tree growth, and much 
more. The West Virginia Mountaineers have a Mountain Hydrology 
Laboratory, which reports on climate change's ``important implications 
for management of fresh water resources,'' which include that ``the 
highlands region in the central Appalachian Mountains is expected to 
wet up'' as warmer air carrying more moisture leads to what they call 
``intensification of the water cycle''--what you and I would call worse 
flooding. The laboratory warns that ``the implications of this 
intensification are immense.''

[[Page S6850]]

  The University of Arkansas contributed 51 papers and hosts the 
University of Arkansas Resiliency Center. Arkansas researchers warned 
of the need to reduce greenhouse gases, particularly including carbon 
dioxide and methane because these gases' ``absorption of solar 
radiation is responsible for the greenhouse effect.'' The university 
describes the greenhouse effect thus: ``These gases are trapped and 
held in the Earth's atmosphere, gradually increasing the temperature of 
the Earth's surface and air in the lower atmosphere.''
  A University of Arkansas scientist predicts ``that the spread of 
plant species in nearly half of the world's land areas could be 
affected by global warming by the end of the century.'' Yet what do we 
hear from Arkansas about climate change?
  Alaska actually gets its own regional chapter in this report. In 
Alaska, ``Researchers at public institutions . . . are studying changes 
in the marine environment and the impacts to the valuable marine 
resources Alaskan communities depend on.''
  There are papers on thawing permafrost and its effects on water 
quality, infrastructure, and habitat for fish and wildlife. There is 
research on what rapid ocean acidification, rising sea levels, and 
shifting fish stocks mean for Alaska's coastal communities. And there 
is research into challenges facing Alaska's indigenous people fighting 
to protect their ancient way of life in a rapidly changing landscape.
  Alaska is home to not one, not two, but three climate institutes: the 
Alaska Climate Research Center, the Alaska Climate Adaptation/Resource 
Center, and the Ocean Acidification Research Center. Alaskan 
researchers have written papers titled ``Permafrost is warming at a 
global scale'' and ``Climate Change and Future Wildfire in the Western 
United States.'' The Alaska researchers don't mince words. I quote: 
``Projections of warming suggest that considerable change will occur to 
key snow parameters, possibly contributing to extensive infrastructure 
damage from thawing permafrost, an increased frequency of rain-on-snow 
events and reduced soil recharge in the spring due to shallow end-of-
winter snowpack.'' It is not hard to understand, but where is the 
action?
  In the Dakotas, North Dakota State and the University of North Dakota 
are studying the effects of climate change on the Great Plains, the 
Mississippi River, land use and adaptation, and public policy. They are 
also home to North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Center, the Global 
Institute of Food Security and International Agriculture, and the 
Center for Regional Climate Studies. South Dakota State has issued 
dozens of studies on climate change, including what it will mean for 
the State's groundwater supply, maize and wheat crops, and 
precipitation levels.
  Heading south, the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State 
are studying what climate change will mean for sediment flows, 
droughts, watersheds, and water quality. They are looking at what 
climate change will mean for Mississippi's vitally important rice 
crop--a crop that supports hundreds of rice farms in the State. And 
they do good coastal climate work with the Sea Grant Program.
  Auburn, the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, and the University of 
Alabama-Huntsville produced 140 climate papers that are in the 
council's study here. You would never know that from the Alabama 
delegation. Auburn has an International Center for Climate and Global 
Change Research, and the University of Alabama does climate change 
research at its Earth System Science Center.
  All by itself, Iowa State is responsible for 117 papers on climate 
change: on agriculture--corn, grazing lands, yields; on weather--
precipitation, droughts, temperature; and even on beliefs and behavior 
related to climate change.
  Last but certainly not least among EPW Republican States is Indiana, 
home to two world-class universities that are doing extremely 
impressive work on climate change. Indiana University and Purdue 
combine for 289 papers. They are also home to the Center for the Study 
of Global Change at Indiana University and Purdue's Climate Change 
Research Center.
  I hope it goes without saying that universities that study climate 
change and publish scientific papers on climate change also teach 
climate change in their coursework. Maybe we should spend a week here 
in the Senate getting a refresher on the home State climate change 
science. It might do us some good. But we don't. We waste week after 
week here as the danger looms, the warnings pile up, and the research 
keeps coming about climate change in our home States. We will be the 
most clearly warned body in history of disaster ahead. Yet we still sit 
