    [House Hearing, 115 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                USING TECHNOLOGY
                           TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                  COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                  MAY 16, 2018

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 115-59

                                   __________

     Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

           Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov

                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

     30-322 PDF               WASHINGTON : 2018

                  COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

                       HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
    FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma             EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
    DANA ROHRABACHER, California         ZOE LOFGREN, California
    MO BROOKS, Alabama                   DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
    RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois             SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
    BILL POSEY, Florida                  AMI BERA, California
    THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
    RANDY K. WEBER, Texas                MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
    STEPHEN KNIGHT, California           DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
    BRIAN BABIN, Texas                   JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
    BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia           CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania
    BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia            JERRY McNERNEY, California
    RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana         ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
    GARY PALMER, Alabama                 PAUL TONKO, New York
    DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida              BILL FOSTER, Illinois
    ANDY BIGGS, Arizona                  MARK TAKANO, California
    ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas            COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii
    NEAL P. DUNN, Florida                CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
    CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana
    RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
    DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  May 16, 2018

                                                                       Page
    Witness List.....................................................     2

    Hearing Charter..................................................     3

                               Opening Statements

    Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
      on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
      Representatives................................................     4
        Written Statement............................................    16

    Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking
      Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
      of Representatives.............................................     9
        Written Statement............................................    11

    Statement by Representative Andy Biggs, Committee on Science,
      Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........    12
        Written Statement............................................    13

    Statement by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Committee on
      Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives..    15
        Written Statement............................................    17

                                   Witnesses:

    Mr. Oren Cass, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute
        Oral Statement...............................................    20
        Written Statement............................................    22

    Mr. Ted Nordhaus, Executive Director, The Breakthrough Institute
        Oral Statement...............................................    48
        Written Statement............................................    50

    Dr. Phil Duffy, President and Executive Director, Woods Hole
      Research Center
        Oral Statement...............................................    62
        Written Statement............................................    64

    Discussion.......................................................    71

                 Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

    Dr. Phil Duffy, President and Executive Director, Woods Hole
      Research Center................................................    98

                Appendix II: Additional Material For The Record

    Statement submitted by Dr. Judith Curry, President, Climate
      Forecast Applications Network; Professor Emerita, Georgia
      Institute of Technology........................................   104

    Slide submitted by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman,
      Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
      Representatives................................................   119

    Article submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
      Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
      U.S. House of Representatives..................................   120

    Study submitted by Representative Conor Lamb, Committee on
      Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives..   122

                                USING TECHNOLOGY

                           TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE

                                  ----------

                            WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2018

                      House of Representatives,
                   Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                       Washington, D.C.

        The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m., in Room
    2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith
    [Chairman of the Committee] presiding.

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        Chairman Smith. The Committee on Science, Space, and
    Technology will come to order,
        Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare
    recesses of the Committee at any time.
        Welcome to today's hearing titled ``Using Technology to
    Address Climate Change.'' I'll recognize myself for five
    minutes for an opening statement and then the Ranking Member.
        Today we will consider the use of technology to address
    climate change. We must take into account Americans' ability to
    develop innovations that will solve or mitigate challenges
    associated with climate change.
        The climate is always changing, but what remains uncertain
    is the extent to which humans contribute to that change. What
    is certain is that human ingenuity will play a significant role
    in resolving future environmental issues.
        Before we impose energy taxes or costly and ineffective
    government regulations, we should acknowledge the uncertainties
    that surround climate change research. Natural climate
    variability contributes to this uncertainty. Solar cycles,
    volcanic activity, El Nino/La Nina temperature fluctuations,
    and long-term oceanic circulation patterns are all naturally
    occurring events that have a major impact on the climate. Other
    unknowns such as the future of energy production and
    consumption also create uncertainty about future predictions.
        Advanced nuclear reactors could change the landscape of
    both the developed world as well as developing economies.
        Here's an example of an alarmist prediction not allowing
    for technological advances. A recent study found that the
    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's worst-case
    scenario, which claimed further increasing emissions and
    temperatures, was based on outdated assumptions of coal usage.
    These assumptions didn't anticipate the American shale gas
    revolution and further undercut the reliability of the IPCC's
    findings.
        In the field of climate science, there is legitimate
    concern that scientists are biased in favor of reaching
    predetermined conclusions. This inevitably leads to alarmist
    findings that are wrongfully reported as facts. Anyone who then
    questions the certainty of these findings is wrongly labeled a
    denier.
        We will hear today about how the U.S. Government
    Accountability Office found that annual costs from worsening
    extreme weather events could increase as much as $112 billion
    annually by the year 2100. The GAO relied on studies that used
    outdated heat mortality rate statistics before the use of air
    conditioning became prevalent. This is a simple adaptation that
    would have changed the study's results dramatically.
        Predicting economic and environmental conditions hundreds
    of years from now while ignoring humans' capacity to innovate
    and adapt is irresponsible. It is also intentionally
    misleading--the ultimate fake news. For instance, claiming that
    extreme weather will become more costly and deadly in the
    future as a result of climate change disregards inevitable
    advances in building materials and construction design. Instead
    of relying on big government to solve climate change problems,
    we should look to technological innovations that increase
    resilience and decrease vulnerability to inevitable climate
    change.
        For decades, climate policy has focused solely on emissions
    reduction. Overreaching and costly regulations like the Obama
    Clean Power Plan do little to reduce emissions. Climate
    mitigating technologies are much more likely to benefit the
    environment. Similarly, non-binding international agreements
    with arbitrary temperature goals like the Paris Climate
    Agreement do not offer any realistic solutions and come at a
    high price to the taxpayer. Even if fully implemented by all
    195 countries, which isn't and won't happen, it would only
    reduce global temperature by 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit over the
    next century.
        Technology, though, provides the solution. Carbon emissions
    in the United States have decreased significantly over the last
    ten years thanks to fracking technology that has boosted access
    to affordable and clean burning natural gas.
        Throughout our history, technology has always led the way.
    All major breakthroughs in transportation, medicine,
    communication, and space exploration have occurred because of
    scientific discoveries. Why wouldn't technology apply to
    climate change too?
        Recognizing this, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and other
    high-tech giants recently put up $1 billion to find technology-
    related solutions. Together they launched Breakthrough Energy
    Ventures in 2016 to fund research into emerging energy and
    climate technologies. This is exactly the kind of innovative
    initiative we should encourage and support.
        To solve climate change challenges, we first need to
    acknowledge the uncertainties that exist. Then we can have
    confidence that innovations and technology will enable us to
    mitigate any adverse consequences of climate change.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]

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        Chairman Smith. That concludes my opening statement, and
    the gentlewoman from Texas, the Ranking Member, Ms. Johnson, is
    recognized for hers.
        Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Let me start by expressing my disappointment that 16 months
    into this Administration, the Science Committee has yet to
    receive testimony from THE EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt. Mr.
    Pruitt has appeared in front of multiple other committees
    multiple times. Yet, our repeated inquiries as to when we can
    expect Mr. Pruitt to appear in front of our committee have been
    met with unfulfilled assurances that a plan is in motion. By
    not inviting Mr. Pruitt to testify, we are--you are not only
    preventing this Committee from carrying out its oversight
    responsibilities, but you are preventing the American public
    from holding him accountable for his actions. It really is not
    too late. I ask you to commit today to holding a full Committee
    hearing before the August recess with Administrator Pruitt so
    that members on this Committee can do their jobs and get
    answers for the American people.
        Today's hearing should be an opportunity to have a
    comprehensive discussion about the necessary climate adaptation
    and mitigation strategies our country needs to address climate
    change. Instead, today's hearing is a continuation of the
    Majority's seemingly unending attempts to call into question
    climate science and promote delay instead of action.
        We will hear familiar stories from two of our witnesses who
    are making repeat appearances, one of whom who has testified
    numerous times in the past, espousing the same views on climate
    that we have heard before.
        Climate is a complex and critically important issue. We
    cannot do good oversight if we only hear from those whom we
    have already heard.
        Despite the title of this hearing, none of the witnesses
    invited by the Majority are themselves developers of
    technologies used in climate adaptation. Instead, the hearing
    seems to be focused on setting up a false policy choice between
    mitigation and adaptation strategies. In reality, adaptation
    and mitigation are not either/or solutions, and there is strong
    evidence to suggest that both adaptation and mitigation
    strategies are necessary.
        The Risky Business Project, the Intergovernmental Panel on
    Climate Change, and the 2017 National Climate Assessment all
    recognize that near-term and long-term benefits from mitigation
    and long-term benefits from adaptation are mutually achievable.
        Let me state this very clearly: the reality of climate
    change is inescapable. Our planet is warming, and human
    activity is a major driver of that warming. The visible impacts
    of climate change are everywhere, and while the Trump
    Administration has already set us on a backward trajectory when
    it comes to dealing with the causes of climate change, we must
    not permit a similar retreat when dealing with responses to
    climate change.
        And let me just say before I yield the floor, I'd like to
    note that after six years with the Committee, Pamitha is
    leaving us to work for the Union of Concerned Scientists. He
    started on the Committee as an intern and was promoted over the
    years to press, then professional staff. So we thank him for
    all of his hard work and dedication, and we wish him well in
    his new position, and you can tell the scientists that we do
    support them.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]

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        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
        The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Biggs, the Chairman of the
    Environment Subcommittee, is recognized for his opening
    statement.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for holding this
    important hearing to discuss climate change policy.
        It is crucial that U.S. policy focuses on American
    technological innovation to address future environmental
    conditions.
        Let me be very blunt: I firmly believe we must eliminate
    all costly, unjustifiable regulations and international
    agreements related to climate change from our policy agenda.
    President Obama's Clean Power Plan and the Paris Climate
    Agreement were estimated to cost billions annually, despite
    having a negligible projected impact on the environment. The
    Trump administration is rightfully putting an end to these
    egregiously pointless measures. Instead we should advance
    policies that encourage the development of technology to help
    mitigate and adapt to future environmental hazards, whether
    climate-related or otherwise.
        To take just one example, hydraulic fracturing drove the
    shale gas revolution, which lowered U.S. carbon emissions in
    addition to boosting the national economy. No climate
    regulation can claim a similarly beneficial impact. Far from
    it.
        The benefits or downsides of any new technology, such as
    fracking, cannot always be predicted when first developed.
    However, one thing we can count on is that humans will continue
    to innovate and find solutions to address pressing problems.
    Our capacity for ingenuity is something that cannot and should
    not be discounted. This ability to adapt through technology
    must be recognized by policymakers and scientists alike. For
    example, claiming with certainty that islands will be
    uninhabitable in 20 years because rising seas will eliminate
    access to drinking water, as one recent study has predicted, is
    grossly irresponsible. Not only is it an exaggerated and
    unrealistic prediction, it completely ignores the potential for
    innovations in land use and advancements in technology like
    water desalinization. Ignoring innovation effectively stifles
    further discoveries and technological advancements.
        Assuming the status quo will remain in terms of technology
    and climate response ignores American ingenuity, which has
    driven economic progress and environmental improvements around
    the world. It would be foolish to craft policy in such a
    narrow-minded, stasis-reliant manner.
        I look forward to testimony from our witnesses today that
    will identify the folly of climate alarmism and emphasize the
    need for a robust debate on the future of climate policy.
        Chairman Smith, I thank you for holding this hearing, and I
    thank all of our witnesses for being here today, and I yield
    back the balance of my time.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Biggs follows:]

