"The Rhode Island senator, who could lead the Judiciary Committee if Democrats win in November, urges stronger messaging and a focus on Supreme Court reform."
"Democrats controlled the Senate and the presidency when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse first sought to roust his colleagues from the chamber’s floor, warning them that they were sleep-walking into climate disaster.
Fourteen years and more than 300 “Time to Wake Up” speeches later, the Rhode Island Democrat is again prodding members of his own party—but now over a disaster that is manifest in rising costs and greater hazards across the country. In an interview with Inside Climate News in the run-up to Climate Week NYC, Whitehouse said it is more urgent than ever for fellow Democrats and climate action advocates to name the “villains”—as he repeatedly called them—who have stymied U.S. policy on the mounting global environmental crisis.
“The fossil fuel industry has done a really magnificent job of false narratives, fake science, the whole nonsense of trying to give people a way to think that they don’t have to do anything about climate change, that it’s a someday problem,” Whitehouse said. “Well, it ain’t a someday problem any longer.”"
Marianne Lavelle reports for Inside Climate News September 20, 2026.
