Sheldon Whitehouse: “every week that we are here, I try to remind the body of the damage carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and…”

“every week that we are here, I try to remind the body of the damage carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and oceans, try to awaken us to our duty. I have done it more than 30 times now. I have tried to kick out the underpinnings of any argument that the deniers could stand on. I have kicked out the scientific so-called denial argument, which actually properly belongs in the category of falsehood, not argument. I have kicked out the economic denial argument, pointing out that in a proper market, the costs of carbon must be in the price of carbon. I even tried to kick out the religious denial argument, showing that the belief that God will just tidy up after us, however stupidly we behave, runs counter to history and counter to Biblical text. So today let's take a crack at the political argument. How wise is it for the Republican Party to wed itself to the deniers and proclaim that climate change is a hoax? Make no mistake, that is the Republican position. The consensus Republican position and the default Republican position is that climate change is a hoax. It has been said right on this floor and in committees and, as far as I know, not one Republican Senator has stood afterwards in this Chamber to say: Wait a minute. Not so fast. That is actually not the case. Any Republican Senator who disagrees, please, come to the floor and articulate a Republican position other than that climate change is a hoax.…”