Countries, many times with no family, no connections, sometimes with no knowledge of the language thats spoken there. They believe they were americans. I think they should have a chance to become americans in the full sense of the law. Ive come to the floor over the years after introducing the dream act and urged my colleagues to do something. Im not alone. Its interesting the coalition thats come together behind this issue. Over 75 of the American People think of congress, of democrats and republicans, should come together and pass the dream act. 75 of americans believe that. 60 of the people who voted for President Trump believe that. We have governors of both Political Parties urging us to do something urgently to help. 11 of them democrats and republicans sent a letter to Congress Calling on us to pass the daca legislation. Democratic governors from minnesota, montana, pennsylvania and North Carolina. Republican governors from nevada, massachusetts, vermont and utah and alaskas independent governor, they have all asked us to act and do something about it. Poll after poll shows bipartisan support for the dreamers. Even fox news thats right, fox news found 79 of americans support a path to citizenship for dreamers. As i mentioned earlier, 63 of those who voted for President Trump. Ive told this story so many times on the floor, but it really doesnt have the impact of telling the reallife story of those affected by this conversation and would be impacted by this law. This is zarna pattell. She is the 106th dreamer whose story ive told on the senate floor. When she was three years old, her family came to the United States from india. She grew up in North Carolina and corral springs, florida. She was a brilliant student. In high school, she received the a. P. Scholar with distinction, award from College Board and the math scholars award from her schools math department. She was president of her High School Environmental club. She started a recycling program at the school, led the School Beautification project, beach cleanups and environmental competition. She was a member of the National Honor society, the treasurer of the science National Honor society, a member of the spanish National Honor society, and a member of the rho kappa history National Honor society. Some student. She still found time to volunteer as a teacher for disadvantaged kids and as a youth leader for the south florida hindu temple. She was brought to this country as a baby. She was the only undocumented person in her family. She of course didnt know it at age three when she was brought here. But she didnt let her immigration status stop her at all. She began college in florida. Keep in mind, if youre one of these undocumented dreamers, you dont qualify for any federal assistance to go to school. You want to go to college, get a job. Save the money. Pay the tuition. She did it. In florida she was on the deans list. She graduated cum laude from the universitys Honor Program with a bachelor of science in nutrition and a minor in an throw poll skwreu. In college she volunteered as a student leader for Community Health clinics helping uninsured and underserved patients fpls she was a leader for the friends for life pediatric cancer Student Group and volunteered at a hospital pediatric i. C. U. Spending time with patients there every single week. She volunteered with the Sports Program for children with physical or mental disabilities and was a Volunteer Camp counselor for weekend and summer camp for kids with diabetes. She was a summer volunteer for a communitybased effort to reduce Health Care Disparities in her county. Zarna says that she threw herself into these sreufrbts activities to prepare hearse for her life to prepare herself for her lifes dream to go to medical school. She knew she didnt have a chance. She did all these things in america but legally she wasnt recognized in america. Her immigration status was going to kill her dream. Despite being brought here as a baby, she did the very best with her life that she could possibly do. Then in 2012, president barack obama established a daca program. She heard about it and realized that miracle of miracles, she had a chance. She was now able to step out of the shadows, submit her name for a criminal background check, pay a 500 filing fee, wait in line, and hope that she would be allowed to stay in america protected by daca. And it worked. Something else happened at the same time. A university in my home state of illinois that im very proud of, Loyola University decided to do something no other university in america would do. They decided to open up the competition for medical school to dacaprotected young people across america. They didnt give them special slots or quotas. No. Threw them into the pool. If youre good enough to compete with the best students in america, guess what . These daca students turned out to be some of the best students in america. They have 28 students at Loyola University school of medicine studying to be Doctors Today who are under the daca program that was eliminated by President Trump. You say to yourself, lucky they got in under the wire. Theres a problem. The problem is on march 5 the daca program is eliminated by President Trump. By march 5, students like zarna will lose their protection under the law. And as they lose their protection under the law, they are subject to deportation, which means a knock on the door and you can be gone. And they are not allowed to legally work in america. What difference does it make if a medical student can legally work . Well, ive