that's pretty amazing to recognize how that transition is occurring, and if we think about projecting into the future, the national research council predicts that for every 1.8 degrees fahrenheit temperature increase, the area burned in the western forests will quadruple, which led our energy secretary to tell me a few weeks ago about a draft of a study that says the western forests will be dramatically, dramatically impacted, devastated in the course of this century due to these factors. so we have a triple threat, that of drought and bark beetles, increased temperatures and the result is decimation of a incredibly important rural

resource, our forests. but carbon pollution is not just an attack on our forests, it's also an attack on our farming. indeed, drought across the u.s. is a huge and growing throat --t to ago cull. in the state of organizer, we e had three of the worst droughts in the klamath basin. 2001,, then the worst-ever drought of 2010, and then the worst-ever drought of 2013, and now we're looking at the possibly of the worse of any drought in 2014. hopefully we'll have a lot of precipitation and a lot of snow in the coming weeks and that won't be the case. but if you were looking right now just at the snowpack, it is possibly we'll have the fourth worst-ever in a 14-year period. this is devastating to our rural

farming economy. absolutely devastating. and so let's take a look at the impact of -- coming from smaller snowpacks. snowpacks are a significant piece of this puzzle. and if we were to take and look at the pacific northwest and we were to basically draw a circle about like this, what you see are these zones where there's a huge percentage decrease in the snowpacks. now, those snowpacks then provide far less irrigation, water available, and therefore, they're the foundation for the summer drought which then has devastating impacts on agriculture. well, this is not a good thing for our farming families and it's certainly not a good thing for our farm economy. now, those snowpacks have another impact and that is

that -- and i'm going to skip forward to the impact on our streams and our fish. folks who like to fish for trout and go to their summer streams know that it's going to be better if the stream is large and cold than if it is small and warm. but the loss of those snowpacks means that the summer streams are smaller and warmer and they are very bad for trout. and that's what we're seeing in this particular picture. dead trout from the dechutz river. last fall, thousands of fish died in the river from low flows attributed to drought. now, clearly not only is it bad for trout, it's bad for salmon, it's bad for steelhead. it's certainly bad for our fishing industry.

let's turn to another part of our fishing industry and this is an impact that we see over on the coast of oregon. specifically, i want to take a look at the impact that we see on our oysters. now, oysters have to fixate a shell at the beginning of their life. they're called oyster seed, the baby oyster, and you have hatcheries and those hatcheries have been having challenges. the whiskey creek oyster hatchery in oregon has had a big problem and, indeed, at up witht one point had a huge, huge impact. and let me read part of an article to you. "peering into the microscope, allen barton thought the baby oysters looked normal, except for one thing -- they were dead. slide after slide the results were the same. the entire batch of 100 million

largest tax hav100 mill00 milli. it took more than a year to find the culprit, a radical change in ocean asidit acidity." and here we see why. when the pollution and carbon in the air, that carbon is absorbed into the ocean, that dissolved, carbon dioxide, combines with water and becomes h2co3, otherwise known as carbonic acid. that carbonic acid is preventing the baby oysters from forming their shells. you can think of this as the canary in the coal mine for our world's oceans. because if baby oysters are having a challenge forming their shells because of a 30% increase in acidity since the start of

the industrial revolution, what other impacts are there going to be along in the shellfish world and the food chains that depend on those shellfish? not to mention the impact on our shellfish farmers. i was noting this up in washington state and i was told, you know, our oyster farmers are experiencing the similar problem and they are going to hawaii and to asia. so this is not just an oregon problem. the manager of the hatchery in oregon said this in an article, david stick. he said -- quote -- "i do not think people understand the seriousness of the problem. ocean acidification is going to be a game changer. it has the potential," he said, "to be a real catastrophe." let's recognize another part of the planet that's having problem with warmer waters and ocean

acidification and that's our coral reefs. we have in oregon a researcher at oregon state university, his name is professor hickson. and professor hickson is recognizing that the coral reefs around the world are in trouble. as he said in a presentation, he studied dozens of reefs. they are his children. and then he said, my children are dying. and one of the key reasons is acidification but another is the oceans are getting warmer. so here i have a chart showing the warming of the ocean. as the oceans are absorbing carbon dioxide, they're also absorbing heat. and as they become warmer, they have a real problem -- they create a real problem for coral reefs. now, coral is an animal. we may think of it as a plant but it is actually an animal and

it lives in a symbionic relationship with a top of algae. now, they depend on each other. and what happens when the water gets warmer around a coral reef is the algae start to multiply in a fashion that overwhelms the coral. and the coral, in an effort to survive, ejects the algae, throws them out of the -- of the host. and then the coral, having ejected the algae, dies. this is called bleaching and it's something we're seeing in coral reefs around the world. and that is why professor hickson noted, "my children are dying." and i'll tell you something else about the warming that's occurring and this is more about warming that is occurring in terms of the temperature of our pran et.

our -- of our planet. it's affecting our recreation industry and our snow industry. i'm going to start about taking a look at what's driving that in terms of chart related to carbon dioxide. and specifically, this chart -- this chart shows the dramatic change that has gone on. we see the fluctuations in carbon dioxide over hundreds of thousands of years into the modern time and then, boom, 400 parts per million of carbon pollution. what does this come from? it comes from burning fossil fuels. and this carbon, carbon dioxide, as a component of the atmosphere, it traps heat. and so as some have summarized, our planet now has a fever.

the temperature is going up. and so let's take a look at how that carbon dioxide correlates with temperature. and so we have here in this case showing since 1880 basically the start of the industrial revolution the increase in temperature on our planet. the global surface mean temperature. and we see this significant increase. now, if you want to find a way that this impacts our economy, let's take a look at how it impacts our recreation industry. this is an article that i grabbed from a "new york times," lengthy article but it's the title and the picture that i really wanted to show you. it's from the "sunday review," and it's called, "the end of snow." and this article basically documents how our ski resorts

around the planet are suffering because they don't have as much snow as they used to have. and so they're having -- it has a picture of artificial snow being created and put on the slope. it notes how much energy this requires and how many dollars it costs to provide that energy and how this is making many of our resorts not -- not feasible and how many of them will go out of business. so just another angle on the impact that carbon dioxide pollution is having, in this case on our recreation industry. and, of course, it's having other impacts on our recreation industry. when you think of those smaller streams, you can think of fewer kayaks, for example, and rafting companies operating. so let's turn from these

multitudeness impacts. but first, before we turn to recognizing that we have the power to take on carbon pollution, let's recognize this, that when folks say, "isn't that global warming issue about some computer programming -- programmer using some assumption and some middle? isn't there some dispute about it? is it real?" put all that aside. we don't need a computer model to show us the impacts on the pine beetle. we don't need a computer model to show us the impact on our trout streams. we don't need a computer model to show us the impact today on droughts. we don't need a computer model to show us the impacts on our forest burning. we don't need a computer model to show us the impact on our coral. and we don't need to see a

computer model to see the impact on our oyster industry. and we don't need a computer model to show us the impact on our snow-based recreational activities and the industry that is associated with that. in other words, carbon pollution is here and now. global warming is here and now. it is making an impact everywhere you look. you can feel it. you can touch it, you can see it, you can smell it. it is here and it is our responsibility, our responsibility as american citizens, our responsibility as policy leaders in this esteemed chamber of the u.s. senate, to take on this issue. and there is so much we can do. because it boils down to this. we have to replace our appetite for fossil fuels with renewable fuels, renewable energy.

and we can do that. we can do that in a host of ways. let me start by noting a little bit about the growth of solar energy. when you realize this chart is just from 2001-2013, it's phenomenal the deployed amount of installed capacity in megawatts in solar energy. i mean, just from 2012-2013, you have more than 3,000 additional megawatts of energy, of solar energy, solar potential deployed. well, a similar explosion in renewable energy is happening in the source of wind, so let's take a look at that. here we have deployed capacity in wind energy. and if we were to recognize --

and, again, from 2001-2013, huge growth in the industry. and i want to point out a particular factor here going from 2011-2012, this is large jump here, that was 13,000 megawatts of installed capacity in wind energy. in one year. and then the next year, there's only 1,000. the l soiferthe difference is a dife in tax credits, of consistently available production tax credits that the wind energy can depend on. we give all kind kinds of subsis to the fossil fuel industry. why can't we create steady did i, reliable source -- a steady, reliable source to promote renewable energy to help replace the fossil fuels? we have this policy potential in

our hands, and we need to exercise it. there are many other forms of renewable n.r.c. there's offshore wind. there's geothermal energy. there is wave energy. oregon has some of the best winds for offshore wind energy and waves for wave energy. but we already have the ability through the technologies we have today to dramatically reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. now, what this chart shows is that in different parts of the country the mix between biomass and geothermal and wind, onshore, wind offshore and wave energy and solar energy, concentrated solar power energy, the mix would be different in different parts of the country. but everywhere around the country there is the potential to essentially replace our fossil -- our appetite for fossil fuels.

