to talk about this and to talk about how our communities have been flooded with this drug. every time law enforcement and local communities said we needed new tools, tools to stop the distribution, tools to help our law enforcement break up rings and track the drugs, and new tools to help those who have been impacted by opioids. that is why we are bumping these fines up into the $500,000 per violation -- up to that amount. these penalties increase the chances that opioid manufacturers will think twice about not reporting this distribution, and in the case of everett, that manufacturer could have been find $900 million because of their activity. i guarantee you that is a deterrent if a manufacturer thinks they are going to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. i hope that they will take this serious. this legislation needs and will go to the president's desk. it's so important for our communities to have tools.

i also want to commend my colleague from ohio for putting in language to increase the tools of u.s. mail inspections. we know that we are seeing product shipped into the united states and we haven't had all the tools that we need to make sure that we are checking the u.s. mail for this product. so the stop act hopefully will help us catch and stop more illegal distribution of this product through the u.s. mail. so more beds to help treatment, more tools for our shaver and -- sheriff and police force, more tools that are the key to helping us stop this drug into the communities and better inspection of those using our mail system. these are all great tools to give to law enforcement. i'm glad our colleagues could come together on this. it is so needed. it is so needed in the state of washington, and i so thank law enforcement throughout our state and providers for helping us

work together to get this legislation passed. i thank the president, and i yield the floor. and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

. mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: i ask the quorum call be lifted. ferraro without objection. mrs. murray: mr. president, across the country women and survivors are angry. they're energized and they are making their voices heard. they are inspired by dr. ford and they are sharing stories of their own, often of the worst moments of their lives, and some for the first time ever, with their families, with their friends and their senators. there are too many to share in one speech here on the senate floor, but i want to touch on just a few. i heard from a woman in swim in washington state who wrote to me, and i quote, there have been rare moments in my life when i have felt spelled to speak out. this is one. she told me when she was in junior high school she dated a

boy she thought was, quote, one of the nicest guys ever. then one day she went to his house while his parents were at church. and he assaulted her, tried to rape her, and she only barely managed to escape and run from his house. she said she never told anyone about this because she didn't know who would believe her. she was worried that people would think it was her fault, but she told me that after dr. ford found the courage to come forward with her experience, she found the courage to share her own. another woman from everett, washington, reached out to me to share that she was sexually assaulted in a hotel elevator in the early 1970's. she didn't tell a soul for 40 years until just a few days ago. she said that since that day all those years ago, she has avoided getting into an elevator alone with another man, and -- if she

possibly could, taking the stairs instead. she told me, quote, it happened a long time ago, but it still matters that she was inspired by the woman who has so bravely spoken out about judge kavanaugh and that she shared her story with me in the hopes i could make sure that her voice and the other voices of so many women were heard. i heard from another woman who lives on the olympic peninsula in my home state of washington. she told me when she was in college, she was raped by a man she was out on a date with. she remembered his name, but because she believes she was drugged, there were a whole lot of details she didn't remember. she didn't tell anyone about her experience for years, and she reached out to tell me she understood why dr. ford didn't come forward and to express her anger that people continue to attack survivors, doubt them, and say they are just mixed up.

mr. president, there are so many more. i have received tens of thousands of letters and calls on this nomination with hundreds and hundreds of personal stories that my staff and i are still working to get through. they are heartbreaking, they are real, and they are just one small slice of the experiences being shared, the stories that are being told, and the voices bravely speaking up. mr. president, while these women and survivors are so bravely sharing experiences and while so many of us here in the senate are making it clear we do believe them and support them, others are going in a very different direction. last night, the president of the united states stood on a stage and openly mocked dr. ford for not remembering some details of what she has described as the most traumatic moment of her life. it was disgusting.

