VIDEO: Heinrich Slams Sham Green New Deal Vote, Calls For Real Climate Action

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 26, 2019) - Today, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, spoke on the Senate Floor in advance of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's political stunt vote on the Green New Deal. 

VIDEO: U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich Slams Sham Green New Deal Vote, Calls For Real Climate Action (DOWNLOAD HD VIDEO HERE)

Heinrich called for the Majority Leader to allow the Senate to get to work on real solutions to climate change instead of political games. He pointed to the recently passed sweeping clean energy legislation that was signed into law in New Mexico as an example of what Congress should be doing on the national scale.

Senator Heinrich's remarks as prepared for delivery are below:

Mr./Mdm. President,

We don’t have any more time to waste on political stunts or climate denial, or for that matter climate delay-al.

Climate change is real.

Our pollution is causing its devastating impacts.

Those are just facts.

As an engineer, I am certain that our capacity to confront this challenge rests heavily on our ability to make policy driven by facts, by data, and by the best available science.

That science provides us with clear and indisputable evidence that the destructive wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding we have seen are directly linked to human-caused climate change.

We are running out of time.

It’s past time for us to start implementing real solutions to eliminate our carbon pollution and mitigate the most devastating effects of climate change.

And we must create a managed transition to an economy run 100 percent on clean energy.

I would encourage us to look to what just happened in my home state of New Mexico to see that this is possible.

For more than a century, New Mexico has been a major part of our carbon-based economy—from coal to oil and gas.

But just last week, our new Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law sweeping legislation to move our state toward a 100 percent carbon-free power sector by 2045.

I am enormously proud of the hard work that led to this landmark legislation in New Mexico.

This major transition to clean energy will change our state and our economy for the better. New Mexicans will save money in their monthly energy bills.  

And we will create thousands of new, high-paying jobs all across our state—including in the communities most impacted by this transition.

We are already seeing the massive economic potential of this clean energy transition in the enormous wind farms and solar plants coming online all across New Mexico.

Each new clean energy project is also bringing new jobs and millions, sometimes billions of dollars of investment.

We need to take similar bold action here in the Senate.

The United States can and must lead the way in the transition to clean energy.

That’s why we are challenging Majority Leader McConnell to put an end to his political stunts.

Leader McConnell, bring your solutions to the floor, and let’s get to work.