Sheldon Whitehouse
Senator for Rhode Island · Democratic · United States
“Well, here is my evidence: We know that climate change makes many natural disasters more frequent and/or--could be either--more extreme, including hurricanes, floods, and wildfires--the same wildfires that blanketed much of the Midwest, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic in smoke just last week, resulting in American cities like Chicago, Detroit…”
“He wants our industries to be collapsed, our industries to be held to a different standard--not one word from China--and espousing policies like this electric vehicle subsidy for the richest Americans, while, at the same time, there are people flying around in private jets to global conferences to talk about climate change.”
“And the warnings that I have described are now very real. We can do nothing about it, and that has been the plan in the Senate ever since Citizens United dialed up the fossil fuel industry to influence us with dark money.”
“With the physical manifestations of climate change ``already showing up;'' Kapnick at JPMorgan says that investors now recognize ``that nonlinear step-changes--and even policy-driven disclosure--can force repricing faster than traditional models assume.'' But figuring out how to model such risks represents a gargantuan challenge for profe…”
“They are building coal facilities every week, while the Democrats, when they had control of government, were shutting them down. You could describe what was just discussed as an absolute China-first policy--America last, China first.”
“A breakdown of AMOC would mean weather patterns as we know them today would be completely disrupted. The fallout might include much colder winters in the UK, for example, with more recent models indicating the potential for extreme cold spells that could drive the temperature to 20C below zero in London, and result in Arctic sea ice poten…”
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Every one of 107 lines we hold for Sheldon Whitehouse, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 1 of 3.
“Senators who wish to change the subject or distract us or prevent us from responding in any way to these serious warnings--well, that is everybody's choice. But I do think these warnings are serious enough that they merit attention. So if you don't like my suggestion, let's do something different. But let's just not sit here and do nothing.”
“Mr. President, I am not going to go through a rebuttal of the factual misstatements to which we have just been treated, but I will add that I have objections to the IRA bill as well. We can all have objections to parts of the IRA. But the fact is that fossil fuel emissions continue to cause harm; they continue to cause danger. And the warnings that I have described are now very real. We can do nothing about it, and that has been the plan in the Senate ever since Citizens United dialed up the fossil fuel industry to influence us with dark money. But if we are going to do something about it, we must start somewhere, and I would recommend that we start with some really simple facts, like the ones that I brought to the Senate floor just now. These are serious warnings.”
“Madam President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I therefore ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 557; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ernst). Is there objection? The Senator from Ohio.”
“Mr. President, before I start, let me offer the Presiding Officer my best wishes for a very, very happy birthday. I might regale you with singing ``Happy Birthday.'' The PRESIDING OFFICER. Order. (Laughter.)”
“And the warnings that I have described are now very real. We can do nothing about it, and that has been the plan in the Senate ever since Citizens United dialed up the fossil fuel industry to influence us with dark money. But if we are going to do something about it, we must start somewhere, and I would recommend that we start with some really simple facts, like the ones that I brought to the Senate floor just now. These are serious warnings. Senators who wish to change the subject or distract us or prevent us from responding in any way to these serious warnings--well, that is everybody's choice. But I do think these warnings are serious enough that they merit attention. So if you don't like my suggestion, let's do something different. But let's just not sit here and do nothing. Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I yield the floor.”
“He wants our industries to be collapsed, our industries to be held to a different standard--not one word from China--and espousing policies like this electric vehicle subsidy for the richest Americans, while, at the same time, there are people flying around in private jets to global conferences to talk about climate change. Spare me the hypocrisy. And for all of those reasons and many, many more, I object. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Curtis). The objection is heard. The Senator from Rhode Island. Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am not going to go through a rebuttal of the factual misstatements to which we have just been treated, but I will add that I have objections to the IRA bill as well. We can all have objections to parts of the IRA. But the fact is that fossil fuel emissions continue to cause harm; they continue to cause danger.”
“But follow me on that one: no automobiles on American roads for 12 months. The amount of carbon emissions that has polluted mostly the Midwest, over the last 2 weeks, because of mismanagement of Canada's forests, is equivalent to an entire year of carbon emissions from automobiles. Yet my colleague has not once called into question the fact that the Canadians do not allow our firefighters to go into their country to help, that they have mismanaged the way they coordinate these fire responses. They don't have a central entity to control it. No comment on the fact that millions of people in my State have been absolutely poisoned with carbon pollution coming from Canada. [[Page S4178]] But what does he want?”
“You have electricity that comes over from Canada--propane, delivered on diesel trucks--because you refuse to build a pipeline from my State, where we can give you clean, natural gas that would reduce carbon emissions. The hypocrisy goes on and on. Then let's talk about recent events. My colleague, I have heard him, because I sit where you sit periodically, say the same thing many, many times in my 18 months that I have been here. He talks about electric vehicles: We have got to get off of internal combustion engines--a big policy of the Democrat Party. Let me give you a little statistic on automobiles. If you took every single car--automobile--off of the roads of America, nobody could drive a car for 12 months. That is nuts. I would suggest that is bad public policy.”
“They are building coal facilities every week, while the Democrats, when they had control of government, were shutting them down. You could describe what was just discussed as an absolute China-first policy--America last, China first. One-third of all global pollution comes from China, and yet my colleague comes up here to talk about climate change and doesn't say a single word about that country. In fact, he continues to espouse policies that enable the Chinese. For example, in the aforementioned electric vehicle subsidies, most of those batteries that were in those electric vehicles came from Chinese battery manufacturers--made with slave wages, slave labor; using power derived from the very carbon emissions that you denounce. You live in a State that derives its electricity from the worst possible carbon footprint.”
“And 250,000 of the wealthiest Americans got $7,500 each to lease a luxury electric vehicle because for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, that somehow would solve the issue of climate change. Not one single Democrat has ever answered the question: Why on Earth would you have possibly put forward horrific public policy like that? No. 2, if you notice, in the Senator from Rhode Island's presentation, there wasn't a single time he mentioned the largest polluter on Earth, which happens to be the People's Republic of China. We have been enabling the Chinese economy for decades. It was this body that normalized relations with China in 2000, that allowed them to come into the World Trade Organization and systematically pollute the planet.”
“When the Democrats had control of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate, they had the opportunity to help working Americans--the people who work every day to build this country, the middle class that all of us should be advocating for, the very people that--the New England Democrats that I once knew--J.F.K., et cetera--would have made their entire party platform about helping working Americans. Instead, what did they do? They betrayed working Americans with a wide, open border that lowered and suppressed wages. They passed electric vehicle subsidies. Let me walk you through exactly what the Democrats did, taking this kind of resolution to the maximum. They passed a subsidy that gave multimillionaires the ability to get $7,500 of taxpayer money to lease a luxury imported vehicle.”
“557; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ernst). Is there objection? The Senator from Ohio. Mr. MORENO. Madam President, reserving the right to object, let me say a few things. One, resolutions like this sound very much mild. It actually is just a bunch of words that basically just say: Resolved, That the Senate recognizes unchecked climate change poses severe risks to national and global economies. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with saying something like that? So let me explain where these kinds of ideas go.”
“A slower pace of decarbonization than hoped is leaving some investors ``wanting to prepare for the very, very worst outcome.'' For investors trying to grasp the implications of tipping points, part of the challenge is that they dwarf previous crises, according to Shah at Jefferies. ``Economies and companies adapt to wars and to Covid, and that adaptation can happen quickly,'' he said. ``However, unlike wars and pandemics, the difference here will be that we have not seen irreversible shocks like this before.'' Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I therefore ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res.”
“``Is this is a 10-year story, or 50-year or a 100- year story?'' Poincare at the Apave Climate School says ``it is possible that we will pass the point of no return this decade, but the real impacts might not be felt until 50 years from now.'' The lack of progress in fighting climate change, however, means that some investors now find it necessary to brace for extreme scenarios, says Justine Schafer, head of climate modeling at the 1.2 trillion asset management unit of Legal & General Group Plc. ``There is a sense of some people losing hope that there is a change coming in terms of an energy transition,'' she said.”
