minnesota and introduced in the house by congressman elijah cummings. specifically, this is what that bill would do. number one, it requires medicare to use its bargaining power to negotiate with the prescription drug companies for better prices. a practice that was banned by the bush administration several years ago. number two, this bill would allow individuals, pharmacists and wholesalers to import prescription drugs from licensed canadian pharmacies where drug prices are significant lower than they are in the united states. mr. president, i would like to introduce into the record a comparison of the prices of some drugs in the united states with canada. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sanders: thank you. let me just give you a few

examples. we have a drug called crestor. it deals with high cholesterol. here in the united states we pay $608 for a 90-day supply. canada, $160. 74% less in canada. primarin for estrogen therapy, $p 324 in the united states, $90 in canada. nexiun, $682 in the united states, $200 in canada. sithroid, $820 in the united states, $200 m canada. same product, same company, same bottles. these aren't generic. celebrex, $878, a widely used

drug for arthritis, $878 in the united states, $212 in canada. and what this bill would do, in addition to having medicare negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry, which would subsubstantial lower the prices medicare pays, this bill would allow individuals, pharmacists and wholesalers to import prescription drugs from licensed canadian pharmacies where drug prices are substantially lower than they are in the united states. i live 100 miles away from the canadian border. in 1999 i took a bus -- a bus load of vermonters, mostly women, many of them dealing with breast cancer, over the canadian border into montreal. and i will never forget as long as i live the looks on their faces when they bought the same

medicine they were buying in vermont and the u.s.a. for one-tenth of the price, mr. president. one-tenth of the price. these are working-class women strug gelg -- struggling with breast cancer, not having a lot of money, they were able to purchase the same drug for one-tenth of the price in montreal. that makes no sense to mean and it only speaks of the power of the pharmaceutical industry over the united states congress, that we have members here who vote for all kinds of free trade agreements. they just love free trade. we could bring any product you want in from china. you can get lettuce and tomato coming from farms in mexico. but for some strange reason, we cannot bring in brand-name drugs from canada. just can't do it. can't figure out how to do it. and everybody here knows what the reason is. it is the power of the

pharmaceutical industry, their campaign donations and their lobbying efforts. so, mr. president, our bill does a lot more than that, but we cannot in good conscience tell people in our states that they must continue to pay outrageously high prices for prescription drugs when year after year drug companies make billions of dollars in profit and year after year people in our country get sicker because they can't afford the medicine they need and in some cases die. and with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor.

mr. president, i would ask for a quorum call. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. schatz: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator hawaii. thmr. schatz: i ask that we vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schatz: i ask to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: wows. mr. schatz: last saturday china announced its decision to implement a national cap-and-trade program beginning in 2017. it will cover the majority of china's greenhouse gas emissions, including those from power generation, iron and steel production, cement, chemicals,

and manufacturing. in creating the world's largest market-based program that puts a price on carbon pollution, china is showing that it knows that climate change and economic growth can be addressed at the same time. and china has stepped up on climate finance as well, matching the united states contribution to the green climate fund. china's announcement directly counters the argumen arguments e at hoax the ornl idea was that essentially we should wait for china, that our actions wouldn't make a difference without china or, worse, that we'd be harm our own economic growth while they kept burning fossil fuels. that argument originally -- the thigheidea that on the challengf our generation we should wait for other countries was ridiculous on its face. after all, the united states must always lead. we are the indispensable nation,

regardless of what other countries may or may not be doing. but even if you subscribe to that argument, everything changed last week. the world is taking action around us, and we are now at risk of being left behind, both in terms of our energy systems and our international standing. china's recent announcements to peak its coal use, reduce its emissions from pollutants and now its +stkeugs to implement a cap-and-trade program throw the old arguments out the window. those who oppose climate action have also said that addressing climate change would slow economic growth. of course we've known for years that this isn't true. consider the plummeting cost of clean energy or savings at the pump due to higher fuel economy standards, both of which are good for consumers and good for the climate. now we have further confirmation that countries can reduce emissions without sacrificing economic growth.

china obviously has no interest in putting the brakes on its growth. by including its cap-and-trade program with many sectors that are vital to its future growth, china is showing the u.s. and the rest of the world that it means business. madam president, china doesn't have a monopoly on ideas to reduce carbon pollution. in fact, most of their good ideas are still coming from us. the senate has a long history of proposing market-based solutions to climate change, dating back to the 2003 climate stewardship act from senators mccain and lieberman. earlier this year, senator whitehouse and i introduced our american opportunity carbon fee act. our bill would impose a price on carbon pollution and use the revenues to cut a $500 check for all americans while lowering the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 29%. economists from across the

political spectrum agree that this is good policy. putting a price on carbon in a revenue-neutral way will provide numerous benefits above and beyond the significant cuts in carbon pollution. it will give companies the policy certainty that they need and it will send a price signal to polluters. and by using revenues to lower tax rates and provide dividends to every american, we can stimulate economic growth and protect the most vulnerable among us. madam president, carbon pollution entails costs, but right now taxpayers are footing the bill by making polluters responsible for the damage that they cause and returning all of the revenues to individuals and employers, we will send a signal that innovation and clean energy and other low-carbon technologies will be the driving force behind the global economy and the 21st century. the united states should not

cede leadership in those sectors to china, germany or any other country. we always lead. it's what americans do best. american ingenuity led to some of the most exciting developments in the last century from the airplane and the assembly line to the microprocessors and solar cells. with the right policies we can assure american leadership for the next century as well. madam president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate now proceed to s. res. 217. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 217, designating october 8, 2015, as national hydrogen and

