Political Quotes

“I am here for the 69th straight consecutive week that the Senate has been in session to try to wake us up to the harm that carbon pollution causes to our oceans, to our communities, to our ecosystem, and to our health. The effects of climate change are all around us, from melting glaciers in our national parks, to drought-stricken land across the American Southwest, to rising seas along my eastern seaboard. In Washington, DC, the iconic cherry blossoms are blooming earlier. Snook, native to South Florida, are being caught off the coast of Charleston; tarpon and grouper off the coast of Rhode Island. This is all happening now--not tomorrow, not sometime in the distant future but now--right now. Projections show that it will get much worse in the coming years unless we wake up and take real action. Happily, this week, the Environmental Protection Agency used its Clean Air Act authority as established by Congress and affirmed by the Supreme Court to propose carbon pollution standards for the country's existing powerplants. Before this, there were no carbon pollution limits--believe it or not--none. As you can see on this chart, the 50 dirtiest U.S. powerplants--this is the whole U.S. powerplant fleet. These are the 50 dirtiest powerplants. They put out more carbon than Korea, which is a pretty industrialized country. They put out more carbon than Canada, our neighbor to the north.…”