“For scenario analysis, USS generally focuses on a time horizon of five to 10 years, Cardinale said. By the end of that period, USS is alert to the potential for tipping points to become relevant, he said. The inability to produce precise time horizons around tipping points makes them a difficult concept for investors, said Aniket Shah, global head of sustainability and transition strategy at Jefferies. ``The climate science community finds it hard give exact dates, but for investors the time frame really matters,'' said Shah.”
“With the physical manifestations of climate change ``already showing up;'' Kapnick at JPMorgan says that investors now recognize ``that nonlinear step-changes--and even policy-driven disclosure--can force repricing faster than traditional models assume.'' But figuring out how to model such risks represents a gargantuan challenge for professional money managers. Mirko Cardinale, head of investment strategy at USS Investment Management Ltd., which oversees the pensions of the employees of Britain's universities, says that ``any attempt to really predict when a tipping point is going to occur is not going to be a very useful exercise.'' However, ``what we do know is that there is evidence that there are some tipping points, like the permafrost thawing, or even AMOC breakdown, that could tip in the next 1 5 to 20 years,'' he said.”
“AllianzGI, which looks after =600 billion ($685 billion) in assets from its base in Frankfurt, Germany, is among investors figuring out how to adapt. Mark Wade, head of sustainability research and stewardship at AllianzGI, says it's worth paying close attention to the insurance industry to gauge how soon asset prices will start to react. ``It will be the insurability and financial tipping points that arise from the breach of climate and biodiversity tipping points that really garner mainstream attention,'' he said.”
“He says he's been speaking with a money manager that's decided to divest from assets exposed to the impacts of certain tipping points as soon as scientists deem the threshold to have been crossed, and regardless of how long the impacts take to crystallize. He declined to identify the firm by name. ``The risk can take time to be fully realized,'' Lenton said. ``But if that change is underway and irreversible, you may choose to reprice now and bring the future into the present.'' Financial watchdogs are taking note. In the UK, the Prudential Regulation Authority last year told banks and insurers to account for climate risks that may be non-linear and irreversible. The PRA also said that backward-looking data is no longer a reliable guide for the risks ahead.”
“A breakdown of AMOC would mean weather patterns as we know them today would be completely disrupted. The fallout might include much colder winters in the UK, for example, with more recent models indicating the potential for extreme cold spells that could drive the temperature to 20C below zero in London, and result in Arctic sea ice potentially reaching as far south as East Anglia, home to Cambridge [[Page S4177]] University. At the same time, global warming is expected to continue driving hotter, drier summers, which would raise the risk of water shortages and lead to profound disruption to key sectors such as agriculture. Tim Lenton, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter renowned for his work on tipping points (including the scenario above), says the calculus among investors has changed in recent years.”
“Once thresholds have been crossed, it may take years--and even decades--for the damage to play out. But it will be too late to reverse. Examples include coral reefs dying, the Amazon rainforest turning into savannah and the Greenland ice sheet sliding into an irreversible melt. In October, researchers at the University of Exeter said the world was facing a ``new reality'' after having hit its first tipping point, namely the ``widespread dieback'' of warm-water coral reefs. Among tipping points of particular concern to northern Europe is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a system of interconnected ocean currents that transports warm water from the equator to northwestern Europe and allows for milder winter temperatures.”
“The exercise is difficult for banks, however, given the time horizon under which they operate, though mortgage portfolios are a ``notable'' exposure for longer- term durations, she says. While not a tipping point as such, this year's heat waves signal ``a hotter baseline,'' Kapnick said. And ``when change accelerates, systems can be pushed toward thresholds faster than society and markets can adapt.'' Investors ``waiting too long to adapt could leave too little time to respond effectively,'' she said. For institutional investors with long-term horizons like Standard Life, the question now is ``how to protect asset values'' from such risks, Patel said. Scientists have identified more than a dozen tipping points which, if breached, can result in abrupt, dangerous and irreversible damage.”
