winter olympics, and there was just a study done by the university of waterloo that took a look at all of the different locations in which there have been winter olympics. all the way up to sochi here. and the green shows that from 1981-2010, all of those locations for winter olympics were climate reliable for snow conditions. then they run a couple of different scenarios. 2050 with low emissions. 2050 with high emissions. 2080 with low emissions. 2080's and one by one, the sites of winter olympics fall away as reasonable sites. if you go to the 2050's low

emission scenario, there goes sochi, there goes grenoble, you go a little bit further, vancouver, squaw valley, sarajevo are in trouble. when you get down here, the majority of the sites where we've had winter olympics are now no longer climate-suitable for winter olympics, including lillehammer and mageno, oslo, care koi sarajevo, grenoble and on. so, the people who are involved in these winter sports know about this and 100 athletes at the sochi olympics from ten different nations wrote a letter saying, we have got to take climate change seriously. and they've particularly focused on the small towns in the mountains where skiers and snowboarders train and where the economy is based on snowboarding

and skiing and winter sports ads, and the deaf sthaition would happen in those -- and the devastation that would happen in those small towns if the economy collapsed because of climate change. if -- you want to go ahead now, senator? mr. schatz: i thank the senator from rhode island. i'd like to whoever a personal story from -- i'd like to offer a personal story from a young lady in hawaii because i think that it's really important to think of this in generational terms. and her name is keratinaka. and she is a senior at a school called hanolani. she wrote me a letter and i want to read it into the letter. -- into the record. this is keratinaka. "recently i read that hawaii is one of two destinations being considered for the world

conservation congress. the international union for the conservation of nature is the organization that convenes this meeting which brings together nations to discuss conservation on a global scale. as this meeting has never been held in the u.s., hawaii hopes to be selected as the host location. for many reasons, hawaii is the perfect place to hold this meeting. hawaii is the most remote set of islands in the world and has the most concentrated examples of flora and fauna that are in jeopardy in the united states. our islands could be subjected to the riding waters caused by global warming. the outer reefs that protect our shores will be in crisis if the current environmental challenges are not addressed and solutions acted upon. i've been blessed in growing up on the north shore of oahu and have experienced the beautiful scenery of nature which surrounds me. as a first-generation japanese-american, my 92-year-old grandpa loves to tell me stories about spending

his youth living on the plantation fields in mokalaea. during our morning hikes and lunches on the beach, my grandpa enjoys telling me about all of the edible plants i would walk by and can identify all the animals we hear and see. my grandpa also shares with me the things that are no longer around, dry streams, less wildlife, and lower water levels. although there may be other factors affecting the environment, i truly believe that climate change is a major reason causing these changes. for both my grandpa and me, climate change is real. he sees the change. it is a very important thing because hawaii's wildlife is very sensemental and beautiful part of our -- sentimental and beautiful part of our life. scientists tell us that the effects of climate change could be catastrophic. for example, the rising temperatures will cause loss of habitat. there will be changes in water supply and it could push certain

species to the endangered species list. the animals my grandpa and i look and hear for may soon no longer be there at all. in addition, i can't even imagine how it would be like if our coral reefs die from global warming. beach owerosion will multiply rapidly and people's homes will be prone to destruction. i had hiss beaches could be gone. not only would this affect hawaii's beauty, but it would affect hawaii's economy, because of the heavy relinings on tourism. climate change is real and in need of full attention. i've seen many programs for sustainability in ow community from the recently built wind turbines by my house to programs in elementary schools. like ina in the schools that have raised the awareness of climate change. i believe that there needs to be more research about climate change and it's effects on the environment. when i become a parent, i hope i can share the same sounds and

sights that my grandpa has shared with me. to experience wildlife with my children, rather than teach them how the environment could have been or was like before. mr. president, kara's words reflect the deepest feelings of her generation. not only in hawaii but throughout the united states. and i repeat the most resonant of her thoughts. "when i become a pairnghts i hope i can share the same sounds and sights that my grandpa has shared with me." indeed, hawaii has a remarkable, beautiful -- remarkably beautiful environment and yet i think we all agree that all of our home states are worth preserving. these thoughts from kara inspire me. they, i think, inspire all of us. there is a karatinaka in every community that inspire us to take action. it is time to wake up. that is why we are up for

climate, that's why we are in this fight. mr. whitehouse: if i may, let me ask people who are listening to think back in time. think back in time to many, many years ago when abraham lincoln was president of the united states, when this room was just under construction and soldiers coming down occupied it, camped here, camped in the lounge and actually made fires in the lounge across the way to cook their bacon. you could hear canon fire from the capitol, the civil war was happening in america. and when that took place, there was a scientist named john

tyndall who delivered a paper that showed that when you added carbon dioxide to the atmosphere it warmed the earth. that's how long it's been that we've known that when you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere it warms the earth. and since that time, we've probably added close on 20,000 gigatons -- 2,000 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. and what happens when you do that? what happens when you do that -- this goes back to 800,000 b.c., by the way. this is merely a million years. you see that in the time that we've measured here 800,000 years, there's been a very clear range of carbon concentration in the planet. and we kicked in around 200,000 years ago as human beings. this is about where homo sapiens

showed up. so long before there was homo sapiens, the earth stayed between about 170 and 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide. and for every single year that human beings have inhabited this planet, we stayed within that window. but then that 2,000 gigatons started to kick in and here it goes -- up, 250, up, through 300, up through 350, and for the first time it hit 400 parts per million. so that's pretty real, and if people are worried about deniers out there, you can't deny tyndall's theory. nobody denies it, that when you add carbon dioxide to the at mows sphere, it has this effect.

nobody denies that we've put about roughly close on 2,000 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere since then. and nobody denies these measurements. these are measurements. this isn't theory. this is measurements. it's one thing if the republican party wants to be the party that's against science. i doubt they want to go so far as to be the party that is against measurement. but here we are at 400. and sure enough, some strange behavior is showing up. and this shows where all the land and ocean tefn anomalies are showing up. and if you look, going back here to 1880, it goes from blue, the cold anomalies, to red, and you can see a very, very distinct line. and people who look at it says, well, that's that undeniable climate change happening. that's that 400 parts her

million. that's an increase in the carbon dioxide and how many people think that? well, about 14,000 peer-reviewed articles think that. 24 reject global warming. that's this little red line if you're comparing the two. the blue is the universe of peer manufacture reviewed articles on climate change. that tiny little red line is the 24 out of 14,000 that reject climate change. i ask my friends on the other side of the aisle, you are betting the reputation of the republican party on your current de facto premise that climate change isn't real. do you really want to take a 24 out of $14,000 -- 14,000-article bet? that the smart place to put the reputation and the honor of the republican party? i don't think so. that's another reason i'm confident we can get to a bipartisan solution here. i don't think that it is smart

for republicans to take the reputation and honor of their party and bet it on a theory that is 24 out of 14,000. and if you look a little bit behind the climate denial operation, you see that it's actually a pretty sketchy thing. it's a pretty sketchy thing. a lot of these organizations have a tradition of denyingal. they denied that the ozone hole was growing. they denied that tobacco caused cancer. heck, some of them probably denied that seat belts made auto travel safer. that's been their industry. they have been in the denial industry, but this is a dangerous place to be, particularly because the oceans don't lie. the oceans tell the story, and they tell it in ways that you

can't deny p. and it's big what happens in the oceans, because 93% of the heat goes into the oceans. and what do you see? you know perfectly well-well what was -- you know perfectly well what happens to liquids when they get warmer? it is called the law of thermal expansion. when liquids get bigger, get warmer, they get bigger. and sure enough, when the ocean gets bigger, the sea level rises. here is a time series showing the sea level rise taking place. so we have the principle of carbon dioxide wormin -- warming the temperature of the earth. we have the addition of the carbon dioxide. we have the measurement in the atmosphere of the effect of that addition. we have the laws of nature that show what happens when the ocean warms and rises. and then you go back out and you measure and you see exactly

coming through just as predicted. and, by the way, it's 93% of the heat, but it's 30% of the carbon. and you can go into a regular chemistry lab and you can do the experiment of adding carbon dioxide to salt water and watching it's acidification go up. and sure enough, you can go to the ocean and do this as well. and, again, this isn't theory. this is measurement. does the republican party want to be the party that doesn't just deny science but denies measurement? i don't think so. there's no future in that. responsible people who back the republican party need to bring their party back from the brink of one of the most embarrassing fiascoes that any political party could get itself into. mr. schatz: if i may, the senator from rhode island i think has elucidated the problem

with respect to climate change deniers. let me read you a few quotes from members of congress, unfortunately, and they would be funny if they weren't so alarming. these are direct quotes from members of congress who are denying the reality of climate change. the first quote -- is there some thought being given to subsidizing the clearing of rain forests in order for some countries to eliminate that production of greenhouse gases? second quote -- we don't know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. could be dinosaur flat lens, you know, or who knows? global warming is a total fraud and it's being designed because what you have to the is -- mr. whitehouse: may the record reflect that this is perhaps the first reference in the history of the united states senate to dinosaur flat -- flatulence.

