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Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in addressing one of the biggest issues facing our economy and our country; that is, the threat posed by global warming. This challenge presents us with an opportunity as well. It is the opportunity to revitalize our economy while simultaneously changing our national energy policy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and to increase our energy efficiency and conservation, which will save money for the people of Pennsylvania, as well as people across the United States.
We have a long debate ahead and a lot of issues to discuss, but I believe it is critically important, in these weeks in the summer leading up to the break Congress will take, to begin the debate, which I know will continue into the fall and maybe beyond that.
I do agree with a majority of accredited climatologists and scientists that human-caused global warming is a threat. Specifically, global warming is a threat to our economic and national security. It threatens our economic security because the problems we face become more expensive the longer we do not act.
If the past is any indicator of our future, we should be concerned that over the past 28 years--1980 to 2008--the cost of the 90 largest weather events that happened in that time period was $700 billion--$700 billion attributable to those weather events. If we do nothing and the worst-case scenarios become a reality, mitigating the change in our climate will be expensive and difficult.
Global warming threatens our national security by setting off a chain of events that could lead to decreased food production, relocation of large numbers of people, an increase in extreme weather events, and a rise in sea levels.
Like many Americans, I came to understand this challenge in a way that was very poignant. I remember reading a Time magazine story a few years back, and it talked about the percentage of the Earth that has been the subject of drought. That percentage of the Earth's surface that has been the subject of drought doubled in about 30 years. That is all we need to know. We know what drought means: it means disease and hunger and darkness and death. That is the threat posed by global warming.
The threat is real enough that we are now currently assessing the readiness of our military to protect us and keep the peace should global warming continue unchecked. One area of the world we are examining in that analysis to determine the impacts is the region that encompasses Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and the Indus River that is fed by the Himalayan glacier which all three countries share. The changing global climate is causing that glacier to retreat; that is, to melt and disappear. Once the glacier is gone, the Indus River is expected to lose 30 to 40 percent of its waterflow. India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are already water-stressed countries that rely heavily on that river. I don't think I have to explain to this Chamber or anybody else the national security implications of that threat, especially with regard to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
What a permanent drought would mean for countries is those countries not having enough drinking water and not able to grow food in those countries as a result of that threat.
I understand this may seem a long way off to the people in Pennsylvania or in other States around the country who at this time, and at a time of economic stress, are leading lives of struggle and sacrifice and real hardship. They are struggling to keep their jobs, pay their mortgages, put their kids through college, or pay for this week's groceries. What we do on climate change does affect their lives directly--not indirectly, directly.
I wish to talk this morning about the economy and jobs as it relates to this issue. We all know things are tough for so many people right now in our country. We are suffering through the worst recession since the Great Depression. But I think it is time--instead of talking about how we got here on a day like today--to focus on the future.
One of the solutions is transforming the way we produce and use energy, which saves bill payers money and creates new jobs along the way. The good news is that these jobs are not the same hazy concept as relates to the future. We are creating clean energy jobs right now in Pennsylvania. To give one example among many I could cite, Aztec Solar Power in Philadelphia employs a team of solar experts, certified electricians, installers, and energy consultants to build systems for residential and commercial buildings. Not only is Aztec employing Pennsylvanians in clean energy jobs now, they plan to expand their business. The company is constructing a $10 million manufacturing facility in York, PA, and will create over 100 new jobs.
I believe we in this country on this issue are right at a crossroads. One direction we could take--and some people in Washington want to take this direction--is business as usual, keep losing jobs, keep losing our competitive edge to countries such as China, which is outinvesting us and outinnovating us when it comes to new energy technologies and the jobs that come from that.
I believe we can take a different direction. We should move down a different path, a path where America will reclaim its competitive edge, bring manufacturing jobs back home to Pennsylvania and States across the country, give us the opportunity to manufacture new technologies for exporting those technologies to other countries, and create a new economic engine that will put people back to work.
This is a strategy for economic renewal. Creating a new energy policy with a focus on building clean energy jobs and innovative energy technologies will take time. Indeed, it will take time, but it will also take leadership. It will take the dedication, the know-how, the ingenuity, and the innovative skills of the American worker. A lot of those workers are in Pennsylvania.
So the choice before us is clear: We can stay on the road we have been on, which we know leads to not just more drought and darkness and death but also leads to job loss in the end because our economy won't have the dynamism to compete with places such as China, or we can take a different path--the path of change, the path of reform, the path of not doing business as usual. I think it is time we create policies that will rebuild our economy and create permanent new energy technology jobs in Pennsylvania and in States across the country. We know how to do this. We have done it before, throughout our entire history in our State as well as States across the country. We have to do it again.
Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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