“``Funds are asking a very practical question: what climate tipping points mean for portfolios on real decision horizons--when markets might reprice, where exposures are concentrated, and how to plan when the science is uncertain but the consequences could be abrupt,'' says Sarah Kapnick, JPMorgan's global head of climate advisory and a former chief scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For now, her analysis indicates that debt markets would be among the first to take a price hit after illiquid real assets. Investors would be wise to regularly update their tail-risk analysis to take the latest science into account, Kapnick adds.”
“JPMorgan's ``black swan'' analogy reflects the fact that, though treated as a tail-risk, the impact of any single tipping point being breached would be ``highly consequential.'' Put simply, they're ``the most frightening part of climate change,'' says Antoine Poincare, director general of the Apave Climate School, which educates corporate executives on how to manage climate risks. Long regarded as an outlier scenario, tipping points are now making their way into portfolio analysis and even informing financial regulations. The shift comes as temperatures rise at a dangerous rate. The world briefly surpassed the critical 1.5C global warming threshold for the first time back in 2024. The temperature is now on track to rise by almost twice that level this century, a trajectory scientists have called catastrophic.”
“The investor plans to do an ``initial development'' of its risk management around climate tipping points next year, he said. That will include running simulations across the firm's 317 billion ($425 billion) portfolio to see how assets would be impacted. Any investors not thinking seriously about such risks by mid-2028 would ``really be out of the mainstream,'' Patel said. Climate tipping points are critical thresholds in the Earth's interconnected natural systems including air, land, oceans and ice.”
“Unchecked climate change will cascade into danger to the national and global economy. So I ask: Can we all agree on that? There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: [From Bloomberg News, July 20, 2026] Pension Funds Try to Come to Grips With the Scariest Global Warming Scenario (By Alastair Marsh) Institutional investors are trying to figure out what it would mean for their portfolios if continually rising temperatures trigger what JPMorgan Chase & Co. is calling ``climate black swan risks.'' The scenario is one that investors including Allianz Global Investors and Standard Life Plc say they're taking increasingly seriously. It's ``something we really need to think about,'' said Hetal Patel, head of sustainable investment research at Standard Life.”
“Closer to home, JPMorgan has described the impact of any single climate tipping point--and we are approaching several--any single tipping point being breached as ``highly consequential'' for investors. We are not helpless in the face of these warnings. Financial experts and banks who look at this professionally agree that adjusting to our climate reality by organizing an early and orderly transition to a low carbon economy will avoid costly shocks to the system when a transition away from fossil fuel-related assets becomes necessary. It is a little bit like landing a plane. If you do it gradually, it is much safer and smoother. If you crash, it can be pretty painful. So this is a simple truth. It is well documented. We have been warned and warned and warned.”
“The fallout from climate change--from increased droughts and flooding to hotter temperatures and rising sea levels--costs the United States billions of dollars every year. Just yesterday, this article--which I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record and appended to my remarks--from Alistair Marsh entitled ``Pension Funds Try to Come to Grips With the Scariest Global Warming Scenario,'' in Bloomberg News, quotes an investment research chief at the $300 billion UK retirement assets corporation Standard Life, a company that has been around for 200 years. Any investors not thinking seriously about such risks by mid-2028 would ``really be out of the mainstream.'' This is a mainstream concern.”
“The international Financial Stability Board has warned of the cascade of harms: from rising climate risk to increased insurance premiums and reduced coverage, to market withdrawal of insurance, causing a danger of mortgage crises and bank insolvencies. The warning to the international banking system: Buckle up. The Economist magazine described a possible $25 trillion hit to global real estate markets. That is the kind of thing that is bad for bank solvency and that attracted the attention of the international Financial Stability Board. While these impacts are global, they will hit home. As Dr. Bill Frist, former Republican Senate majority leader, testified: Climate change is an economic issue. It affects individuals, families, and businesses of all sizes.”
