Sheldon Whitehouse
Senator for Rhode Island · Democratic · United States
“We can now connect climate change to specific individual events. In the case of the L.A. fires, scientists from the World Weather Attribution and Imperial College London found that climate change made the weather conditions that drove these fires 35 percent more likely. This kind of analysis is called climate attribution.”
Senate23 September 2026Source ↗
“Each time faced with well-documented truths about sea level rise or wide-ranging climate economic fallout, Republicans have objected. Well, climate change isn't stopping or slowing down, and I won't either. So today's simple truth is that climate change is making wildfires more frequent, more intense, and more destructive.”
Senate23 September 2026Source ↗
“And as we go through those different stages from climate risk to insurance to mortgages to property values, unfortunately, Florida led the country last year in lost property values, which is at least, in part, I think a function of this risk and how it is hammering Florida homeowners.”
Senate23 September 2026Source ↗
“This is a pretty longtime chart in this instance. This is now. So how does it work? What does that heat do to drive wildfires? Well, warmer air draws more moisture out of the soil, out of plants, out of bodies of water. There is a scientific name for this. NOAA calls the phenomenon evaporative demand or sometimes atmospheric thirst.”
Senate23 September 2026Source ↗
“They are running at about $14,000 already in insurance costs for homes in Florida. Double that--not double it, add 200 percent and add 300 percent. That is actually tripling and quadrupling. You can see how that begins to hammer the home's value. And here, you see a similar problem.”
Senate23 September 2026Source ↗
“You might want to start the shot clock on how long it takes for the fossil fuel goons to get in there and change the website. Climate change makes droughts last longer. The Forest Service reports that what was once a 4-month fire season now lasts 6 to 8 months. So there are more opportunities for any spark to start a dangerous blaze.”
Senate23 September 2026Source ↗
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“As he got older, my dad's appreciation for the team turned into one of awe for their athleticism. He'd repeat comments throughout the game--look how strong they are, look how high they can jump. ``Just incredible,'' he'd mutter to no one in particular. This year on Mother's Day, when I called him during game 3 of the second round to tell him our car had broken down on the highway about an hour south of Philly, he'd comforted me first with the Knicks score and then noted that train tickets home might be expensive because of all the Knicks fans coming home that evening. He offered to come get me instead. Two days later, he went into the ICU. The final round of the Eastern Conference began--Knicks vs. Cavs.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“I was approached at the Garden during a game and asked if I wanted to shoot free throws during half time. As a teenage girl who'd watched so many other fans miss in front of thousands of people, I was too scared and I declined. When I got back to the seats from the concession stand and confessed to him, I remember his astonishment, ``My own daughter turned down a chance to play at Madison Square Garden?'' So certain am I in his love for me, that this ``failure'' became a running joke that would pop up at various life milestones. My dad had that chance himself, playing for his high school team on that hallowed court in Madison Square Garden in 1964. Though he was a renowned scholar, one of his prized possessions was the photo of him mid-air, arms stretched high for a jump ball, converse sneakers dangling above the floor during that game.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“Because of those tickets, my dad was there cheering in the crowd when my brother and I played the national anthem with the East Harlem Violin Program before a Knicks game. We practiced while the Knicks warmed up and, for the length of the song, the Knicks watched and applauded for us--a group of local public-school kids--as we played on their court. When the electronics store Nobody Beats The Wiz, sponsored the Knicks, we played the free giveaway cassette tape with jingles about The Wiz and raps about--and performed by--the Knicks over and over again. ``I'm a Knicks fan , I'm a Knicks fan / I'm down with the orange and the blue!'' My dad was always unabashedly proud and supportive of me, so I can pinpoint the one time I knew I'd disappointed him.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“When Allan Houston played with a Band-Aid on his head because he'd bumped it in the night while feeding his baby, I thought there was nothing more noble or sweet. In that moment, I saw that being a fan was about more than athletic ability: Everyone loved Michael Jordan, but I could see the qualities that made my own dad so wonderful in Allan Houston. When I wore my Latrell Sprewell jersey to class, my middle school science teacher asked me--a rule follower to the core--if I supported his assault on his coach (before he came to the Knicks). I grappled with adoring someone who broke rules. I idolized the players my dad idolized. It was while my mom was undergoing chemo for breast cancer, that my dad and uncle got season tickets as a relief valve.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“One day later, the Knicks won their first Eastern Conference championship since 1999. Making sense of the cruelty of that timing isn't easy. One tough reality about mourning is that the rest of life keeps happening while you do it. Grief settles into you while you go about your daily routine pretending a piece of yourself isn't broken, missing. The Knicks kept playing, magnificently, even though my dad wasn't there to answer the phone after the game. My childhood in the 1990s was the last heyday for Knicks basketball and I have a lot of memories mixed up with the events of Madison Square Garden. As an awkwardly tall pre- teen, I found comfort in fancying myself as Patrick Ewing on my basketball team.