Talking to my Senate Republican colleagues about climate change is like talking to prisoners about escaping. The conversations are often private, even furtive. Sheldon Whitehouse More Quotes by Sheldon Whitehouse More Quotes From Sheldon Whitehouse When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn't just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms. Sheldon Whitehouse rhode-island texas country Worldwide, our oceans are warming, rising, and becoming dangerously acidic as a result of carbon pollution and climate change - endangering much that we hold dear. Sheldon Whitehouse rising climate ocean Donald Trump disproved the notion that there is a direct dollar-for-dollar correlation between how much money you had in your traditional war chest and what your election outcome was going to be. Sheldon Whitehouse dollars outcomes war I think a lot of the people who feel out of step with contemporary society or feel that they've been left back economically or feel disaffected and are drawn to the Republican Party, they are looking for a news source that will tell them something they would like to hear and then is reassuring, emotionally rewarding, and confirming. And affirming to them. So to deliver that product is pretty valuable. It's kind of like they're an insurgency and they're not getting what they need to hear from the mainstream. Sheldon Whitehouse party people thinking I am the exception to the rule that all senators see themselves in the Oval Office. Sheldon Whitehouse exception-to-the-rule oval office We must now become not just takers from the ocean, but caretakers of it. Sheldon Whitehouse caretakers ocean Trapped in the bureaucracy nightmare, real families suffer when the big banks and their servicers force foreclosures. The emotional toll on children packing up their rooms and on parents struggling to find a temporary roof is a deep one. Sheldon Whitehouse real struggle children How arrogant - how very far from humility - would be the self-satisfied, smug assurance that God, a tidy-up-after-us God will come and clean up our mess? Hope for a nanny God, who will with a miracle grant us amnesty from our folly - thats not aligned with either history or the text of the Bible. Sheldon Whitehouse miracle humility self Once people know that you can spend the money and that you're willing to spend the money and that you're set up to spend the money in politics, then your threat to spend the money is as convincing as actually spending it. Sheldon Whitehouse money-in-politics spending people I, for one, despite being a pretty solid climate hawk, I am extremely sympathetic to West Virginia and its coal-country needs. I lived there for a year. I've seen it. And the same for Wyoming, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky. They all have parts of their state where that really matters. And I think that home-state constituency issue is a pretty constant one. And I think the problem of extreme lobbying by the corporate sector, which runs about $30-to-$1 compared to everybody else in the world, and the constituent aspect combines to give those industries a consistent advantage. Sheldon Whitehouse home running country Sometimes money isn't the determinant. But it sure as hell makes a huge difference. Nobody is saying "Well, thank God we don't need to raise money any longer." It's a very, very big deal to have money, and it is a very, very big deal to have more than your opponent. Sheldon Whitehouse opponents differences thank-god Trump voters are very loyal to Trump, and they don't want to come after him too soon. But, if something comes out that changes that dynamic, if the switch flips, the elevator goes straight to the basement. There's very little in terms of arms reaching out to help him. Sheldon Whitehouse arms voters littles I don't think you earn the right to a message until you've earned it by having a real fight, really being willing to stand up for what you believe in. Sheldon Whitehouse fighting real believe The oceans are a way of life. We fish; we sail; we have a robust marine economy. Sheldon Whitehouse marine ocean way When counting on learning from innovation, there are great successes but also failures. The Wright Brothers invented the aircraft and started an amazing process of innovation, where we now have planes that carry 500 passengers. Along the way there were some silly looking vehicles that crashed early on. Sheldon Whitehouse innovation brother silly Five states - Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois and North Carolina - have been identified by the EPA as contributing significantly to Rhode Island pollution. As of 2010, 284 tall smokestacks - stacks over 500 feet - were operating in the United States: needles injecting poison into the atmosphere. Sheldon Whitehouse rhode-island illinois islands The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. Sheldon Whitehouse wings running people Rhode Island works hard to reduce air pollution in our communities. We passed laws to prohibit cars and buses from idling their engines and to retrofit school buses with diesel pollution controls. But there is only so much a single state can do, particularly against out-of-state pollution. Sheldon Whitehouse rhode-island hard-work school Narragansett Bay waters are getting warmer -- 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer in the winter since the 1960s. Sheldon Whitehouse degrees winter water The law, right now, permits companies that close down American factories and offices and move those jobs overseas to take a tax deduction for the costs associated with moving the jobs to China or India or wherever. Sheldon Whitehouse law jobs moving
