Energy

Dem Gives His 200th Speech About Global Warming On Senate Floor

No featured image available

Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse joined 20 Democratic colleagues on the Senate floor on Tuesday to mark the 200th speech he’s given on man-made global warming.

LIVE NOW on the Senate floor for my 200th #TimeToWakeUp speech. Tonight, I’m with 20 @SenateDems to urge Republicans in Congress to wake up to the threats of climate change. It’s time to act. https://t.co/RBty7jf227

— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) March 13, 2018

Whitehouse started giving regular Senate floor global warming speeches about six years ago, all of them warning of a looming catastrophe should the world fail to stop using fossil fuels. The senator is known as a “leader” on the issue among Democrats.

Tonight @SenWhitehouse gives his 200th speech on climate change and I will join him & speak later in the evening.  Thanks sheldon for your leadership & don’t give up. While the administration won’t respond to #climatechange, cities, states, businesses & universities are.

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) March 13, 2018

Whitehouse joined 20 of his Democratic colleagues on the Senate floor Tuesday, including Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, Martin Heinrich and Brian Schatz.

Whitehouse has sponsored several pieces of legislation aimed at fighting global warming, including a bill to tax carbon dioxide emissions. Whitehouse recently claimed a handful of Republicans expressed support for a carbon tax, though none have backed his bill.

The Rhode Island lawmaker has also called for the Justice Department to use anti-racketeering laws to go after fossil fuel companies and skeptics of man-made warming.

The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained emails in 2015 linked Whitehouse to a letter government-funded scientists sent to former President Barack Obama’s White House, calling for a racketeering investigation into skeptics.

The scientists specifically endorsed Whitehouse’s call for the Justice Department to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law created to take down crime syndicates, to go after opponents of global warming regulations.

“A lot of people haven’t seen through the scam that’s being perpetrated,” Whitehouse told a gathering of environmentalists in 2015.

“So that’s one of the reasons I hope that we get another lawsuit out of the Department of Justice, like the one they brought against the tobacco industry that showed that the whole fraudulent scam was a racketeering enterprise, held them accountable for it,” Whitehouse said.

Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter