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…”
The complete record
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“Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 60 (Thursday, April 3, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 60 (Thursday, April 3, 2025)] [Senate] [Page S2217] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] SA 1477. Mr. WHITEHOUSE submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the concurrent resolution H. Con. Res. 14, establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows: At the appropriate place, add the following: SEC. ___. POINT OF ORDER AGAINST LEGISLATION THAT WOULD INCREASE CARBON POLLUTION FROM FOSSIL FUELS UNLESS ACCOMPANIED BY A CBO ANALYSIS OF THE LEGISLATION'S EFFECT ON COSTS.”
“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. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.”
“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.”
“President, 0.2 percent of the fentanyl in America comes across the enormous Canadian border. If you did it like per mile of the American border, it would be immeasurably small. And over this fake excuse that there is a huge fentanyl problem, 0.2 percent, they are going to dump enormous new expenses on American families. People have called this a sales tax, and it kind of is because what it does is it raises prices.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”