Political Quotes

“I thank Senator Whitehouse. I could not in my wildest dreams be able to replace Senator Baucus in what he did. But what he did back in 1986, along with a number of other Senators Senator Whitehouse just talked about, was visionary. He signed a letter asking Federal researchers to study solutions for limiting the causes of climate change. This was in 1986, some 33 years ago. That same year, as I am today, my wife and I were farming in North Central Montana, a farm that then had been in the family for about 70 years. During the time before 1986, and since 1986, we have seen a lot of changes on the farm. That is why it is interesting--because those changes have increased more than ever, I believe, in the last 20 years. When this letter was sent off to study solutions in 1986, it was incredibly visionary because it was before climate change was even talked about much. Yet this group of Senators was able to see the negative impacts of this coming down the pike. By the way, when we talk about negative impacts of climate change-- you probably have this, Senator Whitehouse, but somebody ought to put together how many hundreds of billions of dollars we have spent on natural disasters in the last 10 or 12 years compared to how much we spent in years previous. I can tell you, it was a few years ago that every State in the Union except one or maybe two had a natural disaster. That is because our climate is changing. It is because our climate is getting more erratic.…”