and then there's the conservation side. we can certainly do a tremendous amount in our fuel standards for cars, a tremendous amount in our fuel standards for trucks, a significant amount in terms of energy-saving retrofits to our buildings. in the farm bill we just passed, we have a program for low-cost loans for energy-saving retrofits, and that program, rural energy savings program, will help retrofitfits occur in commercial and residence buildings and allow people to pay back the loan on their electric bill, and often they'll be able to pay balk the loan simply with -- to pay back the loan simply with the savings in electricity consumption from the changes they make to their building. so ph it is a win-win, creating energy, yet being paid for without much additional expense by the consumer.

so all of these possibilities exist, and more. it is our challenge as policy-makers to take on this issue, to take and work on how do we generate electricity with far less fossil fuels? how do we conserve electricity and transportation? how do we conserve electricity and other fuels, in fact, in both cases in transportation and in heating our homes, energy consumed in our buildings? how do we do this with far less fossil fuels and do it with renewable energy? so i applaud my colleagues for coming here tonight to raise this issue and say, we must come together to take on these challenges. my colleague from delaware is about to speak and share some stories from his experiences

that bear on this. every senator in this chamber can talk about issues from their home state and see the impact of carbon pollution and call upon us, call upon our moral responsibility to tackle this issue. with that, i yield the floor to my colleague. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. coons: mr. president, aid like to thank my colleague from oregon, senator merkley, who's done a tremendous job laying out both the scientific case, and the compelling cairks the cultural case, the global case for why we here in the senate need to wake up, need to listen to the indisputable evidence of what climate change is doing in our home states, to our country, and around the world. mr. president, even now as we speak here in this chamber, my own three children -- maggie, michael and jook - jack -- are p at home.

i was struck by something, an experience we had that was a simple and telling reminder of the steady changes brought by climate change in our nation. last summer we took a family vacation, a trip to glacier national park. for those off you who have had the opportunity to hike in this majestic national park in montana, it's the site of many striking and beautiful scenes. but there was one hike we took in particular that stayed with me. it was a hike to historic grinnel glacier, a glacier that's been many photographs, documented in its steady receding. since 1966 it's lost nearly half its total acreage. and we took a long and winding hike up the trail that takes you to grinnel glacier. most of what is left is a chilly pool of water. for my daughter mag come and my sons mike and jack, as i look

ahead to the long-term future, we all have to ask ourselves a ququestion about how many more changes we're willing to accept being brought to creation on this nation and the world by the steady advance of climate change? i know we can't simply take the examples of things like grinnel glacier or what to me seemed a striking change in the cap of mount kilimanjaro. i visited it again last year. a visually powerful change. these aren't scientific. there's lots of other arguments perhaps as to why these two particular glaciers have retreated. but i still remember hearing a presentation at the university of delaware by dr. lonnie thompson of ohio state university, a glaciologist who present add very broad and very compelling case based on ice cores for the actual advance of climate change over many decades. in fact, i see that my colleague from rhode island has a photographic history of the

glacier in montana's national park. the point i was just making this passing, he is able to illustrate here. that is as of ten years ago, the glacier has treated even further than that. but this striking gley they are in 140 nearly completely gone in just one generation. this and so many other glaciers that were monuments in our national parks are today receded or altogether gone. i think we have to ask ourselves fundamentally, what's our path afford? we've heard from other senators. tim kaine spoke about the importance of innovation. the senator from maine spoke about the importance of markets and making sure that our inventions and innovations in trying to solve these problems are also shared internationally. i think these are great and important insights. one of the things i wanted to bring to the floor today first was insights from my own home state of delaware where our

goafn, jack markell, has impaneled a sea level rise advisory committee starting in 2010 that looked hard at how climate change might affect my home state. at just 60 feet, delaware has the lowest mean elevation of any state in the country, and already makes it more susceptible to sea level rise than almost any state in the country. in my state of delaware we have and will continue to see the impact of climate change on our businesses, our communities, and our local environment. and as the sea level rises, we're seeing the effects more and more. sea level rises essentially for two reasons. first, as the planet's ice sheets melt, they add to the amount of water in the ocean. but second, salt water actually expands as it warms as well. so he's the planet's average temperature has steadily risen, so, too, has the level of it's salt water seas. the fact that the earth's oceans are rising each year isn't new

information. it has been rising as long as we have been keeping track. but what's really jarring is that that rate of rise is increasing, and increasing significantly. when the data was tracked from 180tracked from1870 to 190, it o four inches per 100 years. over the next 60 years, it rows at a rate of 8 inches. it more than doubled. in the last 20 years sea level has been rising at a strikingly more rapid rate of 12.5 inches per 100 years. the water is rising, mr. president. in delaware, it is rising fast. the land itself in my state is also actually also sinking. there is an actually documented vertical movement of the earth's crust underneath the earth's crust. it has been happening in delaware slowly and gradually since the ice age at a pay-forsa pace of just two millimeeters. it adds up to another four

inches over the century. you have got water rising and the land sinking making it a very real issue. a wide array of stierchghts have studied it and its impact on delaware and they've developed three models for future scenarios. by the year 2100, sea level in delaware will have risen about a foot and a half. in another model, the water off delaware rises a full meter. and in another and the most disconcerting model, one and a half meters or about five feet. and unfortunately at present this broad group of scientists inside and outside of government are estimating that that is the most likely scenario. let's make make this real. here is a projection of these three different scenarios in one area in delaware, bower's beach. it shows how now this is a well-established beach community and in the most conservative, we've still got something of land and in the middle it's completely cut off here from the

mainland and then in the most likely, sadly, given most current evidence, there's literally nothing left except a little sand bar out by itself in the delaware basemen bay. that gives you one example why the difference between these three scenarios matters so much. there is no scenario where bower's community is a viable beachfront community by the end of this century. this is very close to dover air force base and hes up under water. let's look at south wilmington. the? i which i live is wilmington. as the water rises in the atlantic ocean it also rises up the delaware base and the christina river and rises in the peterson wildlife refuge, too. the impact here is potentially devastating. we're talking about water a foot and a half higher than what delaware experienced during

super storm sandy but not for a brief storm surge ... etched and every day. if you take a lookality today, the conservative, the middle, and the most likely, most aggressive scenario in which virtually all of south wilmington is under water by the end of this century. the calculation of whether we're whit half a meter or a full meet or a meter and half comes down the rate of celebratio accelera. it leaves an unanswered question, whether we try to slow the rate at which climate change is affecting our planet and maybe somehow turn the tide. this is the part of climate change policy called mitigation. priority one in this strategy is cutting the emissions we're pumping into our atmosphere. to do it, we can and must diversify our energy sources and reduce our dependence on polluting fossil fuels. clean energy technology, energy efficiency programs, public transportation and more will help cut down on these omissions

but it will require a global effort in order to avoid or minimize local impacts. the second part of climate change policy is adaptation. it is based on an acceptance of the reality that our climate is changing and will have real effects on our planet. the truth is that even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions today, if we shut down power plants, stopped driving carks stopped using gas-powered farm equipment and trains and ships, all the rest, the amount of greenhouse gases, of co2 and others already in the a atmosphere would still take many, many years to dissipate. changes in the world's climate are at this point inevitable. it's already happening and affecting communities and we can expect these impacts to intensify as the rate of climate change continues to accelerate. we can modify our behavior to prevent those effects from being catastrophic. we can and should make better choices now to prevent disaster later. in delaware, for example, we've had two laws on the books for now 40 years that have helped us

adapt. first was championed by republican governor russ peterson. it is called the coastal zone act and passing it cost him his career in politics. it prohibited future industrial development on a long strip of coastal land allowing the state and federal government to preserve it and rye duce the impacts -- reduce the impacts of flooding and quoaft allege erosion, ultimately in the long run, governor peterson has been approven a visionary and preserving this vital barrier all along delaware's coast. the second law empowered the state to protect and replenish the state's beaches, including the beaches on delaware bay often overlooked. this has allowed our state to build a berm and dune system that protects property from being awashed away. more importantly thank the significant landmark laws of 40 yearyears ago, today instead of running away from the science, delaware's leaders have embraced it. the state agency that manages environmental issues for delaware is known as denrec,

ably led by secretary collin owe marry it has taken the lead to assess the state's vulnerability to sea level rise and as i've mentioned recommend options for adaptation. delaware's sea level rise committee spent 18 months looking at 79 different resources, roads, bridges, people and their homes and businesses and layered all of this onto maps to show how far the water would reach at different models for sea level rise. if sea level does get to a meter and a half, we'll lose more than 10% of our state. if the water claims 20,000 residential properties, significant percentages of wetlands, farms, highways, industrial sites, we would lose 21 miles of our northeast corridor rail lines to flooding, shutting down the vital northeast corridor that transports so many millions every year. the port of wilmington would be rendered useless. nearly all the state's protected wetlands inundated.