come to learn it makes a big difference. Because, you see, to be a successful medical student you need a residency. A residency is a job in a hospital. Its a tough job. It isnt 9 to 5 job during the course of the week. Its many, many hours of hard work. You dont get paid a lot of money. You learn what it means to be a doctor, to treat people as they come into the hospital. So if you want to go to medical school and you want to graduate with a residency and specialty, you need to be allowed to legally work in america. Because of President Trumps decision to eliminate daca, zarna pattell and hundreds just like her cannot seek a residency out of medical school. Thats the end of medical school. They are stopped despite all the success in their academic lives. Theyre stopped from going forward. Zarna is a second year student. If shes given a chance, she wants to be a doctor. In my state, we help pay for her education. Heres the deal, though. Zarna pattell, you want to go to medical school and dont have the money, my state of illinois will loan you the money to go to medical school on one condition. You have to give us one year of service as a doctor once you become a certified doctor in our state of illinois for the money we loaned to you. You can serve in the city of chicago. You might serve in the Rural Community downstate. And she signed up for it. She said ill do it. A year of my life for each year of medical school if youll give me a chance to be a doctor. Does this young woman sound like the kind of person that we need in this country in its future . Does she sound like the kind of person who would be the kind of doctor you would like to have . Well, sign me up. Im one of those who believes in her. I know her. I met her. There are 28 other students at loyal spa L Medical School at loyala medical school like her. Their future hinges on what happens in this chamber, whether in the next two weeks senators on both sides of the aisle, republicans and democrats will come together and solve this problem. I want to thank the presiding officer for being a positive part of this conversation. You have been. It means a lot to me and it means a lot to her and a lot of people who are counting on us to do our job as senators. We havent worked out a perfect solution to this yet. We need tpo give and take, compromise, agree to some things maybe i dont want to agree to, maybe the other side does the same, but to do our work to pass the law. Isnt that why we were elected to solve these problems rather than sit here and give speeches about the problems . I want the day to come when these poor staff people breathe a sigh of relief and say the dream act finally passed and maybe durbin will stop giving these speeches on the floor about these magnificent young students. Id like that day to come and come soon, certainly before january 19. Zarna wrote me a letter. She said as i got older i began to understand just how complicated u. S. Immigration laws were and how stacked the odds were against me. Here i was in a country i love, that i rooted for, that i thought to be the greatest country in the world, and my family paid taxes for services that i would never be eligible for. There i was serving a country that didnt even value me as a human being all because i didnt have a piece of paper. And yet, after all that ive been through, after all that this country has said about me, i still call it my heart, my passion, and my home. Close to 70 dreamers are enrolled in medical schools. I mentioned loyola. There are others. I thank them all for giving these young people a chance. If daca goes away and isnt replaced by congress, they cant become doctors. Theyll be deported back to their countries in many situations, where they havent lived since they were babies. Will we be a better country if zarna pattell is asked to leave . Will we be a stronger nation . Will chicago, will springfield be better . A report says the nations doctor shortage is going to get worse because a lot of boomers and others are getting older and need help. We need more doctors and we need good ones, good ones like zarna pattell promises to be. The a. M. A. And association of medical colleges warned that ending daca will make this physician shortage in america worse, and theyve urged congress to do something about it. Heres what the American Medical Association says, and i quote, estimates have shown that daca initiative could help introduce over 5,000 previously ineligible doctors into the u. S. Health care system in the coming decades to help address our shortages. Removing those with daca status will particularly create shortages in rural and underserved areas. Without these physicians, the a. M. A. Is concerned that the quality of care in American Communities will be negatively impacted. When we introduced the dream act, senator lindsey graham, republican of south carolina, said, and i quote, the moment of reckoning is coming. Mr. President , its coming soon. Its coming in a matter of days. By january 19 we have to do something. Weve run out of time. Weve run out of excuses. Weve run out of the opportunity to help zarna pattell and a lot of people like her be part of americas future. Now is the time to act. Mr. President , i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call a senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from rhode island. Mr. Whitehouse i ask unanimous consent that the pending quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Whitehouse thank you, mr. President , and happy new year to you. For my 191st time to wake up speech, i