Senator is On The Job

“Time to Wake Up” — Now Over 100 Speeches on the Floor of the US Senate

From an Article by Katie Valentine, Think Progress, May 18, 2015

For climate activists — or really anyone who thinks climate change is a problem — there’s a lot to love about Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. The two-term Democratic Senator from Rhode Island is a climate change champion in Congress, introducing legislation aimed at slowing the planet’s warming, calling out colleagues who deny the problem exists, and, for nearly the past three years, giving weekly, impassioned speeches on the Senate floor on the need to act on climate change.

On Monday (May 25th), Whitehouse will give his 100th floor speech on climate change. As Agence France-Presse reports, Whitehouse usually gives these speeches to an empty or near-empty room, accompanied by a green sign warning his colleagues that it’s “Time To Wake Up.”

Few of Whitehouse’s colleagues have taken his pleas for action to heart. More than 56 percent of Republicans in the 114th Congress deny or question that climate change exists and is caused by humans, and some members of Congress, such as Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), openly mock the idea that climate change is posing a problem.

So far, this hasn’t deterred Whitehouse, however. “If I look back 20 years from now and I can’t say I did everything possible, I’ll never be able to live with myself,” he told Morning Consult about his weekly speeches.

Whitehouse said he had something specific planned for his 100th speech, which he’s set to give around 6:15 p.m. Monday, but said he was “not going to ruin the surprise.” Until then, here are six of the greatest moments from Whitehouse’s past floor speeches on climate change:

‘They’re Not Gynecologists, Either’

In early 2014, a pattern emerged among some politicians who were asked whether or not they accepted that climate change was happening: instead of answering definitively one way or another, they skirted the question, saying simply “I’m not a scientist.”

Whitehouse lambasted this response in November, noting that the lawmakers who have used the excuse — including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House speaker John Boehner (R-OH), and Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) — were “not gynecologists, either, but many have no hesitation about trying to regulate that area.”

“Say you’re not a scientist. Isn’t the responsible thing to sound out scientific opinion?” Whitehouse asked on the Senate floor. “Scientific opinion about climate change is now firmly settled. Climate change is caused by the massive carbon pollution we have unleashed.”

‘You Can Believe NASA….Or You Can Believe The Senator With The Snowball’

In Feburary, Sen. Whitehouse hit back against Sen. Inhofe’s speech in which the Republican senator brought a snowball to Senate floor in an attempt to show that, despite NASA and NOAA finding that 2014 was the warmest year on record, it was “unseasonably cold” in D.C.

In his brief speech — which wasn’t technically part of his 99 “It’s Time To Wake Up” speeches on climate but which still addressed climate change — Whitehouse referenced the multitude of groups that acknowledge climate change, including an corporate interests, “every major American scientific society,” the U.S. Navy, and Pope Francis.

He also explained that the polar vortex was responsible for bringing cold air down to D.C. that week — an event that doesn’t disprove the earth’s greater warming trend that is “beyond legitimate dispute” among scientists.

‘The Oceans Are Warning Us And We Still Do Not Listen’

Whitehouse doesn’t just focus on political fights in his speeches, however. As a Senator from Rhode Island, Whitehouse has been particularly keen on spreading the word about climate change and ocean acidification’s impact on the world’s oceans. In one of his latest speeches on ocean acidification and warming, Whitehouse spoke of the oceans’ mass absorption of carbon dioxide and the impact that has on marine life, and on the fishermen that depend on it.

“I’ve had fishermen back home tell me they’re catching fish their fathers and grandfathers never saw come up in their nets,” Whitehouse said.

Warmer temperatures “make oxygen less soluble in water,” Whitehouse said. “Do we tell the fish to hold their breath while we wait to wake up?” Also, “From coast to coast, and pole to pole, the oceans are warning us, and we still do not listen,” he continued.

‘[Mitch McConnell’s] Own State Recognizes Climate Change As A Problem’

In March, Senate Majority Leader McConnell issued a statement warning other states not to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule on carbon pollution from power plants.

But Whitehouse, in an April speech, singled out McConnell’s state of Kentucky for its statements on climate change. Whitehouse said that the state of Kentucky — along with several cities, Kentucky-based scientists, and Kentucky publications — have warned about the impacts climate change will likely have on the state, including increased migration from coastal states.

“Before our distinguished majority leader, the senior senator from Kentucky, asks all other states to throw in the towel on conforming to the U.S. government’s plan for dealing with carbon pollution, I would ask that he acknowledge that his own state recognizes climate change as a problem,” he said.

‘The Clearer The Science Becomes, The Harder The Polluters Fight’

In his 98th “Time To Wake Up” speech on climate chage, Whitehouse compared the tactics of the oil industry in sowing doubt on climate change to those of the tobacco industry, which in the 1950s and 1960s sought to spread doubt that smoking caused cancer. Action on climate change is a “business risk” for the fossil fuel industry, and that risk is similar to the risk felt by the tobacco industry if the public believed cigarettes caused cancer, Whitehouse said.

“The fossil fuel industry is engaged in a massive effort to deny climate science and deceive the American public,” he said. “They’ve been at it for years, and the clearer the science becomes, the harder the polluters fight.”

See also: Senate Floor Charts of Senator Whitehouse

Gas Combustion Flare -- quanity of gas and quality of flame vary widely

Air monitoring in fracking areas fails to detect spikes in toxic emissions, new study says

A large flare at a central collection facility.

From an Article by Lisa Song & Jim Morris, Center for Public Integrity, April 3, 2014

Some people in natural gas drilling areas complain about nauseating odors, nosebleeds and other symptoms (such as rashes & headaches). They fear these could be caused by shale development but usually get the same response from state regulators: monitoring data show the air quality is fine.

A new study helps explain this discrepancy. The most commonly used air monitoring techniques often underestimate public health threats because they don’t catch toxic emissions that spike at various points during gas production, researchers reported Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal Reviews on Environmental Health. The study was conducted by the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, a nonprofit based near Pittsburgh.

A health survey the group released last year found that people who live near drilling sites in Washington County, Pa., in the Marcellus Shale, reported symptoms such as nausea, abdominal pain, breathing difficulties and nosebleeds, all of which could be caused by pollutants known to be emitted from gas sites. Similar problems have been reported by people who live in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, the subject of a recent investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, InsideClimate News and The Weather Channel.

While residents want to know whether gas drilling is affecting the air near their homes — where emissions can vary dramatically over the course of a day — regulators generally use methods designed to assess long-term, regional air quality. They’re “misapplying the technology,” said lead author David Brown, who conducted the study with three of his colleagues at the Environmental Health Project. Stuart Batterman, an environmental health sciences professor at the University of Michigan, said the study underscores the need for specialized monitoring programs that target community health.

But creating these programs is difficult, Batterman said, because scientists don’t fully understand the emissions coming from natural gas facilities. Air pollutants ebb and flow based on equipment malfunctions, maintenance activities and the weather. They’re released from storage tanks, compressor stations and pipelines during every step of the process: drilling, hydraulic fracturing, production, and processing.

No easy solutions

The Pennsylvania report is the latest demonstration of how little is known about the health impacts of unconventional natural gas development, which uses hydraulic fracturing to extract tightly bound gas. In February, 190 experts from industry, government and the medical community gathered in Philadelphia to discuss major data gaps. The conclusions they reached were almost identical to those in a recent study in Environmental Science & Technology that cited a lack of “comprehensive” public health research.

Isobel Simpson, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California-Irvine who was not involved with the Pennsylvania study, said the group’s paper shows the lack of a one-size-fits-all solution.

“Air quality monitoring is complex, so you need a range of [methods] depending on what your goal is,” she said. Is the research about asthma or cancer? Overall air quality or human health? “All of those weigh into the strategy you’re using.”

Many federal and state-run monitors average their data over 24 hours or take samples once every few days. It’s a technique that’s been used for decades to assess regional compliance with the Clean Air Act. But natural gas facilities have sporadic emission spikes that last just a few hours or minutes. These fleeting events, which release particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and other harmful toxins into the air, can quickly lead to localized health effects. When averaged over 24 hours, however, the spikes can easily be ignored.

Spot monitoring can only catch a fraction of the emission spikes. “Attempts to capture these peaks with 24-hour [averages]; through periodic or one-time spot sampling (under 24 hours); or after a complaint has been filed, will most often miss times of peak exposure,” the authors of the new study wrote.

Batterman, the University of Michigan professor, said 24-hour samples are still useful for long- term health studies, since pollutants like benzene and particulate matter can lead to chronic effects that don’t show up until years or decades later. Ideally, scientists should use a combination of methods to monitor long-term and acute impacts, he said, “but there are technology and cost issues.”

The best way to analyze short-term impacts like skin rashes and headaches is to take frequent samples over a sustained period of time, said Beth Weinberger, a co-author of the new study. She and her colleagues assessed indoor air quality in 14 homes near drilling sites by taking measurements of fine particulate matter once a minute for up to 24 hours. After examining their data, they found that some homes had very high levels of particulate matter more than 30 percent of the time.

“It was alarming, because we realized if fine particulate matter was getting into the house, other things, like benzene and formaldehyde, probably were as well,” Brown said.

Weinberger said her group is now working with other organizations to find affordable monitors that would allow them to take indoor and outdoor samples so they can design better studies.

The limits of air monitoring are especially apparent when regulators respond to citizen complaints near drilling sites. InsideClimate News and the Center for Public Integrity reviewed more than a dozen TCEQ investigation reports on Eagle Ford oil and gas-related complaints. In most cases, regulators responded by taking instantaneous air readings next to industrial facilities. Some inspectors conducted an initial survey by sniffing the air for detectable odors, then returned days later with monitoring equipment. On several occasions, the instruments detected such high levels of contaminants that inspectors fled the site.

Weinberger said the TCEQ’s practice of taking quick “grab samples” is “the perfect design” to miss detecting emission spikes. “That’s what you do if you’re not interested in capturing episodic exposures,” she said. Also, more frequent and consistent sampling is needed, such as monitoring once an hour for two weeks. Regulators can then compare the individual data points with existing health standards to see how often they’re exceeded.

Even when scientists use the right monitoring techniques, it can be hard to figure out what the numbers mean. Federal air quality standards exist for only six chemicals: ozone, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and lead. All other pollutants, including dozens of volatile organic compounds, are managed by a patchwork of occupational standards and state guidelines.

Texas, for instance, uses short-term exposure guidelines of 180 parts per billion for benzene and 4,000 parts per billion for toluene to determine whether a situation requires further investigation.

Other states have different guidelines, and some chemicals have none at all because little is known about their health impacts. The guidelines have another flaw: They don’t fully consider what happens when people are exposed to many chemicals at once, as is common near gas and oil production sites.

This report is part of a joint project by the Center for Public Integrity, InsideClimate News and The Weather Channel. Lisa Song is with InsideClimate News and Jim Morris is with the Center for Public Integrity.