Political Quotes

“Happy new year. Nothing says ``Happy new year'' like the ``Time to Wake Up'' speech, so I will kick off 2016 with my year- opener ``Time to Wake Up'' speech recapping some of last year's climate change milestones. They say you only get one chance to make a first impression, and the first impression Senate Republicans chose to make in 2015 was to use their first 3 weeks of floor time--3 full weeks of precious floor time--to help a foreign oil company's tar sands pipeline. Even though it meant the government condemning American farms, even though the President was sure to veto it, that was their opener. By the end of the year, things had changed. The Republican leader was burying the votes against the Clean Power Plan deep in the news of the terrible Paris massacres and collapsing votes together to minimize floor time on this issue. The Republican majority opened 2015 with a big oil bang but crept out of the year with a whimper. Things indeed changed in 2015. Of course, the scientific evidence continued to show that fossil fuel pollution was damaging our environment and our oceans and our economy. And 2015 was record-setting hot. This chart from November shows that 2015 is on track to being the hottest year globally since we began keeping records in 1880. We can see that the 2015 running monthly global temperature average is above the 6 next warmest years on record in every month for which data is available.…”