Janice Schakowsky: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the rule and the underlying bill. Climate change…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the rule and the underlying bill. Climate change is the greatest, the greatest, and most urgent challenge of our time and this government should never put corporate profits and those kinds of concerns ahead of the health and safety of our children and our future. Climate change isn't just a Democratic or a Republican issue. It is an existential issue for our species on this planet. I am hearing so many mischaracterizations of what the Paris accord is. These standards that are applied to the United States are not from the outside, not coming from across the pond. We agree to reduce carbon emissions on our own terms. Every country develops its own plan and its own program. This issue about jobs is just ridiculous. Everyone understands that our future is not in the fossil fuel industry. The future is in the green technologies that are being developed by entrepreneurs. Young people get it. The 21st century jobs of the future are clean technologies that make sure our planet is good and that entrepreneurs can actually succeed. The costs of not doing this right now are so enormous. We are seeing, practically every year, what are called 500-year floods. They are only supposed to happen once every 500 years, and now we are seeing State after State, in my own Midwest, under water, and it happens all the time. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired. Mr. McGOVERN.…”