mr. schatz: global warming is a total fraud. what you have got is liberals being elected at the local level, want state government to do the work and make decisions. then at the state level, they want the federal government to do it, and at the federal government, they want to create global government to control our lives. here's one -- about global climate change. it could just be a shift on the axis. i don't even know what that means. and they are a little bit humorous except that these are sitting decisionmakers, and it really is time to wake up. it is time for those folks who are denying the reality of climate change to move off of their position, for those who are quietly agreeing with us about the science but not stepping forward and showing leadership to show leadership, and frankly i think it's time for those of us who have been passionate about this issue to work together and to redouble

our efforts. but i have 20 or 30 pages worth of quite alarming quotes. and again, they would be funny if they weren't from sitting decisionmakers who have real authority over this question. mr. whitehouse: one we hear the most often right now is don't worry, climate change has leveled off. global warming and the temperature increase has leveled off. well, as you just saw, 93% of the heat goes into the ocean, so if you're measuring just the atmosphere, a tiny wobble in the 93% share that the oceans take up will make a massive effect in the atmosphere. but more to the point, the graph -- if you take a graph, here is there leveling that they show over the last 50 years. the problem is if you go back through the data, you can show that level here and then at level here and then it leveled

here and then it leveled here. there are constant levels in an upward-going staircase. if you cherry pick the data, you can say okay, it's gotten level for that period. but if you really look at the trend of the identical data, that's the real trend. that's the actual trend line through the data. so when somebody comes to you and says ignore that trend line, instead look at it having gotten flat, and by the way forget all those other times it got flat before, what do you think about somebody who made an argument to you like that? it's a ridiculous argument. it ruins the credibility of the person who makes it. and how you can believe that is astonishing. mr. schatz: well, and i think you're exactly right. in some ways, that's a more dangerous argument than some of the other denier arguments because it sounds like science. it's really not but it sounds like science. but the most recent, in my view

most absurd, and we have now i think seen it for three or four winters, is every time there is snow, somebody -- at first i thought it was just sort of a little jab, a little rhetorical joke, but they are actually saying that because it was snowing last week that there must not be climate change. that is an argument that they are relying upon. i think because in the face of actual evidence, they are now having to row lie on anecdotes, on the fact that it's icy in and arctic a or there was a snowstorm in d.c. or it was unseasonably cold for a weekend in georgia or whatever it may be, but to rehigh on individual anecdotes about the weather i think is -- is -- is pretty tough stuff to take. and i just want to make sure that we don't let that stand, that the idea that you get to look out the window and understand what's happening with the climate is a lack of

understanding about the climate. climate is -- are long-term patterns over large swaths of land or ocean. the weather is you get to check it on your iphone app tomorrow morning. that's the weather. that's not the climate. it may or may not be hot or cold tomorrow. that doesn't tell you a thing about what's happening with climate change. to the extent that somebody wants to pick off a day and say look, it's 32 degrees in seattle and therefore climate change is not real, i don't think anybody actually believes that argument but it's important that the american public realize how specious that claim is. mr. whitehouse: science doesn't tell you that every day is going to get a tiny little bit warmer. climate science tells you that putting that extra energy into the system will make the weather extremes worse, both warmer and colder. and so the fact that there have

been cold snaps is actually perfectly consistent with climate science. so not only does that argument ignore the difference between weather and climate, it also takes advantage of people who have it drilled into the climate science because if you knew the least little bit about the underlying science, you would know that the point made no sense because that's exactly what the people who predict global warming predicted would happen. if anything, it confirms the argument that people are trying to rebut. so it's really, really a dishonest argument. mr. booker: mr. president, may i ask a question to the senator from rhode island? the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey is recognized. mr. booker: so this is the issue. i think there is a number of issues here, senator. the first is are the temperatures going up? for me the answer is clear.

the air temperature is increasing where you have measurements, objective measurements on that. ocean temperatures are increasing, we have objective measurements on that. the ocean is becoming more acidic. we have objective measurements of that. sea levels are rising because of the expansion of warming oceans. obviously, that's just basic, basic science that you learn in your earlier years. the amount of land covered in snow is decreasing in the northern hemisphere. we have evidence of that. glaciers are melting away. there is evidence of that. arctic sea ice is decreasing. we have evidence of that. and again, we see in new jersey evidence of measurements of these things happening. scientists at tufts and rutgers estimate the new jersey shore will experience a sea level rise of 1.5 feet by 2050. this is based upon what's happening right now. they can measure. the projections on the new jersey coast are higher than the projections for average sea

levels that rise globally. the projected rise for the new jersey coast would mean that in places like atlantic city if there was a ten-year storm, not a 50-year storm or 100-year storm but just the scale of a storm that on average we see every ten years, flood levels from that storm would be worse than any flooding that has ever been seen in atlantic city, even worse than those in superstorm sandy. and the temperature issues in new jersey are the same as well. in new jersey, the statewide average temperature in 2012 was the highest in 118 years of recording it. nine of the ten warmest calendar years on record in new jersey is objective measurements have occurred since 1990, and the five warmest years have occurred since 1998. scientists predicted that by 2050, summer temperatures in new jersey will regularly surpass the current hottest temperatures on record, making the state begin to have more of a climate of alabama. and i know senator sessions and

senator shelby can tell me a lot about those temperatures, but that's not the new jersey we know. mr. whitehouse: we're seeing the same thing in rhode island. indeed, newport, rhode island, is known for being a summer destination, and the first summer visitors to newport, rhode island, the first people who made it the summer capital of the united states were traders from the carolinas who sailed up the coast with their families to get away from the baking, fete i.d. heat of the carolinas and enjoy the cool shores of narragansett bay. well, what's happening is that due to climate change and the warming climate, that very climate that those carolina traders sailed up to newport, rhode island, to get away from is inching its way up the coast and will soon be the climate in newport, rhode island. mr. booker: and so i guess my

question is is, first of all, there is no denying what's happening, but the debate that we often get pulled into by using a ridiculous paucity of the studies compared to the grand total of the other studies is really what's causing this, is it man made or is this some regular fluctuation. so let's hold that in abeyance for a second, that question, and just deal with what we talked earlier about the military, the deals with the fierce urgency of now. even if, not dealing with the question of how this issue was created, we should be doing things right now to deal with the consequences -- investments in resiliency and adaptability along our coasts. there is so much we should be compromising on both sides of the aisle. if they want to argue about what's causing it, that's an argument we should take and i believe we will win, but absent that, even if you say these trends are happening, now what are we going to do as a country?

nothing, or are we going to prepare for that? and isn't there a lot of abc news we could take even before you get to that argument about whether or not this was caused or not, because these are trends that are happening and there are things we should be doing. mr. whitehouse: senator, you know better than i what is happening in new jersey. you know how hard new york and new jersey in particular were hit by sandy. you have our sympathies because we had some sandy damage in rhode island, but we just caught a glancing blow, and the full thrust of that hit was on new york and new jersey, and you guys really paid a price. in the recovery, fema and other federal agencies and your state agencies are really starting to look at this a whole new way. they are saying we can't build back the same. the same didn't work last time. and by the way, with that sea level rising, the same is probably not going to be enough for last time, it is going to be

way less than is necessary for next time. so the very way in which the united states government, the state of new york government, the state of new jersey government, the city of new york's government are taking a look at how you respond to sandy and how you recover and how you rebuild for the future is a perfect living example of the point that you are making. it -- for that purpose, it doesn't matter whether this is man made or not. the fact that it's happening, the fact that you can predict it means that it would be reckless and foolish not to take that into account as you rebuild. mr. booker: that is sort of the frustrating thing for me. you see these challenges mounting up all around you and you still do nothing. it reminds me of this crazy story my brother told me when i was a young guy. he -- i think now it was originally a story from lou holtz but the story is basically

this. you will appreciate this because if you're in it doing nothing is not an option. it's a story about a very wealthy man who had no heirs with which to leave his money to. and so he lined up a whole bunch of young, strapping guys in front of his big old olympic-sized pool with a cover over it and said okay, anybody who can swim across this pool gets -- gets my inheritance, you are the ones. so all these young men got ready to jump across the pool. he pushed a button and the pool cover opened and there in the water were snakes and alligators and piranha and a very mean, vicious looking duck. and so basically he waited there and all the men now backed off and didn't do anything, senator. and so he finally just had enough of it and said aw, shucks, and turned around. just as he walked way and thought none of the young men would be up to the challenge, he hears this big splash. he turns back around and he sees