twurts of our dams, dikes, flooded out. in short, this scenario would be devastating. as secretary o'mara said in this report -- and i quote -- "we're look at big risk for human health and safety. it's not just the delaware bay beaches. we also have concerns from new castle and wilmington to delaware city. it's much more complex than just a few inches of water rising on our beaches." he's right. so, mr. president, once again, remember, we have two basic approaches to climate change policy: adaptation and mitigation. and once we come piled the 200-became -- compiled the 200-page study, we came up with a slate of more than 60 options and hosted a whole series of public meetings and town halls to discuss this. we're now work on a broader vulnerability assessment to examine the full range of impacts from climate change. sea level rises, changes in temperature and prescription,

impacts that will affect us and others. it will affect the distribution, abundance and behavior of wildlife, as well as the diversity, structure and function of our ecosystems. we're already seeing changes in natural patterns. as senator markey of massachusetts commented earlier this year, many commercial and recreational fish stocks have moved northwards from 20 to 200 miles as ocean temperatures have increased. migratory speses are expected to be strongly affected by climate change. species use habitats and resoars during their my -- resources during their migration, these changes are affecting multibilled i don't understand g multibillion-dollar industries. according to the draft national climate assessment released in 2013, our farmers are expected initially to adapt relatively

well to the changing climate over the next 25 years. but later, as temperature increases and precipitation extremes get more intense, crop yields and production of poultry and livestock are expected to decline. more extreme weather events, droughts, heavy downpours will further reduce yields, damage soil, stress irrigation water supplies and increase production costs. all in all, this is a fairly grim long-term outlook in the absence of decisive action. mr. president, i'm proud of my state. delaware was the first state to thoroughly assess the vulnerability of specific resources in as comprehensive a way as they have. and we're determined to exront these changes to our planet head-on and to protect our communities and the way of life that we have built. let me, if i could, briefly review that there are so many things we can and should do here in congress in a bipartisan way to lay the groundwork for the actions we have to take. we can improve our energy efficiency. we could take up and pass the bipartisan bill recently reintroduced by senators shaheen and portman to increase the use

of energy efficient technologies across all sectors in our society. this new version of the bill has 12 sponsors, six republicans and six democrats, and it would save consumers electricity and money. a small but meaningful start on a journey towards changing our direction on climate change. or we could level the playing field and help new clean energy technologies get off the ground by giving them the same tax advantages currently utilized by fossil fuel projects. the bipartisan master limited partnership parity act, which i'm proud to cosponsor with my colleagues, senators moran and stabenow, murkowski, landrieu and collins, democrats and republicans working together, would level the playing field for renewables and give them and other new technologies a fighting chance in our energy market. there are so many other steps we could do in combination if we would but get past this endless, pointless debate that has long been resolved in the halls of science and move forward in a way that better serves our country and our world.

the bottom line is that our climate is changing. we know that. with this knowledge comes the responsibility to reduce our emissions, to mitigate the impacts and prepare for and take action to deal with the come --h the coming changes. mr. president, as i reflect on our own responsibilities as senators, i am in part moved to respond to the challenge of climate change not just because it is an environmental issue or an economic issue or a regional issue or a global issue, but it is also for me and for many others a faith issue. it is a question of how we carry out our responsibility to be good stewards of god's creation, to be those senators we are called to be, each from our own traditions, who stand up and do what is right, not just for the short term, not just for the concerns of the day but for the long term. and i want to, as i move towards my close, just share with a few

of those in the chamber and watching that one of the things that's been most encouraging to me as i've reflected on the change in the climate change movement over recent years, that it has begun to draw support from all across the theological spectrum. there was just last year, july of 2013, a letter sent to speaker boehner and majority leader reid and all members of the congress by 200 self-identified cranny advantagn

evangelical scientists from religious and secular jeufts all across the united states. a powerful and incisive letter that says -- and i quote -- "we understand climate change is real and action urgently needed. all of god's creation is groaning under the weight of our uncontrolled use of fossil fuels." it goes on, and i urge any watching to consider reading it. it's posted on-line. it goes on and quotes christian scripture at length in making the case that we have an obligation if we are concerned about our neighbors and about the least of these in this world to take on the challenge of making sure that we are good stewards. bate the politics and sciences of climate change, my thoughts goes to the poor. they will never study carbon dioxide in the error acidification of the oceans but they will suffer, from dry wells in africa and floods along the coasts of bangladesh. their crops will fail while our

supermarket remain full. they will suffer while we study and debate. this couldn't be more true. and, mr. president, i urge all of us in this chamber to reflect on whatever tradition sustains us and brings us here, that we have an obligation to those who sleep soundly in our homes now, to those from our home states around the country to stand up and take action, to look clearly at the challenge that lies in front of us and to act in the best traditions

p.l. schatz: claiment climate change is the challenge of our generation. the debate of how we confront is belongs here in the united states snavment we have no illusions about being able to reach the number of votes that we need to pass significant legislation during this congress but we must start this conversation now. we must start now. we're here greeing that it's time for us to find way to work together to find solutions. the senate is supposed to be the place where we address the big issues, debate them, and i hope that we can work with the house on how best to tackle climate change as well. but there is no room for those who deny that science itself exists or those who deliberately propagate misinformation and scare tactics because they

profit from pollution. i know that people are smart enough to know the difference between today's weather and what is generally happening with the climate. people cannot be misled into thinking that just because winter still exists that the planet isn't warming in totality. you can't possibly believe that because there was a snowstorm last week that there's no such thing as climate change. since 1991, scientists have published more than 25,000 scholarly articles on climate change. only 26 out of them -- out of more than 25,000 articles -- reject the existence of climate change. that's one in 1,000. the idea that because scientists frankly are scientists and always leave a little room for additional information or for the possibility of revising their projections and estimates somehow introduces significant doubt about what climate change is does violence to the very principle on which science

operates. this problem is no longer confined to just our wilderness areas or to those of us who are concerned with biological diversity or environmental issues. in other words, this is no longer an environmental problem. this is an economic one. all we have to do is look at the extreme weather and the way it has affec affected both the nats fiscal condition and our continuing ability to deal with natural disasters and the very real possibility that many of our coastal communities will be literally flooded by the end of the century. there's no way that we can allow this issue to remain a priority for only one party in american politics. this is everyone's problem. this issue impacts every single american. and every single senator should be down here. this is our responsibility for future generations. not just to preserve birds and bullerflies but to preserve th the -- bullerflies but to preserve our

economy and way of life. cities and counties, the leadership of the department of defense, the rest of the world, the business community, the largest insurance companies which insure actual risk all agree on the reality of climate change. the only place where we're proceeding as if this is an actual open question, as if the science is not settled, is in the four corners of the united states capitol. i'm not going to point to any one extreme weather event and say it was caused by climate change but climate change has increased the likelihood of increasingly strong and frequent storms, droughts and floods. through the 1980's, the united states experienced an average of two to four billion-dollar disasters per year storms racking up more than a billion dollars in damage. but 2011 and 2012 together produced 25 individual

billion-dollar storm events. that's over $25 billion in damages in just two years. let me talk a little bit about what's happening with our department of defense. there is growing consensus with the department of defense that climate change is shaping the global security environment in new and profound ways that will affect the united states military. climate change is dramatically shaping the united states military's strategic operating environment. in its 2010 strategic planning document, the quadrennial defense review, the department of defense concluded that -- quote -- "while climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world." the united states military concluded that it is increasingly and likely to be called on to respond to crises

that manifest as a result of climate-related instability. these include natural disasters that emanate from extreme weather events, which climate scientists expect to become more frequent and more severe as a result of climate change. because, like many first responders, the united states military has an obligation to respond when called for help, and, indeed, the united states military is often the only organization capable of helping with its fixed and rotary-wing lift capacity and personnel to get relief supplies to those most in need. admiral lockier, the head of the united states pacific command headquartered in my home state of hawaii, said last year that climate change is the greatest long-term security threat in the asia-pacific region, an area covering more than half of the earth's surface area and almost 60% of its population. upheaval and political instability from climate change, he said -- and i quote -- "is probably the most likely thing

