vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote?

seeing none, on this vote, the yeas are 53, the nays are 43. three-fifths of the senators duly chose enand sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i send a cloture motion to the desk on the motion to proceed. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to calendar number 1, s. 1, a bill to make improvements to certain defense security assistance provisions and so forth and for other purposes, signed by 17 senators as follows -- mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. scott: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. scott: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, each new year brings with it a range of

different emotions. we look back on what we've accomplished in the last year, what we hope to achieve in the year to come, and think of ways we can better ourselves. some of our objectives may include eating just a little less. for me, that means eating a little less sour cream pound cake or sweet potato pie, which is something that i can completely control -- and i'm trying. as a nation, though, we need to look some goals for the new year that will help us to move forward together, goals that may be a little tougher and require all of us to work together. and while we may have some uncomfortable conversations -- and we will -- we must recognize that at the end of the day, we are family, both inside our homes and as americans in the land of the free and the home of the brave. as we look to 2019, i am hopeful that we can take three lessons

and carry them forward. those that have followed me know that i have focused my time in the senate on an opportunity agenda, an agenda that focuses on helping people rise from poverty in distressed communities, helping folks who are living paycheck to paycheck experience the greatness that is in fact the american dream. and i will continue to focus on those issues in 2019. but you will also hear from me in 2019 what i believe are some missing keys to american progress. those keys are civility, fairness, and opportunity. so when you're having dinner and a family member tries to tell you that the reigning super bowl champions philadelphia eagles -- lucky of course to be in the playoffs at all -- are in fact the best football team in america, we all know the truth. it's america's team: the dallas

cowboys. and you will have a discussion with your family friend who believes otherwise, and i hope that you will disagree strongly, that you will argue with facts, history, whether that's history of roger staubach, troy aikman or too tall jones. and you will argue that with history and with passion. but you know at the end of the day your crazy uncle is still your crazy uncle. you'll see each other next weekend. you'll hug, and you'll start the same fight all over again. you see, what you've done here is you've agreed to disagree without being disagreeable. that at its core is the civility that our nation is sorely missing right now. too often too many seem too

focused on saying whatever they want to say and saying it more loudly without any concern for the actual content. we need to return to civility, where the other side isn't evil or a traitor or trying to destroy our country. but they simply have a different vision for how to achieve success. second, sometimes we struggle to make sure our loved ones, especially our kids, especially around christmastime, are treated fairly. and so as they open the presents, we want to make sure that everyone has a chance to play with everything. and this is what we call trying to be fair. as parents, or in my case, as the giver of cool gifts, we want to make sure that the kids are being fair with their

siblings as they play with the new toys. there's something in each and every one of us that yearns for fairness. but too often when we leave the comfort of those mornings, we tend to want more for ourselves than we want for others. we want people to treat us in a way that gives us are the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes we don't want to give it in return. being fair means first seeking to understand before being understood. and finally, opportunity. i want to look back at a tradition, a christmas tradition in my hometown of north charleston, a place where we see amazing things happen around the christmas holidays. we see police officers and firefighters and community volunteers coming together about

6:00 a.m. on christmas morning to go knock on doors where they know definitively there are kids without christmas trees, much less christmas presents. and these police officers and firefighters and community volunteers join hands and raise a ton of dollars and bring presents to the doors. anyone who has experienced this as i have cannot fully describe the joy on a child's face, the emotion and the tears of happiness for someone who didn't expect a single thing for the holidays. because opportunity is just not about ourselves and our families. while we certainly strive to be successful, the true meaning of the christmas and holiday season

lies in what we do for others. for congress, that means everything we do, everything we do should be with an eye towards improving the lives of all americans. for folks at home, remember there are folks in your community that are less fortunate. this became the greatest nation on earth because of our hearts and our minds, the hearts and minds of the american people, the power and endurance of the american dream, and the graciousness and strength of the american spirit. in other words, american exceptionalism, civility, fairness, opportunity. three words that can help our nation heal and move us forward towards a better future. my hope this year is that we will take some time to think about what each of us can do to

further these goals. resolutions are good. being resolute in our mission to strengthen our nation is great. soon i'll speak about my vision for the future, my america 2030 plan. i want to say happy new year and remember the true spirit of what makes america great. mr. president, before i close, i'd like to talk just for a few minutes about a very epic celebration in a small upstate city in the great state of south carolina. a celebration caused by a gang. in south carolina we have real division. nose divisions can be seen between those who support the clemson tigers and those, like myself, who support the carolina gang.

after the clemson victory, both sides of the great state of south carolina are celebrating the absolute overwhelming success of the clemson tigers. you can't help but appreciate and admire the amazing leadership at clemson university, the leadership of jim clemmons, the president of clemson university. clemson has been an amazing testament to the goodwill and the good effort of programs focused on character first. and as coach sweeney has created an absolute powerhouse in clemson, it is hard to deny that he is not one of the best coaches in college football in america today. and he has surrounded himself with amazing players from deshaun watson, to deandrei hopkins and now trevor lawrence, travis, e.t.n. and

christian wilkins. i want to extend my congratulations to clemson university on their second national championship in just the last four years and their third overall national championship. i wish i was going to be in clemson on saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. as they, they don't have to paint the streets orange because they're already orange, but as they blow out the great city that they live in. i will say not only am i heartened and excited about the success of clemson university on the field, i thought listening to dabo sweeney as he talked about success in life, it reminded me of my civility, fairness, and opportunity agenda for 2019. he said something to this effect: when asked about his success and the greatness of his football team and the wonders that our winning the national

championship, what did he celebrate the most. he said in this fashion: when i think about being selfless, when i think about real success it's in this order. first it's honoring jesus christ, his lord and savior. second is honoring others. and, third, finally it comes down to self. i think there is something for us to learn in putting others before ourselves as we look for a more civil society filled with fairness, brimming with opportunity. mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: will the senator withhold his request? mr. scott: i will. mr. whitehouse: i appreciate that. thank you very much, senator. and if i may through the chair congratulate the junior senator from south carolina on the spectacular win that clemson had. and may i also congratulate him on being so true to the spirit

of civility that he discussed in not trash talking the other team involved. it was a truly splendid victory between two extraordinarily talented and capable teams and i congratulate the senator on his state's success. mr. scott: thank you, senator. will the senator yield for a moment? mr. whitehouse: gladly. mr. scott: while i am excited for clemson's success, i note next year clemson and alabama may meet again, so the more you celebrate this year perhaps the more you give credit to next year. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that ryan edwards and kim vi n -- vinstead be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this congress. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president, and happy new year.

the new 116th congress brings new hope for the senate to face up to the clear and present danger of climate change. the house of representatives being in democratic hands augments that hope the senate republican majority has failed to address climate change. this is no accident. this is the senate in the citizens united era. i was here before citizens united, and for years we saw senate climate bipartisanship before citizens united. after citizens united, what we see is immensely powerful climate-denying dark money front dpriewps for the fossil fuel industry, all likely funded by fossil fuel interests. and we see no republican senator

willing to cross them. the spending that they do in politics and the more silent threat of spending is a blockade. it wreaks. here is a case study in how dark and unlimited money play in senate elections. in 2016, in ohio, indiana and wisconsin three senate democratic candidates stood a good early chance of winning republican seats in 2016. all were solid, experienced candidates. two had been senators before. all were ahead in early polling. then the big influencers came in hard, launching attack ads, in some cases more than a year, well more than a year before the

election. it's a little like scraping the other side's planes while they're still on the airfield. the pile-on of so-called outside group spending against these three candidates came to almost $70 million -- seven-zero million dollars. all three ultimately lost their races, and their losses meant republicans kept majority alcohol of this chamber. let's look -- majority control of the chamber. let's look at that $70 million that required republican troll of that chamber. of that $70 million, only about $11 million was from donors and pacs that appear unconnected to the fossil fuel industry. at least two-thirds of that

outside spending, more than $46 million can be directly traced to groups that receive significant funding from fossil energy. and $12 million, the remainder of that $70 million, $12 million came through dark money channels. in this day and age in america, powerful influencers can obscure their identities by running their political spending through these dark money channels, so it is impossible for us to know whether or how much of this remaining $12 million was polluter dollars, fossil fuel dollars. i strongly suspect all of it was. in any event, when one industry can deliver that kind of political artillery, the vast majority of a $70 million

barrage against three specific candidates, that gives that industry remarkable political power with the side that it advantaged. climate action stopping political power it would seem. so as the mounting effects of climate change have grown ever more dire and the scientific understanding has grown ever more clear, what has the senate done? nothing. let's look at what we learned and what we witnessed and what we failed to do in 2018. 2018 saw the release of two landmark climate science reports, one from the intergovernmental panel on climate change on the effects of warming 1.5 degrees celsius above preindustrial levels, and, second, the trump

administration's own national climate assessment. together these reports deliver the starkest warning on climate change to date. damage from climate change is already occurring, economies are now at risk, and we are almost out of time to prevent the worst consequences. the ipcc report told us that accounting for the costs of carbon pollution by charging a price for carbon emissions is the, quote, central policy that will allow us to hold the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees celsius or less. even this dire endorsement was not enough to move a single republican colleague to join a bill to establish a carbon fee. more telling was the spectacle of the trump administration's national climate assessment. this report, written by 13

federal agencies, described monumental damage the united states is facing from climate change. flatly contradicting the climate denial assertions of the president and his fossil fuel flunky cabinet. the administration tried to bury the report by releasing on black friday during the thanksgiving holiday. that cynical move happily backfired with more than 140 newspapers around the country featuring the report's stark finding on front pages and google searches for climate change hitting their highest level for the year. tellingly the fossil fuel industry and its bevy of stooges in the trump administration did not contest the science in the report, an admission by inaction

that they know their science denial campaign is phony, they know the real science is irrefutable. better to hide from it. and, unfortunately, we witnessed the irrefutable contribution of climate change to the most devastating natural disasters of 2018. irrefutable, by the way, is one way to describe climate science, another way to describe it is and i couldn't versible -- incontrovertible. that was published in "the new york times" full-page advertisement in 2009 that was signed by, among others, donald trump, donald trump jr., ivanka

trump, eric trump, and the trump organization. how things change. anyway, out west wildfires in california broke records, the fire in july and august was the largest in the state's recorded history. the camp fire in this photograph was the deadliest and most destructive fire in california history, killing 86 people. scientist linked california's increased wildfires to climate change, estimating that the area burned in kieferl across -- wildfire across the united states since 1984 at twice it would have been without the human changes. michael mann told pbs recently,

it's not rocket science. you warm the planet, you're going to get more frequent and intense heat waves. you warm the soils, you dry them out. you get worse drought. you bring all of that together and those are all the ingredients for unprecedented wildfires. end quote. 2018 saw the east coast slammed by hurricanes that were supercharged by warming oceans. hurricanes gain strength from heat energy in the oceans they pass over. warmer oceans also evaporate more water up into the storms, generating more storm rainfall. so stronger and wetter storms than ride ashore on higher and

warmer seas and push larger storm surges ahead of them. hurricane florence intensified over water one to two degrees celsius above average and dumped rainfall on the carolinas. the rainfall is protected to be -- protected to be 60% higher due to climate change. when hurricane michael hit florida, it passed over water two to three degrees celsius warmer than average, passing over that heat its winds spun up by 80 miles per hour in just 48 hours becoming the strongest storm ever to make an october landfall in the united states and almost completely flattening the town of mexico beach, florida.

scientists are creatingly able -- increasingly able to identify the role of climate change in extreme weather. the american meteorological society reported in december that 15 extreme weather events in 2017 were made more likely due to human-caused climate change, including a devastating marine heatwave off the coast of australia that would have been, and i quote, virtually impossible, end quote, without human-induced warming. the report drew attention to the role of oceans in many of these extreme events. jeff rosen feld, the meteorological, we're seeing the oceans as a link in a chain of causes that ultimately tie human

causes to extreme weather events on land. the changes occurring in the ocean are posing an increasing threat to our coastal communities. from gulf communities in louisiana to shoreline communities in rhode island. the union of concerned scientistings released a report last year finding over 300,000 coastal homes with a collective market value over $130 billion are at risk of chronic flooding by 2045. by the end of the century, 2.4 million homes worth more than $1 trillion are expected to be at risk. a 2018 report from climate central and glil zillow found that thousands of homes are still being built in risky

coastal areas that are expected to be affected by floods by 2050. so freddie mac has taken a look at this and warned of a coastal property values crash as those houses become uninsurable or unmortgagable to the next -- unmortgagable to the next buyer. a second economic crash we face is a carbon bubble in fossil fuel companies. the carbon bubble collapse happens when fossil fuel reserves, now on the books of fossil fuel companies, turn out to be undevelopable stranded assets. research publish by economists in the journal "nature" climate change estimate that in a world where we limit warming to 2 degrees celsius, $12 billion of financial value could vanish

from balance sheets globally in the form of stranded fossil fuel assets. that's over 15% of global g.d.p. and that is why the bank of england calls this a systemic risk, i.e., a risk to the entire global economy. financial managers are waking up to these risks. at the recent u.n. climate summit in december, a group of 1,400 global investors managing $32 trillion of investmentments -- these are men and women who have been entrusted with managing $22 trillion worth of investments, and they came together to warn that the world faces a financial crash worse than the 2008 crisis unless carbon emissions are urgently cut. the group called for the end of

fossil fuel subsidies and the introduction of substantial prices on carbon emissions. they understand that to limit the worst climate risks, including economic catastrophes, we must cut carbon emissions immediately and substantially. but back home the trump administration clearly and completely corrupted by the fossil fuel industry has now taken more than 90 actions to weaken climate policies. and, regrettably, after years of decline the united states carbon emissions grew 3.4% in 2018. global carbon emissions also grew by 2.7% to reach a new carbon emissions record. if the trump administration's

2018 regulatory actions read like a fossil fuel industry wish list, it's because they are. just one example. the fuel economy rollback for automobiles. it's a perfect example. the new weaker standards were pushed by guess who, the largest oil refiner in the country, marathon petroleum. marathon also distinguished itself as a top donor to the ethically challenged e.p.a. administrator scott pruitt during his time in political office in oklahoma. marathon worked with the creepy koch brothers network and oil industry lobby groups to run a stealth campaign, including a facebook ad campaign using a phony front group called energy for u.s. that hid its oil industry origin.

fossil fuel energy companies claim to be cleaning up their act. they issued statements voicing support for carbon pricing. but look at what they do when the prospect of getting a carbon price on the books becomes real, as it did in washington state's carbon fee ballot initiative. the campaign against the carbon fee outspent the campaign supporting it by two to one, dumping more money into this ballot fight than any ballot initiative campaign in the state's history. and who funded the campaign against the initiative? oil companies, b.p., philip 66, and, of course, our friends marathon petroleum were the top spenders by far. oil companies claim to support carbon pricing but the giant

trade associations they fund to go out and do their political work, the american petroleum institute, the so-called u.s. chamber of commerce, the national association of manufacturers all oppose any proposals to reduce carbon pollution. the c.e.o.'s say one thing and their political electionee ring and lobbying apparatus are instructed to go out and do the exact opposite. one other telling aspct of the washington state -- aspect of the washington state ballot initiative is who do not -- who did not show up. who did not show up conspicuously absent are any of the good guy corporations from the tech financial and food and beverage sectors that talk such a good game on climate change.

that is telling because it matches what happens here in congress. the good guy corporations do not lift a political finger to advance climate legislation here in the senate. in fact, this is the good guys. set aside the fossil fuel pirates and what they're all up to through their front groups, dark money, and all the nonsense that they drive. this is the supposed good guys. in fact, they have a net negative presence here in the senate on climate legislation. because they do virtually nothing and the trade associations that they help fund, like the chamber of commerce, lobby against climate action. so you have an american

corporation with good climate policies, taking sustainable seriously within their corporate precincts and that company comes to the senate and their position as it appears in the senate is against the climate policies they claim to support because they work through these intermediary groups that have been coopted by fossil fuel interests and because they don't show up themselves. in 2019 let's hope the good guy american corporations get off the bench, clean up the act of their trade groups, and get on to the field on the good side of the climate policy fight. let me wrap up through all of that gloom with the good news for the new year and beyond.

record low prices for wind and solar projects are now cheaper than fossil fuels in many places. battery costs are falling rapidly. amazing electric vehicles keep coming to market. new carbon capture technologies emerge. xcel energy that serves over three million customers has announced a commitment to reduce carbon emissions 80% by 2030 and have zero carbon emissions by 2050 showing that players in the energy industry can know to make this transmission. out of the states, california has required a law requiring zero% carbon electricity, 100%. and the governors of new york and washington state recently announced 100% zero carbon

electricity goals. hawaii has a law requiring 100% renewable electricity by 2045. on the same day in late december, the district of columbia passed a bill requiring 100% renewable electricity by 2032 and nine northeastern states including my rhode island committed to cap emissions from the transportation sector. here in the senate, we can expect the new democratic house to send climate legislation our way. whether my republican colleagues like it or not, whether the fossil fuel industry likes it or not, this will be an issue in the 116th congress. my new year's wish is that my

republican senate colleagues will finally wake up to the damage that climate change is causing, to the looming threat that climate change presents, and help us pass bills addressing the huge climate risk that we face. this is not impossible. this was the way the senate behaved until january of 2010. from when i was sworn in in 2007 through the rest of that year through 2008, through 2009, we had bipartisan climate bills. we had bipartisan climate hearings. we had bipartisan climate negotiations. we had bipartisan climate discussions. it was possible to do that because the five republican judges on the supreme court had not yet given the fossil fuel industry the massive new

political artillery that they gave them in the citizens united decision. once the fossil fuel industry had that new artillery, the game changed and they brought it to bear on our friends on the other side and there has not been a single republican senator on a single serious carbon emissions bill since that moment. it shows what happens when you give a big special interest a massive new piece of political weaponry. but that doesn't mean it has to be this way. the good guys could show up and counterbalance the political hydraulics here of the fossil fuel industry's power. our colleagues could say, guys, we gave you a heck of a good run. for years we did nothing. but it's time now. we've taken a look at where voters are. we've taken a look at where even republican voters are.

we've taken a look at where the science is and we're going to do something. there are a lot of ways that we can go back to the bipartisan legislation, bipartisan hearings, and bipartisan conversations that characterize this issue before citizens united. it has been too long that big polluter donors have had their way around here. they pay the fee, but our nation pays the price. we've got a responsibility here to protect future generations from an avoidable disaster of our own making. so it is time for us to wake up and do our job. i yield the floor, mr. president. and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: and the clerk shall call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call: