Sheldon Whitehouse: “I am back now for the 55th time that the Senate has been in session, each week, to urge my colleagues to wake up to the…”

“I am back now for the 55th time that the Senate has been in session, each week, to urge my colleagues to wake up to the toll that carbon pollution is taking on our atmosphere, on our oceans, and on our people. While climate change deniers continue to gin up phony doubt to mislead the public, top American businesses and corporations recognize the risks posed by climate change. They are preparing for the economic fallout. Members of Congress bury their heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich, hoping the issue will go away, wondering in some cases recently whether the recent cold front disproved decades of research and an overwhelming scientific consensus. Business leaders in the real world, not the political world, not the polluter-paid, phony-doubt world, business leaders in the real world are doing what they do best; that is, taking steps to protect their bottom line and maintain their relationships with their customers. Major corporations, even those with large carbon footprints, are taking voluntary action to lower their own carbon output. Some are joining broader efforts to support policies that reduce carbon emissions. Some of our largest and most sophisticated companies are even factoring the economic burden of climate change in their own accounting and their own long-term planning by--guess what--assigning an internal price to carbon.…”