that is going to happen that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about." 11 retired three-star and four-star admirals and generals in 2007 stated that climate change is -- quote -- "a significant national security challenge that can serve as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world. climate change is also likely to impact the united states military's facilities and capabilities. mesh's military installations may be particularly vulnerable to climate change and the department of defense has dedicated resources to assess the risks. according to a 2008 national intelligence council finding -- quote -- "more than 30 u.s. military installations were already facing elevated levels of risk from rising sea levels." the department of defense's own

q.d.r. acknowledged that the united states military's operational readiness hinges on continued access to land, air and sea training and test space, which means ensuring that climate change does not prevent the military from accessing these critical training and range areas. this may require costly interventions to adopt to sea level rise and other -- adapt to sea level rise and other impacts that might otherwise impact defense readiness and preparedness of the department of defense is already working to map out its vulnerabilities with services like the strategic environmental research and development program, helping installation planners develop the tools that they need and to plan accordingly. climate change has become an urgent national security challenge that our military cannot and will not ignore. secretary of state john kerry was right when he said that among the global challenges that -- quote -- "know no borders, terrorism, epidemics,

poverty, the procee proliferatif weapons of mass destruction. the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them." let me talk about the insurance industry. i make this point about the department of defense not because this admiral or these generals are members of the sierra club or the national resources defense council. it's because when they do their defense review, they have a single-minded objective -- analyze what they see as their strategic challenge. they're not grinding an ideological ax. they're talking about what's real. insurers are risk experts in a different way. they are not paid to care about the environment or conservation or future generations or to steward resources. if insurers have personal environmental opinions or whether they voted for president obama or governor romney, they don't bring that point of view to the table when it comes to risk assessment. they can only think about a

quantified rick. their goal is to figure out what's going to happen and how much it's going to cost to cover it. and what they're saying about global climate change is, it's happening. climate change is presenting real risk. they have determined that climate change is under way already and is causing economic damage, and, therefore, needs to be insured and underwritten. from their standpoint, when billions and trillions of insurance and reinsurance dollars are in play, they recognize what's real, which is the threat of climate change. when it is the highest stakes, projections, assessments, these people look at world with very clear eyes and say, climate change is real, it is happening now, and it is already causing economic damage. when money is on the line, whether these people are democrats, republicans, or independents or don't vote, they are looking at the facts and they are measuring the risk, and

they have determined that this risk is already upon us. iit is not imaginary. let's talk about big business. big businesses from nike to coca-cola to starbucks and insurers like lloyd's of london recognize the economic threat of climate change as well because it affects their bottom lines. for them, it's simple numbers. their motivation is simple: protect the bottom line. with billions and trillions of dollars in play, risk experts like lloyd's are making the high-stake risk projections to protect their business models. these projections are telling them that the risk is increasing. for many multinational companies, climate change has moved from a corporate-social responsibility issue to a bottom-line issue. they are starting to see the impact of unpredictable and extreme weather and realize that investing in environmental protection means investing in the economy. climate change affects the

supply of key inputs, disrupts factories, demolishes infrastructure, and drives up prices. the economic calculus is shifting for them. major companies doing business in america have signed the climate declaration, which acknowledges that tackling climate change is one of america's greatest economic opportunities of the 21st century and it's the right thing to do. these companies include apple, avon, ebay, ey i cevment a, nestlely, starbucks, swiss, semantec and unilever. if we do not make serious chairntion the only thing we can be certain of is that uncertainty will increase. extreme weather events, droughts, floods, spreading infectious diseases, resource wars and other tests to human civilization will test us repeatedly.

our economy thrives on certainty. climate change increases uncertainty. the pragmatic conservative approach requires us to take action. we've heard the argument tonight earlier in the evening from the senator from oklahoma, from some in this body at other moments, about climate change today that there's either nothing that we can do or that action will be too expensive. regulations will kill jobs and hurt the economy, driving up prices on everything from gas gas to bread. opponents of the clean air act, vehicle efficiency standards, energy efficiency, and removing lead from gasoline all use the same arguments. they denied it was happening, they spread misinformation, and they sowed fears of economic destruction. if every case they were wrong. largely as a result of government regulations between 1970 and 2011, total air pollution dropped 68%.

while the united states gross domestic product grew 212%. more than double. well-designed solutions to environmental problems can in fact contribute to a healthier and growing economy. america can innovate its way out of this problem. and i action comes with financial costs. climate change is absolutely right now hurting our economy. it's affecting individual fishermen, everywhere from my home state of hawaii to the presiding officer's home state, to the lobstermen in maine, which my good friend from maine mass already discussed. a 2012 study commissioned by 20 governments, which was written by more than 50 scientists, economists, and other experts, found that climate change is already contributing to multiple deaths per year, costing the world d $1.2 trillion in 23010-- in 2010 and reducing global

g.d.p. is.6%. by 2030, the cost of climate change and air pollution combined could rise to 3.2% of global g.d.p. with a 2% hit to the u.s. g.d.p. similar effects could cost china $1.2 trillion. every time we try move afford with environmental or public health the legislation, there are people who will say that the united states economy will collapse as a result. this happened with the clean air act. it happened with the clean water. almost every time they are approven wrong. the american economy is an innovation economy. whenever we require our american companies to innovate, whether in the interest of public health, the environment, or the economy, they thrive, they step up to the plate. climate change is a challenge where america can once again be the global leader. we have to believe in our

ability to innovate our way out of this problem. when the united states economy and our businesses are presented with opportunities to innovate, they thrive. during the debate on the clean air act, we heard those standards would destroy the economy. but since 1970, every dollar invested in compliance with the clean air act standards has actually produced $4 to $8 in economic benefits. it's not just that the american economy and business can innovate and thrive in this context, it's also that we are the indispensable nation. america is still a nation that other countries look to, to see whether real leadership will be displayed. and for that reason, we need to act. on this issue that affects every single american and the entire planet, we cannot afford to gich on american leadership. we've got to believe in our ideas, in the power of our ability to innovate, in the strengths of our economy and the american ideal that whatever

problem our generation is faced with, we will meet it. the idea that -- and we've heard it before on this floor from climate change deniers -- that we shouldn't do anything because china won't do anything misses the point. if we do something, china will do something. some are saying, let's not do anything because china and india -- i'm saying, let's do something because of china and india. if we lead here, we will have the economic advantage. and in fact china has already begun the work to fight pollution and to transition to a clean energy economy. last week at the opening of klein's annual meeting of the parliament, the chinese premier said that china will declare war on pollution in the coming years. china faces a twofold threat of extreme local pollution and the effects of climate change and recognizes that transitioning to clean energy sources is an economic and political stability imperative.

in january, the executive secretary of the u.n. framework convention on climate change said that china is -- quote -- "doing it right as it begins to tackle climate change." she said that the chinese are -- quote -- "not doing this because they want to save the planet. they're doing it because it's in their national interest." the chinese state council's september atmospheric pollution prevention action plan set specific goals. a reducks in the construction of new coal-fired power plants, a goal of generating 13%% of its own electricity from clean energy veers by 2017. last year china installed 12 to 14 gigawatts of solar panls and is expected to do it again this year. prior to 2013, no country had every added more than 8 gigawatts of solar in a single year. a price guarantee for utility-scale solar projects known as a feed-in tariff as

well as low-cost panels drove this dramatic growth. china is taking decisive action. i for one don't want to give up on american leadership here. we've got to believe in our ideas, in the power of our ability to innovate, and the strength of our economy, and the american idea that whatever problem our generation is faced with, we will address it. i'd like to talk a little bit our hawaii experience. i've seen firsthand from our experience in hawaii that with commitment and specific goals, real progress can be made. we've led the way to building clean energy infrastructure, producing renewable energy and reducing our petroleum dependency, and i know that we can achieve this kind of change across the nation. as lieutenant governorren, i led our efforts toward hawaii's 70% clean energy goal by the year 2030. and we've made encouraging progress. the hawaii clean energy

initiative partnership has the enthusiastic support of our business community, the ucht sdoe and d.o.d., the state government, and even our monopoly electric utility company. by 2013, we surpassed our 2015 goal of 15% clean energy while having one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. always prok progress has taken collaboration and i know vairks the same qualities that have helped america overcome other seemingly unsolvable problems. transformation did not come ease sid and would not have occurred without collaboration between federal, state, county and private sector partners. er because of their hard work we are now on track to achieve the highest renewable energy portfolio in the nation with 40% by the year 230678 2030. not everything we're doing will work in all states but we're learning that some policies have

broad application. we know that climate change is a real problem and that it is caused by humans. but we also know that it is a problem that we can fix. and we know what to do. the challenges of climate change won't disappear overnight if congress acts. but for the united states or the world to fight climate change while congress sticks its head in the sand, it's like trying to fittefiletfight with one hand td their back. americans agree that climate change is real and caused by humans. they agree that something must be done. congress is a necessary but not sufficient part of this problem, for we face the biggest collective action problem in the history of humankind. bigger than war, bigger than disease, bigger than poverty. america must continue our role as a leader that does not shy away from the big problems. climate change is an economic issue, a health issue, and a national security issue.

