Bill Nelson: “I have been spellbound by the remarks of the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, addressing a problem facing…”

“I have been spellbound by the remarks of the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, addressing a problem facing planet Earth that all too often we have ignored. Yet as he so cogently has expressed, indeed, it is a problem. There is something happening out there. It has been my concern that the present administration, for whatever reason, has chosen not to approach addressing the issue of global climate change through the Kyoto accords. And because the administration has so decided, it is all the more important for leaders such as Senator Byrd and Senator Stevens to speak out on a phenomenon that, in fact, is occurring. The scientific community is fairly unanimous. It is not totally unanimous. Because of that, that is used as an excuse for others to say that global warming is not upon us. That counters all of the scientific evidence and the testimony of a vast majority of the scientific community that it has happened. We also know that there is, in fact, a correlation, as the distinguished Senator from West Virginia has stated, between the production of CO2 into the atmosphere and global warming. I commend the Senator from West Virginia for offering this legislation to try to get the Nation's mind focused on the problem and a comprehensive effort of trying to determine what we are going to do about it before it is too late.”