want to take the change of years to reflect on what 2017 meant for our Carbon Pollution of the earth climate and what 2018 may bring. Our human use of fossil fuels continued to pour Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere in 2017. The concentration of co2 in the atmosphere now stands at almost 407 parts per million. The highest in human history. More than 100 parts per million above the safe range in which Human Development for millennia has flourished. Each year brings a new record concentration of co2 in our atmosphere, and that will continue to worsen until the world weans itself off fossil fuels. And, of course, the contamination of our earth and atmosphere by Carbon Pollution is matched by the contamination of our politics by unlimited and often hidden fossil fuel industry money, threats, and promises. When the accounting comes for what they have done to the government of the United States, there will be a lot to answer for. Were in a heck of a cold snap now as the boundaries of normal weather get blown out in all directions by Climate Change, but the underlying steady warming trespassed through all these new extremes of hot and cold and wet and dry is obvious. Here in the u. S. , everyone in the lower 48 except for a few pockets up in the northwest where things stayed fairly steady have seen hotter than average temperatures. This represents hot. This helps cold. As you can see, most of the map matches the hot end. Mean temperature departures from average, january to november, 2017. Residents of the Desert Southwest of coastal texas and louisiana and of much of the southeast lived through their hottest year ever in 2017. Record warming is this color, so you see it all through these areas. Record warmest temperature. Up in the arctic, where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the rest of the globe, 2017 was the second hottest year ever. In barrow, alaska, the temperature rose so rapidly that computer algorithms kicked in and flagged the underlying data as suspect. The computer felt something must have gone wrong with the equipment and flagged the data as suspect. In fact, the readings were extraordinary, but they were real. That was the temperature. We also saw a punishing onslaught of extreme weather in 2017, making it the most expensive disaster year in u. S. History, costing nearly 400 billion in damages. The United States has averaged fewer than six, fewer than six billiondollar weatherrelated disasters a year. Between january and late october, 2017, we experienced 16, which killed 282 people. And final estimates of the devastation during 2017 arent complete. It may prove that a thousand lost lives are attributable to Hurricane Maria and its aftermath in puerto rico. The 2017 atlantic Hurricane Season brought 17 named storms. 10 hurricanes, and six major hurricanes, those with average wind speeds exceeding 115 miles per hour. In august, Hurricane Harvey roared ashore with winds over 130 miles per hour, dropping more than 60 inches of rain over the houston and port arthur areas, areas that arent even on the flood maps found themselves flooded. Scientists agree that the unprecedented texas deluge was only made possible by a warming atmosphere. September also brought hurricanes irma and maria, which ravaged the caribbean, including the u. S. Virgin islands, puerto rico, and the bahamas, as well as florida. Much of puerto rico is still without power months after the storm. Abnormally warm waters in the Tropical Atlantic fueled this punishing succession of storms. Out west, 2017s high temperatures and low rainfall created conditions ripe for wildfire. As of november, more than 6. 4 million acres had burned, an area roughly the size of the commonwealth of massachusetts. Making 2017 the third most active fire year in history. In october, fastmoving wildfires laid waste to the California Wine country, destroying almost 9,000 structures and killing more than 40 people. They were the costliest fires in u. S. History, bringing 9 billion in damage at 85 billion in economic loss. In december, the thomas fire exploded across coastal california, burning over 280,00o becoming the largest wildfire in california history. Notably, fire season should have been over by then in california, extinguished by decembers customary winter rains. Not in 2017. Southern california had nearrecord low rainfall this winter, leaving vegetation desiccated and ready to ignite. The evidence continued to pile up in 2017 of the connection between Climate Change and this extreme weather. The American Meteorological Society released a report showing a majority of extreme weather and climatic events since 2016 were influenced by humancaused Climate Change. Indeed, the report found the record average Global Temperatures in 2016, the record warm waters in the north pacific, and the record temperatures in asia simply would not have occurred without humancaused Climate Change. And we should not, as we too often do, overlook the oceans. The added Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere that has run up the concentration to 407 parts per million alters the oceans very chemistry. The added heat trapped by that Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere gets picked up by the oceans, and it raises ocean temperatures. Warmer, more acidic seas destroy coral reefs, displace fisheries, and rise along populous shores. We measure all this already. So with all these alarm bells ringing, how did the United States respond in 2017 to the Climate Crisis . Our newly inaugurated President Donald Trump pointedly ig