WASHINGTON -
Today, U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.) announced that he has introduced a resolution backing Pope Francis' recent encyclical on
climate change and the environment
. The Pope is scheduled to deliver an address to Congress late next month.
In the resolution, which Udall introduced with Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the lawmakers called on the entire Senate to stand with the Pope and the overwhelming majority of the scientific community in acknowledging that climate change is real and caused primarily by humans.
The lawmakers wrote, "The Senate stands with Pope Francis and the scientific consensus that human activity is the primary driver of climate change; present climate trends are unsustainable; and immediate action must be taken to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit the deleterious effects of human-induced climate change."
A copy of the resolution is available
here
.
Udall, a member of the Senate Climate Action Task Force, is a leader in the fight against global warming. Udall has long advocated for a national Renewable Electricity Standard, and introduced legislation earlier this year that calls for the United States to commit to producing 30 percent of the nation's electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