“Becketti testified: You look at the Housing Crisis of 2007/8, it was a long time before property values came back, but they did come back. This is a different type of dynamic where property values are probably physically not able to come back. And so this is equity that's lost forever. It's extremely difficult to estimate nationally--I'm not sure I have enough zeros to do it. Fed Chair Jerome Powell testified before the Senate Banking Committee in this Congress that in 10 to 15 years, it will be impossible to get insurance or a mortgage in certain coastal and fire-prone regions of the country. Imagine what happens to the economy in a region in which insurance and mortgages are no longer available. It is global as well.”
“is simultaneously inducing heightened risk of flood, storm damage, chronic inundation, drought, excessive heat, and wildfires. . . . [T]here is no avoiding the fact that the increasing risk of large, global loss events will mean higher costs for consumers. Dr. Sean Becketti, former chief economist at mortgage giant Freddie Mac, warned of rising sea levels and flooding triggering large-scale reduction of coastal property values, resulting in an economic shock akin to the 2008 financial crisis--and with no expectation that the assets would recover their value. Those warnings of Dr. Becketti were based only on the risks of what he called ``coastal property value crash,'' not on the growing wildfire threat that is creating a similar insurance death spiral out West. Specifically, Dr.”
“An international network of major banks and bank supervisors, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, Deutsche Bundesbank Bank, and the Bank of England, used this illustration about how climate risk hits financial risk. The direct economic impacts include tanking property values and lower household wealth. Tanking property values and lower household wealth then snowball from individual and family impacts into systemic impacts to the financial system at large. This means that climate change could ultimately cause ``the next systemic financial crisis.'' Financial experts all over the world agree. Dr. Benjamin Keys, professor of finance at the Wharton School, testified before the Senate Budget Committee as follows: [C]limate risk . . .”
“Indeed, in 2023, the now-Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, who had previously served as the governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, testified before the Senate Budget Committee that ``estimates suggest that, over the balance of this century, climate change could reduce the level of global GDP per capita by 10-20 [percent] without efforts to limit warming, the equivalent of a decade of no economic growth.'' He said, ``Similar estimates have been found for the United States''--very like Deloitte's projection for the Americas. So that is climate risk. Now let's look at what it means for financial [[Page S4176]] risk.”
“Modelers for Deloitte, the corporate consultancy, project that unchecked climate change could cost the global economy $178 trillion--$178 trillion U.S. dollars--in the period between 2021 and 2070. The U.S. economy is in here as a $36 trillion hit in net present value across that half-century span. Deloitte's modelers also predict a global GDP decrease of around 7.6 percent by 2070. Other financial experts have warned that worldwide GDP per capita, GDP divided by population, could decline by close to 20 percent within the next three decades.”
“Well, here is my evidence: We know that climate change makes many natural disasters more frequent and/or--could be either--more extreme, including hurricanes, floods, and wildfires--the same wildfires that blanketed much of the Midwest, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic in smoke just last week, resulting in American cities like Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Washington having the worst air quality in the world--worse than cities in India, worse than cities in China. We know that these disasters are expensive. Between 1980 and today, U.S. losses from billion-dollar climate disasters totaled over $3.1 trillion adjusted for inflation--$3.1 trillion lost to Americans. And, of course, that only accounts for the 431 disasters that cost over $1 billion each. There are plenty more harms beyond that $3.1 trillion. The trend is projected to continue.”
“I asked if we could agree that oceans are warming, that sea levels are rising, or that the economic harms of climate change are already beginning to hit and will only get worse going forward. Every time, Republicans objected. I do, however, persist. Today's simple truth is this: Climate change portends a cascade of financial market collapses that could destabilize the national and global economies. My question today is, Can we all agree on that?”
“Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 119 (Tuesday, July 21, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 119 (Tuesday, July 21, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S4175-S4178] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 557 Mr. President, I am here today because there is the simple fact that climate change is real. Earlier this year, I came to the floor and asked my colleagues to agree on that simple, known, scientific fact. Well, they could not. So I returned to the floor several times in the hopes that my Republican colleagues could at least agree to some of the simple truths that make up the bigger picture of the reality of climate change.”
“Mr. President, I appreciate my fine colleague from Indiana State whose Indiana University teaches the science of climate change. But I would like to say that this is not an attack on Florida; this is a warning to Florida of what is happening, what is already demonstrably beginning to happen as a result of sea level rise, worse hurricanes, and heavier storm bursts. I just want to make sure that characterization is clear. Florida is entitled to be warned about this risk. It is a risk we all share. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio. ____________________”
“As climate change gets worse and risks spread, other States will find themselves in a similar position--my own, being a coastal State, amongst them. So can we all agree on this simple truth: that Florida's insurance market is gravely stressed by climate risks? Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of that proposition, S. Res. 556; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Senator from Indiana.”
“Well, to defend, Citizens engages in periodic depopulation efforts where it hands off to those same popup, politically connected, Demotech-rated local insurers tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of homeowners. Boom--the homeowner is dumped into an insurance company she has never heard of. It is a cascade happening. The climate crisis clobbers home values, drives up insurance prices, and causes insurance insolvency in climate- risky areas across the country but nowhere so more than Florida. This is a crisis for families in Florida. The human stories behind this are heartbreaking, and it is growing into a crisis for all of us. Florida's insurance market is the canary in the American climate risk coal mine.”
“One, the delay in paying claims destroys neighborhoods. It is great to get paid by your insurance company when you have a major claim and your house is wrecked, but if the money doesn't come soon, you can't rebuild and the neighborhood doesn't come back. And we see that in Florida now. Two, other Floridians are on the hook for all those claims. The guaranty fund transmits that cost to other Florida policyholders. Now, Citizens Property Insurance--this one--the State-backed insurer of last resort, has a similar backstop when it can't pay claims, but in real life, those levees to prop up Citizens are often going to be uncollectible. There are credible scenarios in which the losses of Citizens Property Insurance exceed its ability to pay claims, and the assessment scheme fails. Those are plausible scenarios.”
“So if Fannie and Freddie were to stop accepting mortgages with a high-risk Demotech-rated insurer, the Florida real estate market would come to a shuddering halt. This is the share of the insurance market in Florida rated by Demotech. This is what is left of the traditional ratings, and this is Citizens Property Insurance, which, because it is State-backed, doesn't require ratings. It has its own separate problems. But this Demotech problem is real. Almost 20 percent of Demotech- rated insurers in Florida have gone insolvent in the last decade--20 percent; 1 in 5, gone. An insolvent insurer is, of course, a disaster for homeowners who have to wait, eventually, to be paid by a State-run organization--the guaranty fund--that takes over for the failed, insolvent insurance. Well, two problems result from that.”
“Well, to obtain a financial stability rating, insurers pay a rating agency. Given the insolvency risk in the Florida insurance market, how do insurance companies there obtain the stability rating required by Fannie and Freddie? Most go to an operation called Demotech. Mark my words, you will hear a lot more about Demotech as this situation worsens. Demotech has rated nearly all of these small, local companies that it covers ``A'' or above. Well, it turns out these ratings are too good to be true. A recent investigation by the Wall Street Journal found that insurers rated by Demotech are 30 times more likely--30 times more likely--to become insolvent than those graded by other rating companies.”
“Even at these high premium rates, many home insurers in Florida are at risk of insolvency. After catastrophic hurricane losses in recent years, many of the major insurers--including Farmers, Progressive, and AAA--all left the Florida market entirely leaving behind small, local, and less stable insurers. Many of those small, local, and less stable insurers have gone bust when claims come in. This insurance problem creates a mortgage problem in Florida. Banks won't finance a home mortgage unless the home is protected by insurance. When banks originate mortgages, they often flip them to government- [[Page S4102]] sponsored entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So, a new problem: Fannie and Freddie will only purchase mortgages which are protected by an insurer and only if that insurer has a requisite financial stability rating.”
