Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, before we get underway with this colloquy on trade, I wish to respond briefly to what I understand was a presentation made by one of the Republican Senators suggesting that the continued existence of snow disproves climate change.

First, that is not the only measure. We can take a look at sea-level rise, which we can measure from Fort Pulaski in Georgia up to Alaska where Lisa Murkowski has acknowledged that climate change is causing sea-level rise, eroding her native villages, to the sea-level rise in my hometown State at the naval station. We can look at the pH changes in the ocean which we actually measure. It is not complicated. Kids measure the pH in their aquarium all the time. We can measure ocean temperature, which is absolutely clear. It involves something called a thermometer. It really isn't all that complicated.

And if we want to understand why the existence of snow might actually be consistent with climate change, I urge people to get their personal device here--their iPad, whatever it is they have--and load up the EarthNow! app. The EarthNow! app is run by a group called NASA. NASA is pretty capable. They are driving a rover around on Mars right now. These are folks who know a little bit about what they are talking about. They map the temperature of the planet, and we can see the cold arctic air drawn down to New England, drawn down to our area, and it is in large part because the ocean is warming offshore that we have this snow.

So not only does the continued existence of snow not disprove global warming--if you actually know what is going on and take the least bit of effort to understand it--you would see it is completely consistent with global warming as it is understood by scientists such as those from NASA.

I will have more later, but let's get on with this other business.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the distinguished Senator from Oregon.

I wish to start by sharing the experience I had when I first started running for the Senate and asking people around Rhode Island to give me the chance to represent them here.

One unforgettable day was when I was walking along a factory floor and, as I was walking along, I looked down and I noticed there were holes in the concrete pad of the factory floor, and I asked: Why are the holes there?

They explained: Oh, well, we used to have manufacturing machinery here. Those are the bolt holes, and we unbolted the machinery and shipped it overseas to a Central American country where the same product is made for the same buyers on the same machine, but it is made by foreign workers.

That is the memory I have when I think about these trade agreements, and it is not just that one machine that went overseas. Rhode Island, not a big State, has lost more than 50,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs since 1990. Our State has been on the losing end of these trade deals.

People say they are going to enforce the environmental and human rights and labor and safety requirements of these agreements. I have not seen it. I am at the stage where I don't believe it. You will have to prove it to me. You will have to establish a record of enforcing these things before I will believe it. I have been told that for too long. I don't believe the enforcement any longer.

I have to say I don't like the process very much either. It is secret. We are kept out of it. Who is in it are a lot of big corporations, and they are up to, I think, no good in a lot of these deals. Look at these private deals in private forums where they can litigate against a government. They secure that right through these treaty agreements. It is outrageous.

First of all, a lot of it is done for the sake of pollution. It is the big folks, such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, and Cargill, that brought nearly 600 disputes, pursuing billions of dollars in damages against governments.

A former member of the WTO's appellate body said in 2005 the WTO agreements ``allow Member Nations to challenge almost any measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enacted by any other Member.'' So the war on the environment continues through this mechanism.

In March 2013, more than one-third of the disputes pending before the World Bank's investment dispute settlement tribunal were related to oil, mining, or gas. Guess what they want. The public health around the world is suffering because of this.

In Africa, the tobacco industry has brought these types of claims against the Governments of Gabon, Namibia, Togo, and Uganda. They probably add up to about $100 billion in total GDP--all 4 countries--which is probably about a quarter of the revenues of Big Tobacco worldwide. So this is a question of pure, raw economic power by massive corporate interests being used to make governments knuckle under on public health issues such as tobacco. That is just wrong. And it can displace the regular governing systems of courts.

Chevron was asked to clean up contamination it left behind. It lost in the courts in Ecuador, it lost in the courts in America, and so it went and got a third bite at the apple in front of three private lawyers in one of these forums.

Where do you think the motivation is of private lawyers? Who are their clients going to be next? Another government? I don't think so. It will be the big corporate companies.

After many States in the United States created a ban on something called MMT, a gasoline additive, as a probable carcinogen, U.S. Ethyl Corporation filed a NAFTA investor-state case against Canada which then reversed its national ban on the potentially carcinogenic chemical.

