Political Quotes

“I wish to take a few moments to speak about an amendment that I will be offering as part of the Keystone Pipeline legislation. It is an extremely simple, straightforward amendment. It is a brief amendment, but it basically raises a very fundamental issue, and that issue is whether the Senate will abide by scientific evidence, will come down on the side of science as we debate this enormously important issue of climate change. The amendment is very brief, and I wish to read it and then explain why I believe it is such an important amendment. This is what it says: It is the sense of Congress that Congress is in agreement with the opinion of virtually the entire worldwide scientific community that, No. 1, climate change is real; No. 2, climate change is caused by human activities; No. 3, climate change has already caused devastating problems in the United States and around the world; No. 4, a brief window of opportunity exists before the United States and the entire planet suffer irreparable harm; and No. 5, it is imperative that the United States transform its energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy as rapidly as possible. That is it. That is the entire amendment. I would say that for the scientific community around the world, there is nothing in that statement that smacks of controversy.…”