Donald M. Payne: “First, Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking my colleague, Congressman Garamendi, from the great State of…”

“First, Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking my colleague, Congressman Garamendi, from the great State of California for hosting this evening's Special Order hour on the threat climate change poses for our Nation and our constituents. Mr. Garamendi has done a great service by hosting timely and important Special Orders throughout the 115th Congress. Today's Special Order hour is especially important, as it comes on the heels of the Trump administration's attempt to bury its own climate change report and only a day after devastating fires in California were contained. Because of global climate change, the United States is going to suffer from more frequent and more devastating disasters like Superstorm Sandy, which caused massive flooding in my State in 2012 and the Camp fire, which is the deadliest and most destructive in California's history. Considering that Donald Trump thinks that climate change is an international conspiracy, a hoax concocted by the Chinese, it came as no surprise to me that he has released his own administration's climate change report on Black Friday when people are out with their families shopping and not paying attention to what is going on in the news. The U.S. climate assessment is damning. It gives President Trump and his GOP allies no cover to proclaim that climate change isn't real. The report took our country's top climate scientists 4 years to research and write.…”