Sheldon Whitehouse: “today is a sad and discouraging--even disgraceful--day here in the Senate. The vote that we have just taken signals the…”

“today is a sad and discouraging--even disgraceful--day here in the Senate. The vote that we have just taken signals the utter and complete subservience of the Trump administration and the Republican Party to the polluters of the fossil fuel industry. To the extent that there is any justification for fossil fuel pollution, leaks from pipes and valves and wells that aren't properly maintained by fossil fuel companies are probably the most shameless form of pollution, and yet that is precisely what this vote that we have just taken protects and even encourages. Let's start, for a moment, with why methane matters. We are well into a climate crisis. We have been warned about it for decades. The scientists, God bless them, actually got it right. Even Exxon's scientists got it right. And, on the basis of all that science, it then fell to us here in this building, in Congress, to react prudently and sensibly and steer our course away from the worst dangers that the scientists had so well and accurately predicted. Of course, we did not.…”