The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Climate Change (Executive Session)” mentioning Mitch McConnell was published in the Senate section on pages S171-S173 on Jan. 27.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Climate Change
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am particularly glad to see the senior Senator from New Mexico presiding on what, for me, is a sentimental moment, because he has been such a terrific friend and colleague and advocate in the battle of climate change.
I am here today because, at last, it is time to say farewell to my battered ``Time to Wake Up'' image board here and to a run of more than 275 weekly climate speeches. It has been one of the Senate's longer runs, I believe, but I think it is time to say farewell.
This long run began in the dark days of 2012, after Speaker Pelosi had passed a serious climate bill and the Senate had refused to take up anything, not even a blank bill to go to conference with and see what could be done in conference. As some of us remember all too well, when Speaker Pelosi passed that bill in 2009 over on the House side, we had here in the Senate a filibuster-proof Democratic majority. This was climate change, and we just walked away. I was told then that it was because the Obama White House told Leader Reid to pull the plug, that after the ObamaCare wars, the White House was tired of conflict and didn't want another big battle. It was not going to take on any fights it wasn't sure it could win.
Think about that. Think of history's great battles and contests, legislative or otherwise, and consider in how many of those battles either side was sure it would win. If you limit yourself to battles you are sure you can win, you are pretty much sure to miss the most important battles, and we lost this one for that most lamentable of reasons--the failure to try. The fossil fuel industry, sure enough, knew it won this one once it saw the Obama administration walk off the field, abandoning Speaker Pelosi's hard-fought victory.
Then years went by in which you could scarcely get a Democratic administration to put the words ``climate'' and ``change'' into the same paragraph in which we fussed, idiotically, about whether to call it ``climate change'' or ``global warming''; in which the bully pulpit--the great Presidential megaphone in the hands of one of our most articulate Presidents--stood mute. We quavered about polling showing climate as issue 8 or issue 10, ignoring that we had a say in that outcome. When we wouldn't even use the phrase, let alone make the case, no wonder the public didn't see climate change as a priority.
Those were, for me, dark, desolate days, so I made a commitment to speak about climate change every single week we were in session--no matter what. The kitchen was dark; the oven was cold, but maybe, somehow, one little pilot light's clicking on every week would help.
Six years after the Waxman-Markey climate bill passed the House, the Obama EPA finalized its marquee climate regulation, which was quickly killed dead in the starting block by the five Republicans on the Supreme Court.
The Clean Power Plan never even went into effect. It had no regulatory core or backstop that was indisputably within EPA's authority. So when the Clean Power Plan's novelties got smacked down, nothing was left.
John Kerry, bless him, led us into the Paris Agreement, but it wasn't signed until the last year of 8 years of that administration. It being so late, the fossil fuel interests behind Trump hauled us right back out of it.
So there we were, after 8 years in which Democrats sometimes controlled both Houses of Congress as well as the White House, and we had, at the end of the day, no law, no regulations, no treaty.
I am hanging up the ``Time to Wake Up'' poster after more than 275 of these speeches because I am going to trust that we bring more spirit and determination to the climate crisis this time, as President Biden has promised that we will.
His opening Executive orders are a fine start. I appreciate particularly the restoration of the social cost of carbon, but perhaps the most important signal is not any specific policy but the breadth of the scope of the emphasis on climate across the new Biden administration.
Then we had to deal with the Trump years, when sins of omission became sins of commission, and questions of commitment became questions of corruption.
I am personally confident that evidence will reveal that the Trump administration was, in fact, corrupt on climate issues--and not just corrupt in the meaning of the Founding Fathers but corrupt in the meaning of the U.S. Criminal Code, and I will do my level best to make sure we find out. Thank goodness, we can put that disgraceful period of our history behind us.
What did I learn along the way? I traveled to many of my Republican colleagues' home States on climate trips to help me understand the climate change problem there. There is no State whose big State universities deny climate change. Most all of them teach it. So I knew it wasn't lack of knowledge that was blocking progress.
I learned that oceans are at the heart of the climate threat. First, they bear incontrovertible testimony to the dangers. Try arguing with thermometers that measure ocean warming. Try arguing with tide gauges that measure sea level rise. Try arguing with pH tests that school children can do that measure the acidification of our oceans.
I learned that the oceans are suffering extraordinary injury from warming at the rate of multiple nuclear explosions per second and acidification at rates unprecedented in human existence, and from the fossil fuel industry's plastics contaminating our oceans.
In every State I went to, there were businesses alarmed by climate change, whether it was wildfire or flooding or the loss of iconic views and species, upheaval of fisheries and growing conditions of crops or business risk and recreation imperiled.
I heard from western fishermen about warming trout streams and a Glacier National Park with no glacier, and saw ancient western forests dying by the square mile to the bark beetle.
I heard from coastal States about new pests and poisonous algae and flooding risks and fisheries in upheaval. And the Great Lakes, I heard, face similar threats as the ocean coasts.
I heard in the Presiding Officer's State of Nordic ski trails made mud because you can't do artificial snow like on ski slopes, and moose tours--moose tours--that visitors promised never to do again because once you made it down the mud trail, the moose were crawling with thousands of ticks, eating them alive. Things that winter used to clean up but did no longer.
One day I wept in National Airport, sitting at one of those little round linoleum-topped food tables, reading Pope Francis's new encyclical, ``Laudato Si: On Care For Our Common Home.'' Climate effects were everywhere. That wasn't the problem.
So I began looking at the fossil fuel industry and studying the dark money apparatus that it uses to spread climate denial and to obstruct climate progress.
I recalled our bipartisanship here in the Senate before Citizens United, and I saw the death of bipartisanship after, when the fossil fuel industry upgraded its weaponry from political muskets to tactical nukes and set about subjugating the Republican Party.
I came to like and admire Bob Inglis, a conservative the fossil fuel industry could not subjugate. So, instead, they made an example of him for his climate heresy and crushed him politically.
I came with groups of Senators to the floor to identify and call out this corrupt and corrupting fossil fuel web of denial. I came to know and admire the tough band of investigators, writers, and academic researchers who examine and document this corrupt apparatus.
I saw how this apparatus insinuated itself into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce an the National Association of Manufacturers and turned those two business groups into America's two worst climate obstructors.
Thank you, InfluenceMap, for that research.
I learned the ways the industry hid the money trail leading to its front groups through shell corporations, through Donors Trust, through 501(c)(4)s. And I finally came to the realization that this industry was running a massive, covert operation--probably the biggest covert disinformation and political intimidation op in history, and it was running this covert op in and against our own country.
Another thing I learned was how little political effort America's corporations put into doing anything about climate change here in Congress. A lot of them put happy green talk on their websites. They had their consumer relations and public relations and investor relations people spread the happy green talk around. Many of them actually hired sustainability officers and, where it made them money, began changing their internal behavior to actually be more sustainable.
Sometimes more attention was paid to heralding those sustainability programs than there actually was to sustaining anything, but sometimes it was sincere. Bravo to those companies that have really changed the way they operate within their corporate bounds. And a few took climate change seriously enough to start pushing sustainability out their supply chains.
But none--none--took climate change seriously in Congress. This was a battlefield they avoided. Their trade associations were a nightmare. Every one of them--beverages, insurance, banking, chemical, agricultural--you name it, every one of them was silent or worse. Now at last--at last--that seems to be changing.
Here is the 2020 lobbying pitch for Silicon Valley tech giants--the biggest corporations in America, many of the most successful corporations of America, hundreds of American corporations, almost all of which pride themselves on their greenness. They lobby us through a group called TechNet. Here is their pitch sheet--13 pages of bulleted priorities they wanted Congress to achieve, and not one mention--not one mention--of climate change. Not one, not even a mention of renewables from a trade association that has renewables companies in its membership--until now. Until now. I was just notified that TechNet has noticed this omission in its document and that it intends to rectify the error. Good.
