On the recordMarch 1, 2017
I am here today for the 158th time to ask this Chamber to wake up to the mounting evidence of climate change. The sad truth is that, in Congress anyway, this issue has turned starkly partisan thanks to a torrent of dark political money that the fossil fuel industry uses to both threaten and reward the Republican Party in a dirty, dark money game of stick-and-carrot. Republicans in Congress ignore climate change for the simple reason that the fossil fuel industry has become their political life support system. It does not have to be this way. Outside this Chamber, even Republicans see things very differently. In the investment sector, where people have to make decisions based on real facts and where duties to shareholders limit overly creative accounting, the Republican signal is clear. An impressive group of Republican former Treasury Secretaries and Republican former Presidential economic advisers recently proposed a conservative, market-based climate solution. Republican Presidents trusted these folks with the conduct of the U.S. economy. Jim Baker was Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, Hank Paulson was Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush, and George Shultz was Secretary of the Treasury under President Nixon, in addition to other distinguished offices that they held.…





