Speeches
Time to Wake Up: Exxon Climate Report
Mr. President, in this, my 20th speech about the climate changes and ocean changes being driven by fossil fuels, I would like to discuss America's largest oil company, ExxonMobil. For decades, ExxonMobil did everything in its power to deceive the American public about the existence and causes of climate change. I believe that full transparency would show ExxonMobil and its agents still obstructing efforts here in Washington to resolve the climate crisis, but I want to focus on one particular au… Continue Reading
05.16.18
Time to Wake Up: Cheapening by the Dozen
Mr. President, I am here today for my 206th ''Time to Wake Up'' speech. For colleagues who may be having a hard time keeping up with the ethical scandals swirling around Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, I thought today I would lay them out one by one. I think we all heard Donald Trump's pledge to drain the swamp and to put an end to government corruption. That hasn't exactly worked out; has it? Instead, swamp creatures abound, and Pruitt, a longtime enemy of the Agenc… Continue Reading
05.08.18
Time to Wake Up: The Great Barren Reef
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, situated off the northeast corner of Australia lies one of the seven natural wonders of the world, a wonder that is visible from space-the Great Barrier Reef. Each year, around 2 million visitors come from around the globe to experience the Great Barrier Reef. They come to see hundreds of species of sharks, dolphins, fish, mollusks, whales, seabirds, and other marine life thriving in nearly 133,000 square miles of coral reef. Some of these coral structures are thou… Continue Reading
04.23.18
Time to Wake Up: Web of Deceit
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I thank Senator Durbin, who is a leader in our caucus, but also a very important leader on these issues. We are here this evening because a group of us now embark on a series of speeches on the Senate floor to shine some light into a network of phony front groups--a web of deceit conceived and bankrolled by the Koch brothers and other self-interested billionaires to advocate for very selfish and unpatriotic policies. This web of deceit has infiltrated and populate… Continue Reading
04.18.18
Time to Wake Up: Rhode Island Department of Health
Mr. President, when we think about climate change- something we don't do much of in this body-we often think about rising global temperatures and heat waves, and we think of changing weather patterns, stronger storms, or sea level rise threatening coastal communities. We actually see these effects unfold across the United States and around the world as heat records fall, winters shrink, and waters creep ever higher along our coastlines. We also see the economic consequences of climate change. J… Continue Reading
04.10.18
Time to Wake Up: Climate Denial
Mr. President, I am here on the floor for my 202nd ''Time to Wake Up'' speech. I would like to begin by thanking this body for the passing of the National Oceans and Coastal Security Fund as part of the measure that Republicans and Democrats agreed to before the recent recess. The Presiding Officer obviously represents an extremely coastal State. I represent Rhode Island, a very coastal State. This new program will provide resources for the communities along our shores to be able to deal with th… Continue Reading
03.20.18
Time to Wake Up: Climate Progress
Mr. President, we are more aware than ever of the accelerating pace of climate change and of the serious threat that rising seas, higher temperatures, and changing weather poses. I suppose I don't need to lecture the Presiding Officer from Florida on the threat of rising seas. The real-time effects of climate change are becoming clearer and clearer every year. Here is a telling example unfolding right now in the Arctic. In this graphic, we see the mean area of Arctic sea ice over the last seve… Continue Reading
02.27.18
Time to Wake Up: American Petroleum Institute
Mr. President, I am here for my 198th ''Time to Wake Up'' speech with my increasingly dogeared and beaten chart. My last two speeches focused on, shall we say, the peculiar role two of this country's largest trade associations play on climate change. They have dozens and dozens of member companies that support action on climate change. Renewable energy now provides more jobs than fossil fuels and lots of American manufacturing. Yet the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Ma… Continue Reading
02.13.18
Time to Wake Up: National Association of Manufacturers
Mr. President, I am here for my 197th ''Time to Wake Up'' speech. My poster board is getting a little dog-eared, but we keep moving doggedly along. Last week, I spoke about corporate America outsourcing its lobbying to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce-a determined enemy of any action on climate change. When pro-climate companies support the chamber, they support its anti-climate lobbying, its anti-climate election spending and threatening, and they enable the chamber's anti-climate stranglehold wit… Continue Reading
02.08.18
Time to Wake Up: U.S. Chamber
Mr. President, in that event, let me commence my 196th ''Time to Wake Up'' climate speech. The last year has been a lousy one for environmental policy in the United States. While the rest of the world began implementing the Paris Agreement to reduce the carbon emissions that are changing our climate and our oceans, this proud body, the U.S. Senate, sat on its hands. When President Trump handed the keys to his administration over to what I call the three stooges of the fossil fuel industry-Pruit… Continue Reading
01.24.18
Time to Wake Up: Out of Breath-Out of Time