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        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Biggs.
        And the gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, the Ranking
    Member of the Environment Subcommittee, is recognized for her
    statement.
        Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
    Member Johnson, and thank you to our witnesses for being here
    today.
        Climate change is an important issue to our constituents
    and to our country. Today we should be having a robust
    conversation about climate adaptation and mitigation
    technologies and policies. We should not be using valuable time
    trying to discredit established scientific facts. The Science
    Committee should not be a forum where the human role in climate
    change is still debated. What would be best for our
    constituents would be working in a bipartisan manner to
    determine the best course of action to help them deal with the
    reality of a quickly changing climate.
        The consequences of climate change are well known, and our
    understanding about how to address the causes of climate change
    continues to improve. We can no longer sit back and debate the
    merits of taking action. The time is now.
        It's critical that we support scientific research about
    climate, and that we build on rather than break down decades
    worth of progress on this issue. Several of today's witnesses
    will try to present a false choice between climate adaptation
    and mitigation, but we know that these strategies go hand in
    hand.
        In my home State of Oregon, devastating wildfires tore
    through the region last summer, endangering lives, harming
    local tourism, and resulting in significant losses for the
    timber industry. Although it is not possible to say that
    climate change causes a particular extreme weather event, we
    need to know more about how climate change increases the
    frequency and severity of these events.
        Mitigation can provide near-term relief and help make sure
    communities are prepared to keep their families safe, but
    adaptation is necessary to address the larger issue of
    increasing frequency of severe weather events.
        Coastal communities in Northwest Oregon are facing the
    consequences of ocean acidification, rising sea temperatures
    and levels, hypoxia, and other environmental stressors. Local
    shellfish growers and commercial fisheries are seeing the
    direct effects of climate change in their industries. Both
    mitigation and adaptation strategies can help people in the
    district I represent and across the country who are directly
    affected by droughts, rising sea levels, flooding, and severe
    weather.
        The challenges of course are not unique to Oregon. In
    Alaska, for example, more than 30 towns and cities may need to
    relocate, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, because the
    permafrost is thawing and destabilizing the infrastructure.
        These issues deserve attention. We should be directing more
    resources to the full range of potential solutions that are
    available, rather than continuing to debate whether humans
    contribute to climate change, which the rest of the world
    considers settled.
        I am especially pleased that Dr. Phil Duffy from the Woods
    Hole Research Center is here to provide a scientific
    perspective on climate change and discuss the need for more
    federal research on global change. I also look forward to
    discussing the need for prompt action on climate adaptation and
    mitigation, rather than encouraging inaction with claims of
    uncertainty.
        I hope the day comes soon when this Committee can talk
    about and work on bipartisan solutions to address the important
    issue of climate change.
        And Mr. Chairman, as I yield back, I want to join Ranking
    Member Johnson in thanking Pamitha for his six years of
    dedication and good work to this Committee on Science, Space,
    and Technology, and I yield back.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Bonamici follows:]

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        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici.
        And before I introduce our witnesses today, let me say that
    we are actually missing one individual, and she is not able to
    be with us. Her flight was canceled, not because of extreme
    weather, no, and this is Judith Curry, and we wish she had been
    able to come, but without objection, her written testimony will
    be made part of the record, and hopefully she'll be able to
    testify at another time.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Curry appears in Appendix
    II]
        Chairman Smith. Our first witness today is Mr. Oren Cass, a
    Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where he focuses on
    energy, environment, and anti-poverty policy. Mr. Cass was the
    Domestic Policy Director for Mitt Romney's presidential
    campaign in 2012. In this role, he helped shape campaign policy
    and communication on a variety of issues ranging from
    healthcare to energy to trade. Prior to joining the Manhattan
    Institute, Mr. Cass was a Management Consultant for Bain and
    Company, where he advised global companies on implementing
    growth strategies and performance improvement programs. Mr.
    Cass holds a bachelor of arts in political economy from
    Williams College and a juris doctor from Harvard University,
    where he was an Editor and the Vice President of the Harvard
    Law Review.
        Our next witness is Mr. Ted Nordhaus, Founder and Executive
    Director of the Breakthrough Institute. He is a recognized
    author, researcher and political strategist in climate and
    energy policy. Mr. Nordhaus is the co-author of Breakthrough,
    the widely distributed book that was reviewed as ``a vital
    strain of realism'' by Time magazine. His opinion and editorial
    writings have been published in the Harvard Law and Policy
    Review, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Scientific
    American, and other nationally distributed media. Over the
    years, Mr. Nordhaus has received the Green Book Award and
    Times' Heroes of the Environment Award. He holds a bachelor of
    arts in history from the University of California-Berkley.
        Dr. Phil Duffy, our third witness, is President and
    Executive Director of Woods Hole Research Center. Prior to
    joining WHRC, Dr. Duffy served as a Senior Adviser in the White
    House National Science and Technology Council and as a Senior
    Policy Analyst in the White House Office of Science and
    Technology Policy. Before this, Dr. Duffy was the Chief
    Scientist for Climate Central, Inc. He has held senior research
    positions with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and
    visiting positions at the Carnegie Institute for Science and
    the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.
    Dr. Duffy was the recipient of the United Nations Association
    Global Citizen Award. He holds a bachelor's degree from Harvard
    University and a Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford
    University.
        We welcome you all. We appreciate your presence and your
    effort to get here. It wasn't easy for everybody. And Mr. Cass,
    if you'll begin?

                      TESTIMONY OF MR. OREN CASS,

                             SENIOR FELLOW,

                          MANHATTAN INSTITUTE

        Mr. Cass. Thank you very much. Good morning, Chairman
    Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, and Members of the Committee,
    and thank you again for inviting me to participate in today's
    hearing. My name is Oren Cass. I'm a Senior Fellow at the
    Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, where my work
    addresses environmental policy including climate change
    economics.
        My primary message to the Committee is this: The
    assumptions that we make about how human society will adapt to
    climate change are central to our understanding of the
    challenges the phenomenon presents and the costs that it will
    impose. Analyses that do not properly account for adaptation
    describe an alternative universe that does not exist. The
    estimates they produce are not plausible forecasts of future
    costs and should not be credited by policymakers.
        Let me pause here to clarify that this issue does not
    concern climate science, and also to clarify that I would agree
    with the opening remarks that mitigation as well as adaptation
    is an important part of addressing climate change, and both of
    those points are addressed in my written testimony as well.
        I believe policymakers should use mainstream climate
    science as the starting point for their work but we depart the
    world of climate science for that of climate economics when we
    turn to the question of how those changes will affect human
    society via their influence on public health or infrastructure
    or the economy.
        The common failure to consider adaptation has profound
    consequences for how people conceptualize climate change,
    leading to what I call climate catastrophism. If the entire
    brunt of a century of climate change were to land on
    civilization tomorrow, the result might well be catastrophic,
    but if those changes occur gradually, as they are expected to,
    if they emerge in a world far wealthier and more
    technologically advanced than today's, as we expect it to be,
    and if policymakers ensure that people have the information and
    incentives to plan well, something over which we have control,
    then climate change will impose real costs but ones that we
    should have confidence in our ability to manage.
        I'd like to briefly show what happens when we do this wrong
    and do not take account of adaptation properly. These are
    results of some recent studies that I describe the details of
    in my written testimony and which I'd be happy to answer
    questions about in more detail as well.
        The first is from a study published in 2015 in Nature that
    looks at the relationship between year-to-year variations in
    temperature and year-to-year variations in economic growth
    across countries, and what they found was that there's a
    relationship. Some temperatures are better than others for
    growth, and they extrapolated that relationship out through the
    end of the century, essentially assuming that by the end of the
    century, countries will react every year to significantly
    warmer temperatures as if they came from out of nowhere.
        What you're seeing here is the GDP per capita estimates
    produced by the study. You see essentially that China and India
    never grow wealthy because they become too warm. The United
    States does continue to grow, but by the end of the century has
    essentially flatlined, and if we begin to move higher up the
    chart, we reach Mongolia, which achieves per capita income
    roughly four times that of the United States, thanks to the
    warmer temperatures it would experience, or if we move even
    higher, we eventually reach all the way to Iceland at per
    capita incomes of $1.5 million, again because warmer
    temperatures would imply higher growth rates in perpetuity.
        Now, these are obviously in some cases the outlying or
    extreme examples from the study but I think that that's the
    point, that if you don't consider the fact that these
    relationships will not simply hold unchanged, you end up with
    absurd results.
        I'd like to look next at a study--excuse me, sorry, if we
    can skip to the next slide. Next slide. Thank you.
        [Slide]
        I'd like to look next at the GAO assessment of climate
    costs published last fall, which looked at two syntheses of
    costs to the United States. On the left is one published by the
    EPA, and on the right, one published by Rhodium. The Rhodium
    study finds most of its costs from extreme-heat deaths,
    literally it being so hot that tens of thousands of people die.
    The EPA study finds even higher costs from declines in air
    quality. And if we flip to the next slide, this is the EPA
    finding, that for both ozone and particulate matter, which have
    declined substantially in just the last 15 years, a very small
    uptick would essentially be the largest and in fact majority of
    all costs of climate change in the United States. This assumes
    that despite all progress to date, there is no further progress
    and we reduce pollution no more throughout the rest of the
    century.
        [Slide]
        And finally, if we flip to the last slide--this is my
    favorite--EPA looks at heat-related deaths and produces a chart
    that at first glance seems reasonable. Baseline in 2000, you
    see very small red dots, not a lot of deaths. By 2100, it's
    hotter and you see more deaths. But if you click ahead one
    click, notice what this implies, that the deaths in the North
    in 2100 will be dramatically higher than in the South in 2000,
    and if you flip ahead one more time, this is again the data on
    the EPA website showing that if we assume cities don't adjust
    in any way, deaths in places like Pittsburgh, Detroit, and New
    York will be 50 to 75 times the rate we see in Phoenix,
    Houston, and New Orleans today. This is obviously not what is
    going to happen. It's not a responsible way to connect economic
    analyses, and we should not be using it as the basis for
    policymaking.
        Thank you very much.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Cass follows:]

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        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Cass, very much.
        Mr. Nordhaus.

                     TESTIMONY OF MR. TED NORDHAUS,

                          EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

                       THE BREAKTHROUGH INSTITUTE

        Mr. Nordhaus. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to
    testify today. My name is Ted Nordhaus, and I am the Founder
    and Executive Director of the Breakthrough Institute. We're an
    environment think tank located in Oakland, California. My think
    tank counts among its senior fellows a number of prominent
    climate scientists, technologists and social scientists, and my
    testimony today will draw upon this work to present a synthesis
    reflecting our assessment of the nature of climate risk, the
    uncertainties associated with action and inaction, and
    pragmatic steps that we might take today to address those
    risks.
        To begin, let me offer a few observations about climate
    science and climate risk. First, there is a well-established
    scientific consensus regarding atmospheric anthropogenic
    climate change: global temperatures are rising, and that rise
    has been caused in significant part by greenhouse gas emissions
    resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels.
        Second, and to the best of my knowledge, none of the
    witnesses called today for either the Majority or the Minority
    contest these well-established facts.
        Third, there are a range of uncertainties beyond this
    consensus about the sensitivity of the climate, the likelihood
    of specific climate impacts, the capacity for adaptation, and
    the costs of mitigation that provide ample justification for
    either far-reaching and immediate action or no action
    whatsoever.
        So how then should policymakers respond? Let me first
    address climate mitigation. Efforts to cap price and regulate
    greenhouse gas emissions have not much affected the trajectory
    of emissions anywhere to date. Under the best of circumstances,
    they have modestly tipped the scales toward lower carbon fuels
    and technologies. For this reason, the success of efforts to
    substantially drive decarbonization to levels that diverge from
    business-as-usual trajectories will depend primarily upon the
    availability of low-carbon technologies that are cheap and
    scalable.
        Presently, there are important short-term steps that
    federal policymakers can take to assure that America sees
    continuing declines in emissions. Most importantly among these
    are measures to keep America's existing fleet of nuclear
    reactors online. We should also abandon misguided efforts to
    bail out the coal industry.
        Reducing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to
    levels sufficient to much alter the trajectory of climate
    change, however, will require a concerted and collaborative
    effort between the public and private sectors to develop a
    range of low-cost, low-carbon technologies for the 70 percent
    of emissions in the United States that emanate from outside of
    the power sector in the industrial, transportation, and
    agricultural sectors. These include advanced nuclear energy,
    carbon capture, advanced renewable and geothermal energy, and
    long-term energy store capabilities.
        Even in the best case, however, decarbonization efforts
    alone are unlikely to limit global temperatures to 2 degrees
    Celsius. For this reason, climate adaptation will play a large
    role in determining how well human societies weather a change
    in climate. Infrastructure, sea walls and flood channels,
    modern housing and transportation networks, water and sewage
    systems and similar are what makes us resilient to extreme
    climate events. As such, there are few things more impactful
    that this Congress could do than to substantially increase
    national investment in infrastructure so too recommitting
    ourselves to ensuring a comprehensive federal response to all
    natural disasters for all of America's citizens.
        So to summarize, climate change is real, its origins are
    primarily anthropogenic, and it presents risks that are
    difficult to quantify but could be catastrophic. For this
    reason, reasonable measures to mitigate and adapt to climate
    change are prudent, but climate policy debates have too often
    overemphasized mitigation at the expense of adaptation focused
    on decarbonization at the expense of other mitigation pathways,
    attempting to make dirty energy expensive rather than clean
    energy cheap, and focused heavily upon renewable-energy
    technologies to the exclusion of the broad sweep of low-carbon
    technologies that will likely be necessary to deeply
    decarbonize the global economy.
        So let me close finally with a call for moderation and
    humility on both sides of the aisle in place of bombast,
    alarmism, and denial in the face of irresolvable uncertainties
    that the issue presents America and the world will be better
    served by turning down the rhetoric and focusing on pragmatic
    measures to mitigate climate risk and adapt to risks that we
    won't be able to avoid.
        Thank you very much for considering my testimony.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Nordhaus follows:]

     [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Nordhaus.
        And Dr. Duffy.

                      TESTIMONY OF DR. PHIL DUFFY,

                   PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

                       WOODS HOLE RESEARCH CENTER

        Dr. Duffy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Johnson,
    and Members of the Committee for the opportunity to appear here
    today.
        In my remarks this morning, I'm going to discuss the threat
    of global climate change but I do want to mention that I
    started my career in the Nuclear Weapons Complex at Lawrence
    Livermore National Laboratory, where I worked on nuclear-
    weapons testing and also on protecting the United States
    against the threat of nuclear ballistic missile attack.
        The threat that I've devoted the bulk of my career to,
    global climate change, I believe to be equally important. In my
    remarks this morning, I'm going to focus on some of the science
    of climate change and on the role of technologies in addressing
    it, and on the leadership and business opportunities that I
    believe this presents.
        The fact of global warming should be beyond question, so I
    won't review here the mountain of observational evidence we
    have documenting warming of the planet and associated related
    changes such as increases in some form of extreme weather,
    thawing permafrost, and so on.
        The scientific consensus on human causation of climate
    change is as strong as the consensus on the fact of climate
    change itself, and I would like to quote from volume one of the
    fourth National Climate Assessment. This was released last
    November by the Trump Administration, and I quote: ``This
    assessment concludes that it is extremely likely that human
    activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the
    dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th
    century. There's no convincing alternative explanation.''
        Governments also recognize human causation of climate
    change. As of now, every country in the world is a party to the
    Paris Climate Agreement. It makes no sense to be part of that
    agreement if you do not recognize not only the seriousness of
    the climate threat but the human role in causing that threat.
        Turning to technologies, we need technologies for
    mitigation of climate change, that is, preventing unacceptable
    climate change; for adaptation, that is, coping with
    unpreventable climate change; and we also need technology for
    measuring emissions of greenhouse gases. And my topline message
    this morning is that I hope our government will lead the
    development of these technologies not only because we need them
    but because once again this presents an opportunity for the
    U.S. research and business communities, and that's an
    opportunity that if we don't take advantage of, someone else
    will.
        For mitigation, my first recommendation would be to
    accelerate deployment of the technologies we have now, namely
    wind and solar. We also do of course need new technologies for
    energy generation for energy storage and energy transmission.
    And because we've delayed so long in implementing effective
    climate policies, we now also need technologies to remove
    carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And while we're developing
    those technologies, we do have an important opportunity to
    implement land management practices which can pull a
    significant quantity of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere,
    and those same land management practices like reforestation and
    restoring wetlands and so on also have important benefits for
    climate adaptation.
        Turning now to adaptation, we need a host of technologies
    for coping with the range of climate impacts. These include
    extreme weather, infectious disease, water contamination, water
    scarcity, food scarcity, and so on. The good news is that
    adaptation measures are generally cost-effective because in
    fact we're generally underadapted and underprepared for the
    climate we have today, and if you doubt that, you need look no
    farther than Houston or Puerto Rico.
        Finally, I want to mention that we do need technologies to
    better measure greenhouse gas emissions. They say that you
    can't control what you can't measure, and any effective climate
    policy needs reliable techniques for measuring greenhouse gas
    emissions.
        So in closing, I'd like to encourage you to support
    American efforts to do the research and to develop the
    technologies that we need to tackle climate change. Addressing
    this threat is an opportunity for American leadership that I
    would hate to see us miss.
        Thank you for the opportunity to appear here this morning.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Duffy follows:]

