WASHINGTON — The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday that "climate change is real and not a hoax" — but then rejected an assertion that "human activity significantly contributes" to it.
The chamber's 98-1 vote to affirm the existence of climate change came on an amendment to legislation that would authorize the Keystone XL pipeline, with injured Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid not voting and the only opposition from Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., had advanced the one-line "sense of the Senate" amendment in a bid to kick off a broader conversation on climate change.
"We have to have this conversation," Whitehouse said Tuesday. "It has to begin with as simple a proposition as this, and I hope that if we can build off this — if we can find a few Republican senators who will say publicly that climate change is real — we can then go on to . . . have a conversation about what we do about it."
Whitehouse got more than a few Republican senators — but their "aye" votes were predicated on the omission in the amendment, which only specified that the climate was changing — not that it was tied to human activity.
Moments before the vote, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a climate change skeptic who penned a book about the phenomenon called "The Greatest Hoax," raised eyebrows by signing on as a cosponsor of the amendment and declaring his support for the measure.
"Climate is changing and climate has always changed and always will," Inhofe said. "There is archaeological evidence of that. There is biblical evidence of that. There is historical evidence of that."
Inhofe added that while the climate is changing, the real hoax is that "there are some people who are so arrogant to think they are so powerful they can change climate."
Minutes later, the Senate voted 50-49 to reject an amendment by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, that went further than Whitehouse's proposal in asserting that "human activity significantly contributes to climate change." Under a Senate agreement, 60 votes were needed for adoption.
Five Republican senators joined the chamber's Democrats in voting to support Schatz's amendment: Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mark Kirk of Illinois. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who previously authored legislation to tackle climate change by capping some greenhouse gas emissions, voted against Schatz's proposal.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has previously said she sees the effects of climate change in the melting permafrost of her home state of Alaska, urged her colleagues to vote against the proposal. It's a question of degree, she said, stressing that the adverb "significantly" went too far.
That may have offered some political cover to Republicans on the hot-button issue, who could explain a no vote by asserting there is still uncertainty about the extent to which human activity is triggering or exacerbating climate change.
The votes came just one day after President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address to chide politicians for avoiding the issue.
"I've heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they're not scientists; that we don't have enough information to act," Obama told a joint session of Congress. "Well, I'm not a scientist, either. But you know what? I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA and NOAA and at our major universities. The best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we'll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration, conflict, and hunger around the globe."
Earlier Wednesday, the Senate dispatched three other, non-climate amendments:
— By a vote of 54-45, the Senate rejected an amendment from Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, that would have capped attorney's fees for the winners of lawsuits brought under the Endangered Species Act at $125 per hour. Sixty votes were required for adoption.
— The Senate voted 41-58 to reject an amendment from Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., that would have required the EPA to establish rules governing the storage and transportation of petroleum coke, a refining byproduct. Durbin's measure tapped into mounting environmental concerns about the outdoor storage of pet coke in piles near Chicago and Detroit.
— The Senate voted 54-45 to reject an amendment from Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., that would have effectively exempted power plants burning coal refuse from some Clean Air Act regulations.