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Move over, global warming. There's a new environmental anxiety on the block: more acidic oceans.

Days after scientists announced finding unusually acidic ocean water in shallow areas off the West Coast, Sen. Maria Cantwell and a fellow Washington Democrat, Rep. Jay Inslee, on Tuesday sought to put the issue on the political center stage.

Sitting before a school of coho salmon in a giant tank at the Seattle Aquarium, Cantwell hosted a hearing about climate change, ocean acidification and its effects on Puget Sound and the ocean.

"From an acidification standpoint, the ocean is on fire," declared Inslee, whom Cantwell invited to the forum.

Inslee has long pushed for regulations tackling climate change. Tuesday, he latched onto acidification as a problem that even global-warming skeptics can't deny, thanks to its relatively simple, undisputed science: Parts of the ocean have grown more acidic, as excess carbon dioxide generated by fossil fuels reacts with saltwater, creating carbonic acid.

Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are also blamed for global warming, by trapping heat inside the Earth's atmosphere...