Whitehouse urges his colleagues to get serious about climate change for the 300th time

On the heels of deadly flooding in central Texas that claimed the lives of 132 people, including 36 children, with at least 97 still missing, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) delivered a dire warning on the floor of the Senate: regulate fossil fuel companies now, or expect more climate catastrophes in the future.

“It is entirely possible that history will show that the three most consequential disasters for America in our lifetimes were the capture of the Supreme Court by right-wing billionaires, the influx into our elections of floods of corrupting special-interest dark money, and the success of the fossil fuel climate-denial operation at blockading solutions to the fossil fuel emissions crisis,” Whitehouse said on July 9.

This was the 300th time Whitehouse has issued such a warning. The first was in 2012, when he took his own party’s leader, President Barack Obama, to task for not doing enough to address the climate crisis. Whitehouse has restated his case every few months since and marked this milestone with a video compiling his past speeches.

“I’m not sure whether this is a triumph of persistence or an exposition of failure,” Whitehouse conceded. “But it’s hard, given our peril, not to feel a bitter sense of failure about where we are.”

In his latest speech, Whitehouse specifically argued that the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which opened the door to unlimited political spending, allowed the fossil fuel industry to effectively buy out the Republican Party—leaving it opposed to any serious climate regulations. This has created a multilayered problem in which addressing the climate crisis also requires campaign finance reform.

Whitehouse cited the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act as an example of this corruption. The law, signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, rolls back clean energy investments made by the Biden administration, including tax credits for solar energy and electric vehicle production.

“Just last week, Republicans passed Trump’s megabill, a many-headed hydra turning the power of government to help fossil fuel billionaires throttle their clean energy competition,” Whitehouse said. “This will kill thousands of jobs, cede dominance of clean energy to China, drive consumers’ electric prices way higher, and turbocharge the carbon pollution that’s already making insurance, groceries, and electricity more expensive.”

“There’s one simple goal behind all of it,” Whitehouse continued, “[to] help Republicans’ fossil fuel donors to sell more oil, natural gas, gasoline, and diesel.” 

This fight is personal for Whitehouse. His home state of Rhode Island is especially vulnerable to sea-level rise and severe storms. More than 7,000 Rhode Island properties are now at risk of flood damage, which has led to a steady increase in insurance costs.

One policy solution floated by Whitehouse is a “polluter pays” plan, which would require fossil fuel companies to cover the costs of environmental damage—including destruction caused by extreme weather and harm to public health.

“Polluter pays is not just the right thing to do morally and economically and environmentally,” Whitehouse said, “it’s our last lifeboat.”

Whitehouse ended his address by mirroring his 2012 critique of Obama. He said the Democratic Party has been too timid in the fight against climate change and needs to make Republican-led destruction of the environment a central campaign issue.

“Recent Democratic administrations have been conflict-averse,” Whitehouse said. “Lambs versus wolves—and the wolf doesn’t much fear the bite of the lamb.”