navigating across it the youngest of all the men, a guy like senator schatz's age, navigating through this water, battling alligators, pushing back poisonous snakes, kicking back piranha, dodging that vicious looking duck, working his way over, heaves himself onto the other end of the pool. and now he is bloodied and tired and breathing. the man runs over to him. i can't believe it, boy, you did it. i can't believe it, you did it. anything you want, it's yours. anything you want, it's yours. and the young man looks up at the guy and says well, all i want is to know who pushed me. now, the point i asked my brother after he told me that story is what's the moral of the story? he goes cory, the moral of the story is if you're in it, you don't do nothing. if you have got challenges up to your neck, you don't do nothing. you keep moving across those challenges. and so what your point is i think is excellent is that we are at a point in america where we see clearly the challenges

we're facing but right now because of a deadlocked legislature, we're not doing that much. and the cost of inaction, we can actually calculate by watching countries around us begin to advance the ball down the field in innovation and new technologies, that can help reduce the dependency on carbon fuels. we see viewbilities being created from hawaii to -- vulnerabilityies being created from hawaii to new jersey up and down the east coast and the west coast that we are not doing anything about. lacking resiliency -- investments in that kind of resiliency will cost us more in the long run. the point i'm trying to make is when you hear it from your military that we need to do work and they are starting to do things to learn how to run their planes on biofuels, to learn how to better secure property, when you hear from people in industries that say hey, we have

got to be ahead of the curve on innovation, ahead of the curve on these new technologies that other countries are challenging us on, when you hear it on the issue of job creation and government responsibility in items of saving taxpayer dollars, retrofitting buildings, lowering your energy costs, having people save more money and keep it there. all of these things should be enough alone to compel us to act. before you even get to the debate about what's causing this. and so what i'm asking you is, is -- understanding that debate, having been in the senate for only about four months, where is the bipartisan work on what is factually happening -- warming seas, rising sea levels -- and the obvious stuff knowing these challenges are there, why aren't we doing more as a nation to wake folks up and invest in the things that we know will make us a better, stronger, safer nation? mr. whitehouse: the bipartisan

work i think is mostly being done at the local level. at the lovely of governors and mayors. you were a mayor. at the level of local city councils. one example that comes to mind is the city of miami. miami is really ground zero for climate change. on high tide days, their streets already flood with water that is pump up through what should be ways for the water to fly off the streets but it comes up into the streets, salt water. the fresh water supply in that area is already being inundated by salt water as it pushes through the porous limestone that the miami area is built on. and they realize they've got a real problem. so four county governments came together to deal with this.

and the four counties are led two by democrats, two by republicans. but they're -- as i mentioned earlier, we used to have bipartisanship on this issue until citizens united got decided by the supreme court, until all that big money came in, until all that dark money came in, until people on the republican side who were willing to speak up about climate change were punished and threatened so badly that they could no longer do it. the citizens united effect hasn't worked its way down so much to governors and certainly to counties. so you still see real action. and i think you as a mayor will also remember that when you were mayor, you had reality-based problems you had to deal with not every day, 10 times a day, 15 times a day. abraham lincoln, in the movie "lincoln" said, i like to get my public opinion bath by having real people in. you've got a reality path ever y

day you were mayor. here we don't deal with that. here it's different. we don't have to live in that same real world. we live in a more political world. and so people can say things that are, frankly, irresponsible, untrue and they can get away with it longer. and the intimidation factor of that big money is worse here. so you ask: where is the bipartisanship? well, it will be back. it will be back here. mr. whitehouse: it's inevitable. but we can know that there can be bipartisanship here by looking at bipartisanship live and healthy and in action on climate at the municipal and state and county level. mr. booker: well, first of all, i share your sense of hope about our ability to come together as a country. we've met crises after crises generation after generation.

we've come together to do the right thing. and i know this from the history of my parents and grandparents have talked to me about, whether it was meeting the external threat of the spread of fascism and how folks pulled together from people that did victory gardens here and served, people that stormed beaches in normandy. for the civil rights movement we came together as a nation and overcame those people who were trying to deny equal rights and equal opportunity in this country. and it's those past victories that give me -- fuel my hope about the present. and, you know, i know that we as a nation have already set limits for arsenic, mercury, lead, and other types of pollution. we've already done that. we've said, if you are a private company and you're going to spew this filth into our climate, that you are going to have to face limitations and take responsibility for those

actions. in other words, as i've said before, you're going to have to internalize the costs and not externalize them and not put the burden on people. and, again, i've seen that in countless cities across america, where when we didn't do that, people are still paying the price for that in the money we spend here in the federal government for brownfields remediation. that is our public tax dollars paying for the cleanup of land, often in urban spaces, that other people dirtied up. and so it's just common sense not to allow polluters to release unlimited amounts of pollutants in the air. mr. whitehouse: the only thing that i'd distinguish a little bit about your example of the boy who went into the pool filled with per ra piranhas and alligators and snakes, and the

duck, particularly virs looking duck? mr. booker: yes. mr. whitehouse: the solution on climate is not the equivalent of piranhas and alligators and snakes and a vicious duck. the solution on climate is actually a triple win. you mentioned the earlier limits on pollutants. we found over and over again that despite the regular claims by the industry that this was going to be the end of civilization as we tn we know i, economic catastrophe would enshoe. when you actually looked back, people saved money because of the harm that they were spared. and i think the clean air act is $30 saved every $1 invested in cleaning up. to the limits actually saved money. and this will add, as you mentioned before, the growth in new industries. the $6 trillion trade industry that we want to be in rather than trailing behind and buying from china. and finally, if you believe in

market theory, if you believe that markets are the most efficient way to make choices, then you've got to set up a market that's a fair one. and this business that you mentioned of a business being able to externalize its costs by saying, well, that's not my responsibility; i don't have to pay for that. i'm just going to dump it. that is no more fair than a new jersey neighbor or a hawaii neighbor or a connecticut neighbor or a rhode island neighbor instead of cleaning up their lawn, just shoveling their leaves over to the next guy's wall. you don't get to do that. you're responsible for cleaning up your own lawn when the leaves fall. and in the same way these companies that are making this mess, they're responsible for cleaning it up. so it's actually a triple win. you've got markets that work correctly. you've got limits that save money for people in the long run. and you get the proper investment in green industries that are going to grow.

so if that's alligators and snakes and piranhas, i think it's the exact opposite. i think it's abundance and it's opportunity and it's innovation. mr. booker: and, again, you said it right. on the local level, when you're dealing with the urgencies of the moment, you don't have time for philosophizing, you don't have time for politics. you've got to solve problems. and so your point is something i experienced as a mayor on multiple occasions. we got teenagers and we were able to train them in solar panel installation. do you know what happened? they got jobs doing that. and what happened to the buildings they put the solar panels on? reduced the costs. people saved money. do you know what happened to our surrounding environment? it actually improved because we were burning less fossil fuels and putting less carbon in the air. every time we attended to our environment, we were able to find win-win-wins. we looked at that and wsd when d let's create local farms and

create locally grown food. and we did that by addressing local crime. cities with more trees and plant life and what-have you often see some correlations with crime. but we did it in a different way. we created greenfields, planting food, locally grown produce, able to source it to even restaurants over in new york, across the river from -- across the hudson river. but what excited me was we created a reentry program for men and women coming home from prison. and so that's the creativity that you see in industry and local communities, of people realizing that this is not an either/or choice. the economy or the environment? no. that's a false choice. and so people that see this as incredibly threatening haven't looked at the facts. that we can create wins on multiple levels for the united states of america. and so you can get the win on the economy, you can get the win on the environment, you can get the win on the costs that you're

spending. you can get the win from being less dependent upon nations that have helped destabilize our -- our -- our planet. and all of that and the biggest patriotic win of them all is that america can lead again on -- in this area, that we can show the world the way to go. and that, frankly, that we can show other countries who are saying, why should i do something on this issue, it's not about self-interest, it's about enlightened self-interest. can and if you go the way we're going. we talked about what china is already seeing in terms of the pollutants and their environment and how the public is reacting to that. and that's the one area i might question you one more time is the hope that somehow bipartisanship will just come here. the feeling i have is that the people you -- the stats sticks you were reading -- the

statistics you were reading about the number of people who were on the web site, that is so important. because often as i look at the history of this institution is that change does happen here but often it comes from people demanding it. standing up for it. letting their politicians know. i don't care if you're republican or democrat. if you don't get onboard with this, you're going to pay for it at the polls. and that's what gives me hope, is that it's such common sense that folks were going to really start putting pressure on this body. just like i've seen with some other issues that have come around of recent. put pressure on folks that hey, you've got to get onboard with this because this is common stuff and it's going to benefit my neighborhood, my community, my school, my kids, my future, my country. and i'm hoping that those numbers you were revealing show some of that energy. i'm trying to -- i wonder if that's something in your view. mr. whitehouse: the energy is definitely out there, there's no

doubt about it. poll after poll after poll show how strongly americans feel about dealing with climate change. and my favorite one, because it involves republicans, is a poll that was taken of self-identified republican voters. self-identified republican voters under the age of 35. young voters, the future of the party, the future of the count country, the future demographic that they need to reach out to. when asked what they feel about climate denial, 53% of young republican voters described climate denial with three word words -- ignorant, out of touch, or crazy. so there are lots of reasons to have confidence but one reason to have confidence is that the young people in this party view

the climate denial strategy that we heard here earlier this evening from the one republican who came, they view that theory as ignorant, out of touch, or crazy. if that's what your own young people in your own party think about it, that's not a position you can hold. and up against the common sense and the reality of this, up against the force of public opinion and up against the -- the effort of this evening that senator schatz has done so much to make happen that shows a new spirit of stirring in the sena senate, then i think we win. i think the american people win, more to point. mr. booker: let me ask you one more question and then i'd like to invite senator schatz, who has been the catalytic agent in pulling this all together, which is the idea of a level playing field and free markets. the subsidy that's given to oil

and coal and the predictable subsidy that's given to oil and coal, which has helped to fuel that industry, compared to the unpredictable subsidy that's given to alternative energy, such as wind, which has led to more disjointed advancements in those areas. now, again, i -- i think of arguments about picking winners and losers. i heard a lot of this when i was mayor coming from washington, why are the democrats, why is obama picking winners and lose losers? it seems to me that this is very anti a philosophy and not allowing them for other industries. really, the industries of the future that would help us to

have a more blended all of the above strategy. and i know you have a lot of insight into this, which to me flies in the face of conservative ideology, it flies in the face of progressive ideology. the only ideology that seems to make sense is moneyed interest that want to corrupt a free market, corrupt common sense and corrupt what we think should be a unifying force towards moving as a nation towards a more sound energy policy. mr. whitehouse: two factories working side by side, and one factory is paying attention to making its product and doing the very best it can in being as efficient as it can and making a great product and going out and selling it, and then the factory right next to it has figured out a way to take a big chunk of its costs and push them off on to other people. let's say that one factory has to clean up its effluent and the

other one just dumps it in the river. let's say one factory has to pay for cleanup of its trash and disposal and the other one just shovels it in the neighbor's yard at night. no matter how that second factory is cheating by offloading costs on to other people instead of putting them in, you don't have a fair market between those two factories. you have one that is playing by the rules, that is playing by market theory and you have one it can't compete with because the other one is cheating. when fossil fuels dump carbon into our atmosphere and we now know the harm that it causes and it comes home to folks at roy carpenter's beach in rhode island, i don't have it right there and people's homes are falling in the water, when it comes to storms that smash the storefronts of new jersey, when it comes to the wildfires and droughts that we heard of tearing through new mexico and colorado, when it comes to ocean acidification, those are real

costs to real people, and they have been pushed off onto the rest of us by those polluters, and it simply isn't fair. it's a violation of basic market theory. so if as the republican party so often says we want to be the free market party, fine, be the free market party but have it be a fair market. it can't be a racket of a market. it's got to be a free and fair market in which the costs of a product are in the price of a product. otherwise, it's just picking winners and losers. mr. booker: and for us then to take the innovators that are trying to invest the money and the resources to keep america on the cutting edge for alternative fuels to be denied any kind of flexibility and for you illustrating earlier what's happening at the local level as the moneyed interest from fossil

fuel burners get involved in legislatures that are trying to do things to create a level playing field, to me that should be something we should all say no to, that should stop completely. mr. whitehouse: here are two families, here are two families who paid a price. that wasn't built into the price of fossil fuels, but they sure as heck paid it, and they didn't just pay it in a wrecked front of a building and an entirely ruined house there. they paid it also in the loss of all the memories, of all the summers that they grew up back when this was their summer home. that's a real price. people paid a lot when this happened, and to write that off as if it's nothing and have the polluters just keep going at it, no, that's not right. i yield the floor and senator

schatz, i know you have got some remarks that you would like to make and let me just take another opportunity to thank you again for your leadership bringing us together. the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. mr. schatz: thank you very much, mr. president. i thank the senator from rhode island and the senator from new jersey for engaging in such an energetic dialogue about these incredible issues. allow me to brag about hawaii a little bit. i'd like to speak about the incredible work that hawaii is doing in energy transformation. we have taken a problem, high energy prices, no in-state fossil fuel resources and turned it into an opportunity to transition the state to clean energy. hawaii, like alaska and the territories, is gee fundraise cally isolated --

mr. schatz: and we have abundant natural resources in solar, wind, geothermal and ocean energy. but that doesn't make transition to clean energy easy. current policies entrenched modes of thinking, long-standing business models alopping with high up front costs for capital for clean energy mean that we need to aggressively encourage market transformation using a variety of policy tools. thankfully farsighted and committed policy-makers have helped hawaii to develop and implement some of the most aggressive clean energy and

efficiency goals in the country. this effort began in earnest in 2008 with a unique partnership between hawaii and the united states department of energy that became the hawaii clean energy initiative. hawaii clean energy initiative, or hcei is a partnership between the state, the federal government, the not-for-profit and the private sectors. it helps to lay out a road map for hawaii to achieve our aggressive clean energy goals. our job is far from done, but as a result of this effort, i'm opt misstick about hawaii's energy future and our ability to reduce carbon pollution. i strongly believe that despite i hahawaii i had's unique characteristics, opportunities exist for other states to replicate the successes we've had. already energy regulators and policy-makers from other parts the country and world are coming

to hawaii to learn what we're doing. and i say that with great appreciation for the enormous work others are doing to transition to a clean energy future. i don't claim that hawaii has all the answers but i do think that we have discovered some of them. let's start with a brief overview of the energy sector. we're the most geographically isolated major population center in the world. and we're also internally separated with seven different populated islands. we're the now oil dependent state in the nation. in 2010, 75% of the state's electricity came from imported petroleum. this reliance leads to both high and volatile energy costs. hawaii's residential electricity rates are the highest in the nation at around 37 cents to 40 cents per kill awatt hour. these rates are three times the national average and twice as

high as alaska's rate. hawaii's multiple islands mean multiple grids that all must be managed independently. looking forward, the state is considering an undersea transmission cable as one of the key possibilities for sharing renewable energy and reducing rates throughout the islands. a major consequence of our geography is that the best clean energy resources are not located in the same places as our demand centers. awahoone island has high demandd waikiki and the pacific demand and one island may only be able to realistically generate 50% of its only renewable energy. hawaii has been unable so far to take care of the mainland's low-cost gas. and various groups have also begun to explore bringing low-cost l.n.g. in order to

further transition away from our dependence on low sulfur fuel oil for electricity. so back in 2008 with high energy costs, a desire for greater energy security and the pressing need to get serious about reducing carbon solution, it was clear that we needed to do something. hcei was founded on a memorandum of understanding signed between the state of hawaii and the u.s. d.o.e. in 2008. this partnership resulted in an ambitious plan to reduce energy consumption by 30% and increase electrical generation from renewables to 40% of the total mix by the end of 2030. these renewable and efficiency goals are now law, but such goals even enshrined in law need a suite of policy rules to help to implement them, and they need the political will to relentlessly see them through. one of the key policy tools

aiding compliance with the state's r.p.s. and especially the efficiency standard is the decoupling of the electric utilities income from fluctuations in sales and revenue. this is crucial in a place like hawaii where distributed generation is playing an important role in meeting our goals. this way we can ensure that the utility receives financial incentives for increasing renewable production from independent power producers and decreasing total energy use. hawaii's decoupling policy began in 2011 and allowed the state utility to be compensated through revenue-balancing rate adjustments. like many other states, hawaii supplements federal tax incentives to encourage greater deployment of technologies such as wind, solar and geothermal. our incentives deserve tax credits for power producers at every level, utility scale,

commercial and residential. in june of last year, hawaii passed legislation to establish a green infrastructure financing program, the green energy market securitization program which we call gems creates an innovative financing model that will help low to moderate income households, including renters, to take advantage of clean energy improvements and energy efficiency. it aims to address the financial barriers of investing in and installing energy cost savings products. the heart of the program is an bill financing structure backed bayou tilt rate bonds that allow customers to overcome the high up-front costs of clean energy products. what does that mean? it does this by allowing customers to pay for clean energy investments over time via surcharge on their electricity bill. in other words, you can simply sign up for clean energy. some of the savings goes to the

company that's providing you the clean energy and some of the savings goes to you, and all of it gets taken care of by the electric utility on your bill. on-bill financing is the wave of the future, whether it is in electricity generation or in energy efficiency. this program will begin by targeting distributed solar but will quickly expand to other technologies. hcei also works to promote hawaii as an attractive place to invest in commercial production of clean energy technologies and serve as a test bed for demonstrating and proving out cutting edge ideas and energy management practices. outside groups have looked to hawaii especially when it comes to smart grid development. in may of 2011, japan-based new energy and industrial technology development organization neto contributeed $37 million as a partner to our maui smart grid