     [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Duffy, and I'll recognize
    myself for questions.
        And Mr. Cass, let me direct my first one to you. You put up
    a couple of slides today. One had to do with the number of heat
    deaths increasing exponentially, particularly in the Northeast.
    Would you go into just some quick detail as to why that study
    was flawed? And you mentioned the Rhodium study as well, but
    take your pick. Just why are some of these studies flawed and
    why should we sort of discount them?
        Mr. Cass. Sure. Thank you. I think to understand
    conceptually why they're flawed, it's important to recognize
    that all regions, even within the United States, adapt to their
    local climate, and so when you look across the country you
    find, for instance, that people in the hotter parts of the
    country are not suffering from higher heat-related mortality
    than people in the cooler parts. The logical conclusion to draw
    from that would be that as the country gets warmer, we should
    not expect to see a lot more heat-related deaths because,
    again, people will adapt to whatever heat they face, and
    indeed, that's what the most recent published literature shows.
        What studies do instead to generate large heat death
    estimates is to look at the reaction we have seen historically
    even per hot day or per days that are especially hot for a
    location and simply extrapolate forward if we see many more hot
    days than surely we will see that many more deaths. And the EPA
    study is the best example of this where they take a city like
    Pittsburgh and they say if one percent of Pittsburgh days have
    lows above 71 degrees, we will call that extreme heat for
    Pittsburgh, and whatever the death rate they experience on
    those days they will continue to experience that death rate on
    days when the temperature is above a low of 71 even if that
    becomes very common in the future and so you see the death rate
    in Pittsburgh skyrocket if you assume that. Of course, if the
    climate in Pittsburgh shifts to be more like that of a more
    southerly city, Pittsburgh's use of air conditioning and other
    adaptive technologies will shift as well, and the result will
    likely be that we will see the same low death rate that we do
    today.
        Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Cass.
        Mr. Nordhaus, I appreciate your good point that given the
    uncertainties we all could use some moderation and humility. A
    good reminder.
        What I wanted to ask you about is, you mentioned that we
    couldn't just rely upon renewable energy; we need to make
    better use of fossil fuels. Would you go into some detail or
    give examples of what you're talking about?
        Mr. Nordhaus. Well, I think the primary point that I would
    want to stress to this Committee, a couple of things. The first
    is that whatever we may think we should do, the evidence is
    pretty strong that 70 percent of U.S. energy, well over 70
    percent of U.S. primary energy still comes from fossil fuels.
    That's true globally. And despite longstanding efforts, that
    has not changed very much going all the way back to the oil
    shocks of the 1970s. So part of that we could do better. Part
    of that, there are a lot of uses of fossil fuels that we don't
    have very good alternatives for. We spend a lot of time arguing
    and talking about various technological pathways in the power
    sector, which is a little bit like looking for your keys under
    the light post because that's where the light is. That's the
    easy place where there really are good options for
    decarbonization so we like to argue about that, but once you
    get outside of the power sector into industry, heavy
    transportation, and agriculture, it gets much harder.
        Secondly, in the developed world, there are very
    significant tradeoffs. The things that make us resilient to
    climate extremes, whether they are caused by climate change or
    just normal climate variability, are infrastructure, and
    infrastructure, building infrastructure, is a really energy-
    intensive business--steel, cement, things like that, and again,
    those are exactly the sectors we don't have particularly good
    alternatives, low-carbon alternatives in. So for that reason, I
    think there's important tradeoffs, especially when we think
    about poor countries and their use of fossil fuels, that we
    need to keep in mind in terms of what will make those countries
    in the coming decades most resilient to a changing climate.
        Chairman Smith. All right. Thank you, Mr. Nordhaus.
        And Dr. Duffy, I appreciated your mention of technology.
    Obviously I agree with that. You mentioned your background and
    your experience, let's call it with nuclear energy, at least
    that's the way you started at Lawrence Livermore, and I'm
    wondering if you feel that if we do develop nuclear fusion as
    many expect to in the next ten years, I mean, there's almost
    nothing else we could do that would have more of a dramatic
    impact on reducing carbon emissions, I think, than nuclear
    fusion. Do you agree with that, or what impact do you think
    that would have if we came up with a cost-effective way of
    producing that kind of energy?
        Dr. Duffy. Well, Mr. Chair, thank you for the question. I
    just want to clarify. My experience at Lawrence Livermore
    National Lab was with nuclear weapons.
        Chairman Smith. I knew that. I was actually----
        Dr. Duffy. And----
        Chairman Smith. It's still nuclear. I was hoping----
        Dr. Duffy. I'm proud to be a tree hugger but I don't think
    there's too many tree huggers who've detonated nuclear bombs.
        Chairman Smith. Okay.
        Dr. Duffy. As far as nuclear fusion goes, I mean, it's been
    30 years in the future for at least 30 years.
        Chairman Smith. Okay.
        Dr. Duffy. I will say I do support Mr. Nordhaus's opinion
    that we need to make better use and more extensive use of
    nuclear fusion.
        Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Duffy.
        I'm going to do something that I don't do very often, and
    that is, without objection yield myself an additional minute,
    and the reason I'd like to do so is because Dr. Curry is not
    here but I would like to put up a slide that I was going to use
    had she been here, and I'd like all Members to take a look at
    this.
        [Slide]You will see that for the last 100 years, sea-level
    rise has been basically constant. It's been going up at about
    1.8 millimeters per year, and you'll see that there appears to
    be no correlation between the increase in the sea level and
    carbon emissions, and I just want to put that up there for our
    edification. I was going to ask Dr. Curry about it but I think
    it kind of speaks for itself.
        Dr. Duffy. I'd like to comment on that, Mr. Chair. You
    know, you've shown a sea-level record from one location.
        Chairman Smith. Right. This is San Francisco. It's also
    Boston, which appears to be----
        Dr. Duffy. The rate of global sea-level rise has
    accelerated and is now four times faster than it was 100 years
    ago.
        Chairman Smith. Is this chart inaccurate then?
        Dr. Duffy. It's accurate but it doesn't represent what's
    happening globally. It represents what's happening in San
    Francisco.
        Chairman Smith. All the charts I've seen, whether it be San
    Francisco, whether it be Boston or anywhere else show about the
    same degree of increase. I'm welcome to look at whatever you
    want to propose but this is----
        Dr. Duffy. I'd be happy to show that to you.
        Chairman Smith. These are objective charts that I've seen,
    so thank you, Dr. Duffy.
        That concludes my questions, and the Ranking Member, Ms.
    Johnson, is recognized for hers.
        Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Our understanding of Earth's climate system continues to
    improve, and within some of our lifetimes, we've seen the
    accuracy of our short-term weather forecasts improve
    dramatically. As a matter of fact, just the time that I've been
    in Congress, we've seen improvement in travel. Yesterday, for
    example, it took me about seven hours to get here from Dallas,
    Texas, because of weather. We didn't see the weather but it was
    predicted, and we made it and we got here.
        So Dr. Duffy, how do you respond to those who suggest that
    we cannot adequately anticipate the consequences of climate
    change in order to develop effective mitigation and adaptation
    strategies?
        Dr. Duffy. Thank you for the question, Ranking Member
    Johnson. I would say this. You know, the climate models that we
    have do faithfully reproduce the broader outlines of physical
    climate change, and these include increases in the global
    temperature, polar amplification, that is, more rapid warming,
    particularly in the North Pole, increases in precipitation and
    extreme precipitation, although those are actually
    underpredicted by climate models. The models also predict loss
    of sea ice, although again they've underpredicted the observed
    rate of loss of sea ice, and similarly, the models predict loss
    of land ice but once again have underpredicted the rate that
    that's occurred. The models predict stratospheric cooling,
    thawing permafrost, increases in heat exchange. All of these
    phenomena have been very accurately representative models.
        And I'm glad that you actually mentioned the miracle of
    weather prediction because there is a connection between making
    climate projections and the miracle of weather prediction and
    actually some of the European centers that do a very, very good
    job at day-to-day weather forecasting use literally the same
    computer program for their climate predictions that they use to
    predict day-to-day weather, and again, those are literally the
    best weather forecasts in the world today.
        Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much.
        If we veer away from looking into climate change and its
    effects and look in another direction or deny it's there at
    all, I think we'll fail to improve our predictions, and where
    do you think that will take us? Because if we can stop--we can
    stop anything we want to here but it doesn't stop climate
    change. We can deny it happens but it does happen. And so if we
    look the other way and decide that we are not going to
    research, what do you think the outcome might be?
        Dr. Duffy. Well, thank you for the question. You know, the
    outcomes from unmitigated climate change are not pretty, and
    I'm very happy to hear both of my co-witnesses supporting the
    need for both mitigation and adaptation. You know, one of the
    things that I'm most concerned about with climate change is the
    threat of crossing so-called thresholds and tipping points, and
    what that means essentially is processes which once underway
    become irreversible, and one of those is the thawing of
    permafrost, which I mentioned. Permafrost is mostly in the
    Arctic. It sounds far away but there's an enormous quantity of
    carbon tied up in frozen permafrost. It's starting to thaw.
    It's starting to release greenhouse gases. That threatens to
    become an unstoppable process, which would greatly amplify
    global warming.
        And I'll just mention one more, and that is the decay of
    the major land ice sheets. Similarly, those processes are
    probably slow but we may be very near the point where they
    become unstoppable and therefore commit the planet to many,
    many meters of sea-level rise.
        Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
        Without objection, I'd like to put in the record, this is
    an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal by Fred Singer. He is a
    Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at the University
    of Virginia, and he founded the Science and Environmental
    Policy Project. The headline on this op-ed is ``The sea is
    rising but not because of climate change.''
        [The information appears in Appendix II]
        Chairman Smith. We'll now go to the gentleman from
    California, Mr. Rohrabacher, for his questions.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, thank you very much. Let me just
    note before I ask any questions, I have in my career been very
    supportive of trying to develop certain technologies that I
    consider to be more efficient at providing the energy needs for
    the people of the world, whether it's nuclear energy, which
    we're talking about now, and by the way I would hope, Mr.
    Chairman, that we don't focus on the development of nuclear
    energy that is least likely to be developed. We can actually do
    fission reactors now that are very efficient and come to play
    in this issue as compared to fusion, which it seems always to
    be 20 years away, 30 years away, and always will be. We can
    produce safe nuclear reactors right now if we'd focus on
    fission and quit wasting our money on fusion, but that's a
    disagreement. Thank you.
        But also, you know, I believe in solar and wind and all the
    rest of these as long as they pencil out and what we need is a
    new battery technology, which I understand is on the way, when
    those things will actually become profitable and people will
    naturally go in that direction because, correct me if I'm
    wrong, doesn't the amount of carbon that is put in the air
    reflect the fact that we are not efficiently producing energy?
    Isn't that what we're talking about here? I believe so. But
    when you come down to this debate over adaptation versus
    mitigation, there's an insistence when people talk about
    mitigation that we control human behavior rather than having
    people naturally evolve in response to that need, and so I'm a
    little bit disturbed by, number one, that over and over again I
    hear don't ever talk about whether or not mankind is the main
    cause of the temperature changing and the climate changing.
    That's a little disturbing to hear constantly beaten into our
    heads in a Science Committee meeting when basically we should
    all be open to different points of view.
        Because the answer that we've been given in terms of
    mitigation versus adaptation is that we need controls over
    people's lives and make their decisions for them rather than
    adapt economically and elsewise. Let me ask you whether or not
    any of you on the panel would agree that solutions--I've read a
    number of studies that have indicated there's certain solutions
    that are being advocated. One study is that we should be
    eliminating pets, dogs. Dogs should be eliminated, and that's
    part of their solution that we're going to do that. There was
    one that talked about ending frequent-flier miles, and others
    who talk about how we need to have major increase in parking
    fees and gas taxes. Now, do any of you on the panel agree that
    that approach--no more dogs, you can't have a dog as your pet,
    we're going to outlaw those things, no more frequent-flier
    miles, and by the way, ordinary people benefit from frequent-
    flier miles and dogs, and now you have to see them on the
    airplanes actually--versus major increases in parking fees? Do
    any of you support that type of human control in order to come
    to grips with what you're telling us is absolutely undebatable,
    that man caused global warming? Do any of you agree with any
    one of those solutions? Go ahead.
        Mr. Nordhaus. No.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
        Mr. Nordhaus. I will say that, as I indicated in my written
    testimony, I think that modest tax, regulatory pricing policies
    can help modestly move us at a cost-effective way towards lower
    carbon technologies but the underlying sort of fundamental
    facts that will determine how far we get will be the
    availability of low-cost, low-carbon technologies, and that's
    going to require a lot of continuing innovation.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. And like as they say, the amount of carbon
    going into the air reflects that that technology is not as
    efficient as other means. Now, those of us who don't believe
    that we should be expanding the control of the government over
    our lives and that people should actually have more decisions
    rather than less, that's the area of contention that I see
    here.
        Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for this hearing.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
        And the gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is
    recognized.
        Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Chairman, and thank you
    again to our witnesses.
        Dr. Duffy, you mentioned when you were talking about clean,
    renewable energy sources, you mentioned wind and solar. In
    Oregon off our coast, we're doing some great research on wave
    energy and harnessing the power of the oceans. There's so much
    potential there. Our economy in the Northwest is really