here in the senate, some of my colleagues are doing everything they can to undermine the woman sharing their experiences, saying they are, quote, mixed up. they say the senate is going to plow right through this. and the word coming out from the white house is they are doing everything they can to limit and rush the f.b.i. investigation that they assured democrats and republicans would be full and thorough. so, mr. president, i come to the floor today to ask three questions. when this is all said and done, will the senate, the united states senate, be a place where women are heard, where their voices are respected, or still one where women are ignored and undermined and attacked? will the senate do its job, truly do its job to properly vet and investigate the president's nominee for a lifetime position on our nation's highest court,

including pushing for a full f.b.i. investigation where at least dr. ford and judge kavanaugh are interviewed? and making sure all relevant witnesses are heard and all relevant information is brought forward? or will we allow politics and partisanship to take over and rush this through before our job is complete? and finally, will the senate make sure we don't put someone on the bench who has repeatedly had problems with the truth under oath, who has displayed truly serious temperament issues, who has not demonstrated the judicial independence that we expect from a nominee to the supreme court and who has displayed a shocking lack of fitness for that role? those are the questions i believe we need to be asking today, and there is a lot of work that needs to be done before we can answer them. mr. president, there have been a whole lot of distractions in the past few weeks, from yelling and screaming and outrage, real and

feigned, to finger pointing and partisanship and the spin and the kicking up of mud. but if you cut through all that and focus on what is real and what is important, there are some things we do know. first and foremost, we all saw dr. ford testify under oath. i can't imagine anyone watching her and not being moved by her honesty, how real she was, her pain, and her commitment to what she described as her civic duty. mr. president, i believe her, and i know so many others watching that day here in the senate and across the country did as well. and then, mr. president, we had judge kavanaugh. he came into that hearing angry, defensive, and aggrieved. he clearly acted as if he was owed a seat on the supreme court and didn't understand why united states senators had the audacity to question him. but, mr. president, even worse

than the rage, even worse than his condescension and arrogant entitlement, even worse than the raw partisan bitterness from someone who would be entrusted to make impartial decisions regarding the biggest issues facing our nation, even worse was the serious challenges he had with the truth. under oath, in public to the united states senate. from his small seemingly unnecessary mistruths about what words used in his yearbook meant, words i will not repeat here on the senate floor but that people who went to school with him don't understand why he would say what he said. to those about his connections to dr. ford like claiming he and dr. ford didn't, quote, travel in the same social circles when we know that's just not true. and claiming he never attended a gathering like the one dr. ford described when there is one very similar to that on the calendar that he himself released.

to those my colleagues have talked to before like those involving his level of involvement in the confirmation of president bush's judges which we learned about as e-mails to and from him were uncovered and released, and those involving e-mails stolen from my senate colleagues that he denied knowing he had received when, again, his e-mails show that wasn't the case. to another we just recently learned about. his claim that the first time he heard about ms. ramirez's allegations against him was when he read about them in the press. although we have now heard from people who have seen text messages showing judge kavanaugh personally working to coordinate a defense against the allegation before that story was ever published. to his denials over and over in different ways, that he drank to extreme excess in high school and college, that he never, quote, blacked out or had memory

lapses from drinking when we know from so many people who have now come forward to share stories of his high school and college days that his version simply doesn't align with reality. "the washington post" laid this out yesterday. i want to read a few of the quotes from their reporting. one friend of his from college said judge kavanaugh was, quote, a frequent drinker and a heavy drinker. another classmate of his in college said, quote, brett was a sloppy drunk, and i know because i drank with him. and, quote, it's not credible for him to say that he's had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess. another classmate said there is, quote, no doubt in my mind that while at yale he was a big partier, often drank to excess, and there had to be a number of nights where he doesn't remember. i could go on and on. i have numerous other stories from classmates that you can find yourself in "the washington post." mr. president, it is not

disqualifying to drink in college. it is not disqualifying to drink too much in college. but it is absolutely disqualifying to not tell senators the truth about doing those things under oath. it speaks to the kind of person judge kavanaugh is and it speaks to the kind of supreme court judge he would be if he were to be confirmed. someone who thinks they are above the law, above the truth, above the oath they raise their hand and swear by. and that, mr. president, should absolutely be disqualifying. mr. president, those are just a few of the honesty and credibility issues that we know about. there are many more, and i'm sure my colleagues will discuss and there are others that can be uncovered in a full investigation, and that is the most important point. as i said before, we don't know everything just yet, but we do know some things, and everyone

should agree that what we know is enough to want to dig deeper and get more information. that is why it is so telling that judge kavanaugh and his republican defenders and protectors so clearly did not want any further investigation. we had dr. ford willing to share her story take a polygraph, open herself up to any question and further investigations to help to get to the truth, and then we had judge kavanaugh doing everything possible to sweep this under the rug, move through it as quickly as possible, and prevent any information from coming out. and, mr. president, that tells us a lot. i am so glad a few of my republican colleagues have done the right thing and slowed down this nomination to allow for their investigation. there should have been more of them speaking up and doing our jobs. it shouldn't be such a brave act. but in this moment in the republican party, it is, and i do commend them, because,

mr. president, here's the bottom line. any of my colleagues can yell and scream until they are blue in the face about how aggrieved they are about this process. they can point fingers, push conspiracy theories, call it a sham. they can say this has gone on for longer than anyone wanted it to. they can do all that. i think they're wrong, and a lot of what they are complaining about is the ranking member of the committee respecting the wishes of dr. ford herself. but sure, they can do that. but at the end of the day, we are talking about a lifetime seat on the highest court in the land, the court making final decisions about our laws, our rights, and our freedoms. surely we should take the time to do this right. surely we should all want to make sure we don't put someone on the tape who sexually assaulted someone. and surely we should want to take the full amount of time

promised to fully investigate credible allegations and determine if judge kavanaugh told us the truth under oath. mr. president, that's common sense and it happens to be our jobs. my republican colleagues held a seat open on the supreme court for more than a year for no reason at all other than to prevent president obama's nominee from getting on the court. more than a year. and now all of a sudden these same colleagues are in a rush? it's absurd, and we need to do this right. so, mr. president, what does that mean? what is doing it right here? first of all, it means making sure the f.b.i. thoroughly investigates right now, that it is not limited in scope or pressured to not follow leads wherever they go. as my colleague, the senator from arizona, said, and i quote, we certainly want the f.b.i. to do a real investigation, end quote. it does no good to have an

investigation that just gives us cover. even president trump said, quote, i think the f.b.i. should do what they have to do to get to the answer, and, quote, i want them to do a very comprehensive investigation. well, mr. president, i completely agree. i'm very concerned by some of the reporting coming out of the f.b.i. investigation, especially hearing about the witnesses who have not yet been contacted, but i am hoping they are allowed to do their jobs, and i'm hoping the white house fulfills its commitment to the democrats and republicans focused on getting this done right. secondly, as we learn more, we should take that information into account. we should make sure all relevant witnesses are heard from, that all relevant information comes out. nothing swept under the rug. because, mr. president, there is one other thing we can be pretty sure of, whether the information

comes out now or comes out later, it will come out, and we can either make sure we stop someone from getting on the court who shouldn't be on the court, or we can find out later that us, the senate, didn't do its job. mr. president, this started as a look into whether judge kavanaugh assaulted women and whether the united states senate would listen to women sharing their experiences. it's still about that, very much so, but now it's about even more than that. it is about judge kavanaugh's temperament, his anger, his rage, and entitlement, and it's about him telling the truth or not to the public and us here in the senate. so i say to my colleagues as we learn more from this investigation and as more and more people come out to share stories, even if you don't think you can determine conclusively

that judge kavanaugh committed sexual assault, do we want someone on the highest court in the land with this kind of relationship with the truth? and do we want someone with that much rage and bitterness and entitlement? i think the answer is clear right now, and i think there is a reason that judge kavanaugh was so desperate to stop a full investigation. so, mr. president, i hope we don't allow corners to be cut and a nominee jammed on to the supreme court without truly doing our jobs. i hope we take seriously the anger, the pain, the voices and the experiences of women across the country today. i hope we do this right. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: first may i ask unanimous consent that any pending quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: there is not a quorum call. mr. whitehouse: let me move on to ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks senator merkley be recognized for associated remarks, followed by a brief colloquy

between the two of us. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you very much, mr. president. i am very grateful to be joined by my wonderful colleague from oregon, senator merkley, for my 222nd time to wake up climate speech. though there are thousands of miles between us on the west and east coasts, oregon and rhode island share a common connection. that is our oceans. fisheries and coastal tourism are major drivers of our economies. our coastlines are vibrant with homes, families, and businesses. we are ocean states. so we're here to talk about the challenges of human-driven climate change for our oceans and coasts. sea level rise, ocean acidification, deoxygenation, warming, and increased storm

surge. our local agencies and officials and our coastal residents understand the changes that are coming at them. not all states are prepared, however, and in the aftermath of severe storms like hurricane florence and last year's hurricanes, powered up by higher seas and super heated ocean water, we're seeing the consequences of this failure. last month was the 80th anniversary of the great hurricane of 1938. this storm barreled through southern new england, destroying roads and ports and businesses and homes. this is downtown providence. that is the roof of a car. and they built them pretty tall, those cars, back in 1938. over 560 people lost their lives

in this storm. the national weather service now estimates that providence experienced a storm surge of around 20 feet, which put it 14 feet under water in the downtown area. and sustained winds above 100 miles per hour. not gusts. sustained winds. if this storm were to hit rhode island now, it would carry ashore at least an additional 10 inches of ocean thanks to sea level rise since the 1930's. it would probably carry ashore a lot more than that because that 10 inches of water would pile up in the storm surge as it hit. if we continue to do nothing to slow climate change, by the end of the century sea level rise will be on the scale of additional feet, not inches. hurricane florence just brought feet of rain, high winds, and

massive storm surge to the carolinas. at around 500 miles wide, it was bigger than hurricane katrina and it dumped more rain than hurricane harvey. sadly, nearly 50 people have lost their lives from the effects of hurricane florence, and flooding recovery is still ongoing. the condolences of rhode islanders go out to the carolinas and virginia. as hurricane florence was building strength and making its approach, researchers were connecting its power to climate change. a team of researchers estimated climate change made florence's rainfall 50% worse than it would have been without the known effects of humankind on the climate. hurricanes are powered by warmer oceans. one of the study's authored

estimated that for every degree celsius of temperature increase, and i quote here, extreme precipitation events can increase by over 60%. and the oceans are warmer. oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by our greenhouse gas emissions. it is several nuclear explosions worth of heat per second that the oceans are absorbing. by doing that, they spare our land from worse climate catastrophe, but it wreaks havoc in our oceans. marine heat waves are a new phenomenon, so new that they were first identified and characterized in 2011 but they have already left a permanent scar in our oceans. starting in 2014, the northeast

pacific ocean has experienced inordinately warm temperatures. the blob, it was called, a mass of warm water around the size of canada. as the blob spread towards alaska, a trail of millions of dead sea birds followed. the warm water drove their prey to cooler waters, unable to adapt to the sudden shift, the birds starved. starving sea lion pups and toxic algae blooms that poisoned whales were also attributed to the blob of warm water. the recent massive coral die-off in the great barrier reef that left half the reef dead was driven by abnormal water temperatures. dr. terry hughes, one of the world's leading coral reef researchers, was quoted in "the atlantic" assaying the great barrier reef ecosystem has collapsed.

transformed into a completely new system that looks differently and behaves differently and functions differently than how it was three years ago. marine heat waves are becoming warmer and more frequent to the point that there is a movement now within the scientific community to start naming and categorizing marine heat waves like we do hurricanes. warming seas also rise, and this will hit coastal properties. the union of concerned scientists recently released a report that estimated by 2100 nearly 2.5 million residential and commercial properties collectively valued at over $1 trillion today will be at risk of chronic flooding. end quote. these numbers are based on sea level rise alone.

storm surge and rain-driven flooding only amplify these risks. long before your house is actually flooded, long before you're walking through your kitchen in rubber boots, your house's value can crash if the house becomes uninsurable or unmortgagable to the next buyer. freddie mac has warned of this property value crash in america's coastal regions. here is what freddie mac said. the economic losses and social disruption may happen gradually gradually, but they are likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and great recession. end quote. the insurance industry trade publication risk and insurance had this to say. i quote -- continually rising seas will damage coastal

residential and commercial property values, to the point that property owners will flee those markets in droves. thus, precipitating a mortgage value collapse that could equal or exceed the mortgage crisis that rocked the global economy in 2008. end quote. despite this warning, the federal government has failed to prepare for these coming changes and build coastal resiliency. congress is used to investing in our coasts only after a disaster. we've let our national flood insurance program fall into billions of dollars of debt. we've let fema provide inaccurate and incomplete flood risk maps. and the trump administration is purposefully blind to climate science, ocean changes, and flood mitigation requirements that would help us get ahead of the changes coming along our coasts.

we are not out of time yet. we still have a chance to avoid the worst consequences of climate change and prepare america's coastal infrastructure for the rising tides. but we have to move past futile and false denial and into action. it is time republicans and democrats alike, west coasters and east coasters together to wake up. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: thank you. i'm delighted to be here with my colleague from rhode island. this is a coast-to-coast presentation from the atlantic to the pacific and on around the world because our oceans are in deep trouble from climate chaos. it is, indeed, time to wake up, and this week is my colleague's

222nd speech addressing that fact. it's so important not just that we speak but that the world act. driving these factors. whether we're talking about the impacts on the land or the impacts on the ocean is carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide pollution. and it's just affects on the ground everywhere people can pay attention to. every now and then it's good to return to the basic science, and so i'm just going to share with you this chart which shows with this red line rising carbon dioxide levels. and this chart ends a little bit early, but we're well over 400 now parts per million. when i was born, we were at about 314 parts per million and we're approaching 414. this generation, over this last 62 years, is the first generation to experience a

100-point climb in human history on this planet, the first one to experience this dramatic growth in carbon dioxide. if it was just growth and carbon dioxide and just a matter of changing the air chemistry a little with to this impact, well, we wouldn't be talking here today. but now we have the dots representing temperature changes, this set of black dots. and you can see essentially as the carbon dioxide levels rise, the temperature of the planet is rising as well. and that heat that's being trapped has been well understood for a long time. it goes back more than a century, but in more recent times, in 1959, there was a scientist, edwin teller, who was famous for his work on nuclear issues, and he gave a speech to the 100th versery to the petroleum -- anniversary to the

petroleum industry. and he said this energy that you're pulling out of the ground, this coal, oil, and gas can do a lot of good, but then he went on to say it has two problems. the first problem is there's a limited supply in the ground. it turns out there is a lot more carbon stored in the ground than edwin teller knew in 1959. but he said the second problem you have is that when you burn this resource, you produce carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide traps heat and you're going to have a dra dramatic imt on the land and he was talking about rising sea levels and most of the people live next to the sea. well, that's a proper introduction to us recognizing that this issue has been understood scientifically for a long time. but in terms of our politics, individuals are reluctant to embrace that challenge because it requires action, and that

action is sometimes hard to come by. the shift the status quo to address this rising threat. in the ten years i have been here in the senate, we have seen dramatic, dramatic impacts, and i'll focus on the oceans today. oceans absorb # 0% of the -- 90% of the heat. i didn't know this statistic until my colleague from rhode island questioned a scientist who is nominated for a key position. i said i wasn't sure of how much the oceans absorbed. i knew that the open blue waters, nonice covered waters absorbed a lot of energy, but i didn't know that statistic. but 90% of the energy trapped by the ocean. and so we see impacts around the world. we see coral reefs dying at an

unprecedented rate both from the warming of the ocean and the increasing acidity of the ocean. you may wonder why i raise the question of acidity. why does that have to do with that? that rising carbon dioxide level that was on the chart that i just put up, waves introduce nor carbon dioxide -- more carbon dioxide and it turns into acid. we are pouring acid into our ocean via carbon dioxide. when i stand on the shore -- on the coast line of oregon and i looked out to sea -- to see that ocean, i find it hard to imagine that we as humans could have changed the basic chemistry. but there was a rude awakening fact when i came to the senate back in 2008 when i was elected and 2009, and that fact was the

baby oysters being hatched in the oregon state hatchery, the oregon hatchery on the coast, started dying -- they all started dying. and so the hatchery rushed in experts from oregon state university. they thought they would find a bacteria, they thought they would find a virus, and they didn't. they were mystified. why are they dying? what is the answer? and it turned out it was simply the increasing acidity of the pacific ocean. the ocean having increased 30% over the time that humans have been burning fossil fuel fossil fuels for -- fossil fuels for energy. and when the baby oysters try to pull their shell out, it is full of acidity and they die. we have to artifically buffer the water in which the baby oysters are hatched. we lost a billion baby oysters.

and then, of course, we have the impact of climate chaos in the form of hurricanes. and, boy, have we received that message through storm after storm in 2017 and 2018. hurricane harvey came rolling in september 2017. the storm formed and dissipated between august and september. and the numbers are ones you really can't get your hands around. 27 trillion gallons of water dumped in louisiana and texas. 34,000 people displaced. 13,000 had to be rescued from rising floodwaters. the estimated damage, about $125 billion from that one storm. second only to katrina. and then a few weeks later, here comes hurricane maria

devastating puerto rico, devastating the virgin islands. it knocked out the power grid in puerto rico for almost a year. i went there about eight, nine months after the storm to check it out, and i saw an island where thousands of families still had blue tarps over their roofs. a testament to the amount of destruction they had experienced. also a testament to how unprepared fema was to respond to that. an estimated $90 billion in damage. an estimate of 3,000 -- roughly 3,000 deaths coming from the storm and the aftermath. many of them affected by the knocked out health care services and the heat that followed. together 2017 probing the -- broke the record for the costliest hurricane season costing over $300 billion.

why are these hurricanes more devastating because of climate chaos? because of carbon dioxide pollution? the energy comes from the temperature in the ocean. the warmer the ocean, the more energy, the more powerful the storms. a short explanation is that the warmer oceans produce more evaporation, more water vapor in the atmosphere, it increases approximately 7% for every eight degrees of temperature rise. and then the storm, as a whole, moves across the ocean and across the land more slowly, which means not only do you have a more powerful storm, but it is more likely to hover over a given area for a longer period of time. between 2014 and 2016, it is estimated that the hurricane slowed down by sea by 70%. the result, a lot more rain and

wind hits any given area, a recipe for disaster. and if 2017 wasn't enough, we've already experienced hurricane florence this year. again, unusually warm ocean temperatures. it is estimated that by previous understanding this was a once in a -- in a 1,000 year event. that is we go through 1,000 years, we see this event once. we didn't just go through florence. we saw irma and harvey. these 1,000-year events are becoming far more common as a result, setting record rainfalls, doing record damage. it is more deaths, more damage, and now we have thousands still in shelters as a result of hurricane florence, and an estimated of $38 billion in

damage. there are other effects we should realize from these massive storms. one is that when the rivers flood up over the land, they tend to, well, flood areas that were never intended to be flooded, things like, for example, leftover waste dumps from the ash from coal-burning power plants. that ash can turn a river into a gray pudding and you can see it from space. that ash contains arsenic and boron, copper, lead, mercury, and giant ponds of coal ash throughout north carolina were flooded. it's happened before. in 2014, there was a catastrophic event at duke energy plant that spilled 39,000 tons into the dan river. that spill urged more regulations to strengthen those coal ash deposits to prevent them from escaping during floods.

but what happened last year? well, president trump's e.p.a. and the income legislature weakened those legislations, and then last month two other duke energy ponds flooded releasing coal cash into rivers an private property. -- and private property. imagine that toxic sludge flooding across your land. how would you feel about that? imagine that toxic sliewj going into the -- sludge going into the river that your community takes are water from? i know you wouldn't. another source of pollution, hog waste. north carolina has 3,000, or roughly 3,000 unlined open-air pits containing millions of gallons of hog waste. so the hurricane flooding released a lot of that waste into the rivers. again, how do you imagine the impact of that hog waste spreading across your flooded

property or through the river you take your water out of? not a pretty sight. we are in this situation where so many legislators want to put their hands over their ears and eyes, not acknowledge the basic science that is resulting in a warmer planet, warmer oceans, and all of the effects, the coral reefs, the pacific blob, and the effect it had on sea birds, the dying oysters, the pine beetles that live through the winter, the ticks that live through the winter in new hampshire and new england and kill the moose, the ticks that live through the winter and

spread disease that humans get, devastating disease. so we have to stop and be honest about this impact on our planet. we used to talk about computer models and many mocked those models and said that's just some ivory tower estimate. it's not really going to happen. but now the facts are on the ground and what we're seeing is damage to our forests and to our fishing and to our farming. so this is not an urban issue or a rural issue, it is both an urban issue and a rural issue. urban cities getting flooded, rural areas having their farming and fishing and forestry profoundly affected. so let us come together, whether we come from an urban area or rural area, whether we come from

a republican state or we come from a democratic state, this threat doesn't discriminate nor should we make it a partisan issue. we have a responsibility to this generation, yes, but the impacts are accelerating. we have a responsibility to the next generation and the generation after that and 70 more generations who will all ask when the facts were before you in such an obvious and dramatic way, why didn't you act and acting means we have to drive a massive transition from gaining energy from fossil fuels to producing energy without fossil fuels. producing energy with winds and tides and currents, producing energy with solar power. we have this massive fusion reactor called the sun. and it distributes energy on earth through the wind and the sunshine so let's harvest that for the benefit of humankind.

i am pleased to be able to come to the floor to help celebrate the 222nd speech by my colleague on the atlantic coast and share a little bit from the perspective from the pacific coast, but this is an issue that affects all points in between and around the globe. thank you. mr. whitehouse: would the senator yield for a question? mr. merkley: i would be happy to. mr. whitehouse: one of the touching features of the senator's presentation was the summary of the effects on god's creatures. the sea lion pups, the fish, the sea birds. just from this particular episode. you may not have a big heart for an oyster spat, but these are all god's creatures and it's frustrating when people who wear their christianity on their sleeve show so little interest for the protection of god's

creatures. and the other angle on that is we are taught in the bible to look out for the least among us. and one thing that i have noticed is that climate change harms don't fall evenly across the population, that storm and flood are harder for some than for others. and that wealth and poverty dramatically affect the experience of climate change by different people. and i wonder if the senator would comment on that from his experience. mr. merkley: it's a great question or a great point because when you have resources, you can respond to the impact far more easily. you can take and say my house has been devastated, but i have the resources to go by another house in a safer area, in a drier area. take, for example, the flooding

of new orleans. when new orleans was flooded after katrina, we saw that affluent families moved and poor families had two options. one was to leave everything behind and leave the state and start over but start over with no assets which meant they were in extremely difficult circumstances. or stay and hope to rebuild. but it was extremely difficult for low-income individuals to be able to do so. as we look at the impacts around the world, we can look within the united states and realize, for example, the impact on the native american populations of alaska are being significantly impacted by the shoreline eroding, by the ice disappearing, and with that the traditional way of life disappearing. and various groups have, therefore, had to appeal for help to be able to move their villages as a result.

and there's very little to be done to address the very changing nature of the commerce that they've carried with with the sea -- carried on with the sea, their fishing, or their hunting that has gone on for thousands of years now being dramatically impacted. so we do see a hugely disparate impact. if we broaden this discussion to look at countries such as syria, we find that when climate change , climate change affected the farmers and they had drought year after year, they had to abandon their farm lands and enter the cities. it helped launch a civil war that syria has been in deep, massive conflict about ever since just as another example. mr. whitehouse: i believe it was tom friedman, the very, very well known author who first wrote comprehensively about the

connection between the unprecedented drought in syria driving farmers and herdsmen away from their former farms and herdz, the farms dried up and the herds died off and into the city and into that conflict and into that crucible that led to the initial conflict and now the complete collapse of syrian society into an international boxing match of forces. i yield my time. i thank senator merkley for joining me and for the long-standing passion that he has exhibited for the oceans and the coasts and the forests and the well-being of the people of oregon. we are very proud of our state of rhode island, but oregon has a great deal in terms of natural assets to be proud of. there's no stronger voice for them than the senator from

oregon. i yield. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call: