Time to Wake Up: Protecting Our Oceans
As delivered on the Senate floor
Mr. President, I am back again to remind this body and the American people—for what I think is perhaps the 32nd speech on this subject that I’ve been giving weekly—that it is time, indeed it is well past time, for Congress to wake up to the disastrous effects of global climate change.
The famous Mauna Loa observatory has just for the first time ever hit 400 ppm of carbon in the atmosphere. That is an alarming benchmark to have it. And what is happening on the House side today? They are repealing Obamacare for the 37th time. That’s the level of seriousness in Washington right now. In particular, our oceans. The presiding officer represents the Bay State, I represent the Ocean State. And our oceans face an unprecedented set of challenges that come from climate change, as well as from pollution, and energy exploration, and more. And you just have to look around to see it:
- You can look up to the far north, and you see that the Arctic ice is melting. Indeed last summer, sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean hit a record low.
- You can go down to the south, to the tropic seas, and you see that live coral coverage on the Caribbean reefs is plummeting. Down to less than 10 percent today.
- You go to the top of the food chain, and you see marine mammals so laden with PCBs, flame retardants, mercury, and other bio-accumulative pollutants, that many of them are swimming toxic waste; living, swimming toxic waste.
- Go to the very bottom of the food chain, and you see that the population of phytoplankton, some of our smallest ocean inhabitants, and the basic building block for the oceanic food chain, have dropped 40 percent during the 20th century.
- You go far away from where you and I are, out to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and it’s growing and swirling about the Northern Pacific Ocean.
- And close to my home, and near to the presiding officer’s home, is Narragansett Bay, which is four degrees warmer in the winter than it was just a few decades ago.
- Globally, the most threatening challenge and the force behind many of these others is ocean acidification.
Our oceans have absorbed more than 550 billion tons of our carbon pollution. 550 billion tons. Try to wrap your head around a number that big. That’s the carbon that the ocean has absorbed from the atmosphere, from the excess that we have pumped into the atmosphere. The result is pretty clear, and it’s a matter of basic chemistry, the oceans have become more acidic, indeed they have become 30 percent more acidic. And by the way that’s a measurement, that’s not a theory.
By the end of this century, the increase could be as much as 160 percent more acidic. That makes life a lot harder for species like oysters, crabs, lobsters, corals, and even those plankton that comprise the very base of the food web.
Ocean temperatures are changing dramatically—also driven by carbon pollution. Sea surface temperatures in 2012, from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Hatteras, were the highest recorded in 150 years. That’s another measurement, by the way.
Fish stocks are shifting northward, with some disappearing from U.S. waters as they move farther offshore.
And as we know, as temperature rises, water expands in volume; and on top of that, fresh water pours out of Arctic snowpack and ice sheets that are melting, so sea levels are rising. Tide gauges in Newport, Rhode Island, show an increase in average sea level of nearly ten inches since 1930.
That is a big deal, when we in Rhode Island think about how devastating the Great Hurricane of 1938 was to our shores, and what more would now befall us with ten more inches of sea for such a storm to throw at our shores.
At these tide gauges, measurements show not only that sea level is rising but the rate of sea-level rise is increasing. Which matches reports that, since 1990, sea level has been rising faster than the rate predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
I’ve said before: We will continue to take advantage of the ocean’s bounty, as we should. We will trade, we will fish, and we will sail. We will extract fuel and harness the wind. We will work our oceans. Navies and cruise ships, sailboats and supertankers, will plow their surface.
We cannot undo this part of our relationship with the sea. What we can change is what we do in return. We can, for the first time, become takers—become not just takers, but caretakers of our oceans.
We are beginning to take some baby steps. Last week, the Senate voted 67 to 32 to authorize a National Endowment for the Oceans, Coasts, and Great Lakes, a funding stream for research, restoration, and protection of our marine and coastal resources. I hope before long that we can find a way to fund it, working with all of my colleagues.
The famous ocean explorer Bob Ballard has described as, a quote: “major problem . . . the disconnect between the importance of oceans and the meager funds we as a nation invest to not only understand their complexity, but become responsible stewards of the bounty they represent.”
This Endowment, if we can get it over the remaining legislative hurdles, and get it funded, will help us become more responsible stewards of that bounty. It will help us better respond to oil spills. It will help coastal states protect or relocate coastal infrastructure. It will help our fisheries and marine industries take part in economically important conservation efforts.
Mr. President, I do sincerely appreciate the support shown for this amendment by colleagues from every region of the country, and both sides of the aisle. Protecting the oceans upon which our communities and our economy depend is neither a Democrat nor a Republican objective, and there ought to be a great deal of agreement on the need to meet these challenges.
We also see that agreement in the bipartisan Senate Oceans Caucus, which works to increase awareness of and find common ground on issues facing the oceans and coasts. My fellow co-chair Senator Murkowski, and honorary co-chairs Senator Mark Begich and Senator Roger Wicker, and all of our partners, are working to stop illegal and unreported fishing; clean up marine debris; and collect baseline scientific data so that we can make informed policy decisions.
This is important work. It demonstrates the good we can accomplish when both parties come together, and I look forward to getting it done. But it is not enough. It is not enough.
Until we address what is causing our oceans to change so drastically, until we protect our planet from carbon pollution unprecedented in human history, we are doing little more than putting band-aids on a gaping and growing wound.
Mr. President, I want here today to push back on the idea that so many of us seem to have accepted that we can’t do anything serious on carbon pollution. In fact, we can, and the tools to do it lie right around us, if only we’d pick them up and go to work.
Here’s my case, very simply:
Pricing carbon properly is necessary. Make big carbon polluters pay a fee to the American people to cover the cost of dumping their waste into our atmosphere and oceans—a cost they now push off onto the rest of us. And return that fee to the American people.
At present, however, political conditions in Congress do not allow us to price carbon. It is necessary, political conditions do not allow us to do it, so we must change those political conditions. And we can, through three actions:
- There has to be a regulatory threat to the polluters.
- There has to be a political threat to the deniers here in the Senate and in Congress. And,
- Those of us who wish to limit carbon pollution must gather the armies that are on our side.
Let me through the steps.
First, as long as the polluters and their allies control Congress, legislative action is unlikely. That means we have to rely on the Executive Branch for regulatory action—very strong regulatory action, that will change the equation for the polluters. That’s the test: will it change the equation for the polluters.
Because the status quo is a win for polluters: they pollute for free. Change that balance, and it won’t take them long to come to Congress.
Why? Because regulatory action puts costs directly on the polluters, but creates no revenues for them; a carbon pollution fee? That creates revenues, a portion of which could offset their costs of transitioning to a green economy. If that’s the choice they have—regulation with no revenues, or a fee they can get revenues from--it becomes in their interest to strike a deal in Congress. This regulatory step in the Executive Branch will, however, require an awakening at the White House.
Second, to create a meaningful political threat, the advocates out there for our climate and our oceans will need to employ all the sophisticated political tools the polluters use. All the political artillery of the post-Citizens United world.
There’s an expression that you shouldn’t bring a knife to a gun fight. Right now climate advocates bring not even a knife but a feather to this gunfight. It’s no wonder we lose. But when deniers in Congress see real artillery coming on the political field against them, some will rethink.
Third and last is gathering the armies. There is astonishingly wide support for action on climate: environmental groups, obviously; the green energy and investment industry; our national security officials; property casualty insurers and reinsurers; young people, like the growing college movement for coal divestment; faith groups; many utilities; celebrities; hunting, fishing, outdoor, and conservation groups; retailers like Apple, and Coca-Cola, and Nike; labor groups; mayors and local officials; and the public? The public is with us. Polls show that.
The problem: most of this support is latent and unorganized. None of these groups feel they can carry this battle on their own. Yet, if they choose to unite, if we create an “allied command,” assemble these various divisions, and join in on a strategy that deploys them all effectively into action: that latent strength becomes potent strength. That is a game changer.
When the polluting industry is looking down the barrel of a regulatory gun; when their political allies are fearful of a strongly backed political operation, backed also by the American people; when mobilized and motivated forces from a wide swath of the economy, multiple sectors, are all active: the political landscape then shifts dramatically, and a price on carbon is achievable.
So I propose to the American people, to those who believe it is time to wake up and to take action to fend off devastating changes to our oceans and to our climate: let us be not faint of heart. Let us have the strength of our convictions and get to work, and get this done. We can, the tools to do it already lie all around us.
This can all take place quite rapidly. Let’s get it done.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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