Political Quotes

“I rise this morning to join my colleagues in calling for action to address climate change. This is a global challenge that has far-reaching consequences for our economy, our public health, and our national security. I begin by thanking my colleague Senator Schatz, who is with us; Senator Whitehouse, my colleague from Rhode Island; Senator Boxer; and members of the Senate Climate Action Task Force for their leadership and for bringing so many of our colleagues to the floor last evening and through the early hours of this morning to call attention to the critical issue of climate change. This issue is daunting and difficult. One reason it is so daunting and difficult is that it is a slow-moving crisis. We are often faulted for not responding to critical issues before us, but we are certainly faulted for not responding to those that have evolved over many months and many years--the nature of our political process, the nature of our attention span, and the fact that other issues crowd out these longer term issues. But what we have seen as we look back is a clear path of evidence suggesting that our climate is changing. Our climate is changing in ways that are going to disadvantage us--disadvantage us in terms of our economic productivity, our national security, and it is going to disadvantage us in terms of things that we take for granted. Senator Blumenthal, Senator Murphy, Senator Whitehouse, and I grew up along the New England coast.…”