Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I first want to thank Professor--I mean Senator Whitehouse for the information he shared. It was compelling, important, and very worthy of our deep consideration. To talk about renewing the Magnuson-Stevens Act without talking about the effects of climate change and the effects on the water itself would be an enormous missed opportunity. First, I commend Senator Whitehouse, the Senator from Rhode Island, for his longstanding commitment to the issue of climate change, the well-worn ``Time to Wake Up'' poster, and the work he has done over the years to force us to pay attention to this issue. I am, as he indicated, going to talk about what is going on in the Gulf of Maine, but I want to broaden the discussion just for a few moments to talk about the issue of climate change as a broader question before us. This isn't some environmental dream. It is not something that was invented by someone. It was discovered by scientists, and it is dollars and cents. It is the most practical problem that we have to deal with. I am on the Armed Services Committee. We are talking about military bases all over the world--some as close as right down in this region and then down toward Norfolk, VA--that are under a severe threat from rising sea levels and that are going to cost us billions, if not trillions, of dollars to upgrade and maintain because of rising sea levels. This isn't something abstract.…”