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“He believed history mattered because it illuminated choices-- choices made differently in the future if we were willing to learn from the past. Many scholars write about public health. David Rosner helped reveal its deeper architecture: the political decisions, economic incentives, institutional hesitations, and cultural assumptions that shape who becomes sick and who is protected. That is an extraordinary legacy. ____ [June 16, 2026] Losing My Dad While the Knicks Win (By Molly Rosner) As Knicks fever took over NYC the last few weeks, I've been excavating more memories of my dad and the Knicks, more lessons that 1990s fandom taught me. So I wrote a fuller piece about it. And here it is: My dad, a lifelong New Yorker and dedicated Knicks fan, died on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, May 24th.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“Many of the illnesses surrounding us are not sudden catastrophes. They accumulate slowly across decades, hidden within the ordinary routines of industrial life. Lead in paint and gasoline. Silica in mines and factories. Vinyl chloride in plastics manufacturing. These were not exotic hazards. They were woven into modernity itself. That insight feels even more relevant today. We increasingly inhabit a world saturated with synthetic chemicals, pollutants, and technologies introduced long before their long-term effects are fully understood. Rosner and Markowitz's workforced us to confront an uncomfortable possibility: we are, in part, dying from the world we built. Yet David was never merely cynical. His work carried a moral seriousness without drifting into selfrighteousness.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“Watching them work was to see historians operating not as distant chroniclers of the past, but as investigators reconstructing how societies normalize harm. They brought archives to life. Internal memos, trade association minutes, and forgotten correspondence became evidence not only of what industries knew, but of how uncertainty itself was cultivated and deployed. More broadly, Rosner and Markowitz helped redefine what public health history could be. Rosner and Markowitz stood at the intersection of history and public health. They understood that disease does not emerge in a vacuum. It arises from the worlds we build--our industries, our housing, our labor systems, our politics, and our willingness to accept certain harms as the price of progress. Their work on lead poisoning fundamentally reshaped the public conversation.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“[May 25, 2026] How Rosner and Markowitz Revealed the Hidden Architecture of Disease (By Bruce Lanphear) David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz did not simply write history. Together, they changed how many of us understand the relationship between industry, disease, science, and public health. Their work became so intertwined that it is difficult to think of one without the other. Yet David's death this past week invites reflection not only on their partnership, but on the singular role he played in reshaping public health history. I had the opportunity and privilege to work with David and Jerry--they were a package deal--in the Rhode Island and California public nuisance cases against the paint and pigment manufacturers.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“``More than the content of his work on environmental and occupational exposures, he really modelled what it means to be an intellectual who contributes to our world'', said Mary Bassett, Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health in Boston, MA. With Markowitz, Rosner would write of edit several books, including Deadly Dust: Silicosis and the Politics of Occupational Disease in Twentieth Century America (1991), Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution (2002), and Building the Worlds That Kill Us: Disease, Death, and Inequality in American History (2024).”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“At City University Distinguished Professor, Rosner initiated and academic career ``teaching public health students to think not only about public health policy and practice and epidemiology, but to think about history'', Fairchild said. ``You have to know something about what came before you. It shapes our assumptions and sense of what's possible.'' In 1998, Rosner moved to Columbia University in New York, where he was named the Ronald H. Lauterstein Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and Professor of History. He also co- founded and co-directed the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, which was jointly hosted by Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“The smarts made him and Gerry path-breaking researchers. The discipline made their research incontrovertible, and the guts helped him weather the response, all too common, from American industry when faced with inconvenient truths: to lie, to bully, to disparage. Well, that behavior did not defeat David. His work stands. As I said, I won't speak long. I will instead ask unanimous consent that three obituaries be printed in the Congressional Record appended to these remarks. One is his obituary in The Lancet, the distinguished medical publication. The second is a reminiscence by his professional peer Bruce Lanphear. And the last is a Substack reminiscence by his daughter Molly. David was a special man. He did special work. I was proud to have worked with him.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, I won't speak long. David Rosner has died. You have probably never heard of him, but I knew him. His research, along with his colleague Gerry Markowitz, helped expose the role of the lead paint industry in poisoning millions of children. He was a great public health researcher. Here is his book with Gerry Markowitz, which I just took down from my Senate bookshelf, where I keep it: ``Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution.'' David had smarts, and he had discipline, and he had guts.”
