On the recordDecember 10, 2015
I thank the senior Senator from New Mexico for his longtime leadership on climate and conservation issues. I have been working on this for a long time, as many of us on the floor have been working on this for a long time, and I have not been so hopeful in a very long time. I am reminded of the essential elements of success when it comes to an international agreement, and that is American leadership. We still remain the indispensable Nation, and we finally reasserted ourselves and reclaimed the moral high ground and the political high ground that put us in a position to stitch together an international agreement. One observation I will offer from the Paris climate talks is how positive the response was. I think we anticipated that we were going to have to do perhaps more troubleshooting, more allaying of concerns about America's commitment to climate action than we ended up having to do. That is because people understand that the President is committed, and people understand that the Clean Power Plan is going forward, and we are making progress and there is no turning back. I will offer seven very quick observations about the Paris climate talks. The first is this: It is already a success.…
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