Chellie Pingree: “I oppose this amendment. My colleague proposes that we don't allow the cancellation of lease sales in a pristine…”

“I oppose this amendment. My colleague proposes that we don't allow the cancellation of lease sales in a pristine environment that is already suffering from the impacts of climate change. The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet. It shows that my Republican colleague and so many others are not thinking about what is best for the American taxpayer. He should be focused, instead, on investing in strategies that minimize and prevent the acceleration of climate change. He invoked one of my favorite colleagues, our dear departed colleague Don Young. I remember several years ago when Don Young came to visit me in Maine to an Arctic conference, and we discussed climate change. He said: I haven't decided yet if this is man-made, but I do believe climate change is happening. None of us can expect to share the words of Don Young, who is not with us here today, but I think he witnessed the warming that is going on in the Arctic in his State, the glacial melting. I recently visited Alaska, and I met with Tribal communities. There are 31 communities, most of them Tribal communities, that currently have to be moved because of the glacial melting, because of the permafrost melting. The cost of that, I have heard some people estimate, is about a million dollars a person to move a community, not to mention the cultural loss, the economic loss. The challenges that people are facing, what is going on in the Arctic today is unfathomable.…”