Senate22 July 2026Source ↗
“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.”
Senate21 July 2026Source ↗
“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.”
Senate21 July 2026Source ↗
“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.”
Senate21 July 2026Source ↗
“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.''”
Senate21 July 2026Source ↗
“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.”
Senate15 July 2026Source ↗
“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.”
Senate15 July 2026Source ↗
“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.”
Senate15 July 2026Source ↗
“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.”
Senate15 July 2026Source ↗
“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.”
Senate15 July 2026Source ↗
“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.”
Senate15 July 2026Source ↗
“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.”
Senate15 July 2026Source ↗
“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.”
Senate15 July 2026Source ↗
“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.”
Senate15 July 2026Source ↗
“We have warnings from the Home Mortgage Association. We have warnings from the international Financial Stability Board. There is an enormous amount of very solid and responsible data that comes not out of the environmental community but out of the financial community warning about the looming great climate insurance collapse. And if we refuse to pay attention to it, we will fail in our duties. I yield the floor.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“The bottom line here is that climate risk has moved from the science department to the economics department, and it has landed hard in home insurance, and Americans are paying the price. So as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I 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. 554; 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.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“We know this increase isn't just inflation because insurance premiums are increasing 40 percent faster than inflation. We know that this cost increase is driven by climate change, and we know it because the numbers don't lie. You can look at the areas with the highest climate risk, and you see that the cost increases most in those counties, the ones at most risk from climate change. The largest increases in insurance rates between 2014 and 2023 happened in the highest climate risk areas--obvious and true. In high-risk States like Florida and Louisiana, premiums are estimated to average more than $14,000 and $11,000 respectively. That is not by accident. That is because those low-lying States are being hammered by increasingly violent and wet storms and hurricanes, combined with rising sea levels.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Disasters like those destroy homes and destroy infrastructure, and all that destruction carries a heavy cost. Before the Trump administration stopped the practice in 2025, NOAA-- the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--actually used to track the costs of this destruction every year. Thanks to NOAA, we have all this data going back that shows that climate disasters and climate costs have been increasing--quite dramatically, actually. This chart draws on NOAA data from before 2025 and other aggregated data since that, and it shows that the increase in climate change- driven weather has been very notable between 1980 and today--from here up to here. Costs of the disasters spike in particular years, depending on the type of disasters and where the impacts occurred.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“It is a massive, massive measured scientific fact. And yet Republicans sent someone to the floor to object. Again, there is essentially no nonfossil fuel-funded science disputing any of this. And I have to put the fossil fuel-funded science in air quotes because it is not real science. It is just designed to look like science and tell a lie in scientific vocabulary. So if the environmental realities are too much for the Senate to acknowledge, perhaps my colleagues will at least recognize the economic threats that are emerging. So here is today's simple truth: Climate change is driving up the cost of homeowners insurance. Can we agree on that? Well, let me break down why we should agree on that. Climate change drives extreme weather disasters, including hurricanes and floods and wildfires.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“Mr. President, I think it is virtually undisputed, among people who are not on fossil fuel's payroll, that climate change is real. Earlier this year, I came to the floor, and I asked my colleagues if they could all agree on that simple, scientific fact. Well, unfortunately, they could not. So I came back. I returned to the floor in hopes that my Republican colleagues could, at least, agree to some of the simple truths that make up the bigger picture of climate change. I asked if we could agree, for instance, that sea levels are rising due to carbon emissions--again, essentially zero dispute on that fact in the scientific community--but Republicans objected. I asked if we could agree that oceans are warming. Oceans are warming by multiple zettajoules. That is a number with 21 zeros behind it.”
Senate18 June 2026Source ↗
“I ask for the yeas and nays.”
Senate9 April 2025Source ↗
“And it just puts revenues on the books that the Republicans can then use to go and do what they really want to do here, which is to make sure that all their billionaire cronies, everybody who is surrounding Trump, all the pals in the Cabinet, and all the ones who write the big checks to the super-PACs and who fund Republican politicians don't have to pay taxes anymore. It is ``Leona Helmsley Day'' here in the Senate. Taxes are just for the little people. This is a disgrace, and I hope there will be a few voices on the Republican side to recognize that considering the Canadian border to be an emergency is preposterous. I yield the floor.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“It raises prices because the money that the Federal Government takes in has to be recovered, and it gets recovered from families, from people who are paying higher prices for imported goods or higher prices for the domestic freeloaders who are going to raise their prices to match the imported goods just the way the fossil fuel industry raised their prices to match the foreign prices of fuel after the Ukraine invasion and so gorged themselves that they made the biggest profits off the American people in the history of corporations. It was the biggest gouge ever by the scoundrels of the fossil fuel industry, and now we are opening the door for this to happen across all industries. American families are going to be hurt, and they are going to be hurt hard.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“That is just a huge sucking sound pulling out of America's revenue the revenue of the corporate entities, and it is not the mom-and-pop flower store. It is the huge multinational that goes and pretends that it is doing its business in Ireland or the Cayman Islands or someplace and hides profits. This is a tax racket against the American people that is now being propped up and made worse by a tariff racket against the American people. And the excuse is one of the dumbest ones ever: that the emergency is fentanyl. Well, Rhode Island was at the heart of the opioid epidemic. That is why I worked with Senator Portman to pass the CARA bill, the biggest addiction recovery response bill this body has ever passed. I take this issue deadly seriously--not the President. Not the President. Mr.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“And when the tariffs get reciprocated by our Canadian friends after this ridiculous behavior from President Trump, then that is going to affect all Rhode Islanders. We buy a lot of energy, for instance, from Canada, and that is going to raise costs for Rhode Island families. It is a direct hit to people's pocketbooks. And as has been pointed out, this is just a shady way to hit Americans in the pocketbook, to raise revenue so that this phony-baloney budget resolution we are about to have to deal with can open up revenues that they can then use as a justification for lowering taxes for the billionaires and the big corporations who already pay way too little in taxes. Some billionaires pay no income taxes at all. The corporate share of America's revenue has gone from about 30 percent of America's revenue down to single digits.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“Mr. President, I am here in support of Senator Kaine's effort to get this body to take a public view on President Trump's mad declaration that we have a border emergency with Canada happening right now. I can tell you that if I go home to Rhode Island and ask people what the emergency is in their lives, I wouldn't get one person who said: Oh, we have got a real emergency with Canada. They are a huge threat. That whole Canada situation, boy, that is dangerous. This is nutty stuff, and it is dangerous stuff economically. Just in Rhode Island, Canada is our largest international trading partner. Twenty-two percent of Rhode Island's exports are to Canada, and we import from Canada as well.”
Senate2 April 2025Source ↗
“Despite very aggressive lawyering for Trump, no finding of a prosecutor's violation of Department policy was turned up; no matter had to be case shopped to other districts after falling apart in one district; no harassment by FBI agents with no court pleading to back them up; and no derogatory public comments ever made outside the pleadings the government filed. Red flag count in the Trump cases: zero. Red flag count in this sorry episode: seven. If Trump's corrupt DOJ will go through all of this just to grab properly appropriated climate funds, imagine what they are capable of with really bad stuff. We are in store for lots more actual weaponization in the coming months and years under this corrupt administration. So easy for me to say that this will be continued. I yield the floor.”
Senate31 March 2025Source ↗
“I thank my colleagues for their colloquy. I see the Senator from South Carolina, whose time we are intruding on, has come to the floor. We yield to Senator Scott.”
Senate26 March 2025Source ↗
“Mr. President, I rise today to mark the centennial of the Probation Act, which was signed into law on March 4, 1925. The law allowed Federal judges to include probation as part of a person's sentence, leading to the creation of the Federal probation system that we rely on today. The probation and pretrial services system have become a backbone of the Federal judiciary and the Federal criminal justice system.”
Senate10 March 2025Source ↗
“And no matter what the answer is from the fog bank, it doesn't change the fact that the money just doesn't go. It reminds me of old bad movies of the Soviet Union where the KGB guy in the corner makes all the decisions and the nominal chief of the agency says: Oh, yes, of course we are going to do this. But unless the KGB guy signs off, the money doesn't go. In this case, it isn't the KGB guy; it is the little muskrats who are in these Departments trying to foul up the lawful flow of properly appropriated and obligated funds. That is a slo-mo contempt of these court orders. And as courts and plaintiffs dig in, I think we are going to find more and more evidence of the deliberate contumacious nature of that fog bank strategy. I yield the floor, thanking, again, our chairman for his leadership on this issue.”
Senate5 March 2025Source ↗
“It is a little late for togetherness when there has been none in terms of defending the work that these wonderful people do. I yield the floor.”
Senate4 March 2025Source ↗
“We are here, instead, to let off the hook that segment of the oil and gas industry that is the worst polluters, that doesn't even meet their own industry standards, and that can get away from the fee that we will be voting down now by simply meeting industry standards. This is a shameful moment for the Senate. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.”
Senate27 February 2025Source ↗
“Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.”
Senate27 February 2025Source ↗
“It is an unprecedented, terrible situation. With that, I yield the floor.”
Senate20 February 2025Source ↗
“Against creepy billionaire influence, I vote no.”
Senate5 February 2025Source ↗
“MAGA may have thought it won the election, but here is who really won the election: the looters and the polluters; the Musks, who are running into our information systems, looting data out of them for their own purposes; and the polluters, who want to pretend that this climate change threat is not real. Russ Vought is dangerous because he won't face the facts on these things because he belongs to the billionaire looters and polluters. I yield the floor.”
Senate5 February 2025Source ↗
“That is what is coming to the Department of Justice. The FBI is in danger of being turned into the political enforcement weapon of this President, who is already breaking the law over and over again in just the last 2 weeks. And a woman who cannot say that Joe Biden won the 2020 election I believe is not going to be able to restrain this kind of misbehavior, let alone the kind of misbehavior we are seeing out of the Oval Office. So regretfully--because there was a lot to like about Ms. Bondi-- regretfully, I cannot possibly vote to confirm her. I yield the floor.”
Senate4 February 2025Source ↗
“The fossil fuel industry has done nothing but lie about this and use their power for evil. President Trump is completely mistaken and under the thumb of the fossil fuel industry. And against that will stand the EPA Administrator who has to be truthful and factual and support and defend our environment and our safety from climate change. In that context, I have nothing against Lee Zeldin personally, but the likelihood of him standing against that fossil fuel bulldozer that is coming at him is, essentially, zero. And that fossil fuel bulldozer is also going to be bulldozing their way into American homes in the form of an insurance crisis that is looming. So this is going to become very real very fast. And in that context, this is very much the wrong guy. I yield the floor.”
Senate29 January 2025Source ↗