Political Quotes

“I rise today to ask for Senate approval of legislation that I sponsored, along with my friend and colleague from across the aisle, Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado. Earlier this year, we introduced the Space Weather Research and Forecasting Act with Senators Booker, Wicker, and Klobuchar, and it went on to pass unanimously by the full Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation in January. Space weather, which includes solar flares and coronal mass ejections caused by the constantly changing conditions in the Sun's magnetic fields, regularly hurls ionized gas toward the Earth. This can potentially devastate our infrastructure and significantly disrupt our economy. The chances of Earth being hit by a severe space weather event are roughly the same as a magnitude 8 earthquake striking the United States, but the impact to our way of life would be absolutely catastrophic. According to NASA, Earth was narrowly missed by a large space weather event in 2012, which could have resulted in a worst-case scenario impact to Earth. A report by Lloyd's of London estimates that a worst- case scenario space weather event could cost up to $2.6 trillion and impact as many as 40 million people by causing outages at electric utilities, disrupting GPS communication networks, and forcing airlines to reroute air traffic. The potential disruption to these critical sectors of our economy makes space weather a threat we must understand better.…”