On the recordMay 8, 2025
Mr. President, I thank Senator Whitehouse for his remarks. He has been our environmental champion in the Congress for many years, and he led the effort to insist that the Senate follow the rules when it comes to protecting our environment and when it comes to preserving the power of the Parliamentarian. Mr. President, this is downtown Los Angeles in 1955. It was the postwar era, with the rise of the personal automobile, the baby boom, and the rapid expansion of American cities and suburbs in the West. Suddenly, millions of families were experiencing firsthand, and for the first time, the most serious environmental impacts of unchecked industrial and manufacturing activity. Many could not walk through the streets of our cities without handkerchiefs to their face. The iconic Ford and Chevy automobiles of the 1950s and 1960s kept their roofs shut. And, in some cases, the smog was so bad that people mistook it for a chemical weapons attack. And here is the thing: It got worse, not better, over the coming decades. President Trump often speaks of restoring America, of making America great again, taking us back to that postwar period, with the rapid economic expansion and runaway prosperity of the wonder years. Well, his tariff wars have ended any hopes of an economic boom, and he now has the country headed in exactly the wrong direction, toward an economic bust instead.…





