On the recordJune 10, 2010
this is a very important debate. The Murkowski resolution we are considering today would overturn the endangerment finding developed by scientists and health experts in both the Bush and Obama administrations that too much carbon pollution in the air is dangerous--dangerous for our families, dangerous for our environment. Imagine, 100 Senators--not scientists, not health experts--deciding what pollutant is dangerous and what pollutant is not. Personally, I believe it is ridiculous for politicians, elected Senators, to make this scientific decision. It is not our expertise; it is not our purview. The Murkowski resolution threatens jobs, jobs that we need, that are made in America for America. Our hearts break every day that we look at what is happening in the Gulf. It seems to me more than ironic that Senator Murkowski is advocating repealing the scientific finding that too much carbon pollution in the air is dangerous, at the same time every American sees graphic evidence on television every single day of the deadly carbon pollution in the Gulf of Mexico. We see here in the saddest pictures what too much carbon-based pollution does in water, what it does to our shorelines, what it does to our beaches, what it does to our wetlands. I will show a couple of other photographs. They are almost too painful. But what we do here has consequences.…