mr. president, i would like to take a moment to recognize the many professionals who have made tonight possible. the senate stands out as the greatest deliberative body in the united states and in my opinion the world. even in our disagreements, our remarks are generally at least collegial and usually friend lymph the reason is simple. respect. respect for one another as representatives of the concerns of our home states, respect for the diversity of experiences that qualify us to serve as united states senators, but most of all, respect for this institution which is so much more than the physical infrastructure. even for the short time that i've had the honor of serving, what i see is an institution built on people. the capitol may be made of bricks and monitor but the -- mortar but the senate lives and breathes through the people that work here. often in the course of our daily

business, we thank the people we work with for their help. but in light of the unusual demands that our event requires tonight, i'd like to thank not only the individuals but their offices and departments. without them, we would be unprotected, we'd be in the dark, and we'd be unable to function. i'd like to start with the sergeant at arms and all of its departments. doorkeepers, capitol facilities, media galleries, executive office, recording studio, printing and graphics, direct mail, the fleet office and the u.s. capitol police. you keep our senate orderly, safe and functioning smoothly and we thank you for that. we must also recognize the secretary of the senate, the executive office, the office of the bill clerk, the captioning services office, the daily digest office, the office of the encontrolling clerk, the office of the executive clerk, the office of the journal clerk, the legislative clerk, our parliamentarians and the

official reporters of debates. you maintain order in the legislative process and record our actions so that this body's work can be transparent and accountable to the american people and we thank you. the cloakrooms help to preserve order on the floor so that our deliberations perpetuate the rule of law in our great nation. we thank you. the senate librarians and c.r.s. made it possible for us to make informed statements based on the best information available. we thank you. the senate pages step away from their usual classrooms and schoolmates to support our actions here and participate in american democracy. we thank you. while all have rolls to keep tonight working smoothly, i'd like to call special attention to the official reporters of debate. these folks tratranscribe everyd

spoken. in 1956, then-senator majority leader lyndon johnson explained the importance of the residential "congressional record." "locked in its pages are the debate, the resolutions, the bills, the memorials, the petitions and the legislative actions that are the reason for the existence of the senate." without them our words tonight would be lost, so i offer on behalf of all the members who have helped to coordinate tonight, our sincerest thanks. i'd be happy to yield to the senators from new mexico and new jersey if they're ready. otherwise i would be happy to continue speaking. the senator from new mexico, would you -- would you like a few minutes to prepare or would you like to start? mr. heinrich: speaking through the chair to the senator from hawaii, i'd be more than happy to get started and give a little bit of an opening statement, a little focus on the state of new mexico and some of the climate impacts that we have seen in the

last decade. and then maybe engage in a conversation with my colleague, the senator from new jersey. so starting off, and, mr. president, i think it bears saying that this is a historic evening. this is an incredible first step in recognizing the challenge that lies ahead. and i'm here tonight as a member of the climate change task force and i want to join my colleagues in calling for action on tackling what is unquestionably one of our country's greatest challenges. but a challenge we are up to meeting. and we're here to illustrate, for starters, that climate change is not theoretical, mr. president. we're here to discuss how sound science can be used to better understand and manage the very real impacts of climate change that we're seeing and to highlight the moral imperative that we have in congress to

implement real solutions. now, i thought i'd start tonight with something that just about anywhere in the united states, if you're a gardener, if you're a farmer, if you're a horticulturalist, if you have an orchard of fruit trees, you probably know these maps. they're the u.s. department of agriculture plant hardiness maps. and when i hear people deny that our climate is changing and how much our climate has already changed, i think it's very helpful to look back to the year 1990, mr. president, the year i graduated from high school, and to look at the usda plant hardiness map for the united states and to compare it to the one that came out in 2006. and what you see when you look at this map is that literally

every single plant hardiness zone and, you know, if you're a gardener, you take these to the bank. these tell you whether or not a certain crop can grow in your zone. if you're in minnesota, the answer to what's going to thrive in your garden is going to be very different than if you're in arizona or new mexico. and what you see when you look at these maps is all of these zones have literally moved nor north. and in the case of my home state of new mexico, there were zones that existed in the northern part of the state up around taos and chalma at high elevation, or san criston mountains go up to 16,000 feet. our zones that existed in 1990 exist nowhere in the state today because it's warmed so much. and, in fact, those zones only

exist at the highest elevations in the state of colorado to our north. i don't think you can look at this map and say that our climate isn't getting warmer. it really captures year after year of real-world experience of the people who rely on these maps to make sure that our food supply and that all the plants that -- that we use for other purposes as well are safe and productive. now, in my home state of new mexico, one of the other impacts that we're seeing that you've heard from other western states tonight as well all up and down the intermountain west, the rocky mountains, has been the impact of forest fire. we are seeing bigger fires, we're seeing drier summers. we're seeing more severe floods when it does rain and less snowpack in the winter.

in 2012, looking back at just two years ago, was our nation's second-most extreme year on record for extreme weather. and in new mexico, it was actually "the" hottest year that we have experienced since we started collecting temperature records. with humidity levels lower and temperatures higher, we are dealing with fire behavior in the southwest that is markedly more intense than anything, anything we have seen in the past. now, when people think of the state of new mexico and if they haven't been to new mexico, they often think of it as one of the southwestern arid, desert, low-elevation states. the reality that i grew up with, the high-elevation forests of new mexico, we literally have millions of acres of mountains

and forests, of places that if you just saw a photo, you might say, "well, that looks like colorado or that looks like montana." and those are all up and down our mountain ranges from the hela, up in the northern, the santa fe national forest, the san de cristo mountains. and one of these things that the western forests that exist in these high-elevation mountain ranges have is forests that have evolved over the years to deal with forest fire. in particular, our ponderosa pine forests used to have a regime where every 10 years or so we would have a fire in those forests. now, that fire would not burn the forest down. it would move through the ponderosa pine. it would burn fine fuels, as we call them, things on the forest

floor, the needles that fall from the canopy of the ponderosa pine forest, the small pieces of woody debris, the grass that grows inbetween those ponderosa pine trees are and it would sort of clear out the understory and it would leave this incredible cathedral of high-elevation ponderosa pine forest with grass inbetween the trees. that's changing, mr. president, and this incredibly sad photo is sort of exhibit a on what happens when you increase the temperature just a little bit. we're seeing fire behaviors in new mexico that are like nothing in the historical record and nothing within the context of normal behavior. we're seeing what they call stand replacement fires. i believe this was a couple months after the loss conces fire just a few years ago.

and the thing about this fire, if i remember right, los conces was 2011 in the hamus mountains. it was the single largest fire in our state's history at the time. now, since then we've had a bigger fire, the whitewater baldy fire. but what was particularly concerning about the los conces fire is how it burned, how intense it burned, how it burned downslope withstand replacement flames. how it literally didn't leave behind any of those big fire-protected trees. those ponderosa pines are built to survive fire after fire throughout the course of their lives. they may live to be 300 years old. but with such thick bark that typically they, in the past, survived dozens and dozens of fires in the course of their lifetime. as you can see from this, almost nothing survived large parts of

this fire. that's what we're seeing as temperatures increase, as those temperatures increase, the humidity level in the fuels goes down, the fuels burn hotter, the fuels are able to jump up into the canopy and literally burn out the entire forest. you see a few patches of green here. and this is one of the most destructive fires in our state's history. over the last four years alone, as i mentioned, we've seen the two largest fires in our state's history. and with elevated temperatures, studies by los alamos national labs predict that three-quarters of our evergreen forests in new mexico could be gone by 2050. in my lifetime. three-quarters of our high-elevation conifer ever green forests. these are places that we rely on for our economy.

