Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am here for a rather different reason. It is to call on this Chamber yet again to wake up to the urgent threat of climate change. I wish I was done with these ``Time to Wake Up'' speeches. Frankly, I wish I had never had to deliver a single one. I wish Congress had dealt with this threat--for instance, back when another Senator from Rhode Island, Republican John Chafee, held hearings on the looming challenge of carbon dioxide pollution. I wish we had dealt with it when the House, under Speaker Pelosi, passed the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, only for Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Barack Obama to kill it in a Democratic Senate with a filibuster-proof majority. I wish the Citizens United decision hadn't allowed the fossil fuel industry to capture the Republican Party and kill the bipartisanship on climate that existed before that decision in this Chamber. In my church growing up, there was a prayer about things we have left undone that we ought to have done. In that spirit, here is a graphic on carbon emissions we prepared in conjunction with the Biden White House that charts out where we are on this problem. Green, this line here, is carbon emissions business as usual if we keep kowtowing to the fossil fuel industry here and don't take serious climate action. Orange, this line, with quite significant emissions savings, is the Finance Committee's climate tax package. That is the effect just of that climate tax package if it comes into law.…”