Change has even come to the biggest and most obstructive lobby group of them all--the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. I spent a lot of time chasing them with hashtag ``chamberofcarbon.'' I stood out in front of their headquarters and put up a sign that said ``Carbon'' blocking where it said ``Commerce,'' so their own building said ``U.S. Chamber of Carbon.'' They were my nemesis--hostile to climate action in the legislative branch, hostile to climate action in the executive branch and regulatory agencies, hostile to climate action in the judiciary in cases that were being brought about climate. They were the beast.
Well, last week, the chamber announced a dramatic reversal--that it will now support a serious, market-based climate solution. That--that--
is a big shift. And if they fight for climate action anywhere near as forcefully as they fought against it, it could make a big difference. So TBD as to how this turns out over at the chamber, but a tentative big thumbs up.
So as I close my run of Time to Wake Ups, where are we? Well, we again control the House, and the Senate, and the White House, and this time I hope we will be serious.
Senator Markey has joined me, and I mentioned earlier in the speech Nancy Pelosi championing an actual serious climate bill through the House and lamented the Senate's failure to do one damn thing once we had the House bill over here to act on.
That bill was called Waxman-Markey. It was the work of Congressman Waxman and Congressman, now-Senator, Markey. With Senator Markey over here, maybe this time we will be serious in the Senate with all of these departments of government control.
The latent bipartisanship here in the Senate that the fossil fuel industry suppressed is still there. It has been there all along. Talking to some of my colleagues about climate change has been a little bit like talking to prisoners about escape, but the latent bipartisanship did not go away. With these other changes--with corporate America beginning to show up, with the big trade associations becoming less horrible, I am hopeful for a serious bipartisan bill. And if we can't get good-faith bipartisanship, well, we have got reconciliation.
Senator McConnell can't block bipartisan climate bills from coming to the floor any longer. So there is a point to legislating. There is a point to advocates showing up. So maybe corporate America will show up and push back on fossil fuel's subjugation of the Republican Party. A good, hard look at the fossil fuel climate denial machinery can put that corrupt machine back on its heels. In my view, it would be dereliction and malpractice to ignore that apparatus and its treacherous role.
In trade associations, revolts are already taking place, within the chamber and NAM, by members horrified to be outed as supporting America's worst climate obstructors. Want faster change there? Disclose the fossil fuel money that bought the climate obstruction. That will speed things along.
The finance and agriculture sectors and our coastal economies all are looking down the barrel of multiple and serious economic crash warnings. Banks, insurance companies, Freddie Mac, sovereign banks, wherever you look in the world of finance, there are dramatic, dire warnings from sober, serious bean-counter people who are not there to be green. They are there to make green. So corporate climate concerns have moved from the communications shop to business operations and the C-suites.
The famous author Mary Renault, who wrote wonderful historical novels, said: ``There is only one kind of shock worse than the totally unexpected: the expected for which one has refused to prepare.'' There has never been a crisis or a catastrophe more warned about by more and more credible sources than the looming climate crisis, and it is going to clobber these businesses. Now they just need to align their political effort with their own stated policies. How hard is that?
All of this can break the right way. The dark castle of denial can fall, and Congress can rise in bipartisan force to stop the harm and cure the damage. But that is not foreordained. We can still screw this up. No doubt about it. So let's not. Let's do our duty. The conditions are at last--at last--in place for a real solution. A new dawn is breaking, and when it is dawn, there is no need for my little candle against the darkness. My little ``Time to Wake Up'' pilot light can now go out.
So instead of urging that it is time to wake up, I close this long run by saying now, it is time to get to work. Whitehouse ``Time to Wake Up'' run, farewell.
Whitehouse at least on time to wake up--out.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Before my friend leaves, I just want him to know that I relished the opportunity to be here for his, what, 400th or however long it has been--but his final speech. And I am excited about the final speech because I have got it pretty well memorized now. And while I have to say this--I say this about another person who has been on the committee with me for a long period of time--that while I don't agree with very much of what you say, you say it so well. That goes with you, I say to the Senator from Massachusetts, because we cover a lot of issues in that committee.
I think it was--we have a new majority now. We will see some things that you will seize upon as opportunities that may make some changes. And I will be there to try to keep that from happening, but, nonetheless, we will enjoy it. There are so many issues right now in the committee, I say this to my friend from Massachusetts, that we are involved in. You know, one of them is an issue we discussed in some detail about the Western Sahara and some things that have gone on there. We find so many things that we can agree on. And I look forward to being in the new position of being in the minority and combating from a different perspective.
So congratulations on the commitment that you have made to your cause and the time and the effort and the eloquence that you have used over the years.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Senator Inhofe. I am grateful to the senior Senator from Oklahoma.
We are, indeed, fairly fierce adversaries on the issue of climate, but it is a fervent prayer of mine that that might change because I have had the experience of working with Senator Inhofe on issues on which we are not adversaries, and let me tell you, the man is a senatorial Caterpillar tractor at getting things done when our interests align. Whether it is cleaning up kleptocracy or fixing the enforcement of pirate fishing overseas or our ocean plastics work, Senator Inhofe has been enormously valuable in those things. And I will confess, because we have had these wars with one another on climate change, that when Senator Inhofe came to Senator Sullivan's and my hearing on ocean plastics, my heart sank. I thought, oh--I won't say the word. This was such a good hearing. It was going so well. Why did he have to show up? Because I thought he was going to ruin everything--
not a bit. He listened. And when it came time to ask questions, he asked terrific questions.
He described an experience in his childhood along the Texas gulf coast and the little sea turtles trying to work their way to the ocean from their eggs, and he asked how he could help. He was an original cosponsor of our bill. He was a strong supporter of the bigger, better 2.0 bill.
So I will close with reiterating my prayer that perhaps in the most marvelous of all worlds, the good Lord can find a way to bring us to work together to solve this climate problem. If so, we may very well have a miracle in this Chamber.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, there are many other areas, I recall so many times, during a long period of time when Democrats were in the majority, Barbara Boxer was the chairman of our committee; and when Republicans were in the majority, I would be the chairman and then she would be the ranking member. But I have to say this, in that committee, we got things done.
You overlooked the infrastructure thing and how important that was. And I have a confession that is good for the soul. I have to admit, every time we had a new infrastructure bill, I started off on the Democratic side because they seemed to be more interested in some of the things that I was interested in. Anyway, that is the way it works around here, and we all love each other. All right?
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Senator Inhofe, for your courtesy for coming to say those words. I truly appreciate it.
Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. INHOFE. I will yield, yes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. MARKEY. Thank you for rising because I do believe what you are saying about Senator Whitehouse is accurate. In my opinion, like Lou Gehrig, like Cal Ripken, he will go down in history in this longevity streak in highlighting, spotlighting like a true North Star the need for us to take action on these issues, and he is, without question, a climate change hall of famer.
And I agree with you, there is a new dawn which has now arrived, with our fingers crossed. And I share your hope, the Senator from Rhode Island, that we might be able to find a way to persuade the gentleman from Oklahoma that it is sunny most of the time in Oklahoma and it is windy most of the time in Oklahoma and there are tens of thousands of jobs yet to be created. And we can work in partnership in order to accomplish that goal.
But for today, I just wanted to come over and honor the great Sheldon Whitehouse for his incredible leadership during this time we have been going through with the climate ``denier in chief'' now gone, and there is hope alive. Your leadership is absolutely hall of fame and historic. Congratulations, Senator Whitehouse.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. You are the Hank Aaron. You are the Roger Maris. So I appreciate it and thank you.
Mr. INHOFE. Don't forget Cal Ripken, the Cal Ripken of climate. That is pretty good.
Well, Madam President, that is not what I came to talk about. I came to listen.
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