they hold snow in the winter. they produce an enormous number of jobs. we have something like 68,000 jobs that are tied to public lands recreation in the state. many of those are centered, mr. president, around these high-elevation forests, where people -- where people hunt for elk in the fall, they produce the waters that allow people to raft in the rio grande during the summer. they're the places where people cross-country ski and alpine ski in the winter. and they are under direct threat from a changing climate. we know now that the extreme weathers we're seeing really come at an enormous economic cost. and there was a new study published recently in the journal "frontiers and ecology and environment" that reveals the trend in just how much ignoring this problem has cost the american taxpayer over the course of the last couple

decades. they went in the study and they went back and they looked at fire fighting in the early 1990's, around 1993. and the average cost of fighting fires on our national forests at that time was $350 million a season. it's a lot of money. that's real money. and that's spread over, you know, many, many different states. but fast forward to today and we are spending on average $2 billion -- with a "b" -- billion dollars a fire season fighting fires. "the washington post" yesterday reported that the study's conclusions -- quote -- "underscore what the agencies responsible for fighting fires, the interior department, the agriculture department's forest service, have said for years -- global warming is accelerating climate change in the west, resulting in winters with less

precipitation and a drier landscape. the wildfire season that historically started in june and ended in september now starts in may and ends in september." and, mr. president, i would say that in new mexico, we haven't been lucky enough to have it begin in may and end in september. we've actually had some fires that were completely outside of that window. i remember a few years ago as i was running for congress in the fall of 2007 leading up to the 2008 elections, i watched as the montana sedan -- manzano mountains near my home in albuquerque burned. we saw extreme fire behavior there, fires once again burning down slope in november and fire behaviors even in the middle of the night that you normally wouldn't see except in the

middle of the day, in the middle of summer. it has been something that has touched our state dramatically. it happens now with such regularity that we're almost used to it, but it puts lives at risk, it puts property at risk, and many people in this chamber probably remember all the brave firefighters who literally lost their lives in arizona last year fighting these fires. and in fact those firefighters had helped on a new mexico fire before in the very area that we saw with the picture i showed of the las conchas fire burn. one of the related issues is my home's relationship in new mexico between our economy and the impact of snowfall and how snowfall has changed as a result of a changing climate. now, these two visuals, this is

a map of the four corner states. this is albuquerque, new mexico, here, santa fe. this is the four corners area where utah, arizona, colorado and new mexico all come together. and historically our economy relies very much not just on rainfall and precipitation but the value of a strong snow pack. agriculture in the southwest does not work like it does in other parts of the country where crops are literally watered by rain. we store our snow pack in reservoirs. we rely on the fact that frankly snow lasts longer and is released slowly from the high elevation forests and mountains. it gets stored in reservoirs and then used to irrigate hundreds of square miles up and down the

rio grande valley throughout the heart of new mexico as well as other valleys in the state like the pecos valley, and we have seen dramatic changes in the extent of both snow cover and also the amount of water that is stored in that snow. these two images show snow cover in 2010 and 2014, and they illustrate a trend that is becoming all too common with the current drought conditions and with warming winter temperatures. 2010 was a relatively good year for us. we had snow cover, as you can see, across much of the northern part of the state. as you move into even higher elevation areas up in colorado, very intense snows in the san juans that drain down into the rio grande and san juan rivers

in new mexico, if you look at the muggian rim which goes all the way from gila, new mexico, all the way to the grand canyon, just a long elevation geologic feature that stores snow pack for both arizona and new mexico. if you look over at the 2014 image and what you see is just a dramatic reduction in the amount of snow cover. as a result the runoff we have experienced in this drought has been a fraction of what we used to think of as normal. it's sort of the new normal. in 2012, in december of 2012, two researchers affiliated with

the university of new hampshire unveiled a study around snow and winter tourism impacts called climate impacts on the winter tourism economy in the united states. that report completed for the natural resources defense council and protect our winters, an organization founded in 2007 by professional snowboarder jeremy jones concluded that the economies that rely on winter sports tourists have a lot to lose if we fail to take action on climate change. and, mr. president, you probably heard some of the recent stories around the sochi olympics, stories i could not have imagined as a child of literally covering up huge amounts of snow to insulate it from the amounts so it didn't melt so it could be used in some of those sports. the report states that december, 2011, through february, 2012,

was the fourth warmest winter on record since 1896, and the third lowest snow cover extent since 1966 when satellites began giving us images just like these. now, when it doesn't snow in the inner mountain west, communities that rely on winter sports tourists take an enormous economic hit. fewer people lodge in their hotels. fewer people shop in their stores, eat in their restaurants, and if you were to ask the businesses in places like taos, new mexico, or uridoso in the south central part of the state, red river and others spread across the high elevation portions of my state, they will tell you when there is no snow, they see an enormous reduction in the amount of

business activity and the gross receipts in those small towns, and it ripples through the entire economy. that report points out that ski resorts in the northern part of new mexico are the primary drivers of new mexico's $182 million ski industry. winter tourism in new mexico provides more than 3,100 jobs. we are a state of only two million people. but 3,100 jobs and has $104 million impact on our economy. in low snowfall years, new mexico lost out on an estimated $48 million in ski resort revenue and had nearly 600 fewer jobs compared to higher snowfall years. winter sports tourists are an extremely important part of my state's economy, and i'm very concerned that if we continue to do nothing about climate change,

mr. president, we will lose those tourist dollars. climate change is very real and it's impacting our bottom line in the state of new mexico. now, climate change is also leaving a devastating imprint on our agricultural industry in the state of new mexico. these images are really striking to me, and these are -- these are satellite images from nasa. this is the largest reservoir in the state of new mexico. it's called elephant butte reservoir. it's in the central part of the state. if you are used to growing up in a state like new mexico and you know there are certain crops that are just icon cally connected -- iconically connected to the state, green

chile being the top of the list, red chile -- red chili, they are actually the same plant. we'll save that for another day. pistachios, pecans, all of these things are tied to irrigation and the ability to irrigate hundreds of square miles of agricultural land along the rio grande throughout the state. in 1994 in the mid 1990's, elephant butte reservoir was functioning like it had since the early 1900's, storing all of that snow pack that we talked about a few minutes ago, making sure that it was released to serve agriculture to extend the irrigation season to make sure that those crops were realized, and then we began to get into this long-term persistent drought. you have probably heard the stories about california and its drought and its impact on

agriculture. new mexico has experienced just as intense a reduction in snow pack, in predictability of summer description. we get a lot of our moisture in the summer, in the summer monsoon, the wettest time of the year outside of the winter. we get some in the wintertime and snow pack typically, and then in the summertime we have these summer thunderstorms. and the predictability of that is all changed now. but as can you see so has the quantity. elephant butte reservoir is about two million feet in capacity. an acre full of water is literally taking an acre full of land and covering it in water one foot deep. it's about 325,000 gallons, if my memory serves me well. this is about two million

acre-feet. you do the math, but it's literally the largest single body of reservoir water for agriculture and other uses in the state of new mexico. 2013, fast forward, these were both taken in the same month, the month of july, which is kind of the height of the irrigation system -- season. 3% was what was left in elephant butte reservoir. it literally doesn't even look like the same place. the northern extent of the reservoir has been dry land for much of the year in this photo. this has enormous ramifications for agriculture in our state and for other industries that use and rely on that water. farmers and ranchers are often first to see the effects of extreme weather, and a 2012 study found that by 2020, new

mexico agriculture and ranching will lose $73 million annually due to climate change. you can layer that on to the $48 million we talked about a little while ago from impacts to the winter ski season, and you start to see the very real cost of not doing anything about climate change. the agriculture sector is incredibly vulnerable due to the sustained threat to the water supply to soil and vegetation from sustained drought. livestock levels in many areas of new mexico were 1/5 of normal levels last year due to the scarce storage. so the year after year of drought, not just one year but over and over again is what leads to this incredible inability to even manage for it. we just don't have the water in

the reservoir to be able to deal with the fact that we're not getting enough precipitation. we have over the years sort of used our savings account and now we're down to a very small amount of water that has to be stretched as far as we can in the summer irrigation season, and we have even seen a number of parts of the rio grande run dry in the summer as a result. things are only going to get worse if we don't act and begin to address some of these things. if we have any hope of reversing the effects of climbing, and we truly must, it's critical that we embrace this challenge now and that we lead the world in innovation, in efficiency and in clean energy. as our colleagues, senators portman and shaheen know, there is no cleaner source of energy than the ones you don't use in the first place.