“We have been insuring you for years, but your property is now so endangered that we can no longer insure you. We are done. You have got to go find new insurance. Florida: Highest nonrenewal rate in the country. Second, Florida has, by far, the highest average premiums in the country--by some estimates, approaching $14,000 per year. Economists expect these costs to continue to rise. This chart predicts future insurance rate increases as high as 300 percent in coastal Florida in the next 30 years--the period of a mortgage entered into today. Just do some quick math. If it is $14,000 now, a 300 percent increase, four times as much, you add--call it a $56,000 annual expense to own a home, and you run a present value of that simple math, that all comes off the value of the home.”
“According to NOAA, of all the climate-driven disasters since 1980, hurricanes have caused the most damage--over $1.5 trillion total adding all that up--with an average cost of $23 billion per event. And hurricanes hit southeastern States--particularly Florida--the hardest. Between 2020 and 2024, nine hurricanes hit Florida causing $244 billion in damages in Florida alone. They went on often to create more damage in other States--but $244 billion in Florida. So what does the data show is happening in Florida insurance markets as a result? First, data I collected as chair of the Senate Budget Committee shows that Florida has, by far, the highest insurance nonrenewal rate in the country--that is the rate at which insurers say to their customer: I am sorry. I know you have been a good customer.”
“I asked if we could agree that climate change is driving up the cost of homeowners insurance or that it threatens home values. Very clear propositions demonstrated in real life. But, again, Republicans objected. Well, the closer these threats are to your home, the harder they become to deny. So let me try a narrower simple truth today: Florida's insurance market is gravely stressed by climate risks. That is it. Can we all agree on that? I have explained many times that climate change is driving an increase in severe storms, including hurricanes. This chart tracks billion-dollar climate disasters in the United States between 1980 and today. The pattern is crystal clear. As you can see, these events and their costs are increasing.”
“Mr. President, climate change is real. Simple proposition. Earlier this year, I came to the floor and asked my colleagues if they could all agree on that simple factual proposition. Well, they could not, so I return to the floor in hopes that our Republican colleagues could at least agree to some of the simple truths that make up the larger truth of climate change. I asked if we could agree, for instance, that sea levels are rising as a consequence. There is really no dispute about that, but Republicans objected. I asked if we could agree that the oceans are warming as a consequence. There is really no dispute about that either. In fact, they are warming by about 20 zettajoules a year. Nevertheless, Republicans still objected. So I shifted my focus to economic threats.”
“We can do that together. We can find solutions to do that. This resolution doesn't do that. Mr. President, that is why I object. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard. The Senator from Rhode Island. Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I appreciate my fine colleague from Indiana State whose Indiana University teaches the science of climate change. But I would like to say that this is not an attack on Florida; this is a warning to Florida of what is happening, what is already demonstrably beginning to happen as a result of sea level rise, worse hurricanes, and heavier storm bursts. I just want to make sure that characterization is clear. Florida is entitled to be warned about this risk. It is a risk we all share. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio. ____________________”
“I am not from Florida. Florida is a good State. And I love the State of Rhode Island. I did all of my Navy training there. I respect my colleague. It is ironic with this resolution because 2 percent of Rhode Islanders over the last 5 years have moved to Florida, and they moved to Florida especially after the pandemic--all of the mandates and higher taxes, and they are choosing a State that works, that is attracting them, just like people from all over the coast are moving to Florida because they like Florida, they like lower taxes, and they like the quality of life that Florida offers. This resolution is just an attack on Florida. I do invite my colleague--again, whom I respect and enjoy working with--to come to the Banking Committee. Let's work on bipartisan solutions and ideas to bring down the cost of living for all Americans.”
“In fact, we know that the radical, Green New Deal agenda that was wrought on us in this country by the Biden administration raised gas prices in this country to astronomical rates, made life less affordable and more difficult for Americans all over this country. That is why they quickly turned the page on those policies and got rid of Biden and those radical Green New Deal policies and chose President Trump to come back to the White House. We had really good news this week. Inflation rates came way down-- down as much as we have seen it in many years--because of President Trump's policies to uproot Green New Deal policies, passing the Working Families Tax Cut bill that we passed that makes life more affordable for working families all over this the country. It is pretty clear that this resolution is just a veiled attack on Florida.”