On the recordOctober 16, 2019
I would like to start by thanking my friend and colleague from the State of Maryland, Senator Cardin, for bringing this resolution to the floor of the Senate--as he said, we will be voting on it tomorrow--but also for his longstanding support and efforts in trying to protect our environment, to protect the Chesapeake Bay, and to address the urgent issue of climate change, which anybody with eyes can see is already having a devastating impact on communities throughout our country and, indeed, throughout the world. I am also very pleased to be here with our colleague, the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Whitehouse, who has made this such an important cause and has kept the Senate focused on this pressing issue. As Senator Cardin indicated, under the previous administration, under the leadership of President Obama, as a country we adopted something known as the Clean Power Plan rule. This was a historic step forward. It was a blueprint to create more good-paying jobs in the clean energy sector. In fact, we have seen a tremendous growth of those jobs in the area of solar and wind power and other jobs. That Clean Power Plan rule, under the Obama administration, also really addressed the issue of carbon pollution in the atmosphere, beginning to reduce it significantly, to offset the damage and real costs we are already experiencing in communities from that climate change.…