energy efficiency and conservation should be the centerpiece of any strategy to address climate change. the easiest thing you can do to reduce the amount of carbon pollution, methane pollution and other greenhouse gases that make it into the atmosphere is to not use those in the first place. conservation pays enormous dividends. i remember when my wife and i bought our first home, we decided that we wanted to make it as sustainable as we could but it was a retrofit, so where do you start? we have had solar on the roof of that home in albuquerque for many years now, but that's not where we started. that wasn't the first place we put our investment. it wouldn't have made sense. the first thing we did is we insulated a home that had been built without insulation. we replaced windows that were

leaking warm air to the outside all through the wintertime, not keeping cool air inside during the summertime. efficiency is absolutely critical if we're going to begin to address our overall energy usage in this country and to reduce the amount of carbon pollution in particular that we're putting into the atmosphere. getting the most out of each unit of energy, kilowatt, b.t.u., should be a concern at every level of our government. you know, the united states federal government is the largest energy consumer in our country, and the federal government has an obligation to lead by example when it comes to energy performance. we heard a lot about transportation and the transportation sector and the advances we have made due to the fuel economy standards. but buildings are also an enormous part of our carbon footprint and our pollution

footprint in this country. they account for about 40% of our energy use and they offer the greatest opportunities for savings. investing in energy efficiency in those buildings isn't just good for our environment, reducing air pollution. it's literally one of the fastest and most competitive ways to grow our economy. we have seen the business of energy efficiency take off in recent years and produce high-quality jobs all across this country. energy efficiency is a large, low-cost, underutilized energy resource. increasing our energy efficiency in the residential sector, commercial sector, industrial and governmental sectors offer americans savings on their energy bills, opportunities for more jobs and improves our nation's competitiveness, and it stretches every tax dollar further. to help the nation transition to cleaner and renewable sources of

energy, i'm also supporting efforts to streamline permitting for renewable energy projects on our public lands while protecting access to those public lands for families and sportsmen to enjoy. another key to further development of renewable energy is to alleviate -- to alleviate the bottlenecks in our electric power grid. much of our power grid was developed decades ago, some of it nearly a hundred of years ago now, and i'm working in new mexico to help tap our renewable resources by adding new transmission capacity and smart grids to an aging infrastructure. we need to find better ways to make sure new transmission projects are well planned to protect the environment but can also move forward in a reasonable time frame. whether for on national security, our energy independence or our nation's able to compete in the global economy, our efforts and our

solutions should be rooted in fact and driven by the best available science. now, as we heard earlier tonight from our friend and colleague from oklahoma, not everyone agrees. there are some who deny that climate change exists. there are some who are simply paralyzed by how big the problem is, the fear of the economic or political costs along the way. but one of the things that has bothered me the most as we have had this debate is too often we see scientific integrity undermined. we see scientific research politicized. in an effort to advance ideological or purely political agendas or to protect certain industries and interests. too often we see that some in washington believe they're not just entitled to their own opinions but believe that they're somehow entitled to their own facts. frankly, none of us are entitled to our own facts.

no area of innovation and science will be more important than our nation's ability to tackle climate change and lead the world in clean energy technology. we saw a lot of information earlier in the evening about the incredible growth that we have seen in renewable sources of energy in recent years, particularly wind and solar. the cost of solar has just come down precipitously in -- in recent times. and it reminds me that in 1961, president john f. kennedy made a bold claim that an american would walk on the moon by the end of the decade. to many people, it seemed absolutely ludicrous. this is a similar challenge that we face. you know, eight years after president kennedy made that

claim, neil armstrong did just that. it didn't even take a decade. we need that kind of effort to be able to address the incredible challenge we have with a warming globe. we need to think big. we need to execute, and we need to innovate, as you said, mr. president. innovation is going to be so important as we deal with this issue. and, frankly, here in the united states, we have met issue after issue that people said couldn't be solved or were too big or would cost us too much. and we turned those around and we turned those challenges into opportunities to grow new jobs and grow new industry. and i think as we look at this particular challenge, the real question is: are the solutions, is the economic activity that's going to be associated with

solving these challenges, are we going to get the benefit of those technologies? are we going to get the jobs from manufacturing, installing, developing those things? or are we going to cede that leadership to other countries around the world? even the sleeping giant in china, with all of their policies over the years that have led to the incredible dangerous pollution levels that we see, where students actually put masks on statues in china to make a political point that there is no clean air to be had. even china is realizing they have to invest in this innovation, that they have a national interest in it. we have the most innovative folks in the world. we have our national laboratories. we have scientists and entrepreneurs who can -- who can come up with solutions that will take us further than we've seen with the incredible growth in

wind and solar in the last few years. we need to make the commitment and move from just having a debate about these issues to really employing the policy changes that will drive that innovation. a senator: would the senator yield for a question? mr. hiemr. heinrich: i would bey to yield to the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: the senator's point about china makes me think if you look at the behavior of the chinese with respect to this power, you see a couple of things. you see, first of all, that they have worked very hard to try to undercut our domestic innovation by dropping prices on solar artificially. you see that, particularly if you are involved on the intelligence and armed services side, the extraordinary efforts

that they have made to hack into our intellectual property and to try to steal it back to china so that their companies can compete unfavorably -- unfairly against ours. and when you see this activity particularly in the area of solar and renewable and you see the extent to which the chinese are investing in solar and renewable, what conclusion must one draw about what the chinese see as the future of solar and renewable? mr. heinrich: you know, the senator from rhode island, mr. president, brings up a very good point because obviously the chinese have come to the conclusion that it is in their best interest to innovate and to do it as rapidly as possible. and he brings up some -- some issues that, frankly, are not necessarily what i would call

the most responsible or moral ways to move rapidly through that ladder of innovation. but nonetheless, it is unmistakable that they're realizing just how important this is. i think it's important for us to come to the same conclusion. and i think it's important for us to realize that if we cede these industries to china, they will be selling us the products of the future. we have seen this already with their ability to undercut the price and artificially lower the costs of producing solar panels and how deleterious that has been to our domestic manufacturing base for those technologies. we need to make sure that we're making the technologies of tomorrow's clean energy economy here and installing those technologies ourselves and getting the jobs all the way from the innovation to the manufacturing to the supply chain to make sure that -- that

we see the opportunities in this challenge as well as the challenges. you know, i think one of the things that really motivated me to be part of this tonight is that, like you, mr. president, i've got a couple of young kids at home, a 7-year-old named mica, and a 10-year-old, soon to be 11-year-old, named carter. and when i think of some of the issues that the senator from rhode island brought up and the briefings that i receive on the intelligence committee and not only the intellectual property theft that has been reported in the open media but also the impacts that we are seeing in places like central asia as the glaciers that an enormous part of the world's population relies on for their fresh water, a place that has inherent and sometimes volatile conflicts right below the surface, where

pakistan and india and other countries come together. when you look around southeast asia and realize that there is an enormous amount of the world's population living just a few feet above -- above sea level, that are exposed to those superstorms in a way that even those of us who haven't -- who have had to deal with the superstorms like sandy, can't imagine because they didn't -- they didn't have a home to shelter in, or at least a home that looks like the places that we do. it -- it certainly sobers one. and i see the senator from new jersey is here. a senator: if i may interrupt for a question because i would like to say on point. mr. heinrich: absolutely. and, mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with the senator from new jersey who knows firsthand what some of these superstorms

are capable of. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. booker: and i'd like to continue to have the senator from rhode island as well involved in this colloquy. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. booker: because he brings up a tremendous point. and for all of us that are competitive and have this belief that this nation of ours should remain a leader in the globe, the senator from rhode island brings up a very good point. we're a nation that has led in innovation, led in ingenuity. generation after generation we have seen our country excel and exceed economically because of american innovation. and what the senator from rhode island brings up so pointedly is in this area, the technologies of future that are going to have us have an opportunity to produce the energy of the futu future, america runs the risk of falling behind some of our most fearsome competitors. but what i'd like to ask the senator from rhode island, because it goes further than that, we know that the challenges of the future we could look at the past and see how economic policy has so

dramatically influenced foreign policy. you can go back to right after world war ii, how america's economic dominance helped us to advance. looking at the suez crisis when america and britain had different agendas, it was the fact that we held their debt, that we had economic advantage that allowed us to press our interests. but there are other threats, t too. and what's interesting to me, as has been stated tonight already -- and i would love to talk to folks because both of you have already talked about senate intelligence briefings and military briefings -- i'd like to read really from a document here that talks about naval admiral samuel j. locklear ii, the commander of u.s. forces in the pacific, stating very dramatically -- and i would love to get the senator from rhode island's reaction to this -- is that the significant upheaval related to the warming of the planet, he says, is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen that will cripple the

security environment. probably more likely than other scenarios we often talk about. you see, admiral locklear focuses on risk management and preparedness for our nation. he doesn't have time for philosophy. he doesn't have time for politics. he is focusing on a concrete risk analysis when it comes to the safety, security and preparedness of our nation. he goes on, "while resilience is the security environment is traditionally understood as the ability to recover from a cris crisis, using the term in the context of national security expands its mean to include crisis prevention." admiral locklear had a meeting the other day -- i read on -- "with the national security experts at tufts and harvard. after this session, he met with a reporter who asked him what tops -- what the top security threat was in the pacific ocean. and rather than highlighting

chinese ballistic missiles, the new chinese navy aircraft carrier, north korean nuclear weapons and traditional military threats, admiral locklear looked to a larger definition of national security. locklear commented that people are often surprised that the highlights -- that he highlights climate change. despite an ability to discuss wide-ranging threats from cyber war to the north koreans, however is the risks from natural disasters to long-term sea level rise threats to pacific nations that has his deepest attention. here he is being quoted. you have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea levels, certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. we are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the western pacific. the average is about 17. climate change merits national

security, military attention for very pragmatic reasons. and so, senator -- the good senator from rhode island, we have talked about many things tonight, and i wonder if you who understand this issue and are one of the motivating factors for an amazing away of senators from all around the country tonight to be talking about the impacts on our individual states which i hope to do about new jersey soon, but the bigger issues at stake are long-term economic competitiveness which the senator from new mexico has talked about and also the threats that our military experts see to our nation and global security. i wonder if you for a moment would commend on that? mr. whitehouse: on the point that the senator from new jersey makes about economic power being the foundation for military power and the power of persuasion around the globe, you

really don't have to look any further than back to the decline and fall of the soviet union, which is widely viewed as being based on a country that spent so much on its military without an underlying economic engine powerful enough to support it that it finally fell in. so when we are looking out at a clean energy market that's estimated to be a $6 trillion market, the idea that it's in america's interests to cede that entire market to the chinese, to let them be the manufacturers, to thus that we will be fine if they are manufacturing solar and wind and all of the new battery technologies and we're just consumers of that is crazy. that economic weakness has national security overtones. in addition, as the distinguished senator from new jersey pointed out, in addition to admiral locklear -- and the distinguished senator from hawaii mentioned admiral locklear as well.