here doing nothing. Never has a political body been more clearly warned 
of a more present looming disaster than this one--yet still nothing.
  The council's report on State university climate research has these 
web diagrams, which show how climate change research focuses more on 
climate effects as they begin to manifest themselves in the States and 
not just predictions and science any longer. Now it is measurement of 
actual events. But the diagrams also show the various areas of research 
about which these research papers are being published.
  Here is the web diagram for the topics that are addressed in climate 
science research in the southwestern universities. The 12 universities 
in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah in the 
study show real-time effects of climate change, like drought and 
wildfire, and point to direct links between tree mortality, drought, 
and climate. We in this country depend on the Southwest for more than 
half of our specialty crops--vegetables, fruits, and nuts--so we have 
to pay attention when drought threatens all of those.
  Here is another topic web for the Southeast highlighting what the 
universities' research has been on sea level rise, ocean acidification, 
adaptation, and management.
  Here is a slightly different web. This web is not a web of science 
and inquiry. No, this is the web of front groups and dark money 
organizations that the fossil fuel industry has supported, created, and 
used for decades to sow false doubt about all of this science--all of 
this science from all of our 50 States. Their job is to lie about this 
science, and they have done it well. They have used this same web to 
deploy political muscle and propaganda to block action here in 
Congress. That is why, with all of this research being done in all of 
these States, nothing is happening on this floor. Nothing has happened 
since Citizens United gave the fossil fuel industry the equivalent of 
howitzers, whereas before then, they just had muskets.
  I say to the Presiding Officer, I remember how bipartisan it was 
here. You weren't here then. Between 2007, when I was sworn in--all of 
2007, 2008, and 2009, we had five different bipartisan climate bills 
popping up around on the Senate floor. There were five of them, all 
strong, serious bills--not little nibbly things to make people feel 
better; real bills.
  In January 2010 comes Citizens United, and the fossil fuel industry 
gets its brandnew hardware, its political howitzers, and they go 
straight to the other side of the aisle and say: Anybody who crosses us 
is dead. Bipartisanship died that year on climate change, and it is 
only beginning--only beginning--to resurge now. But the decade we lost 
will cost us a lot, and it makes the urgency of what we have to do now 
all the more important. This web of denial, paid for by the fossil fuel 
industry, has stymied Congress for a decade.
  I hope I don't need to remind anyone here that the fossil fuel 
industry has a conflict of interest as to this question. Indeed, the 
International Monetary Fund has quantified it as a $650 billion-a-year 
conflict of interest. For $650 billion in conflict of interest, you can 
pay for a lot of nonsense organizations that are phony front groups to 
put out your poison and your political propaganda and your political 
pressure.
  It is time, at last, for Senators to pay attention to the trusted 
science actually happening in their own home State universities and not 
to this corrupt web of denial that has been propped up by the 
conflicted fossil fuel industry. This web of denial has done nothing 
but lied over and over again. They are provably wrong over and over 
again. The things they say are false over and over again. Yet the 
industry behind them still controls the U.S.

[[Page S6851]]

Senate, and we can't budge, despite the rest of the world moving on 
dealing with this issue.
  Let me close with an anniversary that we marked this week. Ten years 
ago this Friday, a full-page ad ran in the New York Times--a full-page 
ad pointing out that the science of climate change was already by 
then--10 years ago--to use the words in the advertisement, 
``irrefutable,'' ``scientifically irrefutable.'' The science is 
scientifically irrefutable. And it goes on to say that the consequences 
of climate change would be ``catastrophic and irreversible.'' Wow. The 
science is irrefutable; the consequences, catastrophic and 
irreversible? Who could have signed this ad? I will tell you who signed 
this ad. Donald J. Trump and his children, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric 
Trump, Ivanka Trump--oh, and the Trump Organization, right there. This 
is what the Trumps had to say about this 10 years ago, Friday.

  I conclude by saying to my colleagues, the science is there for you 
to see. You don't have to go far. Just go to your home State 
university. It is right there waiting for you. For the truth of climate 
change, just turn to the researchers teaching your students in your 
State's own universities. They can tell you, just as Donald Trump and 
his family did 10 years ago, that what we face is irrefutable and that 
its consequences will be catastrophic and irreversible if we keep 
monkeying around and failing to act.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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