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This section captures a formal floor step rather than a policy debate. It mentions legislation such as Recognizing that oceans are warming due to human-caused climate change., committees such as Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, members such as Sheldon Whitehouse.
Official title: Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 552 (Executive Calendar)
Issued
May 12, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, here is a simple truth: Climate change is real.
they could all agree on this simple scientific fact. This being the Temple of Mammon, run by fossil fuel, to no one's surprise, they could not.
smaller simple truths, we could then find areas of agreement. But 2 weeks ago, when I asked on the floor if we could all agree to the simple truth that sea levels are rising, I was once again met with an objection.
So let's give it another go. Today's simple truth: The oceans are warming. Can we agree on that?
the oceans are heating by the zettajoule. So let's talk for a minute about what a zettajoule is.
A joule is the standard unit of energy—heat energy. A zettajoule has 21 zeroes behind it. It is a spectacularly enormous number.
around 14 zettajoules of excess heat every year. If you want a comparison, you can image that that is the equivalent of seven Hiroshima atomic bombs detonating in the ocean every second. That is the size of the heat transfer, and, indeed, that is the number in this resolution.
increased. Our oceans now are warming by 23 zettajoules a year. We are breaking the ocean heat content record for the ninth consecutive year.
on planet Earth is about one-half of a zettajoule per year—all of it, every turbine, every boiler, every engine. All of our energy is one- half of a zettajoule.
zettajoule that human beings create, we add 23 zettajoules of excess heat to the oceans. It is a 50-to-1 magnification, nearly, and it is driving ocean temperatures skyward.
approximately 372 zettajoules of heat. And, as you can see, the trajectory is that things are going to get a lot worse.
somewhere between two and six times greater than the rate of warming at the 14-zettajoule level of annual excess heat. A world in which the ocean is warming at six times 14 zettajoules of excess heat every year rapidly becomes an unlivable world for a great many human beings.
life, happening already—happening already. Fisherman know that fish populations are moving across international boundaries or out into the high seas, causing economic uncertainty and harm for fishermen.
most abundant phytoplankton, significantly damaging the ocean food webs on which so many humans ultimately depend. Warming and acidification combined prevents species from being able to create their calcium carbonate shells.
species that I think nobody cares very much about here, but they are enormously abundant in the oceans. They have been measured as suffering extreme shell damage in the oceans. And they are not a very long trophic hop from things we do care about, like salmon. When you kick the foundation out from under a food chain, it collapses.
severe, taking a toll on fisheries, on public health, on recreation and tourism. If you want a description of what rotting algae on beaches does to tourism, just look at the stories about what Florida has experienced.
humidity, which fuels extreme precipitation and stronger hurricanes. Those stronger, wetter storms and other climate change-induced threats crashing into insurance markets pose a roughly $25 trillion risk to the global housing market over the next 25 years. When the climate risk gets so severe that it crashes insurance markets, that cascades into mortgage markets, and that cascades into property values. That is where the $25 trillion estimate comes from. If you want to look more locally, Florida now leads the country in property value loss as the first and worst exposed to this climate risk.
The threats don't end there. The risks that stronger, wetter storms pose to agriculture and food production, insurance, tourism, infrastructure, the energy sector, and more are very, very real. Mature and responsible warnings abound.
coastal areas. Ten trillion dollars of goods and services are produced in coastal counties across the United States each year. There is a lot in jeopardy due to our warming oceans.
It is the simple truth: Climate change is real. Sea level rise is real. Ocean warming by the zettajoule is real. And all of it is already disrupting American lives, pocketbooks, and families, and it is getting steadily worse.
Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 552; further, that the resolution be agreed to, that the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. JOHNSON. I am here to object. I will keep it short.
had a similar type of what he called a simple-truth resolution, but it is not that simple.
something about it. I am not a climate change denier. I am just not a climate change alarmist. I am not subscribing to Chicken Little scare tactics here.
is nothing we can really do to impact it. We have spent, according to testimony in the Budget Committee when the Senator from Rhode Island was chair, $5 to $6 trillion globally. I saw a recent speech given by Secretary of Energy Wright saying that we had spent about $10 trillion trying to hold back the tides, trying to address this climate change emergency—which, by the way, two Nobel laureate physicists, Dr. Ivar Giaever and Dr. John Clauser, signed on to a “World Climate Declaration: There is no Climate Emergency.” There isn't.
What we have done, though, is we have taken a $6 to $10 trillion cost—the largest malinvestment in human history—and we obviously haven't even dented climate change because we still have the Chicken Littles here claiming a climate change emergency.
So, again, this isn't a simple truth. The simple truth is, yes, climate has always changed. It always will. And I would argue the simple truth is there is not much we can do about it. There is no consensus in terms of the extent that man may impact the climate. We certainly can impact the environment, and we all are—from my standpoint, we are all environmentalists. We want a clean environment. But just think what we could have done with that $6 to $10 trillion rather than spending it—wasting it—trying to hold back the tide.
So for those reasons, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I would just note for the record that the University of Wisconsin in the good Senator's home State teaches the science of climate change, teaches courses with names like “Climate and Climate Change,” “Climate Change, Human and Planetary Health,” “Climate Change Ecology,” “Ice and Climate Dynamics,” “Climate Change and Health Disparities,” “Soils and Climate Change,” “Climate Change Medicine,” “Climatic Environments of the Past,” “Agricultural Weather and Climate,” “Climate Action Planning: Sustainable Transportation,” “Case Studies Exploring Infrastructure, Sustainability and Climate Change,” “Climate Change Governance,” “Climate Change, Sustainability, and Education,” and as a lawyer, I would add “Climate Change, Human Rights, and the Environment.”
unfamiliar with what is happening in the real world with climate change go to their home State universities that teach the stuff and listen to what their home State universities have to say.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.