Political Quotes

“Madam President, the Murkowski resolution gives the Senate a choice between real science and political science. That is what it comes down to. The EPA went to the scientists across America and asked them the basic question: Do greenhouse gas emissions endanger life and the planet on which we live? After months and thousands of comments and 380,000 scientific comments, they concluded that it does. They said that we have a responsibility under the Clean Air Act to protect the people in the United States and the people on Earth. We are going to move forward with a gradual, systematic way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions because we know they are causing damage. Twenty-one years ago, I went to Alaska, to Prince William Sound, after the Exxon Valdez ran aground. I saw the thousands of barrels of black, sludgy oil covering that pristine and beautiful part of America in Alaska. I have spoken to the Senator who is the sponsor of this resolution. Twenty-one years later, we still know that ecology, that environment has not recovered from that spill. But that was very obvious. You could see it. It was filthy. There are changes in the environment that are hurting Alaska today that are hard to see. We know greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution are changing Alaska, with the loss of sea ice; the melting permafrost; coastal erosion in villages, such as Shismaref, that have been falling into the ocean; ocean acidification.…”