project. this is a demonstration project to reduce peak load through demand response to integrate intermittent energy sources to incorporate grid scale battery storage technology. so what does that mean? it means on the island of maui, we have lots and lots of wind energy and yet we are lacking in the ability to actually utilize all of that energy at the same time, and so we're looking at using distributed electric vehicles to take that energy off of the grid and be stored in electric vehicles. hitachi corporation, neto, the usdoe, our natural energy labs, they are all very interested in trying to figure out how to make our grid more intelligent and more efficient. high levels of renewable energy penetration especially on our neighbor islands make it an excellent place for utilities on the mainland to come in and observe grid operators manage the grid under demanding circumstances. what we are hearing from grid

operators across the continental united states is they come to hawaii to understand the kinds of pressures that their grid is going to be under in three to five to seven to ten years, depending on where they are from. public investment in early stage technology companies continue to play a key role. in september of 2013, the office of naval research provided $30 million to support an energy accelerator start-up program. this program has already invested in projects that are attracting private investment, including from the local utility. so far it has helped 17 energy companies bring their product to market. these products have subsequently been able to raise over 38 million in follow-on funding. let's take a quick look at how hawaii's energy sector has fared in the years since hcei began. in 2012, hawaii reached an important new milestone,

generating almost 14% of its electricity from renewable resources. we're close to our stated goal of 15% by 2015 which means we're on track to reach our interim target of 25% by the year 2020. in terms of distributed generation, primarily rooftop solar, 2012 saw installations more than double from over 5,000 in 2011 to more than 12,000 in 2012. at the end of 2012, the cumulative number of sold systems statewide totaled 22,000 with a total capacity of 138 megawatt. in energy efficiency, hawaii has reduced consumption by 14.5% as of 2012. and one of the questions that people ask when you make good progress in energy efficiency is whether or not it's simply tracking the economy. in other words, generally speaking, when the economy goes

down, so does energy consumption. but our energy efficiency gains have been made whether or not our economy is growing or shrinking. they've been extraordinarily strong over the last five years because we've got a really great, aggressive energy conservation program that is -- that is really groundbreaking. rapidly improving energy efficiency efforts along with increased renewables have contributed to decreasing energy costs in hawaii. from 2008-2012, electricity use has declined while the state g.d.p. grew by 9%. hawaii's transformation to a clean energy economy has helped to create many of the state's 14,000-plus green jobs, with hawaii ranking third in clean energy job growth nationally. the implementation of hcei goals has not come without challenges. one of the biggest challenges has been integrating

intermittent renewable energy sources into our various grids, grids that are often quite small in scale, making things even more challenging, much of this renewable energy is distributed, which means that our utility companies don't even know whether they're sort of coming or go. they have no visibility into what's happening with rooftop solar. they're trying develop technologies to kind of understand what's happening with the grid. but, for example, wind farms on maui were recently forced to spill about 28% of their energy production due to lack of demand on the island. in other words, 28% of our wind energy was actually wasted. but here's a real success story of learning by doing. the maui electric company this fall announced recent operational changes to bring that number down to 9%. mine, that is a huge achievement -- i mean, that is a huge achievement. with you didn't have to install any additional wind turbines.

but we're now being able to use more green energy on the grid because of technological improvements. in hawaii, we're particularly concerned with ensuring that every citizen can participate in the clean energy economy and benefit from the competitive cost of renewables. i'm confident that the state's gems program will be a groundbreaking state-level policy that will make clean energy and efficient investments available to all. and finally, we need to keep the momentum going in the face of changing -- a changing state legislature, a state administration, an evolving federal -- and evolving federal policies the latter of which is perhaps the biggest challenge. recent expiration of the production tax credit and a host of energy efficiency and biofuels incentives have had a profound effect on the economics of clean energy technologies. these incentives must be renewed and congress can and should act immediately to ensure continued

growth of the clean energy sector. i'm particularly grateful to the chairman of the finance committee for joining the task force tonight in calling for action on climate change and greatly appreciate his leadership on these issues. many, if not most, states and territories are doing excellent work to encourage clean energy and i'm sure hawaii has a lot to learn from those states. but the hcei model can be an effective tool both for states, the federal government and for other countries. it is profoundly difficult to get all or even some of the interests in the energy sector to agree. hcei, especially at the beginning, provided a forum for hawaii's different groups to come together and find common ground and then move forward. at its core, hcei is designed to be a collaborative effort between all citizens of hawaii to leverage their respective strengths in achieving a clean

energy future. without the participation and cooperation of all of the key players involved and the support of the general public, hcei would not succeed. i also can't stress enough the importance of the partnership that we have with the u.s. d.o.e. d.o.e. offers a unique ability to act as a convener, facilitator and an active long-term partner in hcei. and d.o.e. continues to serve as a conduit between hawaii and other entities, such as the national labs, federal programs, r&d groups, other federal agencies and national organizations that support the strategic planning process and contribute to the execution of core activitiecore activities. d.o.e. provides assistance to the state necessary to realize the goals and initiatives as well as the implementation of pilot projects.

if the states are truly the laboratories of democracy, then we in congress should provide them with the tools that they need to experiment and innovate. the united states faces the same energy and environmental challenges as the state of hawaii. a majority of energy assets in this country are ready for retirement or replacement and decisions made today will have lasting impacts. the energy sector faces a wave of new technology, new regulations and rapidly evolving market and business conditions. these uncertainties will impact investment decisions, policy formulation and ultimately economic growth. we must meet head-on the challenge of climate change, more frequent and intense extreme weather events, the need to reduce localized pollutants and the increasing number of cyber and physical attacks on our energy infrastructure. these challenges are not

physically constrained by state boundaries, jurisdictions or even our international borders. recent blackouts and regional fuel shortages have highlighted the interconnected nature of u.s. energy systems. with energy disruptions starting in one state, extending to neighboring states and regions. this fundamental property of u.s. energy systems means that preparing for uncertainty and threats in a robust and effective manner will require regional and national strategies and plans if we're going to successfully address the challenges that we face in the coming years. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: i welcome and recognize the senator from we will we will arconnecticut. mr. murphy: thank you very much, mr. president. first i want to offer my great thank to both you and senator schatz and senator boxer who i

know was down here earlier. all three of you are true heroes, as well as some of our own colleagues, who have manned the very quiet, lonely hours of the overnight. i know senator booker and senator heinrich in particular spent some long hours on this floor but arguing with great ferocity and passion about the cause that brings us here today. and i'm really humbled to be able to pick up where many of my friends have left off and thanks them for bringing us all here today. so in thinking about this event and thinking about how to frame this debate, i asked some of my friends back in connecticut how they were thinking about this issue of climate change. and i received a number of different responses back but one that maybe didn't necessarily stand out but was emblematic of the way that my state of connecticut thinks about climate change, a state that has most of

its population right along the shoreline. all of our economic assets essentially buffering the state from the rising coastal levels. a state that has now gone through, as the presiding officer's has, four record storms, four once-in-a-lifetime storms in a period of a handful of years. this is a state that has been called to action. and a rabbi in the greater new haven area wrote me a very simple note. he said he became a activist on the issue of climate change after superstorm sandy. and senator booker was down here and clearly his state took the worst of it. but connecticut got hit hard too. and we got hit hard in a physical sense and in an

economic sense but we also got hit hard on a psychological sense because a lot of people who believed in climate change in connecticut decided to stand up and really do something about it when sandy hit. rabbi raider said he remembers that night when sandy hit. he said, "the winds were so ferocious that my family feared our house would be torn apart by the trees on our property. my wife and i grabbed our three little children and we brought them into our room for safety. throughout that long night, we huddled together, blocking the windows and praying that we would make it through. but the experience," he says, "the sense of paralysis, of powerlessness, it reverberated with me and my family for a long time. and as a parent, it is not something i am content to let

happen again and again." this rabbi has become an activist on the issue of clima climate. from him it comes from this experience of that evening in connecticut. and i remember it well. i don't live in the extreme coastal parts of connecticut but i remember after the lights had gone out that night, the only connection that i still had to what was happening along the coastline as the worst of that storm came in -- predicted to be at the level of historic tidal high tides along the connecticut shoreline -- was my smartphone. and i was trying to keep up via twitter as to what was happening in places like greenwich and bridgeport and norwalk. and what i started to see in just the moments before i finally lost battery power was what appeared to be a coming

apocalypse. now, thanks to the lucky coincidence that the worst case did not happen, that, in fact, in connecticut the historic high tide and the worst of the surge did not actually hit at the same moment as predicted, lives were spared and the economic cost was only in the hundreds of millions of dollars rather than in the tens of billions of dollars. but for rabbi raider and thousands of others in connecticut, this was the last straw. another once-in-a-lifetime storm happening once again, putting their family, putting their community, putting our economy at risk. and what rabbi raider talks about is this sense of paralysis that he felt that night, this

sense of powerlessness as you are huddled, holding your children in your home, wondering if the walls will still stand up to yet another historic storm as a consequence of changing climate. and what the rabb rabbi figuredt is that he actually wasn't powerless, but that night he was. that night all he could really do is really hunker down and hope that they could survive. but the next morning he could do out and do something about it. now, the problem is, is that moment is fleeting. that there are only so many hours left before the trend lines that have developed, shown so well by senator whitehouse in chart after chart, are very hard to turn around. and if i have some time later on i'll talk about some of the most insidious trend lines that come

not carbon dioxide emissions but come from what we call fast-acting pollutants, things like methane and h.f.c.'s and black carbon, that once they get into the air are very hard to turn back around. and you're kind of reminded about the parable of the boiling frog. the fact that if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, he'll jump right out. but if you put him into a pot of cold water and you just gradually turn up the temperature, that he'll die because he won't recognize over the course of those minutes that the water is heating up to an intensity that he can't survive. and there are only a handful of moments that that frog can choose to jump out before the dye is cast, before his future is written and his death is guaranteed.wueeeñ we can sort ok

and say, well, it doesn't seem that bad today. we got these storms that are bigger and crops are vanishing and species seem to be migrating. but you know, the water around us isn't boiling yet. we only have a mast minutes for the frog to jump out before it is too late. and we are in that period of time in which if we don't make some decisions that pollutants will be so locked into the atmosphere, the trend lines will be heading so clearly in one way that there's no way to turnar tn around. but this is moment, as rabbi rader shows, that we have power to do something. and dwhrot i don't want to overstate this analogy, mr. president, because there's no reason to equate anyone with the heroism of people like john louis and eleanor holmes norton

but i went with them this past down weekend down to mississippi and alabama to comm rate what is -- commemorate what is this year the 49th anniversary of the selma march that resulted in bloody sunday that eventually inspired l.b.j. to introduce the 1965 civil rights act, when many people see as a fulcrum point in the civil rights movement. and of course the idea that had been perpetuated upon african-americans in the south was an idea that, one, it isn't that bad, that, yeah, you have to go to separate facilities and, yeah, your schools around the the same as your schools, but we treat you really nice and we still allow you to drink from the water fan tankers just not our water fountain and we still alou you to go -- allow you to go to schools but just not our schools.

and then also the sense of powerlessness. that you can't do anything about t as we re-created this march across the edmund pettus bridge with congressman lou i got the chance to march next to one of the foot soldiers in the civil rights movement. crawford wasn't a figure that made any headlines, and they aren't anybody that you'll find if you google her name in the civil rights movement. but se she has a story to tell. she was there in birming wham the hoses mowed down hundreds of protesters and the dogs were let out to chew up the ankles and knees and legs of those who dared to confront the white power structure and she went to jail at 18 years old for five days, which has got tobacco harrowing affair. and then she marched on washington at 19 years old, traveling all the way up here to be part of that moment. i asked her, i say, as we

walked, why did you do it? she kind of looked at me with a funny look on her face as if it was a funk knee question. she said, who else was going to do it? so all your friends did it? no, none of my other friends did it. did you tell your parents? no, i didn't tell my parents. i just did it because i knew it was the right thing to do. she knew that the situation was not okay. she knew that she wasn't powerless, that she could do something about it. and why i feel inspired tonight, mr. president, to be down here with awful you is not because i'm trying to -- with all of you is not because i'm trying to equate this small act of civil disobedience with this. it is because this is an attempt, as you have said over and over again on the senate floor to wake up this nation to the idea that what is happening today is real, that it is almost irreversible understand that we are not powerless to do

something about it. and so, mr. president, i want to talk for just a little while this evening about my state of connecticut, which as i mentioned is particularly impacted by climate change. and i want to talk to you a little bit about that dual discussion about how we recognize that this is a real problem, not one that can be papered over by the oil companies and by the fossil fuel companies and by the koch brothers and everyone else who would try to perpetuate this mythology across this country that we don't have to pay attention to the issue of climate change, not unlike the white power structure in the south perpetuating the mythology that americans didn't have to worry about the way they were treated and then also to talk about the path forward and how hopeful it is. i thought your comments were spot on, mr. president, in response to i think a very apt

parable and story from senator booker in which you challenged this idea that there is really any idea into lurching into all the things necessary to fix the problem with climate change. in fact, there is enormous opportunity, not just moral opportunity because we're doing the right thing -- and that is of course probably our first charge as members of the most powerful legislative body in the world -- but also enormous economic potential in the ability for this country to capture literally millions of jobs that some nation across the world is going to have as we try to combat climate change. so let me first tell you about what climate change means to us in connecticut p. and here's an example of what it means to the nation as well. through the lens of one company in conconand tha connecticut ans electric boavment a company that employs a lot of folks in both your state, mr. president, and

my state, and for those of you who don't know what electric boat does, well, they make submarines. they along with a company in virginia make every single submarine that goes out across this world in order to protect the people of this country. maybe no more important defense asset to the united states today than the submarine, which provides a multisystemmic platform with which to protect this country. we do reconnaissance and surveillance all those things, we use them in times of war to launch attacks to defend our homeland, we're charting the manage niewfermaneuvers and opef other navies across the world. you can't make submarines inla inland. probably goes without say, imu you have to make submarines dr but you have to make submarines right next to the water because these suckers are big.

you have to deliver them right into the water. and so we make them in bratten, connecticut. since the inception of the submarine building program in gratin, we've lost 100 feet of coastline, in gratin, at electric boat. now, 100 feet of coastline, that's -- that's a lot of coastline anywhere, but maybe you can manage that if you're in a residential area or an area of marshland, maybe you can figure out ways to adjust. but when you have a multibillion-dollar presence sitting right on the water, when you have literally hundreds of millions of dollars of machinery and equipment and training resources right on long island sound, the loss of 100 feet of coastline jeopardizes the

ability to make submarines. with sea levels rising at 4 millimeters a year, it is not long before the entirety of our submarine building industry is compromised by rising sea level. and every day electric boat, a for-profit private company is thinking about ways to try to force the water back out of their facility so that they can continue to make boats that protect this country. i know you have a talk a lot already about the effect on local agriculture. people don't think about connecticut as an ag state, but we are. and we have already seen the impact of these changing climates on connecticut. i'll just give you one example. cranberry hill farms is a specialty crop producer in

ashford, connecticut. they produce ai heirloom vegetables, they produce a lost firewood for the community and they produce maple syrup. the owner of cranberry hill farms is adapting to managing a farm in a wildly unpredictable climate. in april 2012, connecticut faced a 90-degree heat wave for a week. now, we're used to hait heat wes in the northeast but certainly not used to the number of extended periods of high-level temperatures that we are having today as a result of climate change. so this heat wave caused the strawberry crop at cranberry hill to bloom early, and then when the temperatures dropped back down to average april levels, the strawberry crop just didn't survive.

strawberry crops can't survive a 90-degree haiti wav heat wave i. they're not built for that. so cranberry hill farms lost the entirety of their strawberry crop for that see song. -- season. i wish that was the exception to the rule. but that story can be repeated over and over and over again across connecticut. farmers, especially small farmers, in connecticut -- that's what we have. off with a lot of farmers. we have a growing number of farms. they small pretty small plots of land and they can't be with small acreage terribly diversified. so when a farm like cranberry hill loses a strawberry crop, that jeopardizes their whole operation. there just isn't the resiliency in new england farming, because of the small size and limited scope that you may have in other places.

but it at least -- at least when this comes to something like strawberries or other specialty crops, they can hope that they're going to be able to do better next year. but for their maple syrup operations, which is a big deal in connecticut and across the northeast, the prospects are pretty seriously dire. as connecticut summers get hotter and they get longer, what we're seeing is a receding sugar bush tree line. sugar bush is a temperate tree in the hot summers are driving those trees fathe farther north. so with record heat waves hitting the state every cornel, connecticut's maple syrup industry may not su survive at awesome that's a dig deal. that's an industry that employs a lot of people. i just personally would panic if

i didn't have my connecticut maple syrup. but what we've seen is that these hotert temperatures are moving entire industries further north. senator king, maybe he told this story earlier tonight if he was on the floor -- i've heard him tell it before. he talked about the temporary benefit that maine has received because our nation's lobsters are moving. as the temperature of the water on the atlantic coastline grows hotter and hotter, the lobsters are pretty quickly figuring that out. they're not as dumb as you may think, and they are retreating to the north. and so for the time-being, maine is having a bounty because they have all of connecticut's lobsters. that, though, has been disastrous for states like ours, in places like connecticut and

rhode island, we have seen the whole-scale evisceration of the fishing industry, especially those lobstermen in connecticut who were once a defining feature of our landscape, of our economy. they had to move or just shut down operations because the temperature of the water in part is forcing the lobsters to move to a different place. so whether it's maple syrup or strawberries or lobsters, connecticut's both maritime industry and our agricultural sector has already been fundamentally transformed. let's talk about two other things that really matter to us in connecticut. and i heard the presiding officer reference one of these subjects a little bit earlier. we have a pretty big tourist industry in connecticut, and one of the reasons for that is that

over the course of the fall we get hundreds of thousands of people -- seniorly is at leans tens of thousands -- certainly at least tens of thousands of people -- who drive through the beautiful stretches of northwestern connecticut and eastern connecticut in which the fall foliage just lights up new england like a christmas tree. and those tourists bring with them to connecticut their wallets and their pocketbooks and they deposit a little bit of money with us and what we colloquial call leaf-peeping season is a big deal to our state. well, climate change is having today and will continue to have an effect on fall foliage. and, again, for a lot of people that, you know, sounds like maybe a small, minor consequence that leaves in connecticut will just look a different color.

but to connecticut, it's a big part of our fall industry. climate change is making our summers much hotter, making there be more 90-degree days, and this, in turn, will affect these brilliant fall colors on the trees. many of those trees will just migrate north or die out and the timing of that transition from summer to fall fundamentally changes. and in a lot of ways, because many of those tree species which present the most vibrant colors, may completely be gone. skiing is another thing that really matters to us in connecticut. we don't have the big mountains that vermont and new hampshire and maine have, and i know our friends out in the midwest don't even accept that what we have to offer in the northeast qualifies

as "big mountains," but in new england, of course, skiing is a really big deal. and it's a major industry. we are having trouble right now as we speak keeping connecticut slopes open. we've had one i guess it's a hill, not a mountain, but a hill that brings in millions of dollars to connecticut's economy called powder ridge, not far from my home in checshire, connecticut, has been a prospect with family and operators starting it up, stopping it; starting it up, stopping it because they are on a year-to-year lifeline due to the fact that there is less snow and less people coming on to the slopes. estimates suggest that over the course of the next half a century, the skiing industry is likely to vanish in connecticut.

this is a multimillion-dollar industry in places like ski sundown and mohawk mountain and others that are in small towns in places like northwestern connecticut. those small-town economies would potentially collapse if they don't have the central organizing principle of our winters which is the ski mountain, the ski lodge and the thousands of families who come from all over connecticut and all over new england to ski there. our ski industry in connecticut already is in jeopardy but it's going to get worse if we don't do something about it. maybe what's scariest, though, is what's happening with these storms along the coastline. and i mentioned this a little bit in the story of the rabbi who sheltered his family, but we are not unlike most other states

across the atlantic in that we were initially as a state a maritime community and so we built up our state along our waterways. and to us that was essentially long island sound and the connecticut river. and today if you track development, well, it's migrated outside of those corridors, it's still basically centralized along the connecticut river which is now not coincidental to interstate 95 and the long island shot, which is not coincidental to both interstate 95 and the amtrak line. and what is most troubling is the fact that these storms attacking us with increasing ferocity and severity are no longer a nuisance. they present a catastrophic potential for connecticut's

entire economy. i'll give you one example of how close we came during superstorm sandy to an absolutely economy ravaging disruption of our rail lines. so the amtrak line runs right down connecticut's coastline. and if you take a little kayak down across the long island sound, which i'll do virtually every summer, there are long stretches of that kayak ride in which you can see the amtrak line lying literally on top of the wetlands that shelter the land from the sea or within just a handful of yards. now, whether or not that was a smart decision in retrospect, i can't tell you, but we built up our main rail line which provides billions of dollars of

economic benefit to the entirety of the northeast corridor. in connecticut right on the shoreline. and so this is a line that obviously millions of connecticut consumers use but connects boston to new york and to washington, d.c. it is the vital life link between some of the biggest economic centers in the entire world. and when superstorm sandy hit, it completely obliterated a sand dune right near rocky neck state park that essentially took the bullet for a rail bridge that was just feet behind it. we were fortunate at this sort of point of exposure to have an enormous sand dune that was standing right next to the rail bridge. and all of our ecologists and all of our disaster experts tell

us if that sand dune wasn't there, then that bridge would have been obliterated. now, if you lose just a stretch of track, you can probably rebuild that in a handful of days or weeks. but if you lose a bridge along the amtrak line, that is a disruption that will likely take you months to recover from. that's a disruption that will be, as i said, catastrophic to the entire northeastern corridor. if you lose the ability to move people by rail from new york to boston, that kills thousands, tens of thousands of jobs if you can no longer take a train from rhode island to washington, d.c., that eliminates commerce that kills jobs. now, that sand dune is gone and so if there's another storm, then all that's left to protect

the rest of connecticut from that storm surge is that rail bridge and it is likely to come down. now, we're going to do the hard work of rebuilding that sand dune but that's not the only place along the connecticut shoreline in which the amtrak line is in harm's way. and as you talk about the rising sea level tides that you have on the floor today, it's just a matter of time before there is no sand dune that is big enough to withstand the storm surge that will hit the amtrak line, knock it out of service potentially for weeks and for months. our beaches are part of our economy as well and the estimate with respect to hammond asset beach state park, which is a beautiful beach that tens of thousands of connecticut residents go to but people from all across the country and,

frankly, all across the world flock to every year. i, you know, am lucky enough to spend a good part of my summer down on the connecticut shoreline. my family's got a little beach house in old lime that i get to go to which is right next essentially to am monday asset state park. and i can't tell you the number of license plates that we see from canal dcoming down from cad quebec and ontario coming down to the connecticut beaches. they rent a house or bring an r.v. and they spend thousands of dollars, each family, over the course of august or the several weeks they come down in the local economy. so much of that part of the state is beach up around the summer beach tourism that comes in hammond asset beach state park and to rocky neck beach state park. the department of energy and environment protection tells us that by the end of this

century -- and it could come faster if the worst-case scenarios come true, that hammonasset beach state park will be gone. it just won't exist any longer. that the scope of the tides and the water will be such that our economy driving, dollar generating state park, which, oh, by the way, is just a beautiful place to go and brings joy to thousands of families, will not exist any longer. and while i don't have the estimate for rocky neck, i know the geography and it would suggest to me that if hammonasset is going to be gone by the end of this century, then rocky neck is probably not far behind. the insurance industry, not located along our shorelines, but it employs thousands of

people. we're the insurance state -- hartford, connecticut, the insurance capital of the world. if our friends on the republican side of the aisle don't believe the scientists, then hopefully they may believe the market. i mean, our republican friends tell us that they take their cues from the private market. well, the private market is very quickly having to adjust to the reality of climate change. because as storm after storm hits the northeast and as storms ravage the gulf coast and more severe weather, often in the form of tornadoes hit the midwest, it is the insurance companies that in most cases ride to the rescue. now, they ride to the rescue with billions of dollars that they have to pay out. and the only way that they adjust is by raising premiums on

all of the rest of us. and so companies like travelers and the hartford, some of the biggest property and casualty insurers in the world which are headquartered in connecticut, will tell you that their models are fundamentally changing because they know climate change to be a reality. they aren't budgeting premiums in the future on the belief that these are just freak temporary occurrences. the biggest insurance companies in the country, indeed, in the world, are making economic decision based upon their rock-solid belief that the 99% of climate scientists that you referred to on the floor are telling the truth. and so rates are increasing. the exposure for connecticut's insurance industry is expanding. i just think about the expansion

of floodplain zones. today, about 11% of ne new york city is in a flood risk zone. within the next several decades, the estimates from the insurance industry are that 34% of new york city are going to be in a flood risk zones. now, if you're in one of these zones, you obviously pay a severe premium when it comes to your insurance costs. now, while maybe in some way, shape or form that some of that money will migrate to connecticut's insurance companies, it gets sucked out of millions of businesses all across this country, having to pay increased insurance premiums because the insurance companies are planning on climate change. and right now the insurance companies are planning on this body doing absolutely nothing about it. resulting in billions of dollars more in premiums from small

companies, big companies, mom-and-pop stores and homeowners all across this country. we're going to become a sicker state as well and that comes with costs, too. lime disease, named after a particularly beautiful part of the world, lime, connecticut, and old lime, connecticut, absolutely ravages tens of thousands of people in connecticut. if you know anybody with lime disease, you know how insidious a disease it is because it often initially presents with symptoms that are a little bit hard to detect, that mask maybe as other illnesses. and it is still sometimes very troublesome and tricky to treat. often antibiotic treatments will zap lime disease within the first couple days or months, but there are people across the state of connecticut what we

refer to as chronic lime disease, that don't respond to antibiotic treatment. and it's life changing. it really is life changing. and it forces many people to be bedridden, out of the work force, living fundamentally different lives than they had planned. and with warmer and wetter conditions in connecticut, our epidemiologists and our disease scientists tell us that we are going to see an increase in the deer tick. we are going to see, as we have already, an increase in diagnoses for lyme disease. and the mosquito-born diseases such as encephalitis virus along with nile virus which impacts people but also people and livestock, horses and wild birds are going to become prevalent as well.

