Sheldon Whitehouse: “I am delighted to join my colleagues here to support the EPA's new tailpipe emissions standards. Rhode Island has long…”

“I am delighted to join my colleagues here to support the EPA's new tailpipe emissions standards. Rhode Island has long ridden along with California on its emissions standards, and we are delighted to see the EPA following along with strong anti-pollution emissions standards. Among the many benefits of this is that we will start to head off the climate dangers that we are facing. There are enumerable reports about the economic threats that America faces as a result of unconstrained climate change. I ask unanimous consent that both articles from the recent ``The Economist'' magazine that open with a lead, sort of editorial-type article, and then have the solid full article, be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks. In talking about climate change--to use the article's words--it is shaking the foundations of the world's biggest asset class, and it is looking at, potentially, 25 trillion dollars' worth of global economic damage as homes become uninsurable because climate change makes them uninsurable. But the real thing is that this will come home for American consumers. The quicker we can get off fossil fuel, the safer Americans will be in their pocketbooks as well. This is the way gasoline prices have looked back since 1978. They have bounced all over the place. Why do they go all over the place? They go all over the place because the prices are not set by a market.…”