but he is not alone. the secretary of the navy has pointed out the same thing -- we are at risk from global warming from a national security perspective. the joint chiefs of staff are on record about the national security consequences of climate change to our country. as the senator from new mexico knows from his time on the intelligence committee, there are n.i.e.'s, national intelligence estimates, that speak to the danger that climate change presents for america, for our national security interests. when it happens in other lands. and the defense quadrennial review, which is the key document that drives our defense policy, has over and over again emphasized climate change as a national security risk, as a liability for our country. so yes, it is very, very important that we deal with this. i was -- i had a conversation with-ary kissinger the other day, and he was speaking

generally and he made an -- he used an interesting phrase. he said that the big upheavals and revolutions in the world have always come from a confluence of resentments. a confluence of resentments. so i would add to the immediate risks of climate change causing upheaval and causing military problems that threaten our national security interests. the larger problem that america stands for something in this world. and we all benefit because america stands for something in this world and the rest of the world knows it. if we come to the point where around the world people are seeing in their homes, in their lives, in their villages, in their hamlets, on their shores the effects of climate change and it's bad for them, the fish they use to catch aren't there, the prop they used to grow won't grow any longer, the river they used to irrigate aren't running

as strong any longer and their lives have been hurt as a result of that and they look around, what greater resentment could there be than a resentment of the country that knew this was coming, that said it was a leadership nation and that did nothing about it when it knew? now, there is a confluence of resentments around the world, and that, too, creates a national security risk for our country. mr. booker: and i appreciate that from the senator from rhode island. before i -- i have only been in the senate for about four months. as soon as i made a decision to run for this office, i asked for national security briefings to study hot points in our country. i figured if i was going to win this office, new jersey would expect me to be prepared to serve and deal with national security issues. i was amazed when i was being briefed by a group of folks who focus on national security issues, a general came up to the briefing from new jersey as well and began to be very intent and intense on letting me understand

that the military is not waiting for us to figure this out in congress. they are preparing. he told me about flying planes on biofuels, thinking about the resiliency of our military bases here and abroad. it was amazing to hear this general talk in such fierce pragmatism about what we must do to protect the safety and the sanctity of our country. but i tell you this -- we're in a bad economy right now. when i go back to new jersey, i hear people talking to me about jobs. i hear people talking to me about government spending. i hear people worried about the economic strength of our country. and if the senator from new mexico would allow me to ask him a question, what moved me about your remarks -- and i have to say, mr. president -- again, i'm a new senator but you and i have both gotten to know the senator from new mexico, and you -- you live and bleed new mexico.

our conversations when we were in the cloakroom, it's amazing. i have learned more about new mexico than this jersey boy ever did back in my own state. it's amazing the pride with which you talk about your state. and i hope that your constituents understand how much you are about new mexico every day that you're here. and it's -- what was amazing to me as i listened to you speak was these numbers that rolled off your tongue about the financial impact to the new mexico economy of climate change. when you started talking about the billions -- you emphasized b, billions spent on fire protection, you mentioned the grievous loss of life of firefighters in arizona that fought nobly fires in new mexico. you talked about the grievous impact, hundreds of millions of dollars on your industries in

your state. and those numbers to me, which are -- just fly off the tongue represent jobs, represent government tax dollars that are being used in your state to fight forest fires, that would be reinvested in the things that rebuild infrastructure, educate children, do research. that by the undeniable facts that fires are burning hotter, that reservoirs are getting emptier are having a serious impact on your economy. but this is the truth about -- mr. president, this is the truth about our country. we are not new mexico, rhode island, new jersey, hawaii. we are the united states of america. as much as we might think that your economy is insulated from mine, that is not true. when i heard senator klobuchar talking about what it's during to crops in her country, that

affects food prices in new jersey. when i heard the senator from maine talking about the lobster industry, we eat lobster in new jersey as well. we are one integrated economy. king said it so profoundly that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. and so if you would comment for me a little deeper because i know when you leave here and go back to your state, you're not looking at data or statistics. you're talking to people whose lives are not just being disrupted by climate change but severely affected. and i was wondering if you could could -- we have heard lots of data and charts tonight and all day, but i was hoping that you could speak a little bit more to

the grievous financial damage it's doing in our interconnected economy to the people of your state and thus to the people of america. mr. heinrich: i want to thank my friend, the senator from new jersey. these issues have such profound impacts on individual people and communities. you know, when i think back to that las conchas fire that i talked about a little bit in my comments, i can't help but think about santa clara pueblo. maybe we can put up this other image, too. normally the fires lay down at night. that's what they used to do at least. here you can see this fire burning north of los alamos and the hamos mountains in the middle of the night. you can imagine this was the scene from espaniola and santa

fe. everyone i had talked to had never seen a conflagration quite like it. one community that was particularly impacted and is still recovering today is santa clara pueblo. they had this incredible, beautiful canyon that is tied to their identity and their religion and who they are as a people. and unfortunately this fire, it burned the headwaters of that canyon. it produces the waters with the rio grande. it's more than just economics. it's identity. it's a place that cannot be separated from the community and the people there. and the impacts of that, unlike a typical disaster that we think about like an earthquake where you have the disaster and then you have the recovery from the disaster, these fires on these

communities happen multiple times. you have the fire and it's usually in may or june, the driest time of the year in the state of new mexico. it's a time when the snow pack is long gone. we haven't had precipitation oftentimes in months. and then you get those early lightning strikes that don't actually have rain associated with them. you have the fire. finally the fire is out when the rains come. then you have the thunderstorms that come and flood these communities and take their farm land and bury it under six inches of cobble and gravel or a foot of everything but topsoil so that you can't use it. you have roads literally impassable and infrastructure destroyed, irrigation ditches that have been in place for hundreds and hundreds of years blown out and -- or filled with sediment so that they can't be

used. and it happens not just in that first year but until these places recover with some sort of vegetation. i have to say they are not coming back with many kinds of forests in many cases. but as the vegetation does recover, you finally get a more moderated situation where you don't get those floods. but i have just been too many times now with people at the pueblo of nam bay across the valley, same situation, different fire, where it's touching everyone in their communities. it's really a struggle when we can't even recognize the problem here in washington, d.c., to look at my constituents and say hopefully through fema and other measures we can address the

emergency, but we have to start addressing the problem. i want to ask you, senator booker, your state just came through one of the most unbelievable super storms in our country's recent history in superstorm sandy. i can only imagine -- we have very different states. my problem is usually not enough moisture. often sometimes in extreme -- oftentimes in extreme weather events, you have too much. we certainly don't have coastal issues. i would love to hear more about the direct economic impacts of what it's meant -- you're someone who comes to this chamber with something that i value enormously, which is the experience of governing at the local level, where you're close to the people. i was a city counselor. you were the mayor of a huge city. you know what those impacts are

to infrastructure, economy and to small businesses when a storm like that hits your state, and i would love to have a little bit of that perspective because i think it's important, as this grows and grows and this challenge faces us head on to understand how it's impacting your constituents and their small businesses and all the things that you have direct experience from your local government work. mr. booker: i'm grateful to the senator from new mexico for giving me this opportunity to just say a word about my state and just to keep the conversation going, if the senator from rhode island would indulge me in answering my question, but i'd like to get back to the senator from rhode island. i want to say to people perhaps watching this on c-span or others, the reason i'm so grateful for the senator from rhode island, because, you know, i've been here, again, for a little over four months but the senator from rhode island is -- and forgive me