Thread by @SeanCasten

To my Senate colleagues trying to whittle down the BBB and specifically to weaken the climate provisions. This is the time for leadership. The world needs the US to lead. All eyes are on Congress. If leadership is too hard for you, get out of the way.

1/ When I was in Madrid for COP-25, a European parliamentarian pulled me aside to say "when the US doesn't lead, bad things happen." They need us. We need to go to Glasgow in a position to lead.

2/ Those Europeans knew that Kyoto didn't pass because Bill Clinton couldn't get the US Senate on board.

3/ They also knew that when we negotiated the Paris Accord it was explicitly designed not to require the approval of Parliamentary bodies because they didn't trust the US Senate to act.

4/ They also knew that as soon as Trump got into office he pulled the US out of Paris. A non-binding, insufficient, voluntary framework designed not to solve the climate crisis, but simply to create an international framework that could.

5/ And so now we prepare to go to Glasgow. Back in Paris (thank you @POTUS). But with the world having learned not to trust our lips unless our feet follow. And having learned that the weakest link in global climate negotiations remains the US Senate.

6/ If we pass the BBB before Glasgow, we will be in a position to lead the world, as we uniquely can. As we must. Showing by our actions that we have bound ourselves to the proposition that the laws of physics are non-negotiable.

7/ And if we don't? We will live up to the low expectations we have created. That when faced with global challenges, the Senate can be relied upon to kick the can down the road, hoping that some future Senate can show the leadership today's Senate lacks.

8/ Those are the stakes. Choose to lead, Senators. Choose Science. Choose morals. Choose cheap, clean energy. Choose to put the interest of US consumers above energy producers.

And if you can't, get out of the damned way. The adults have work to do. /fin