Keystone XL Pipeline Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I rise today to speak on behalf of my
amendment to the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline bill. I thank Senators
Bennet, Carper, Leahy, Menendez, Warren, and Whitehouse for
cosponsoring this amendment.
My amendment is extremely simple. It is about 1\1/2\ pages, and I
think it is easily understood by anyone who reads it. It says:
It is the sense of Congress that Congress is in agreement
with the opinion of virtually the entire worldwide scientific
community that--
(1) climate change is real;
(2) climate change is caused by human activities;
(3) climate change has already caused devastating problems
in the United States and around the world;
(4) a brief window of opportunity exists before the United
States and the entire planet suffer irreparable harm; and
(5) it is imperative that the United States transform its
energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy
efficiency and sustainable energy as rapidly as possible.
That is it. That is the entire amendment.
What this amendment does is simply ask the Members of the Senate
whether they agree with the overwhelming majority of scientists who
have told us over and over and over again that climate change is real,
that climate change is caused by human activity, including the emission
of carbon, that climate change is already causing devastating problems
in the United States and around the world, and that if we are going to
leave our children and our grandchildren a planet that is habitable, we
must transform our energy system away from fossil fuels.
Progressives, conservatives, and people in between have many
disagreements on issues--and that is called democracy. There is nothing
to be ashamed about that; that is the democratic process. We all have
differences of opinion. But what is not a good thing is when we make
public policy in contradiction to what the scientific community tells
us. That is not a good thing.
When we look at medical issues such as cancer or heart disease, what
we do is look at the scientific communities and medical doctors for
their opinions as to how we should proceed.
When we look at infrastructure issues, the issues of roads and
bridges, we look at engineers for their opinion as to how we should
proceed.
When we look at education and try to understand how best kids can
best learn, we look at educators and those people who know most about
education for advice as to how we should proceed.
In terms of the issue of climate change, the process should not be
any different. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC,
is the leading scientific body that deals with the issue of climate
change. I will very briefly quote what the IPCC said last fall:
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal as is now
evident from observations of increases in global average air
and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice
and rising global average sea level.
More than 97 percent of the scientific community in the United States
and across the globe agrees with these findings, including the American
Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, the American Meteorological Society, and the American
Geophysical Union, to name just a few.
In fact, at least 37 American scientific organizations, 135
international scientific organizations and national academies of
science, and 21 medical associations, all agree that climate change is
real and is significantly caused by human activities.
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Mr. SANDERS. I know that recently a number of my colleagues have made
the point that they are not scientists and they cannot formulate an
opinion on this subject. Well, let me be clear: I am not a scientist. I
had a lot of problems with physics when I was in college. I am not a
scientist.
But these are scientists. These are 37 American scientific
organizations and 135 international scientific organizations. These are
scientists who tell us that climate change is real, it is caused by
human activity, and that it is imperative we transform our energy
system away from fossil fuel.
I will read an excerpt from a letter sent to the Senate in 2009
signed by virtually every major scientific organization in this
country:
Observations throughout the world make it clear that
climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research
demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human
activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are
based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary
assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of
the vast body of peer reviewed science. Moreover, there is
strong evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad
impacts on society, including the global economy and on the
environment. For the United States, climate change impacts
include sea level rise for coastal states, greater threats of
extreme weather events, and increase risk of regional water
scarcity, urban heat waves, western wildfires, and a
disturbance of biological systems throughout the country. The
severity of climate change impacts is expected to increase
substantially in the coming decades.
Once again, I am not a scientist, but that is what the scientific
community overwhelmingly in the United States and around the world is
saying. It is imperative the Senate goes on record in saying we agree
with science.
Climate change is one of the great threats facing our country and the
entire planet. It has the capability of causing severe harm to our
economy, to our food supply, to access to water, and to national
security.
According to NASA and NOAA, 2014 was the warmest year ever recorded.
The most recent decade was the Nation's warmest on record. Across the
globe, the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997. We
know that the Earth's climate is warming and doing so quickly.
According to NOAA, October, August, June, and May were the hottest
October, August, June, and May months ever recorded.
The consequences of this rapid and dramatic rise in global
temperatures will have a profound impact on billions of people
throughout the world. What we can expect are more severe weather
disturbances, more flooding, more heat waves, more droughts, more
forest fires, and saltwater inundation of water supplies and
agricultural land.
As the New York Times reported in August, droughts in the Western and
Southwestern United States appear to be intensifying as a result of
climate change:
Over the past decade, droughts in some regions have rivaled
the epic dry spells of the 1930s and 1950s . . . The country
is in the midst of one of its most sustained periods of
increasing drought on record.
China's heat wave 1\1/2\ years ago was the worst in at least 140
years. As ClimateWire reported in November, the Sao Paulo region in
Brazil is suffering from its worst drought in 80 years. In the United
States, fire suppression costs have increased from roughly $1 billion
annually in the mid-1990s to an average of more than $3 billion in the
past 5 years.
Our oceans are not only getting warmer, they are also becoming more
acidic, threatening fish, coral reefs, and other sea life. As a study
published in the journal Science reported, carbon dioxide emissions in
the atmosphere are driving a rate of change in ocean acidity that is
already thought to be faster than any time in the past 50 million
years. The authors warned that we may be ``entering an unknown
territory of marine ecosystem change.''
Extreme storms, weather disturbances, are also becoming more common
and more intense with extraordinary impacts. When Typhoon Haiyan struck
the Philippines over 1 year ago, it displaced more than 4.1 million
people, killed thousands, and cost that country at least $15 million in
damages.
The situation clearly is bad today in the United States and around
the world, but--according to the scientific community--if we do not get
our act together, if we do not cut carbon emissions, it will only get
worse in years to come.
The IPCC estimates--and I hope people listen to this--that without
any additional efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions--in other
words, if we continue to go along our merry old way of dependency on
fossil fuels--``warming is more likely than not'' to exceed 4 degrees
Celsius, which is 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of the century.
Let me repeat that extraordinary observation. If we continue along
our present course, ``warming is more likely than not'' to exceed 7.2
degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century.
Similarly, just last year the White House released the National
Climate Assessment warning that global warming could exceed 10 degrees
Fahrenheit in the United States by the end of this century. Take a deep
breath and imagine what it will mean to this country--the huge impact
on every aspect of our life, on our economy, on agriculture, on
health--if the temperature of the United States rises, as some are
predicting, by 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. It is
almost unthinkable. Yet that is what the scientific community is
telling us.
The World Bank is by no means a radical institution. It is a very
conservative institution. It tells us that temperature increases by
even just 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit would bring about unprecedented heat
waves, severe drought, and major floods in many regions, with serious
impacts on human systems, ecosystems, and associated services.
The IPCC reports that sea levels are likely to rise by another 10 to
32 inches by the end of this century. As the New York Times reported, a
sea level rise of less than 4 feet--less than 4 feet--would inundate
land on which some 3.7 million Americans live today. We are talking
about Miami, New Orleans, New York City, and Boston all being highly
vulnerable to rising sea levels. Similarly, of course, this problem
will impact people all over the world.
According to the IPCC:
Many small island nations are only a few meters above
present sea level. These states may face serious threat of
permanent inundation from sea-level rise. Among the most
vulnerable of these island states are the Marshall Islands,
Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tonga, the Federated States of Micronesia,
and the Cook Islands.
The Army Corps of Engineers has predicted that the entire village of
Newtok, AK, could be underwater by 2017 and that more than 180
additional Native Alaskan villages are at risk. Parts of Alaska--one of
our great and beautiful States--are already vanishing as a result of
climate change.
The evidence is overwhelming, and it is no longer good enough for
people to say: I am not a scientist; I don't know. We may not be
scientists, but we can read and we can listen to what the overwhelming
majority of scientists are telling us. That is our job--to listen to
the experts who know something about this issue.
As we debate the Keystone Pipeline, what disturbs me very much is
that in the face of this overwhelming evidence from the scientific
community, in the face of deep concerns about climate change all over
the world, what is the Senate going to be doing in the next week or two
as part of the Keystone Pipeline? Are we going to be voting to impose a
tax on carbon so we can break our dependence on fossil fuel? Is that
what we are going to be voting on? No, I don't think so. Are we going
to be voting to pass legislation that moves us aggressively toward
energy efficiency and weatherization and such sustainable energies as
wind, solar, and geothermal? Is that what we are going to be voting on
as we listen to the scientific community? No, I don't think so. Are we
going to be passing a bill investing in research and development so
that we can make our transportation system more energy efficient? Is
that what we are going to be voting on? No, we are not. In fact, what
we are going to be voting on is a bill that will allow for an increase
in the production and transportation of some of the dirtiest oil on
this planet. That is what we are going to be voting on. What we are
voting on is a proposal that moves us in exactly the opposite direction
from what the scientific community wants us to do.
Let me conclude by saying this: Honest people can and do have
disagreements on many issues, but it is not a good thing for the United
States to reject what the scientists and the experts are telling us.
That is not a good thing. So I hope very much that on the amendment I
have brought forth--which says nothing more than to listen to the
scientists on this important issue; do not reject science--that we can
get widespread bipartisan support for the amendment.
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I will be very brief. I especially wish
to applaud Republican Senators. I believe, for the very first time, a
number of them stood up and said: Climate change is real and climate
change is caused by human activities. This is a significant step forward, and I think that in the months and years to come more and more Republicans
will accept that position because that is the position of the
scientific community.
What my amendment does is in fact repeat what we heard today and what
we voted on; that climate change is real and that it is caused by human
activities, but it also has three other provisions in it. It says
climate change has already caused devastating problems in the United
States and around the world.
I think it is hard to argue against that. Whether it is drought or
flooding--in the United States or around the world--increased forest
fires in the Southwestern United States, rising sea levels or extreme
weather conditions and the damage that does, it is very hard to argue
that climate change has not caused severe and devastating problems in
the United States already.
This amendment also says that a brief window of opportunity exists
before the United States and the entire planet suffers irreparable
harm. Again, that is what the scientific community is telling us. They
are saying that damage is being done today, now, and it will only get
worse in years to come. We have a brief window of opportunity to
prevent very serious problems. I hope my colleagues will support that
provision.
Lastly, and what logically follows from the previous four positions,
is the following: It is imperative that the United States transforms
its energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency
and sustainable energy as rapidly as possible. That doesn't mean you
close down every coal-burning plant in America tomorrow, but it does
mean we move away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable
energy as rapidly as possible.
I think in terms of this bill we have already made some good
progress. I will look for bipartisan support tomorrow so the Senate
goes on record supporting the overwhelming percentage of scientists who
are in agreement with what this amendment says.
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