as you figure out what the consequences of this is the story gets worse and worse. as you have wetter and warmer conditions as we have today and mosquitoes and deer ticks start to infest especially our coastal areas you have to engage in mosquito control measures. that historically has involved draining or ditching wetlands, which have enormous environmental consequences for those areas which further erode a lot of our maritime industries that depend in part on those wetlands staying healthy and happy. the other way that you deal with mosquitoes is you spray aerially. we know after decades of bad history with pesticides and with aerial spraying how careful you have to be about that. the reality is that you are going to see mist floating down on tens of thousands of homes and neighborhoods and kids as we

try to stamp out the increasing numbers of mosquitoes that come to places like connecticut as climate change guarantees warmer and wetter climates. so we lose jobs. we increase costs. we see entire industries just evaporate from connecticut and we become a more expensive and we become a sicker place. mr. president, the folks that i got to spend some time with this last weekend in places like selma and jackson, tiny little towns in the mississippi delta like money and rueville, they saw a better day. they saw the ability to change their circumstances, and on the other side of that fight an epic battle that not unlike the fight

that we have here today combine individual decisions that people have to make to change their lives and the way they treated people, small, little courages by people like sarah c. crawford. but it also involved a fight in the united states senate that eventually culminated in the civil rights act. they recognized that the path to justice for african-americans didn't actually come with much pain at all. that the path to economic and racial justice for blacks across this country lifted everybody up. and if you talk to a lot of white mississippians or white citizens of alabama, they will tell you that they felt like there was a psychological and mental weight lifted from them and they saw the economies of

their states improve. i don't know all of the history, but many people suggest that in the years following world war ii that birmingham, alabama, was poised to become the economic crossroads of the south. that it could have become an economic powerhouse rivalling cities today like atlanta in the south. but it didn't because the fact that racial injustice held it back. and once they figured out that was both a moral stain on that state and an economic stain, they changed their ways. not to overstate the comparison -- it is just in my brain because i was there last weekend -- so goes the story for the fights against climate change in the sense that the pathway to addressing this issue runs through the creation of

millions of jobs in this country sweplz -- as well as cleaner air to breathe and cleaner water to drink for all our citizens and kids across the country. so, mr. president, if i could, i'd just like to run through a hand full of examples of how this could matter to my state as well. connecticut has built a pretty serious and i think pretty impressive fuel cellage. fuel cells aren't renewable resources in the sense that they use a small amount of gas that mixes together with elements inside the fuel cell to produce what is essentially an ultra clean source of energy. there is virtually no pollutant coming out of fuel cells so there is almost no contribution to global warming from these

fuel cells. they are changing the climate but they're also creating a lot of jobs in connecticut. on december 20, 2013, connecticut opened its first utility-scale fuel cell farm in bridgeport, connecticut. it was manufactured and built by a company in connecticut that employs hundreds of people, the world's biggest fuel cell company -- fuel cell energy. it is located on a former brownfield. it's the first power plant like this of fuel cells in north america and at 15 megawatts it is producing enough power to supply power to 15,000 homes. it's a serious facility, and it's creating -- it's creating hundreds of jobs in places like danberry and torrington, connecticut. the problem is this fuel cell farm in bridgeport, connecticut,

is the exception rather than the rule. fuel cell energy is selling most of its products in asia. it's selling most of its product in korea. and the korean government over the years has kind of figured out what the gig is, that its main seller of fuel cells is creating jobs in the united states while they're selling product into korea. and so korea has essentially said to fuel cell energy that your time is up, that we'll continue to buy a handful of these fuel cells from you over the coming years, but by the end of this decade we want to produce all of those fuel cells in korea and we want to you transfer the technology and transfer the jobs to us. now fuel cell energy doesn't have any choice in this matter because if korea decides that they don't twaopbt buy from them -- don't want to buy from them they'll buy from somebody else so they have to do an agreement

in which they transfer that technology and transfer those jobs. that's hundreds of jobs today in connecticut, but potentially thousands of jobs in the future as we power up fuel cells all across the country. the reason why they're not selling fuel cells in this country is because we don't have a renewable energy strategy to really advantage those sources, which admittedly today cost a little bit more than purchasing energy from a grid powered by things like coal and by oil. but when you weigh the jobs that can be created in the fuel cell industry against the slightly marginally higher cost of getting that energy from the fuel cell rather than getting that energy from a coal-fired power plant or an oil-fired power plant, there is a pretty darned good argument that you should invest in fuel cells. so this is to connecticut a matter of jobs, especially in the fuel cell industry.

green skies renewable energy is a company in middle-town, connecticut and they design and install big solar arrays. they design thes big solar arrays and install them. they started in 2008 by a former peace corps volunteer. the company doesn't charge customers any upfront cost for solar power. instead they typically sign customers to long-term contracts and green skies purchases the solar energy that they're producing on their buildings. green skies has installed over 70,000 solar panels across the country and they've offset 15 million pounds of co2. that's the equivalent of 763,000 gallons of gasoline being burned. and just in 2012, they got their biggest contract yet. they won a contract to build

solar arrays on 27 wal-mart stores in massachusetts. that's a $30 million contract. in twist -- 2013 they announced plans to build a solar farm in east lawn that is going to be 16,000 solar panels and that solar farm alone in east lyme will be able to power 6,300 homes. that's pretty significant just in terms of the a. power -- amount of power it is going to be able to put on the grid but also significant in the number of jobs going to be created. green skies today may be employing dozens of people but they're going to be hiring hundreds of thousands of people as they install all of these solar arrays in connecticut, massachusetts and clients all across the northeast. another company playing in the solar space is a company called

apollo solar based in bethel, connecticut. today it employs ten people but they manufacture the electronic equipment that filters four from a solar cell and allows it to be stored in a battery. this is really the future, the idea that every individual home is going to be a small power plant in which you can put solar panels on your roof. you can then take the power that's being produced by those solar panels, store it in a battery and then use it at the moment at which prices on the grid are the highest. or if you want, sell it back to the grid at the moment at which you can get the most return for this little stored amount of energy that you have created by the solar panels on your roof. today apollo solar has become a significant supplier for cell phone towers in the developing world especially in africa.

countries in africa don't have the electric grids we have so if they want cell towers to be able to provide lifesaving cell coverage to their residents, they have to essentially power these cell towers on an individual tower-by-tower basis. and if you don't do it with solar arrays, then you have to do it with diesel generators which produce enormous amounts of black carbon, and that makes the air very difficult to breathe. but it's also much more expensive. and so apollo solar has produced this technology for cell towers right now being used in places like africa, but eventually this technology can be used in millions of homes all across connecticut and all across the country, that's just going to fundamentally change the way in which we engage with the electric grid. but apollo solar, we think, is poised to become an industry leader on this issue. today it's only a handful of people but this is one example of thousands of companies all across connecticut and all

across this country that are poised to explode in growth if we do the smart thing and decide that we are going to create a renewable energy market here in the united states. now, it's important to say that neither green skies nor apollo solar are making those solar panels, because much of that work is being done in other countries, countries that do have domestic markets for renewable energy, countries like germany and countries like china. and so despite the successes of companies that install these big solar arrays and successes of companies like apollo scholar which create the attendant technology attached to the solar panels, there is so much more that we can do if we have that domestic market that's here. so, mr. president, the point here is that we have an enormous

opportunity to create millions of jobs in this country based on this technology. the imperative should be one surrounding the public health effects of climate, the imperative should be around the life-changing catastrophic consequences of rising sea levels, the added cost to our economy that comes with entire industries like in connecticut, the maple syrup industry and the fall tourism industry and the skiing industry and the lobster industry evaporating and disappearing before our eyes. that should be the enter alternative that as a country that has only five% of the world's -- 5% of the world's carbon but 25% of the pollution that we have to play a role in this global economic and environmental imperative.

beyond that there are enormous job gains to come if we make the right decision. lastly, before i turn back over to the senator from hawaii for some remarks, and i'll stay on the floor because i'd like to maybe talk a little bit about short-lived climate pollutants if i have the time, new england is an example of a place that has figured out how to do this the right way. the regional greenhouse gases initiative, called reggi, is the first to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to cap and reduce carbon pollution emissions from the sour sector. it's essentially a mini version of legislation that we've debated here in congress. we essentially set a cap for how much carbon that we're going to produce in