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I begin today by adding a Rhode Island voice to the chorus of coastal communities around the country standing against President Trump's reckless and unwelcome choice to try to allow oil and gas drilling off of nearly all U.S. coasts. The Rhode Island ocean economy is worth over $2 billion and employs more than 40,000 people. For whatever potential gain of fossil fuel corporations, offshore drilling introduces all sorts of hazards to our fishing industry and people … Continue Reading
01.17.18
Time to Wake Up: The Murray Plan
Mr. President, now, for the 193rd time, I will give my "Time to Wake Up'' speech, and as I do so, we are coming up on President Trump's anniversary in office. Unfortunately, this occasion does not offer the American people much to celebrate. Behind the persistent tweets and the dog whistles, the Trump Presidency has been a spectacle of special interests and self-dealing. Billionaire donors have endless access installing their operatives and pursuing their special interest goals throughout the e… Continue Reading
01.09.18
Whitehouse Remarks on Fusion GPS Release and the Russian Election Interference
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, 2018 is going to be an election year. In just 10 months, Americans will go to the polls to exercise their franchise, believing in the integrity of our democratic process. I am here today to discuss a threat to the integrity of that process, which is getting little attention here in Congress--nothing near what it deserves. We really ought to be acting with some expedition to safeguard our elections this November. Yet, instead, the effort is one of chasing down parti… Continue Reading
01.03.18
Time to Wake Up: 2017 Year in Review
Thank you, Mr. President, and Happy New Year to you. For my 191st ''Time to Wake Up'' speech, I want to take the change of years to reflect on what 2017 meant for our carbon pollution of the Earth's climate and what 2018 may bring. Our human use of fossil fuels continued to pour carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2017. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere now stands at almost 407 parts per million-the highest in human history and more than 100 parts per million above the safe range in… Continue Reading
12.20.17
Time to Wake Up: CAFE
Mr. President, I am here now for the 190th ''Time to Wake Up'' speech to talk about an issue that falls at the intersection of climate change and jobs and consumer power and protection. You would think that a policy that simultaneously reduces the carbon emissions responsible for climate change, and boosts American industrial competitiveness, and puts thousands of dollars back into the pockets of American consumers would be pretty universally popular. Unfortunately, you would be wrong. The Cor… Continue Reading
11.28.17
Time to Wake Up: Storms of Change are Brewing
Mr. President, in this season of Thanksgiving, let me say that I am thankful, as I rise for my 187th "Time to Wake Up" address, for the spirit of commitment and innovation that this great Nation devotes to tackling the challenge of climate change, even with this President. The United States now is alone in the world as the only Nation not committed to the historic Paris Agreement, but at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Germany, I saw firsthand that Americans are still committed to climate… Continue Reading
11.15.17
Time to Wake Up: Read Your Own Climate Report
Mr. President, I am here to talk about the U.N. Climate Change Conference that we just got back from in Germany, where the United States stood alone as the only Nation in the world-Syria and Nicaragua having left us-not a party to the historic Paris Agreement. Led by Senator Cardin, my colleagues Senators Markey, Schatz, Merkley, and I went to Bonn to tell the nations gathered there that the Trump administration does not represent American views on this issue, nor American determination to tackl… Continue Reading
11.14.17
Floor Speech on the Nomination of Steven Bradbury
Madam President, I am here to respond to the nomination of Steven Bradbury for a senior legal position in the U.S. Department of Transportation. I have had some experience with Mr. Bradbury, and in my experience, he is disqualified from serving in a legal government position of trust, such as he has been nominated for. The Bush administration pursued a policy of detainee mistreatment that since has been acknowledged to include torture of detainees. The process that got the United States of Amer… Continue Reading
11.07.17
Time to Wake Up: Discounting Future Generations
Mr. President, our EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, has a little problem. You see, the Supreme Court has ruled that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Therefore, under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, which Pruitt leads, is legally obligated to regulate greenhouse gases. They must do this as a matter of law. Moreover, the EPA has determined that greenhouse gas emissions endanger the public health and welfare of current and future generations, and Sco… Continue Reading
11.01.17
Janus v. American Federation of State
Mr. President, the Janus decision coming up in the U.S. Supreme Court, which Senator BROWN has just spoken about, is one that merits the attention of people who are concerned about the country and the Court. I wish to make two points in my remarks. The first has to do with the very difficult to explain-or at least very difficult to comfortably explain- pattern of 5-to-4 decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, in which the five consist entirely of Republican appointees. The Supreme Court makes a lot… Continue Reading