    dependent on the health of the ocean and the lower Columbia
    River estuary, and people fish in our rivers and lakes and
    oceans and hike in our forests. We rely on those natural
    resources to support a significant portion of our economy, and
    many of those are vulnerable to the effects of climate change,
    and my constituents are already experiencing some challenges.
    We have wineries and farmers who are very concerned about
    drought as temperatures continue to rise. Our coastal
    communities are worried about the vitality of the commercial
    fishing and shellfish industries as high levels of carbon
    dioxide in the atmosphere are changing ocean chemistry, and I
    know they're working hard on adaptation but they're also very
    concerned about why the ocean conditions are changing and how
    they're changing.
        We've had higher than usual spring and summer temperatures
    and earlier snowmelt, changing the dynamics of the tourism
    industry, and we understand that climate change can have
    significant effects on the economic stability of a region or a
    nation.
        So would you talk a little bit about how this economic
    growth could be stalled as a result of these challenges but
    also importantly, what is the cost of inaction? My colleague
    was just pointing out that renewables make sense when they
    pencil out but what are the costs of not taking action?
        Dr. Duffy. Well, thanks so much for the question. I mean,
    you just mentioned--I mean, you just partially answered your
    own question. You listed a number of local impacts of climate
    change that are happening now, are affecting folks in your
    district. I also come from a coastal region. We have actually
    very, very similar concerns. A big part of our local and
    regional economy is based on fishing. We have serious problems
    with rapid ocean warming, with sea-level rise and so on.
        You know, you asked, you know, what are the economic
    concerns. I mean, there's a range including consequences of
    extreme weather impacts on food scarcity, impacts on water
    scarcity and on and on.
        Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. You know, we've had a lot of
    conversations in this Committee about the cost of regulation,
    especially with things like the Clean Power Plan, and should
    there be a regulation, should the market or technology solve
    the problem. Does not regulation drive the development of
    technology? If there is a regulation, does not that encourage
    the private sector and researchers to develop the technologies
    that we need to comply with regulations, Dr. Duffy?
        Dr. Duffy. You know, that's a great question, and you know,
    as I think you know, I worked for years in California, and
    there was a fascinating study done of the effect of regulation
    of both energy efficiency and refrigerants on the cost of
    refrigerators, and what it showed is that the cost of
    refrigerators historically went up, up, up, up, up until the
    onset of regulation at which point the cost of refrigerators
    went down, down, down, down, down as the size of the
    refrigerators and their energy use--well, the energy use went
    down, the size continued to increase. So yes, actually
    regulation can be a stimulant for technological innovation.
        Ms. Bonamici. I also wanted to mention, we had a lot of
    wildfires in Oregon last year. We had unusually hot and dry
    conditions, and of course, the fires and smoke created
    dangerous conditions for all populations but especially with,
    you know, women, seniors, children, people living with chronic
    health conditions, and even residents living miles away found
    ash throughout their neighborhoods. So could you discuss the
    difference between committing resources to understanding the
    connection between climate change and extreme weather events
    and simply adapting to those events as we experience them?
        Dr. Duffy. Thanks for the question, and you know, you
    mentioned wildfires specifically. There have been huge
    increases, a sixfold increase in area burned by wildfire in the
    western United States in the last 30 years. Some of that is due
    to changes in forest management practices. I saw a study
    recently that attributed roughly half of the increase in area
    burned to human-caused climate change. It's not hard to
    understand why that would be. The fire season is longer.
    Temperatures are hotter. By the end of the fire season, we have
    a lot of fuel that's getting awfully, awfully crispy, and we
    have had record number of fires and record amounts of area
    burned.
        Ms. Bonamici. Right, and my time is expired. I yield back.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici.
        And the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Brooks, is recognized
    for his questions.
        Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Ever since human beings have been on the planet, sea levels
    have risen relative to ground levels. Why is that? Any of you
    can opine as you wish.
        Dr. Duffy. Well, I'd be happy to address that. Sea levels
    over the last three million years have gone up and down in line
    with the cycles of ice ages and interglacials, and I can
    expound on the science if you wish. The recent, the last 100-
    year increase in sea-level rise, as I mentioned earlier, has
    clearly been attributed to human activities. Greenhouse gas
    emissions----
        Mr. Brooks. That wasn't the question. I appreciate your
    wanting to expound on that. My statement is that since human
    beings have been on Earth, sea levels have risen. What are the
    factors that have caused it to rise?
        Dr. Duffy. Well, as I said, sea levels have gone up and
    down----
        Mr. Brooks. I'm talking net, not fluctuations.
        Let's assume that for a moment that what you're talking
    about has some kind of factual, rational basis for it that ice
    has melted. Are there other factors?
        Dr. Duffy. No, look, you know----
        Mr. Brooks. No, there are not other factors, Mr. Duffy?
        Dr. Duffy. Looking at the history of sea-level rise is very
    informative, and one of the things that we see, for example, is
    that the last time the global temperature was as high as it
    is----
        Mr. Brooks. Dr. Duffy, you're not answering my question
    again. I'm conceding for the moment that there has been ice
    meltage compared to what it was three million years ago,
    whatever, since that's the timeframe you used. I'm asking
    another question, and that is, what other factors have caused
    the sea levels to rise relative to dry land? Does anyone else
    have any--I mean----
        Dr. Duffy. Okay.
        Mr. Brooks. --in particular, Dr. Duffy, you said they're
    going to be massive. Isn't that the word that you use in your
    remarks, massive sea-level rises? Don't you think if you're
    going to make that kind of statement you ought to have some
    idea as to what all the causes of sea-level rises have been?
        Dr. Duffy. Sure, and if you're referring to ground
    subsidence, that is a factor in some regions.
        Mr. Brooks. Okay. What else? That's one. So now we've
    gotten two. What else?
        Dr. Duffy. Ground subsidence is not going to cause the
    levels of sea-level rise that arouse my concern.
        Mr. Brooks. I'm just asking for factors. I was not asking
    for your prioritizing of one over the other but you mentioned
    two. What else?
        Dr. Duffy. Those are all that I know of.
        Mr. Brooks. What about erosion? Every single year that
    we're on Earth, you have huge tons of silt deposited by the
    Mississippi River, by the Amazon River, by the Nile, by every
    major river system, and for that matter, creek all the way down
    to the smallest systems, and every time you have that soil or
    rock, whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that
    forces the sea levels to rise because now you've got less space
    in those oceans because the bottom is moving up. What about----
        Dr. Duffy. I'm pretty sure that that's----
        Mr. Brooks. --the white cliffs of Dover, California where
    you have the waves crashing against the shorelines and time and
    time again you're having the cliffs crash into the sea? All of
    that displaces water, which forces it to rise, does it not?
        Dr. Duffy. I'm pretty sure that on human time scales, those
    are miniscule effects.
        Mr. Brooks. Okay. Well, let's talk about ice for a moment.
    Where is most of the ice located on planet Earth?
        Dr. Duffy. Antarctic ice sheet.
        Mr. Brooks. And how much?
        Dr. Duffy. I don't have a number in my head.
        Mr. Brooks. Do you have a rough estimation or idea of how--
    --
        Dr. Duffy. The amount of ice in the Antarctic ice sheet if
    melted would raise global sea levels----
        Mr. Brooks. I'm not asking you how much----
        Dr. Duffy. --by 200 feet.
        Mr. Brooks. Okay. You keep going and you don't answer the
    question. My question is, how much of the ice on the Earth is
    in Antarctica? I'm not asking you to expound on anything else.
    I'm trying to limit you to that particular question.
        Dr. Duffy. I don't know the answer.
        Mr. Brooks. Do you have any idea?
        Dr. Duffy. I wouldn't want to speculate in this forum.
        Mr. Brooks. Well, would it surprise you if it's as high as
    85 to 90 percent, that that's generally where the estimates are
    of the total amount of ice is in Antarctica?
        Dr. Duffy. It would not surprise me.
        Mr. Brooks. And would it surprise you to know that as
    global temperatures rise, assuming for the moment that they do,
    that that actually increases the amount of ice that is
    collected on Antarctica?
        Dr. Duffy. That's not true, sir.
        Mr. Brooks. That's not true? Well, I made a trip down to
    Antarctica and met with National Science Foundation scientists,
    and they all agreed with global warming, and they emphasized
    that you're going to have an increase in the amount of ice in
    Antarctica because of global warming. Now, have you ever
    studied--I understand you studied climate but how about
    meteorology? Have you ever studied meteorology?
        Dr. Duffy. I have, and I'll be happy to----
        Mr. Brooks. So you understand that as the temperature----
        Dr. Duffy. We have satellite records----
        Mr. Brooks. Wait a second, please. You've answered my
    question. I don't want you to orate because I have limited
    time. If the Chair would please permit as I try to get this
    point across?
        Chairman Smith. Okay. Without objection, the gentleman is
    recognized for another 30 seconds.
        Mr. Brooks. Do you understand that as temperatures rise,
    more moisture is contained in the atmosphere and then that
    moisture in Antarctica collects on land and it takes hundreds
    and hundreds of years for that ice that is deposited on
    Antarctica to actually ever even reach the shoreline where it
    touches the oceans where it can affect in some way sea-level
    increases?
        Dr. Duffy. We have satellite records clearly documenting a
    shrinkage of the Antarctic ice sheet and an acceleration of
    that shrinkage.
        Mr. Brooks. I'm sorry, but I don't know where you're
    getting your information but the scientific data that I have
    suggests----
        Dr. Duffy. The National Snow and Ice Data Center.
        Mr. Brooks. Well, okay. I'm talking NASA and others.
        Dr. Duffy. And the National Aeronautics and Space
    Administration.
        Mr. Brooks. Well, I've got a NASA base in my district, and
    apparently they're telling you one thing and me a different
    thing but there are plenty of studies that have come out that
    show that with respect to Antarctica, that the total ice sheet,
    particularly that above land, is increasing, not decreasing.
    Now, you can make a different argument if you want to talk
    about Greenland or the Artic but that having been said, thank
    you, Mr. Chairman, for the indulgence.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Brooks, and the gentleman
    from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, is recognized.
        Mr. Lipinski. Thank you.
        Dr. Duffy, in your testimony you state that technology will
    play an essential role in minimizing and adapting to the
    effects of climate change, something you think the U.S.
    government should support. You allude to the economic benefits
    that are likely to accrue to U.S. businesses as a result of
    developing these new technologies.
        I agree that the government has an important role to play
    in helping U.S. businesses lead the world in technology to
    address climate change. That's why I introduced the bipartisan
    Challenges and Prizes for Climate Act along with 13 of my
    Democratic and Republican colleagues from the Climate Solutions
    Caucus. This bill requires the Department of Energy to organize
    prize competitions around climate challenges such as energy
    efficiency, grid energy storage, and carbon capture, and
    prioritizes market-ready solutions that are made in America.
    This is one important way the Federal Government can both
    incentivize and raise awareness of technology to address
    climate change.
        I'm wondering what you think some others might be. How else
    can the government leverage the private sector to develop
    technologies and solutions that we need to address climate
    change?
        Dr. Duffy. Well, thanks for the question. You know, one
    really important measure which has been mentioned earlier would
    be to create the incentives, the economic incentives, to
    develop those technologies, and here, putting a price on carbon
    emissions, which after all corrects a market failure, is a very
    important step which would incentivize both the development and
    implementation of a lot of important technologies.
        Mr. Lipinski. Any other--well, let me move on. If we--if
    the United States, if we don't really help lead the world in
    this, what do our--what do we have to lose economically? Where
    are we right now? Where are American businesses right now
    compared to the rest of the world in developing these climate
    solutions? And if we don't do more, what do we lose
    economically?
        Dr. Duffy. Well, that's a great question, and you know, in
    the immediate term, no country is spending more on renewable
    energy than China is, and you know, I would hate to lose that
    race to them.
        You know, the other aspect of this that's very concerning
    to me is the potential brain drain aspect, and you know,
    historically, the excellence of American education and American
    research has been a magnet for talented people from around the
    world to come here and those folks have added invaluably to our
    country in many, many ways including economically, and when I
    look in the job ads section now of international scientific
    journals, it saddens me to see that where are all the jobs now.
    Well, a lot of them are in China. Most of them are in China.
    And again, you know, I would much prefer to see Americans
    investing in both the science and the technology to address
    this threat.
        Mr. Lipinski. I want to focus on something a little more
    specific. How would you characterize the nature of
    geoengineering or carbon removal as a potential option to fight
    climate change?
        Dr. Duffy. You know, I would treat those separately. Carbon
    removal is a--well, carbon removal in principal actually does
    in fact act to reverse climate change by lowering the
    concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. As I mentioned in my
    testimony, there are rather low-tech land management methods
    that can remove quite a bit of CO2 from the
    atmosphere, probably not as much as need to but make a really,
    really valuable contribution, and again, you know, those
    measures have some very valuable co-benefits including, as I
    mentioned, benefits for adaptation. Technological measures to
    remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are under development
    at the moment. They're very expensive, and at the moment we
    don't have the ability to deploy them at the scale that we
    need.
        You also asked about so-called geoengineering, which I
    would characterize as measures to counteract the climatic
    effects of increasing greenhouse gases. I don't know anyone in
    the scientific community who's enthusiastic about deployment of
    geo engineering. I think a lot of us, however, recognize that
    this is something we need understand better. We need to
    understand the potential effectiveness, and most importantly,
    we need to understand the potential unintended consequences.
        Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. I'm out of time. I yield back.
        Chairman Smith. The gentleman yields back.
        And the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey, is recognized
    for his questions.
        Mr. Posey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the
    witnesses for their attendance here today.
        Mr. Cass and Mr. Nordhaus, do you believe Dr. Duffy's claim
    that government regulation is responsible for lowering the cost
    of refrigerators in this country? Or do you tend to believe it
    might be due to competition and improved production and
    technical advancements?
        Mr. Nordhaus. I would say probably a bit of both, and I
    don't know the specific research that he is referring to, but I
    would assume that a significant amount of the cost savings
    there were not in the actual purchase cost of the refrigerator
    but just in the energy costs associated with running it as
    refrigerators have become more efficient. I do think that
    there's a case that various regulatory measures like EnergyStar
    have significantly contributed to improving the energy
    efficiency of refrigerators----
        Mr. Posey. We're talking about costs. Okay. Thank you.
        Mr. Cass?
        Mr. Cass. I think as Mr. Nordhaus emphasized, the key
    distinction is between the upfront cost of the product
    typically and then the operating cost, and what we find with
    regulation is that if you--and we see this now with, for
    instance, CAFE standards. If you require people to purchase
    more expensive cars that use less gas, you can claim to be
    saving them money. The problem is that typically they don't
    agree, and if they did, you wouldn't need the regulation.
        Mr. Posey. That's kind of what I thought.
        Dr. Duffy, you referenced a big threat from large-scale
    emissions of greenhouse gases from thawing permafrost. How did
    the greenhouse gases get captured into the permafrost in 15
    seconds or less?
        Dr. Duffy. It's dead organic matter, dead animals and
    plants.
        Mr. Posey. All right. What was the temperature on Earth
    before the last ice age?
        Dr. Duffy. Before the last ice age----
        Mr. Posey. Yes, sir.
        Dr. Duffy. --and the last interglacials? Well, similar to
    what it was about 100 years ago.
        Mr. Posey. You think? You don't think maybe it was 30
    degrees warmer when dinosaurs roamed the Earth?
        Dr. Duffy. There certainly have been epics in the past when
    the global temperature was warmer than it is now, and there's
    evidence that during those epics there was massive release of
    greenhouse gases from frozen ground, previously frozen ground.
        Mr. Posey. Well, where did the greenhouse gases come from
    if we didn't have people to create them?
        Dr. Duffy. Oh, again, you know, the greenhouse gases that
    are tied up in permafrost, it's not really gases, but the
    carbon that's tied up in permafrost is undecayed organic
    matter.
        Mr. Posey. So that's a threat that would exist if people
    never existed?
        Dr. Duffy. It's a threat that would exist but the
    activities of people are unlocking that threat by warming the
    Arctic and causing that frozen ground to thaw.
        Mr. Posey. How many ice ages do you think we've had on this
    planet?
        Dr. Duffy. Dozens.
        Mr. Posey. Okay.
        Dr. Duffy. But, you know, just because it's happened before
    doesn't mean it's benign.
        Mr. Posey. What caused the end of the last ice age?
        Dr. Duffy. The ice ages are caused by oscillations in the
    Earth's orbital parameters.
        Mr. Posey. Yeah, the last one was caused by a cataclysmic
    collision of an asteroid on this planet, I believe.
        What do you say to people who theorize that the Earth as it
    continues to warm is returning to its normal temperature?
        Dr. Duffy. Look, you know, if you want to characterize a
    temperature above today's temperature as normal, you're free to
    do that, but that doesn't mean that's a planet that we want to
    live on. If we let----
        Mr. Posey. I don't want to get philosophical. I'm trying
    to----
        Dr. Duffy. I'm not getting philosophical. I'm getting
    extremely practical.
        Mr. Posey. You're what?
        Dr. Duffy. I'm being extremely practical.
        Mr. Posey. Yeah. Well----
        Dr. Duffy. If we let the planet warm two or three degrees,
    we will have tens of meters of sea-level rise, and the
    community where I live will essentially cease to exist.
        Mr. Posey. I don't think anybody disputes that the Earth is
    getting warmer. I think what's not clear is the exact amount of
    who caused what, and getting to that is I think where we're
    trying to go with this Committee, just a little bit
    understanding of exactly how much different causes contribute
    to the warming that we see.
        Dr. Duffy. Look, I encourage you to look at the last
    assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
    Change estimated the human contribution to warming over the
    last 60 or 70 years is essentially equal to the observed
    warming. In other words, they're saying humans caused
    essentially all of the observed warming over the last 60 or 70
    years.
        Mr. Posey. When do you think the turn was made from the
    1970s prediction that we were going to have another ice age,
    and that was the big threat they were telling us when I was in
    school?
        Dr. Duffy. Well, the scientific community in the 1970s
    never actually widely predicted an immediate cooling. There
    were a few popular press articles about it but it was never
    something that was widely believed in the scientific community.
        Chairman Smith. The gentleman's time has expired.
        And the gentlewoman from Connecticut, Ms. Esty, is
    recognized for her questions.
        Ms. Esty. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our
    witnesses for joining us here today for this important hearing.
        I want to note, Mr. Nordhaus, I want to thank you as a
    member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for
    your importantly making sure everyone on this Committee and
    anyone watching understands how much of the contribution
    towards carbon and how much of the fuel consumption, the carbon
    consumption is related to the transportation and the industrial
    sectors, and that is why it's so important on that Committee,
    and we welcome your testimony on that in front of the T&I
    Committee to make that point, but I do think it also
    underscores the importance of technological innovation in a
    variety of sectors. It cannot be an appropriate answer to say
    the rest of the world doesn't develop its technology or doesn't
    advance economically but the United States is uniquely
    positioned, I would say, to advance research in all of those
    realms, which is why we have innovation being done in the
    Department of Defense, which has invested heavily because 30
    percent of its costs are in the cost of transportation and has
    recognized the value it places as well as the DOD seen the
    threat of sea-level rise being enormously threatening to global
    security as well as threatening our bases. So that is real cost
    right now, and if any of you have the figures on that, we can
    also get you to those because those are real costs and DOD is
    really worried about them right now, and that is going to
    impact taxpayer dollars as well as military preparedness,
    something that is not integrated often enough in this
    Committee.
        I hail from the State of Connecticut. We are one of the
    RGGI states. Dr. Duffy, you have lived in several of them,
    California and Connecticut. In my State of Connecticut, which
    has decided to lean in to a lower carbon future because it sees
    both the short- and the long-term advantages of that, that is
    created with our first-in-the-nation green bank over 13,000
    jobs. Those are jobs that are selling technology out of my
    district around the world. We have fuel cells that are being
    sold in Korea. We are the largest supplier of fuel cells to
    Korea, in part as part of that carbon transition.
        If we were to lean away from that, I think about this being
    like insurance for a car, or better yet, insurance on your
    house. I've never lived in a house that has burned down but I
    get insurance anyway. The concerns--and there's a lot of
    debate, especially with my colleagues saying exactly what
    percentage is due to human behavior, but if the consequences,
    if the most extreme predictions are right, are cataclysmic for
    the continuation of life on Earth for human beings, then it
    would seem prudent that we at least take some measure of
    action.
        So Dr. Duffy, could you talk about both the opportunity
    that we have from the business point of view, which is I think
    in part why so much of the business community leaned in on,
    say, the Paris Climate Accords? U.S. business leaned in and
    said yes, we want to support this because they see that
    business opportunity to sell to the entire world. And could you
    also talk about the research importance? We are very concerned,
    and we talked a lot in this Committee about China's investment
    across the board in research and getting ahead of us, whether
    it's on solar technology or other things that they will then
    license to the world. And Dr. Duffy, if you could talk a little
    bit about those business opportunities and imperatives as
    decision makers about what we can do?
        Dr. Duffy. Sure, I'd be happy to address that, and I'll
    also just echo your comments about RGGI, the Regional
    Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and as I'm sure you know, a number
    of studies have shown positive economic impacts in the nearly
    ten years that RGGI has been in place, and some of those
    positive impacts, by the way, come from improved health
    outcomes. I think the latest study documented $5.7 billion in
    savings because of improved health outcomes.
        Regarding, you know, research on technologies and the
    business opportunity, you know, again, I think it's an
    important opportunity. The world as a whole is mobilizing to
    address this global threat. It will take global cooperation to
    address this threat, and you know, look, we're the United
    States. We should be leaders here, not followers. It's as
    simple as that in my view.
        Ms. Esty. Can you flag what are some of the research
    elements that you think the Federal Government is uniquely
    positioned to do the basic research? Because obviously the
    private sector is going to do that R&D but that basic research,
    whether it be fusion, which we have a variety of opinions
    you've heard here about fusion but certainly if we were to be
    successful at fusion, that would be transformative. What are
    some of those other areas?
        Dr. Duffy. I think in general, you know, where the Federal
    Government has a role is in the early-stage research where, you
    know, the economic payoff is doubtful or is a ways down the
    road and fusion would certainly be an example of that.
        Ms. Esty. Thank you, and I see I'm out of time.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Esty.
        And the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Biggs, is recognized.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
    gentlemen, for being here to testify today. I appreciate it
    very much.
        Mr. Cass, in your written materials you cite two studies,
    one by Little--or excuse me, one by Mills and one by Basera, or
    Barreca, I guess is--I had that wrong. They take two different
    approaches to mortality rates due to extreme temperature, and
    you said in there--let's talk about that for just a second.
    They both take different approaches. Why did they take
    different approaches? What were they looking for, and why did
    they traverse the path that they did?
        Mr. Cass. Sure. I think the Mills study is kind of the
    quintessential example of ignoring adaptation. They look at
    different cities and assume that as temperatures change, cities
    will not change their response, and as a result, they produce
    very large cost estimates. The Barreca work I think is much
    more interesting and useful. They actually look at response to
    high temperatures over time, and so instead of just developing
    a homogenous response for, say, the second half of the 20th
    century, they say let's compare what happened in the first half
    to the second half or let's compare the 1960s to the 1990s, and
    by looking at it in those terms and by taking the adoption of
    air conditioning into account in particular, what they find is
    that by the 1990s, mortality related to heat has plummeted, and
    essentially they find a decline of about 80 percent from the
    first half to the second half, a decline of about half within
    the second half, and by 2004, looking at the level of air
    conditioning that's been adopted, the effect of heat on
    mortality is no longer statistically significant.
        Mr. Biggs. And have you had a chance to engage with any of
    these researchers to kind of find out why they took the path
    they took?
        Mr. Cass. I've had a number of exchanges, some of them as I
    was doing the research, some of them more recently to sort of
    ask if I've missed anything or to understand the approach
    they're taking. You know, one response I'll hear is well, we
    were only trying to show what we were trying to show, so a
    study is we stated our assumptions and you can make of it
    whatever you want. Another response is to say first of all,
    yes, we do point out that we don't take adaptation into
    account, and then in fact if you look elsewhere in the report,
    you'll see we also provide an alternative calculation for that
    conclusion. So even the Mills study, for instance, actually
    also says well, what if we assume that cities do adapt, even
    just assume everyone gets as good as Dallas at dealing with
    heat, and just with that basic assumption they find their cost
    estimate I believe falls by about two-thirds. The interesting
    thing is that that's the more interesting finding but that's
    reported as an aside. It's not something the Obama EPA chose to
    then incorporate in the estimate of costs that it highlighted.
        Mr. Biggs. Well, I happen to come from the Phoenix metro
    area, which is one of the hottest areas in the United States,
    and if you look back 70 years ago, there was about 100,000
    people. Today the metro area is five million people. So I guess
    my question to you is, have studies been done to determine what
    the variables or what--not variables but what activities have
    come about through adaptation to make, let's say, life more
    bearable in the desert?
        Mr. Cass. I mean, I think the best evidence suggests air
    conditioning, you know, looking more broadly at the economic
    decision of so many people to move to the Southwest, and even
    today we see continued movement to the Southeast, and the
    analyses of mortality suggest that adopting air conditioning is
    the best explanation of why you don't see more mortality. I
    would also say just that I think there's an important lesson to
    be drawn from the fact that Americans looking at their options,
    taking everything that they wish to take into account are
    choosing to move further south. They are voluntarily opting for
    hotter temperatures, and----
        Mr. Biggs. I love the heat, by the way.
        Mr. Cass. There you go. That sort of behavior again
    underscores that places deal with the climates that they have,
    and there are pros and cons to whatever climate you have. It is
    not correct to simply assume that if the climate changes people
    will behave as they did in the past.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you, and I just have about 20 seconds
    left.
        Mr. Nordhaus, you mentioned that you felt like we should
    incentivize clean fuel. What would you do to incentivize clean
    fuel?
        Mr. Nordhaus. Well, I think the most important thing is
    taking steps to drive down the cost of the underling
    technologies, you know, whether that's electricity
    technologies, transportation technologies.
        Mr. Biggs. How would you do that, though?
        Mr. Nordhaus. R&D, programs to demonstrate and
    commercialize some early-stage support----
        Mr. Biggs. Who would do that?
        Mr. Nordhaus. Pardon?
        Mr. Biggs. Who would do that?
        Mr. Nordhaus. I think there are a variety of measures that
    could be taken at both the state and federal level.
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Biggs.
        And the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Foster, is recognized
    for his questions.
        Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our
    witnesses.
        First I'd like an opportunity to clear up this question
    about refrigerator capital costs and efficiency.
        Dr. Duffy, as the only one with an actual technical
    background on this panel of witnesses, can you just try to
    clarify this a little bit?
        Dr. Duffy. Sure. The study was--the study I'm referring to
    was done, I don't remember when, by the California Energy
    Commission, and the costs in question were the purchase price
    of refrigerators, not the lifetime energy costs.
        Mr. Foster. Right. And so the federal regulations regarding
    efficiency of refrigerators resulted in not only reduction in
    the electrical costs over time but also the purchase price,
    presumably because you can have a smaller motor, et cetera, and
    compressor.
        Dr. Duffy. I think that's right, and my guess is that
    what's happened is that at the onset--and it was both federal
    and state regulations. At the onset of those regulations, the
    companies were making refrigerators the same way they had for
    decades because it worked and they were making money and
    everything was fine, and I believe that the advent of
    regulations caused the engineers to take another look at it and
    not surprisingly they realized that gee, we progressed and we
    now know how to do things better than we did 20 years ago.
        Mr. Foster. Thank you, and that's a different narrative
    than we often hear in this.
        Staying with technical questions here, Mr. Cass, can you
    explain the plans that shellfish have to use air conditioning
    to adapt to climate change?
        Mr. Cass. I'm not familiar with any. It turns out that as a
    relative cost of climate change, though, and it is one that EPA
    took into account, it barely even shows up on the chart, and so
    my suggestion would not be that adaptation takes care of
    everything as I think I emphasized several times, there are
    certainly real costs to climate change but the scale of those
    costs does not look anything like the type of cataclysmic
    rhetoric that we are hearing from some members of this
    Committee, to some degree from some members of this panel, and
    also from the dollar estimates that for instance the EPA
    produced.
        Mr. Foster. But--all right. There are difficulties when you
    talk about economic modeling of the intergenerational wealth
    transfers. You know, for example, underinvesting in research on
    low-carbon technologies, high-efficiency technology and so on,
    we are imposing huge costs on the next generation, and you
    know, those are real costs that should be modeled and are
    almost impossible to. On the other hand, you don't always need
    a complete calculation, an accurate calculation, to know that
    we're making big mistakes. So that from what you know of the
    rough estimates that have been made, is it clear that we are
    underinvesting in technologies actually, Mr. Nordhaus? For
    example, the big cuts that were proposed by the Trump
    Administration to research, fundamental research on energy
    efficiency and other green technologies, is that something
    which you believe is a step in the wrong direction as a
    society?
        Mr. Nordhaus. I would say that cutting federal investment
    in energy research development and demonstration is unwise.
        Mr. Foster. Thank you.
        Mr. Cass, have you seen an economic analysis that would
    contradict that conclusion?
        Mr. Cass. I would agree with that, and my testimony
    specifically thanks Congress for maintaining that funding, and
    I think there's a good case for increasing it, but I do think
    it's also important to recognize that just as we ask the
    climate scientists to provide the best possible science on
    climate, we also need to ask economists to provide the best
    possible economics on climate, and if you look at the economics
    for climate change that are being produced, the cost estimates
    that they're delivering are not defensible, and so----
        Mr. Foster. How do you economically model, for example, the
    costs of the extinction of a species?
        Mr. Cass. I think that's very difficult to model
    economically, and I think that we need to be realistic about
    what they are, and so when you describe the huge costs that
    we're imposing on future generations, we need to define what
    those are, and certainly neither EPA nor GAO managed to find
    those.
        Mr. Foster. So you would advocate then for more effort in
    more accurately defining the climate--the cost of future
    climate change?
        Mr. Cass. Yes, absolutely, and I think it's critical in
    doing that to emphasize that adaptation is not something to be
    put to the side. Adaptation is the central question to what the
    costs will be and in many respects to what the best policy
    responses will be. We need to understand what are the things
    we're going to adapt to fairly naturally, what are the things
    we're going to adapt to but with cost. Air conditioning, for
    instance, is not free, and what if anything are the things that
    maybe we will have difficulty adapting to and we need
    contingency plans for. I have not heard good definitions of
    things that it's difficult to conceive of society adapting to
    but I certainly think that's an exercise we should be asking
    about.
        Mr. Foster. Any comments, Mr. Nordhaus?
        Mr. Nordhaus. Yeah, I think that there are just huge
    uncertainties both ways when we try to look out a century and
    think about, you know, what we can adapt to, what we can't
    adapt to, what the costs of mitigation will be. They're just--
    we don't know. So you have to----
        Mr. Foster. And yet you both conclude that we're
    underinvesting as a society in----
        Mr. Nordhaus. Absolutely, and I would just make one other
    point, which is that I do want to--there are very difficult to
    quantify if not unquantifiable risks of quite rapid impacts,
    and I think as Mr. Cass has also recognized, very rapid change
    would be much more costly and difficult to adapt to, and we
    just don't know, and I think it will--I don't think more
    climate science is likely to help us better understand the
    likelihoods on timeframes that we would need to take action to
    address them, so that's not an argument against climate science
    but we should understand what sorts of uncertainties we're
    likely to be able to resolve and what sorts of uncertainties
    we're unlikely to resolve.
        Mr. Foster. Thank you, but I think it's interesting that
    you both agree that actions like the recent cancellation of
    NASA's carbon monitoring system are actually also steps in the
    wrong direction. We need more information on the time scale of
    which this problem will bite us.
        Thank you, and I yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Foster.
        The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, is recognized.
        Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Cass, you mentioned the study by the EPA that found
    that Pittsburgh extreme heat and mortality will rise
    exponentially beyond levels even in Phoenix or Houston, so I've
    got a couple of questions for you. Is it true that the closer
    to the equator you get, the warmer it is?
        Mr. Cass. Generally speaking, I believe that's right.
        Mr. Weber. You believe that's right from your geography
    back in the sixth grade?
        Mr. Cass. And traveling south from time to time.
        Mr. Weber. Well, you need to come to Galveston and spend
    lots of money.
        I owned an air conditioning company for over 35 years, so
    when you start--and by the way, we loved seasons changing. We
    loved heat in Texas. And I can tell you from firsthand
    experience a couple things being in the business 35 years.
    We're not experiencing mass casualties. Now, Congressman Biggs
    from Arizona said that he loved the heat too. Over in Arizona
    they've got a dryer heat. Of course, we have the more humid
    heat. So I want you, Mr. Cass, to expand on what's wrong with
    two things if you can. I realize one's more scientific and
    one's a little less. What's wrong with the study of prediction
    of mortality in Pittsburgh, which is arguably further up north
    and a lot further away from the equator than we are in Texas,
    that they think there would be 75 times more mortalities in
    Pittsburgh than in Phoenix or in Houston? Number one, what's
    wrong with that study? And number two, isn't that a big
    hyperbole to create some kind of need to really push forward on
    more regulations?
        Mr. Cass. Thank you. The technical way of describing the
    problem I think is to say that the study assumes all things are
    held constant, and of course, that's traditionally how we
    expect economic analysis----
        Mr. Weber. But let me interject here real quick. So if that
    was true, we're closer to the equator. If it was getting hotter
    in Pittsburgh, would it be getting hotter in Texas? Would that
    be a safe assumption?
        Mr. Cass. Yes.
        Mr. Weber. And at the same rate?
        Mr. Cass. There are variations but generally speaking----
        Mr. Weber. Okay. Keep going.
        Mr. Cass. So I think the way to understand the problem is
    that they identified an effect of extreme heat days in
    Pittsburgh on mortality and assume that a day of that heat
    level will always have the same effect even if Pittsburgh's
    climate changes. That's a very poor assumption to make because
    we can see what places with warmer climates look like and how
    they respond to temperatures, and we know that they respond
    differently from Pittsburgh, and so if you were going to try to
    project how Pittsburgh would respond to a warmer climate, you
    need to look at how people in warmer climates respond. You
    can't assume that Pittsburgh is going to respond as if it still
    had----
        Mr. Weber. You'd buy adequate air conditioning. I can tell
    you from experience how that happens in the Gulf Coast.
        Mr. Cass. That's exactly right. And I think it's important
    to point out when we talk about adaptation that, you know,
    technological adaptation--and certainly that's the title of the
    hearing--is only one form of adaptation. There are biophysical
    adaptations. People do get used to the heat. There are
    behavioral adaptations. There are economic adaptations. There
    are social adaptations.
        Mr. Weber. There's probably a certain number of people in
    Pittsburgh who don't buy air conditioning because of the cost
    because they figure they can tough it out in the warmer times
    because it has a cooler climate more often more so than Texas
    does, and then even though 71 degrees to us is very, very
    cool--you know, Texas can be 95 to 100, 105--and when they get
    caught with higher temperature, in my opinion, that should be
    90, 95 or 100, depending on how much ventilation's in that
    home, then people could suffer heat strokes and be in real dire
    danger. Do you think that's part of the hype, trying to force
    more regulations on the energy industry?
        Mr. Cass. So just to clarify, the 71 degrees is the low, so
    a day with a low of 71 is a warm day, but I think you're
    exactly right that people in Pittsburgh are not going to
    respond to one very warm day a year the way they would respond
    if they had 30, and so you'd expect to see them behave
    differently in the context of a changing climate. I do think
    that part of the impetus for not including good analyses of
    adaptation in topline cost estimates is to create large topline
    cost estimates, and the fact that a lot of these analyses
    actually do provide analyses with adaptation but put those off
    to the side as an alternative case instead of as the main case
    I think is one of the problems.
        Mr. Weber. Well, I will tell you----
        Dr. Duffy. If I could offer a comment on----
        Mr. Weber. No. I'm sorry, Mr. Duffy. I'm running out of
    time. I can tell you from experience, 35 years in the air
    conditioning business, that the higher the efficiency ratings
    went up and the price was driven up, the less likely customers
    were to buy. They were hard pressed to say they'll spend $6,000
    or $7,000 for a new air conditioning system. All of a sudden
    you've created one now where you've got to be more efficient,
    better compressors and more crawl space, and now those are
    8,000 or 9,000. They're having trouble coming up with the six
    much less the eight or nine. So what do they do? They fix the
    old clunker that's terribly energy inefficient and keep it
    going for yet another year.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Weber.
        And the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Lamb, is
    recognized for his questions.
        Mr. Lamb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and before I ask any
    questions, I'll just testify as a southwestern Pennsylvanian
    that the good people of Pittsburgh are going to be just fine.
    We have throughout our history and I think our record of sports
    championships helps testify to the toughness that we have.
    Obviously we're very concerned about how costly these changes
    will be, especially in a part of the country like ours. People
    are elderly, and the costs of cooling your home an extra 5
    degrees will be difficult for people living on Social Security
    and pensions, but I just wanted to make that comment.
        Also, Mr. Chairman, if it's all right, I would like to
    introduce a study without objection. It is from the NASA Jet
    Propulsion Laboratory in California. It addresses the issue of
    ice losses in the Antarctic that was discussed earlier. Dr.
    Duffy was asked several questions about it, and this is just
    meant simply to show that it is a complicated issue and that it
    was government-funded NASA research that has really helped us
    improve our understanding of this complicated problem.
        Chairman Smith. Without objection, that will be made a part
    of the record.
        [The information follows:]*************** COMMITTEE INSERT
    ***************
        Mr. Lamb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Now, Dr. Nordhaus--or Mr. Nordhaus, I'm sorry--if I could
    ask you a question about the importance of America's nuclear
    plants. Your testimony noted that it's important to keep these
    plants open, and you noted a few things: state and federal
    clean energy standards, intervention at FERC, and other
    measures that could do this. Could you just briefly expand on
    that? What are some other options we have to help these nuclear
    plants that are at risk of closing?
        Mr. Nordhaus. I think properly valuing both the reliability
    and the low-carbon nature of the electricity they produce, and
    there are a bunch of different ways to do that. I think that
    many states with nuclear plants that are threatened with
    closure also have renewable portfolio standards, and if we
    transition those to clean energy standards, we could both
    significantly raise the bar in terms of what the requirements
    for zero carbon energy in those states was, keep those plants
    online for quite a while longer, and at some point if it makes
    sense to close them and replace them with other--we'll know
    they'll be replaced with other zero-carbon options as opposed
    to fossil fuel-powered options so----
        Mr. Lamb. Are you aware of efforts in New Jersey, Illinois,
    New York to do exactly that? Do you support those efforts?
        Mr. Nordhaus. Yeah, I support all of those efforts, and
    again, would only suggest that we'd be much better served
    moving from a sort of one-off bailing out nuclear plants plant
    by plant to a more broader strategy to increase low-carbon
    energy on the grid by keeping all of our nuclear plants
    operating.
        Mr. Lamb. I also wanted to ask about R&D spending. I've
    read a report recently from Boston Consulting Group, and it
    suggests that the United States still leads the world in
    frontend basic R&D spending like in basic research but that
    where we have been surpassed by China is in actually bringing
    these technologies to the market, and now they're spending more
    than us in that regard. Can you talk about what we could do at
    our national labs or elsewhere to close that gap and try to get
    more American-funded research to the market in America and
    elsewhere?
        Mr. Nordhaus. Yeah, I think there's an old idea about R&D,
    which is that there's this sort of thing called basic science
    that you put in a box and you fund that and then sort of
    private firms take that and do things with it. I think that
    when you look at the Chinese model, it's very much state led. I
    think that in the United States when you really look at most of
    our greatest successes, certainly in energy but in many, many
    other technological arenas, what we've really seen are public-
    private partnerships where there is significant public support
    for applied research. Often first-of-a-kind technologies are
    quite costly to build, whether it's your first nuclear plant or
    your first big carbon capture facility, and those things do
    require public support. The private sector isn't going to do it
    alone.
        Mr. Lamb. And just lastly, before we run out of time, you
    had mentioned earlier the idea of federal and state
    combinations. I think you mentioned a federal transportation
    project or demonstration when you were asked about clean fuel
    earlier and how we might bring that to market. Could you just
    elaborate on that a little bit?
        Mr. Nordhaus. Yeah. I think that there are a variety of
    efforts, longstanding efforts actually, to sort of get these
    technologies to market, and it's been both state and federal
    policy that sort of have gotten us to the point where we do
    have cleaner fuels----
        Mr. Lamb. Do you have like a specific example to illustrate
    that?
        Mr. Nordhaus. You know, going back even to the 1990s, there
    was a big federal partnership with the automakers on battery
    technology that really sort of established the trajectory that
    we're on now in terms of electric vehicles, so that would be
    one.
        Mr. Lamb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Lamb.
        And the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Babin, is recognized.
        Mr. Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to
    the witnesses as well.
        Mr. Nordhaus, it is unrealistic to assume that we will be
    able to rely on renewable energy like wind and solar in the
    near future for all of our energy needs. Is that a true or
    false statement?
        Mr. Nordhaus. That would be my view.
        Mr. Babin. Okay. How do we decide when it's time to reduce
    wind and solar subsidies to allow the market to take over?
        Mr. Nordhaus. I think that with mature wind and solar
    technologies, which is mostly what we're subsidizing now, there
    is general agreement including among proponents of those
    technologies that they are competitive in many contexts with
    fossil fuel technologies. I think we're probably at the point
    where we ought to put that proposition to the test and scale
    back subsidies. Now, I do think that there are probably a range
    of advanced renewable technologies that we may want to continue
    to provide some support for, but when you're looking at cheap
    solar, 15 percent efficiency solar panels that are being mass
    produced in China, I'm not quite sure why we're, you know,
    paying, you know, substantially continuing to subsidize them.
        Mr. Babin. I got you, and I agree with you 100 percent.
        Dr. Duffy. I'd be happy to add a comment on that if I may.
        Mr. Babin. Well, I'm not through just yet. We had the
    Department of Energy Secretary here just last week, and we
    brought out the fact that some federal agencies had formally
    been articulating and reporting on the amount of subsidies for
    solar versus fossil fuel versus wind, et cetera, and it was
    astounding to see just a few years ago like 4 years ago that we
    were spending something like 15 times more subsidizing solar
    than we were, say, fossil fuels, in fact, even 100 times in
    some cases, and all of a sudden this agency that was reporting
    this went silent. We're not able to see those reports over the
    last few years, and we don't know whether they don't want the
    public to see these huge discrepancies or what the reason is,
    but Secretary Perry said that he was going to look into this
    and start printing these reports out again. Thank you.
        Thank you. Why is it important, Mr. Nordhaus, that the
    United States not stand in the way of developing countries'
    efforts to build and improve infrastructure even if it means
    more fossil fuel consumption?
        Mr. Nordhaus. Well, as I noted earlier, when it comes to
    infrastructure, that's what makes us adaptable and resilient to
    a changing climate and to just existing climate extremes, so if
    you're concerned about the impacts of climate change on poor
    populations in the developing world, the most important thing
    that they can do certainly over the next couple of decades is
    build infrastructure, and right now a lot of that
    infrastructure still requires fossil fuels, so we should be
    clear-eyed about the tradeoffs between mitigation and
    adaptation in those particular contexts.
        Mr. Babin. Thank you.
        And Mr. Cass, in your testimony you mentioned that the
    Mills study included an alternative analysis from its main
    findings that excluded human adaptive response to temperatures.
    Do most temperature studies that you have analyzed come with
    such a disclaimer to the public that human ability to adapt is
    not considered a factor?
        Mr. Cass. Usually the study itself will state that, and I
    would say fairly clearly if you go and find the original report
    and read it, you can understand what they're doing. I think the
    problem is that by the time it gets summarized up to the GAO
    summary to policymakers, certainly by the time it gets reported
    in the newspaper, that kind of context is either lost entirely
    or put down at the bottom when in fact it's the very heart of
    the issue.
        Mr. Babin. And then also, back to you, Mr. Nordhaus, you
    testified that the U.S. carbon emissions are lower today than
    what would have been mandated by the Waxman-Markey legislation
    in 2009 that failed to pass Congress. What has been the primary
    driver in this reduction?
        Mr. Nordhaus. The biggest single driver has been the shale
    gas revolution, which I would note, you know, is a classic
    example of the sort of public-private partnership to develop,
    commercialize cheap scalable technology that we need a lot more
    of. I think that I will also note that once upon a time, we
    thought of natural gas as a bridge fuel in the power sector
    from high-carbon to low-carbon intensity. I think when you look
    at the record, having looked at generation shares in the power
    sector over the last decade, I think there's a pretty strong
    case that natural gas is mostly doing exactly that, that it has
    been displacing coal, and that in more recent years a lot of
    natural gas generation has been displaced by wind, which is the
    other, the second largest driver of falling emissions in the
    power sector.
        Mr. Babin. And I can vouch for that because my home
    district of southeast Texas had a brand-new biomass plant meant
    to take wood products and convert them into electricity to be
    sold on the grid, and yet within just a few short years later
    this brand-new plant is now sitting idle because of the cheap
    natural gas feedstocks that we have today, so anyway, thank you
    very much, and Mr. Chairman, I'll yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Babin.
        The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Crist, is recognized.
        Mr. Crist. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I am from Florida. I first want to thank the witnesses for
    being here today. I appreciate your time. I represent on the
    west coast of Florida Pinellas County, which is the St.
    Petersburg, Clearwater area. Pinellas County happens to be a
    peninsula, and Florida, as you're aware, is a peninsula also,
    and some make the argument that Florida may be the state that
    is most susceptible to rising sea levels.
        Having said that, Dr. Duffy, I'd like to ask you, what
    would you say are the three greatest causes of climate change,
    if you could do that?
        Dr. Duffy. Well, there's really two major causes, and the
    first is--well, human emissions of greenhouse gases generally
    and that comes from two sources. One is burning of fossil
    fuels, and the other is land-use practices like deforestation
    and also agriculture. Agriculture historically has released a
    large quantity of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
        Mr. Crist. How so?
        Dr. Duffy. Through tilling of soil. Agriculture also
    releases other greenhouse gases besides CO2:
    methane, nitrous oxide, methane through livestock largely,
    nitrous oxide through fertilizers. Agriculture food production
    is a very significant source of human greenhouse gas emissions.
        Mr. Crist. You said that the first cause is human
    emissions? Is that how you described it?
        Dr. Duffy. Yes, sir, and within the category of human
    emissions, the biggest contribution historically has been
    burning of fossil fuels.
        Mr. Crist. And what would be the simplest way to stem the
    tide of that level of fossil fuel burning?
        Dr. Duffy. Well, what needs to happen is adoption of
    carbon-free energy sources as we've been discussing here this
    morning.
        Mr. Crist. And which do you think are the most effective?
        Dr. Duffy. Well, as I said, you know, I would argue for
    accelerated deployment of the technologies we have today, which
    are mainly wind and solar. I think Mr. Nordhaus has argued
    persuasively for the need to keep nuclear power in the mix, and
    I agree with that, but those are the technologies that we have
    today. I do also support the development of new technologies
    and new ideas.
        Mr. Crist. You know, when you think about how much we
    utilize coal, fossil fuels as an energy source, and automobiles
    are, I assume, a big contributor to carbon emissions as well,
    if we had all cars become electric, would that have a
    significant impact on the reduction of emissions?
        Dr. Duffy. It would. In the United States, the
    transportation sector, which is of course more than just cars,
    the transportation sector contributes roughly 25 percent of our
    greenhouse gas emissions. In California where I've spent most
    of my life, it's actually much higher proportion, almost 50
    percent, 40, 50 percent. You know, certain----
        Mr. Crist. Because of the amount of automobiles?
        Dr. Duffy. We drive a lot in California. You know, I agree
    with Mr. Nordhaus that, you know, certain parts of the
    transportation sector are pretty easy to electrify, and cars
    are certainly an example of that. I mean, we have electric cars
    now. They're treat. I drive one. Other parts of the
    transportation sector will be much, much more difficult. We
    haven't mentioned aviation but that's probably the best
    example.
        Mr. Crist. Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate your
    time. I yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Crist.
        And the gentleman from California, Mr. Takano, is
    recognized.
        Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Duffy, did you have anything more to say about
    renewables, claims being made about the viability of
    renewables?
        Dr. Duffy. Yeah. Well, on the economics, I mean, there
    are--and I guess there's conflicting figures but fossil fuels
    have certainly been heavily subsidized as well, and I've seen
    figures suggesting that fossil fuels are actually more heavily
    subsidized than renewables.
        The other thing that's important to mention about cost is
    that for fossil fuels, there's tremendous environmental costs
    associated with the use of fossil fuels, which are not
    reflected in the price, and we've been focusing today on the
    climate consequences of fossil fuels but there's also very,
    very important public health consequences, and just to give you
    an example, particulate pollution from use of coal even today
    kills about 10,000 Americans a year. Now, that number has come
    down dramatically in large part because of EPA regulation on
    coal-burning power plants, and I'd also add to that that if you
    look and you compare mortality from coal use in China to
    mortality from coal use in the United States, and I'm not
    talking about different amounts of coal being used, I'm saying
    per ton of coal burned, the mortality in the United States is
    20 times less than that in China, and that's because we have
    very effectively and cost-effectively regulated the air
    pollution from coal burning.
        Mr. Takano. I'm curious about something. I struggle with
    this idea of nuclear power being a carbon-free source. I mean,
    I hear you saying that you agree, Mr. Nordhaus, that you don't
    want to rule it out as part of the mix that we need to employ
    to reduce the amount of carbon we emit. Is there--but isn't
    there some problem that we have with managing the spent fuel?
    Isn't there some enormous subsidy that the government will have
    to--or at least use the leverage of its power to force
    communities who don't really want to have the risk of the spent
    fuel in their backyard or nearby for those communities that do
    produce the fuel? I mean, presumably everybody would benefit
    from it. There's some generalized socialized good that comes
    from it but how do we think about this?
        Mr. Nordhaus. Well, look, nuclear power is not without its
    issues, and you mentioned disposal of spent fuel. There's, you
    know, also legitimate concerns about weapons proliferation. I
    will say, you know, a couple points though. I mean, it can be
    used effectively. At one point I think the country of France
    generated 80 percent of their electricity from nuclear power. I
    would also say that, you know, the safety issues with nuclear
    power have been greatly exaggerated, not to say they don't
    exist but if you look at the actual safety record of nuclear
    power in the United States, I don't think there's been one
    human death attributed to nuclear power in the United States,
    and that's remarkable. And as I said, fossil fuels are
    extraordinarily dangerous. You know, even solar panels, there's
    some amount of mortality. People fall off roofs and so on.
        Mr. Takano. This is a much deeper conversation, I would
    say, but a recent report by the Department of Defense on
    climate risk to DOD infrastructure that was recently submitted
    to Congress was determined to have had significant edits made
    from a draft version from December 2016. Major changes in the
    report include omission of references to climate change.
        Dr. Duffy, how important is it to ensure that accurate
    scientific assessments regarding impacts due to climate change
    be made available to the broader public and to our military
    specifically?
        Dr. Duffy. Thanks for the question. You know, the military
    leaders that I've talked to clearly recognize the threat that
    global climate change poses for their operations and their war-
    fighting capabilities, and I think that that threat needs to be
    recognized, and I would hate to see our fighting men and women
    placed at unnecessary risk because we're afraid to confront
    this threat.
        Mr. Takano. Well, what are the dangers of playing down the
    role of climate impacts on infrastructure, both military and
    non-military, to try and stay--in order to try and stay, quote,
    unquote, apolitical?
        Dr. Duffy. You know, the danger is that we don't build the
    right infrastructure, you know, and we do--we have--we face a
    backlog of decaying infrastructure in this country,
    infrastructure of all sorts, not just transportation
    infrastructure--energy infrastructure and so on. We need to
    invest in new infrastructure, and as we do that--and I've been
    involved in some major water infrastructure projects in
    California and, you know, these major physical infrastructures
    typically are designed to last 50 or 100 years, and you know,
    what we did when we designed water infrastructure in California
    is to think ahead and what is the climate and hydrology of the
    next 50 or 100 years going to look like, and that's what the
    water agencies in California do and that's what we should do
    generally. We need to design the infrastructure around the
    climate of the future, not the climate of the past.
        Mr. Takano. Thank you. My time is up.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Takano.
        Let me thank you all for being here today. I think this was
    a very worthwhile discussion of various challenges that we
    face, and I was really pleased to see more agreement than
    disagreement on the need and reliance upon innovation and
    technology in the future to address climate change as well. I
    appreciate the testimony and the manner today. You all
    reflected the moderation and humility that Mr. Nordhaus
    mentioned, and we have not always had that when we discussed
    this subject, so I appreciate both, as I say, what you said and
    how you said it. So thanks again for being here.
        The record will remain open for two weeks for additional
    written comments and questions from Members, and we stand
    adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:09 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                                   Appendix I

                                  ----------

                       Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

                       Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

    Responses by Dr. Phil Duffy

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                  Appendix II

                                  ----------

                       Additional Material for the Record

                    Statement submitted by Dr. Judith Curry

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                    Slide submitted by Chairman Lamar Smith

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           Article submitted by Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson

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                  Study submitted by Representative Conor Lamb

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