rhode island and yield the floor. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that senator boozman precede me in recognition on the floor for such time as he may consume. the presiding officer: without objection, the senator from arkansas. mr. boozman: thank you, mr. president. thank you, senator, for allowing me this courtesy very, very much. i appreciate it. mr. president, in last year's agreement, our retired -- in last year's budget agreement, our retired service members were unjustly targeted to bear the burden of irresponsible spending. balancing the budget on the backs of our service members is a reckless move that violates our responsibility we made to those who wear our nation's uniform. which is why i voted against the budget agreement. new mexico numerous arkansans have reached out to get me to correct these misguided cuts. i've been reached out to provide certainty for our retirees'

financial service. i working with others in this body have worked hard to bring this to a vote. yesterday the house took action. now i'm pleased to be able to tell those arkansans and all veterans that the senate has followed suit and has corrected this injustice. however, we must working to fully repeal the section of the bipartisan budget agreement that reduces retirement pay for those who enlist after january 1, 2013. any changes congress may consider to our military compensation system should be done in a thoughtful and responsible matter in the context of a broader compensation system. i supported this bill that was before the senate today to restore the full cost of living adjustment for those enlisted prior to 2014, but will continue working fully to repeal this cut that singles out current military enlistments to bear the burden of wasteful washington spending. we need to right this wrong so

veterans and their sphreams one less thing to worry about. however, this overwhelming vote today, this very bipartisan vote today was certainly a step in the right direction. and with that i yield back. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island is recognized. mr. whitehouse: this marks the 58th consecutive week i've come to the floor to seek to wake up this congress to the threat of climate change. carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels is altering the climate. the consensus around this fact within the scientific community and, in fact, the reality-based community at this point is overwhelming. since the industrial revolution, humans have dumped two trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air and oceans and counting. the e.p.a. estimates in 2011 the united states alone emitted more

than 5.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide. we know that the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere is higher than it has been in the history of mankind. we know when you put more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it warms up the planet. that's been understood science since abraham lincoln was president. we know that the ocean absorbs 90% of that excess heat and 30% of the carbon in the air. as water warms, it expands and sea levels go up. that's called the law of thermal expansion. we know that when carbon dissolves in water it increases the levels of carbonic acid in the water. that's not debatable. it's a law of chemistry. we know from simple measurements that sea water is acidifying at a rate we haven't seen at any time in the past 50 million years.

and, by the way, we're a species that has been homo sapiens about 150,000 so 50 million takes you back a ways. when you put things together and look at 37 straight years with the global temperatures above the 20th average, sea level up 10 nmps at rhode island, oyster spat killed off in washington state, shorter seasons for ski resort operators and longer for firefighters, our climate, mr. president, is changing. the scientific debate is long settled and public awareness of the crisis is growing stronger and even across party lines. outside these walls, outside these walls of congress that have been barricaded by lies and special interest propaganda, americans of all stripes, including more and more responsible republican voices, acknowledge the threat of climate change and call for responsible solutions.

yet congress remains trapped behind a barricade of polluting special interest influence. republicans in congress refuse to get serious. it wasn't always this way. conservation of this land's natural resources used to be a core value of the republican party. and protecting future generations' national birthright from plundering by special interest industry was a cornerstone of republican leadership. this month actually marks the anniversary of a milestone in that kind of american leadership. it was on february 1, 1905, that president theodore roosevelt established the united states national forest service. fed up with the cronyism and bureaucracies that defind the weak existing conservation programs, he dissolved the bureau of forestry within the department of agriculture and

transferred management of the 63 million acres of national forests under the department of the interior to the new forest service. roosevelt recented the -- resented the malafactors of great wealth as he called them, the timber and mining interests who said -- quote -- "selfish and shortsighted greed seeks to exploit our natural resources in such fashion as to ruin them and thereby to leave our children and our children's children heirs only to an exhausted and impoverished inheritance." roosevelt not only knew how to say the right thing, he knew how to say it well. pictured here is teddy roosevelt looking across the vast expanse of mowing onrim in arizona, one of the of the areas that. with him is gifford pinchot,

the forest service's first chief. he restructured the management of the national forests. during his presidency, the forest service stem grew by 10 million acres. in total he extended protection to an additional 230 million acres of our nation's land. we have become great in a material sense because of the lavish use of our resources, roosevelt said. and we have just reason to be proud of our growth. but the time has come to inquiry seriously what will happen when our forests are gone. when the coal, the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted. when the soils shall have been further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers. today some of those long cherished american forests, grasslands and landscapes are under assault due to climate change. in july, 2010, the forest

service issued its national road map for responding to climate change. specifically, the forest service report says most of the urgent forest and grassland management challenges of the past 20 years such as wildfires wildfires, changing water regimes, and expanding service insect infestations have been driven in part by a change in climate. future impacts, the report continues, are projected to be even more severe. our bicameral task force on climate change which i chair with congressman waxman hosted a roundtable of firefighters and state and federal foresters. here's what dave cleev ees, the climate change advisor told us. so what have we been seeing? the length of the fire season increasing by more than 60 days over the last ten years. the annual area burned by

wildfire increasing more than four times what it was in the 1970's. the portion of the area burned by large fires has gone up two to seven times so most of that increase in acreage has been because of the large fires and the extreme part of the distribution of fires. so we have a big issue on our hands. it's an ecological issue, it's an economic issue, it's a social issue, and dealing with it means we have to understand it better and understand some of the real challenges. shown here is the devastation from the largest rim fire in the sierra nevada range recorded history. the healthy forest is shown two years prior to the fire on the left. while mon storing right before the fire -- monitoring right before the fire showed a sudden decline right here in the health of the fire caused by the western pine beetle making the