fuel cell day. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: now, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. wednesday, september 30. following the prayer and pledge, the morning business be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. following leader remarks, the senate resume consideration of the message to accompany h.r. 719 postcloture. further, that all time during the adjournment of the senate count postcloture on the motion to concur with amendment numbered 2689. finally, that all postcloture time on the motion to concur be considered expired at 10:00 a.m. with the time until 10:00 a.m. equally divided between the two

managers or their designees. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: so, mr. president, if there is no further business to come before the body, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of senator whitehouse. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i rise today for my 113th time to wake up speech on climate change. they say 13 is unlucky. i don't know what 113 is. but i do know what climate change is. it's very real. we shouldn't kid ourselves and it's an urgent challenge for our

country and our world. our leading scientific organizations say so, our national security leaders say so , all of our national laboratories say so, major american businesses say so and religious leaders of all faiths say so. pope francis certainly said so last week. but the senate, the senate is jammed by persistent meretricious climate denial. the denial comes in many guises, but like a compass, all the denial points in the same direction.

whatever helps the fossil fuel industry keep polluting. that's the true north of climate denial. whatever helps the fossil fuel industry. look at the fossil fuel money pouring into the republican party and tell me this is a coincidence. we have senators who deny that anything is happening, who say that it's a hoax. we have senators who deny that we can solve this. we have senators who deny their faith in the american economy to win if we innovate. we have senators who simply shrug and say i'm not a scientist. and a bunch of senators say don't even worry about it, climate change has stopped of.

-- has stopped. the junior senator from florida tells us, and i quote, "despite 17 years of dramatic increases in carbon production by humans, surface temperatures on the earth have stabilized. the junior senator from texas proclaims, and i quote him, satellite data demonstrate for the last 17 years there has been zero warming, none whatsoever. let's leave aside for a moment the cherry picked data that this conclusion is based on, which leaves out the oceans which cover a mere, oh, 70% of the earth's surface. i'll get back to oceans in a minute. but even this cherry picked data needs a trick to deny the long-term trend. using their trick, you could

convince yourself that climate change has stopped six times in the history of this increase from 1970. it's easy to do. you pick a spot here and you pick a spot there, and in the variability, you make it a flat line and you say there, you see, a pause. the problem is these manufactured pauses keep climbing. when this bogus climate pause idea was trotted out in an op-ed in the "providence journal," my home state paper," politifact" quickly determined that it uses, and i quote them, cherry picked numbers and leaves out important details that would give a very different impression. when you look at the linear trend for this whole data set from 1970-2013, no one can deny

the earth is warming. research shows that climate change is marching on. the past decade was warmer than the one before that, which was warmer than the one before that. 17 of the 18 hottest years in the historical record have occurred in the last 18 years. noaa and nasa count 2014 as the hottest year on record, and so far 2015 is on track to be even hotter than 2014. fluctuations do not statistically alter a trend. it is a disservice to the truth and to this senate to suggest that this heralds the end of climate change. as noted u.c. berkary physics professor richard muller put it,

when walking upstairs in a tall building, it's a mistake to interpret a landing as the end of a climb. plus for what reason would it have stopped? there is no basis for the pause. we know why it's happening. global warming is caused by carbon pollution. we've known that science since abraham lincoln wore a top hat around this town. that's not news. and our carbon pollution sure hasn't stopped. we just broke 400 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere for the first time in the history of the human species. so there is no intellectual basis behind the pause theory. and these claims of a climate change pause have been debunked. just a couple of weeks ago, researchers from stanford university published a study to

quote their findings. there is no hiatus in the increase in the global mean temperature, no statistically significant difference in trends, no stalling of the global mean temperature, and no change in year-to-year temperature increases -- end quote. in other words, no pause. a different study prepared for the u.s. climate variability and predictability program reviewed this so-called pause data and said this. it -- quote -- not only failed to establish a trend change with statistical significance, it failed by a wide march -- margin." end quote. any argument that global warming stopped 18 or 20 years ago is just hogwash, said one of that report's authors, just hogwash.

when legitimate scientists and statisticians examine the data for global mean temperature, they don't find any so-called pause. this chart shows average global temperatures since the late 1800's, which is about the time that we began burning fossil fuels in the industrial revolution. in yet another study out this month, researchers did a little test. they showed this chart to 25 economists, but instead of temperature, they told the economists that the chart showed world structural output. that stripped the data of any political baggage of climate change. it made this a simple statistical question. does this chart show that the

measured phenomenon, climate change, temperature, world agricultural output, does this chart show that whatever the measured phenomenon is stopped in 1998? well, the economists looked and they flat out rejected that conclusion. what they agreed was that claiming the phenomenon had stopped would be misleading and ill informed. so why did this paused theory appear? that is, a miss take. that is, hogwash. -- that is a mistake, that is hogwash, that is based on cherry picked numbers, all leading to a conclusion that is misleading and ill informed? why? why? because the big carbon polluters

and their allies in congress don't want us to act. so we keep getting this mischief fed to us. the enterprise that performs that evil task of feeding mischief into this debate is perhaps the biggest and the most complex racket in american history. it's phony. they cherry pick a handful of statistically insignificant data points and tell us the whole problem went away on its own. then the real scientists take a look at it and say that's bunk. but in the meantime, the polluter enterprise notched a public relations victory. it bought some time to keep polluting for free and sadly it got some of our colleagues to be party to it.

telling the american people there's a pause in global warming may lull the gullible to sleep, but it's phony, it's inaccurate and it's wrong. it ignores the truth. it ignores the science. basically what it is is cheesy fossil fuel p.r. dressed up in a lab coat to look like science, just enough to fool people that little bit. so, now let's turn back to the oceans, that 70% of the earth's surface that the other data left out. these data show the decades-long warming of the surface oceans, 1960 to 2010. no pause. remember the designers conveniently left all this data out when they cherry-picked their pause data.