They pick on themselves as well. Under NAFTA provisions, a Canadian company sued the Quebec government over a decision to put a moratorium on fracking. I guess Quebec can't make a decision about fracking any longer because some company can sue it under these agreements which involve private lawyers and were cooked up in the dark in these trade agreements. It is preposterous.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. How long is it until they sue the State of Louisiana or the State of Rhode Island or the State of Massachussetts or the State of Ohio? It is up for grabs. This is just a private remedy.

Since I am on Senator Warren's subject, and since her piece in the Washington Post is something we have all read today, I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I will yield the floor when the next speaker comes. But while we have a quiet moment, I just want to complete my remarks related to the Senator from Oklahoma and his snowball.

I ask unanimous consent to show the Earth-Now Web site on the iPad device that I have.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. If you go to Earth-Now, it is actually quite easy to load. You can see how that polar vortex measurably brings the cold air down to New England. If you do not want--this is produced by NASA. These are pretty serious people. So you can believe NASA and you can believe what their satellites measure on the planet or you can believe the Senator with the snowball.

The U.S. Navy takes this very seriously, to the point where Admiral Locklear, who is the head of the Pacific Command, has said that climate change is the biggest threat that we face in the Pacific. He is a career military officer, and he is deadly serious. You can either believe the U.S. Navy or you can believe the Senator with the snowball.

The religious and faith groups are very clear on this, by and large. I would particularly salute the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has made very, very clear strong statements. We are going to hear more from Pope Francis about this when he releases his encyclical and when he speaks to the joint session of Congress on September 24.

I think it will be quite clear that you can either believe the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Pope Francis or you can belief the Senator with the snowball.

In corporate America there is an immense array of major, significant, intelligent, and responsible corporations that are very clear that climate change is real. They are companies such as Coke and Pepsi; companies such as Ford, GM, and Caterpillar; companies such as Walmart and Target; companies such as VF Industries, which makes a wide array of clothing products; Nike; companies such as Mars and Nestle.

So, we have our choice. We can believe Coke and Pepsi and Ford and GM and Walmart and Target and VF Industries and Nike and Mars and Nestle; or we can believe the Senator with the snowball.

Every major American scientific society has put itself on record--many of them a decade ago--that climate change is deadly real. They measure it. They see it. They know why it happens. The predictions correlate with what we see, as they increasingly come true. The fundamental principles--that it is derived from carbon pollution, which comes from burning fossil fuels--are beyond legitimate dispute to the point where the leading scientific organizations on the planet calls them ``unequivocal.''

So you can believe every single major American scientific society or you can believe the Senator with the snowball.

I would submit the following. I would submit that, if you looked at the American population and you removed the conspiracy theorists--there are always conspiracy theorists in the American population that come out and deny that the moon landing was real. They have their hobgoblins from time to time. If you remove the conspiracy theorists--and there are people who simply do not accept a lot of scientific truths. They think the Earth is only 6,000 years old. They deny that evolution is real. Fine, they are entitled to that point of view. But it is not one you would want to make much of a bet on. It is not a point of view that is likely to get, for instance, a rover onto the surface of Mars and driven around successfully by scientists. But if people want to have that point of view, they have the right to do it. I just would not put very many bets on how productive that point of view is when you are trying to accomplish something important.

Also, remove the people who have financial ties to the fossil fuel industry. So take out the conspiracy theorists, take out the evolution deniers, take out the people who have a financial tie to the fossil fuel industry, and I would be very surprised if you found virtually anybody left who was not prepared to be responsible about climate change.

Too many of us see it happening right in front of our faces. The science has been too clear for too long.

Frankly, what we are seeing is the rollout of the famous tobacco strategy to delay and deny the day of reckoning because they are making money selling tobacco in the meantime while they create false doubt about the damage their product is doing.

Now is an interesting time for that because in Washington, at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District, we just had oral argument on the enforcement of a decision rendered by a U.S. district judge finding that that tobacco scam--the deliberate pattern of lies by the tobacco industry to convince people tobacco really wasn't responsible for cancer and other ill health effects--that that campaign was a civil racketeering conspiracy. That is the law of the United States of America. I would submit that if we look at the civil racketeering conspiracy that the tobacco industry ran, that has been called out by a court of law, and we compare that to what the polluters are saying about climate change, we will see more similarities than differences.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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