forest vulnerable to burning. that's a beetle killed off by cold weather. so where it can infest forests is limited by cold weather and altitude, of course, because it gets colder at higher altitude. with climate change, the territory of the infestation has expanded and you see this kind of a change from a healthy forest to this. and when it turns to this, it can burn. and on the right we see the charred and unrecognizable landscape. although we cannot definitively attribute any single fire to climate change, according to a 2012 comprehensive science emphasis report for the u.s. forest sector, increased system tement and drow drought can increase frequency and magnitude of fires and amplify insect and pathogen outbreaks that affect forest house. montana's deep freezes used to kill off the pine bark beat. today, that beetle kills millions of acres of trees

across the american west. president roosevelt issued a warning a century ago. one distinguishing characteristic of really civilized men is foresight, he said. we have to as a nation exercise foresight for this nation in the future and if we do not exercise that foresight, dark will be the future. have we heeded roosevelt's warning? we can clearly foresee the devastation climate change will bring. yet many modern republicans, particularly those in congress, are aligning themselves with the polluters and the deniers, to manufacture doubt about the science and to fight any limits on greenhouse emissions. roosevelt, a republican, had

foresight to protect the natural resources we rely on but his once-great party has lost track of his ideals. democrats and republicans should be working with president obama to implement his climate action plan to reduce carbon pollution but when the the environment and public works committee held a hearing, what did we get from our republican colleagues? flat-out climate denial. the polluter party line. theodore roosevelt, the great republican conservationist, stood up to polluting special interests. he was in the name of the recent book, the wilderness warrior. today, too many republicans in congress have joined polluting corporate special interests in their war on the wilderness.

perhaps they should listen to another roosevelt, theodore roosevelt iv, the are great grandson of the president and still a republican. he wants his fellow republicans to return to the values of his great grandfather. quote -- "it seems to me beyond the scope of many on the right to say, for instance, that species extinction as a result of unrestrained human activity is immoral and indefensible, that our refusal to seriously engage in a global effort to address climate change is unethical and imprudent." mr. president, there are such clear warnings. the facts speak for themselves. the denial position has shown itself to be nonsense, a sham. yet in congress we sleepwalk

on, every day more and more americans realize the truth and they increasingly want this congress to wake up. they know that climate change is real. well, it is time to wake up and to do the work necessary to combat climate change. it is time for us to heed the words of president theodore roosevelt. here is your country. cherish these natural wonders. cherish the natural resources. cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage for your children and your children's children. do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches, or its

romance. let us wake up. i thank the presiding officer. i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: it's my understanding the senate is in a quorum call. the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that that be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to executive session to consider nominations 564, 570, 566 and

567, district court judges for connecticut, arkansas and the northern district of california and northern district of california. nominations be confirmed en bloc, motions to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate and no further motions be in order to any of the nominations, related statements be printed in the record and the president be notified of the senate's action and the senate resume legislative session. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican whip. mr. cornyn: reserving the right to object. as everyone knows last year our friends on the other side of the aisle invoked the so-called nuclear option. the stated reason was to strip the minority of any ability to stop any executive or judicial nominees on the floor. but in fact prior to the president's attempt to fill up the d.c. circuit court with judges they didn't need the senate had a good record of confirming the president's the senator from -- the president's

nominees 215-2. now the majority leader would like to short circuit the process put in place and seek to get confirmation of these judicial nominees by unanimous consent. my hope would be that the majority leader would choose to reverse the partisan rules change so that we can go back to the bipartisan cooperative process that resulted in more than 200 obama judges being confirmed. absent that, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i appreciate my friend's understanding of what has happened and we'll have further conversations about this. i would move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 564. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to proceed. all those in favor say aye. those opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: jeffrey meyer of

connecticut to be united states district judge. mr. reid: i would now ask the clerk to report with permission of the chair a cloture motion which i have filed. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: cloture motion. we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to close debate on the nomination of jeffrey meyer of connecticut to be united states district judge for the district of connecticut signed by 19 senators as follows: -- mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent that the rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i move to proceed to legislative session, mr. president. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to proceed. all those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. reid: thank you,

mr. president. i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 570. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to proceed. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, james maxwell moody jr. of arkansas to be united states district judge. mr. reid: i have a cloture motion that has been filed at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: cloture motion. we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the nomination of james maxwell moody jr. of arkansas to be united states district judge for the eastern district of arkansas, signed by 18 senators as follows. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the reading of the names not be necessary.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent that the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to proceed. all those in favor say aye. those opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. reid: i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 566. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to proceed. all those in favor say aye. those opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to and the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination. james denato of california to be united states district judge. mr. reid: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the

clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: cloture motion. we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of james donato of california to be united states district judge for the northern district of california signed by 18 senators as follows. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent, mr. president, the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to proceed. those in favor say aye. those opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. reid: i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 567,. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to proceed. those in fair say aye. those opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to.

the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination. beth labson freeman of california to be united states district judge. mr. reid: i ask the chair to report -- order reported a cloture motion which i filed. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of beth labson freeman of california to be united states district judge for the northern district of california signed by 18 senators as follows. mr. reid: i ask consent the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer:without objection. roeufp i move to -- mr. reid: i move to proceed to legislative session session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to proceed. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it.

the motion is agreed to. mr. reid: is the motion to proceed to calendar number 301 s. 1982 now pending? the presiding officer: the senator is correct. the motion is pending. mr. reid: i have a motion. in regard to that measure i wish the chair would order to be reported. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: cloture motion. we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the motion to proceed to calendar number 301, s. 1982, the comprehensive veterans health benefits and military retirement pay restoration act signed by 17 senators as follows. reid of nevada -- mr. reid: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the reading of the names not be necessary. i ask unanimous consent the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived and the cloture vote on the motion to proceed following the disposition of the freeman nomination and the resumption of legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. reid: mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: