‘We’re scared’: Sea-level rise issue prompts Senate hearing in West Palm
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U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson chairs Commerce Committee hearing in West Palm Beach on sea-level rise, extreme weather
WEST PALM BEACH
Climate change and rising sea levels are real and now, a South Florida panel of experts told a U.S. Senate committee hearing held Monday in West Palm Beach.
“While there are some who continue to deny that climate change is real, South Florida offers proof that it is real and it’s an issue we’re going to have to confront in the decades ahead,” said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, who chaired the nearly two-hour hearing in city hall.
Nelson introduced the hearing by noting that, with 1,200 miles of coastline, and three-quarters of its residents living near its coasts, Florida is more vulnerable than any other state in the continental U.S. to rising sea levels already causing increasingly frequent flooding. During much of the hearing, a video played showing scenes of flood waters rushing through Miami Beach in 2015.