    [House Hearing, 116 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

     HEALTHY OCEANS AND HEALTHY ECONOMIES: THE STATE OF OUR OCEANS IN THE
                                 21st CENTURY

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

                               OVERSIGHT HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                  SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER, OCEANS, AND WILDLIFE

                                     OF THE

                         COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                           Thursday, February 7, 2019

                                   __________

                                Serial No. 116-2

                                   __________

           Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources

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                                   __________

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                         COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES

                          RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Chair
                        DEBRA A. HAALAND, NM, Vice Chair
       GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN, CNMI, Vice Chair, Insular Affairs
                   ROB BISHOP, UT, Ranking Republican Member

    Grace F. Napolitano, CA              Don Young, AK
    Jim Costa, CA                        Louie Gohmert, TX
    Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,      Doug Lamborn, CO
        CNMI                             Robert J. Wittman, VA
    Jared Huffman, CA                    Tom McClintock, CA
    Alan S. Lowenthal, CA                Paul A. Gosar, AZ
    Ruben Gallego, AZ                    Paul Cook, CA
    TJ Cox, CA                           Bruce Westerman, AR
    Joe Neguse, CO                       Garret Graves, LA
    Mike Levin, CA                       Jody B. Hice, GA
    Debra A. Haaland, NM                 Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS
    Jefferson Van Drew, NJ               Daniel Webster, FL
    Joe Cunningham, SC                   Liz Cheney, WY
    Nydia M. Velazquez, NY               Mike Johnson, LA
    Diana DeGette, CO                    Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR
    Wm. Lacy Clay, MO                    John R. Curtis, UT
    Debbie Dingell, MI                   Kevin Hern, OK
    Anthony G. Brown, MD                 Russ Fulcher, ID
    A. Donald McEachin, VA
    Darren Soto, FL
    Ed Case, HI
    Steven Horsford, NV
    Michael F. Q. San Nicolas, GU
    Vacancy
    Vacancy
    Vacancy

                         David Watkins, Chief of Staff
                            Sarah Lim, Chief Counsel
                    Parish Braden, Republican Staff Director
                       http://naturalresources.house.gov
                                     ------

                  SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER, OCEANS, AND WILDLIFE

                            JARED HUFFMAN, CA, Chair
                 TOM McCLINTOCK, CA, Ranking Republican Member

    Grace F. Napolitano, CA              Doug Lamborn, CO
    Jim Costa, CA                        Robert J. Wittman, VA
    Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,      Garret Graves, LA
        CNMI                             Jody B. Hice, GA
    Jefferson Van Drew, NJ               Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS
    Nydia M. Velazquez, NY               Daniel Webster, FL
    Anthony G. Brown, MD                 Mike Johnson, LA
    Ed Case, HI                          Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR
    Alan S. Lowenthal, CA                Russ Fulcher, ID
    TJ Cox, CA                           Rob Bishop, UT, ex officio
    Joe Neguse, CO
    Mike Levin, CA
    Joe Cunningham, SC
    Raul M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio

                                  ----------

                                   CONTENTS

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

    Hearing held on Thursday, February 7, 2019.......................     1

    Statement of Members:
        Grijalva, Hon. Raul M., a Representative in Congress from the
          State of Arizona, prepared statement of....................    74
        Huffman, Hon. Jared, a Representative in Congress from the
          State of California........................................     1
            Prepared statement of....................................     3
        McClintock, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the
          State of California........................................     4
            Prepared statement of....................................     6

    Statement of Witnesses:
        Bronk, Deborah, President and CEO, Bigelow Laboratory for
          Ocean Sciences, East Boothbay, Maine.......................    23
            Prepared statement of....................................    25
        Browner, Carol, Former Administrator of the Environmental
          Protection Agency, Washington, DC..........................    11
            Prepared statement of....................................    12
        Casoni, Beth, Executive Director, Massachusetts Lobstermen's
          Association, Scituate, Massachusetts.......................    14
            Prepared statement of....................................    16
        Chalk, Angela, Executive Director, Healthy Community
          Services, New Orleans, Louisiana...........................    19
            Prepared statement of....................................    20
        Dayaratna, Kevin, Senior Statistician and Research
          Programmer, Institute for Economic Freedom, The Heritage
          Foundation, Washington, DC.................................    43
            Prepared statement of....................................    45
        Goodwine, Queen Quet Marquetta L., Chieftess and Head-of-
          State of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, St. Helena Island,
          South Carolina.............................................     7
            Prepared statement of....................................     9
        Legates, David R., Professor of Climatology, University of
          Delaware, Newark, Delaware.................................    33
            Prepared statement of....................................    35

    Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:
        Conservation International, Dawson J. Hunter, Senior
          Director, U.S. Government Policy, February 19, 2019 Letter
          to Reps. Huffman and McClintock............................    74
        List of documents submitted for the record retained in the
          Committee's official files.................................    82
        Ocean Conservancy, Janis Searles Jones, CEO, February 7, 2019
          Letter to Reps. Huffman and McClintock.....................    76

    OVERSIGHT HEARING ON HEALTHY OCEANS AND HEALTHY ECONOMIES: THE STATE OF
                         OUR OCEANS IN THE 21st CENTURY

                                  ----------

                           Thursday, February 7, 2019

                         U.S. House of Representatives

                  Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife

                         Committee on Natural Resources

                                 Washington, DC

                                  ----------

        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:20 p.m., in
    room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Jared Huffman
    [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
        Present: Representatives Huffman, Costa, Van Drew,
    Velazquez, Case, Lowenthal, Levin, Cox, Cunningham, Grijalva
    (ex officio), McClintock, Lamborn, Graves, and Bishop (ex
    officio).

        Mr. Huffman. Good afternoon, everyone. The Subcommittee on
    Water, Oceans, and Wildlife will come to order.
        The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on
    ``Healthy Oceans and Healthy Economies: The State of Our Oceans
    in the 21st Century.''
        Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at
    this hearing will be limited to the Chairman, the Ranking
    Member, the Vice Chair, and the Vice Ranking Member. This
    allows us to hear from our witnesses sooner and helps keep
    Members on schedule.
        Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that all Members'
    opening statements be made part of the hearing record if they
    are submitted to the Clerk by 5 p.m. today or the close of
    hearing, whichever comes first.

        Hearing no objection, it is so ordered.

       STATEMENT OF THE HON. JARED HUFFMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
                 CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

        Mr. Huffman. Good afternoon. I want to take this
    opportunity to welcome everyone to the Water, Oceans, and
    Wildlife Subcommittee hearing, our first hearing of the year.
        And, yes, the acronym for this Subcommittee is ``WOW.'' I
    think that is appropriate when you consider the broad
    jurisdiction we have and the makeup of this Subcommittee, which
    includes several returning Members and quite a few new Members.
    I look forward to working with every one of you.
        I am excited to chair this Subcommittee because our
    jurisdiction encompasses so many issues that I care deeply
    about, many of which I have spent most of my career working on.
    That includes water supply, protecting habitats and wildlife,
    managing coastal and marine environments and fisheries, and
    sportsmen's issues, just to name a few. These are critically
    important things.
        And I am looking forward to working with our new Ranking
    Member, Mr. McClintock--congratulations, Tom--to find a fresh
    start at finding common-sense, scientifically-based solutions
    to the challenges and opportunities we will confront.
        I have thought a lot over the past 6 years in Congress
    about things that I would try to do differently if I ever got a
    chance to hold one of these. And I know that I am just one
    person in a big institution that is somewhat ossified, but I
    want to try some new things here at the WOW in this Congress.
        First, as complex and challenging as these resource issues
    can be, I want to challenge the assumption that our job is
    simply to fight about them. Frankly, it is one of the things
    that has frustrated me the most over the past 6 years, not that
    we have differences--we obviously have differences--but,
    somewhere along the line, people stopped trying to find
    consensus on tough issues. They stopped even trying to develop
    a common understanding of the baseline facts and science before
    jumping right into the partisan fights. And, for the most part,
    they even stopped trying to make policy in an open,
    deliberative, and inclusive way that should follow from that
    work to develop a common baseline of facts and science.
        I know that this place has been hardwired for partisan
    combat for a long time. We may not always succeed, but I am
    going to at least try to do all those things as the Chair of
    this Subcommittee.
        And toward that end, I have already begun reaching out to
    every member of this Subcommittee of both parties. I want to
    sit down and get to know each other and think about things that
    we might be able to collaborate on.
        I consider myself Chair of the whole Subcommittee, not just
    Members from my party. And that means that if any Member has a
    good idea, I want to encourage it. If any Member proposes
    something I don't support, I am not just going to say ``no.'' I
    will try to work with you and see if there are creative ways to
    get to ``yes.'' I would love to see every member of this
    Subcommittee move at least something forward with bipartisan
    support. And I hope you will consider my staff and I to be
    resources if you want to do that kind of work.
        Another change I am hoping to implement involves the
    witnesses we invite to hearings. I have spoken to Ranking
    Member McClintock about this and directed my staff to take
    suggestions from all Members, reach across the aisle, so that
    instead of always having only Democratic and Republican
    witnesses, we can include at least one joint witness whenever
    that is possible.
        We are going to be busy in this Subcommittee. In addition
    to resetting the factual and scientific baseline on big issues,
    we need to bring a lot of new Members up to speed. And that is
    why we are holding a series of informational and oversight
    hearings that I informally refer to as WOW 101. Today is the
    first of these, and we are focusing on the health of our
    oceans.
        By the way, another change I am promising involves the
    titles of our hearings. I have seen too many hearings with
    inflammatory titles that read like angry, partisan ransom
    notes. When the very title of your hearing tees up a partisan
    fight, it is hard to work together. So, we are going to be a
    little less inflammatory and substantive and accurate in our
    hearings for these titles.
        Today, we are focused on oceans and coastal communities
    that depend on them, which is a big deal no matter where you
    live. If you are part of the 40 percent of the United States
    living in coastal shoreline counties, you probably already get
    it. These communities depend on ocean-related industries like
    fisheries, tourism, and shipping. Businesses and jobs directly
    dependent on oceans and Great Lakes resources contribute $352
    billion to our GDP in this country. They employ over 3 million
    Americans. But even if you live far from the coast, the health
    of oceans should matter to you. It affects the air we breathe,
    it affects the food we eat, and the livability of our climate.
        As we will hear today, things are not going so well for our
    oceans and coastal communities. Major threats include ocean
    acidification, increased frequency and intensity of storms,
    vanishing polar ice caps, melting permafrost, pollution,
    overfishing, sea-level rise, harmful algal blooms. The list
    goes on.
        This hearing isn't specifically to tee up a fight about
    climate change--I do want to underscore that--but you can't
    have a serious conversation about the health of our oceans and
    coastal communities without acknowledging the growing impacts
    of climate change. And we will hear more about that from
    experts today.
        Of the 23 members on this Subcommittee, well over half
    represent districts that are at least close to the shore. Those
    of us representing those type of districts are seeing the
    impacts already firsthand. But it is important to note that
    every district in this country benefits from oceans and every
    district is impacted by their failing health.

        [The prepared statement of Mr. Huffman follows:]
     Prepared Statement of the Hon. Jared Huffman, Chair, Subcommittee on
                          Water, Oceans, and Wildlife
        Good afternoon. First, I would like to take this opportunity to
    welcome everyone to the first Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee
    hearing this year. We have several returning members and quite a few
    new members on the Subcommittee. I look forward to working with each
    one of you.
        The jurisdiction of this Subcommittee is broad, and includes
    managing, developing, and protecting America's water supply, protecting
    habitats and wildlife, managing coastal and marine environments and
    fisheries, and sportsmen's issues, to name a few. These issues are
    critically important, and I welcome the ability of this Subcommittee in
    this new Congress to identify challenges and work to build common-
    sense, scientifically-based solutions. That means this Subcommittee is
    going to be very busy.
        While many of these issues are complicated, I'm asking all of you
    to roll up your sleeves and work together to develop real solutions, so
    that Americans can continue to sustainably use and enjoy our water,
    oceans, and wildlife for years to come. As Chairman, my goal is to
    start with the facts and address these challenges head on.
        In that vein, the focus of today's hearing is the health of our
    oceans and the coastal communities that depend on them. More than 40
    percent of the U.S. population lives in coastal shoreline counties.
    These communities depend on ocean-related industries like fisheries,
    tourism, and shipping. Businesses and jobs directly dependent on ocean
    and Great Lakes resources contribute $352 billion to the United States
    Gross Domestic Product annually and employ over 3.1 million Americans.
    And no matter where you live in this country, we all depend on the
    ocean for the air we breathe and for regulating our climate. We need to
    keep our oceans healthy to ensure our economies, communities, and
    planet stay healthy too.
        But, our oceans and coasts are facing an increasing number of
    threats, including ocean acidification, increased frequency and
    intensity of storms, vanishing polar ice caps, melting permafrost,
    pollution, overfishing, sea level rise, harmful algal blooms, shifting
    water temperatures, coral reef die offs, and massive flooding. These
    threats are only exacerbated by climate change. Of the 23 members on
    this Subcommittee, well over half of us represent coastal districts or
    districts close to the shore. Those of us representing coastal
    districts are seeing the impacts firsthand, but it's important to note
    that every district in the country benefits from America's oceans--and
    every district is impacted by their failing health.
        In my district, commercial and tribal salmon fisheries are
    suffering due to severe drought and warming waters, dealing a multi-
    million dollar blow to our salmon fishermen and harming tribal
    communities, year after year. And because of massive algal blooms
    caused by warming ocean temperatures, the dungeness crab fishery lost
    $110 million in revenue during the 2015-2016 season. Although NOAA
    later declared that season a fishery disaster and Congress has
    appropriated disaster funds, our fishermen have yet to see a single
    dollar in Federal assistance because of holdups at the Department of
    Commerce as well as the impacts of the government shutdown.
        Warmer oceans have also led to a quietly escalating crisis in the
    kelp forests along California's coast. Explosions of purple sea urchin
    populations, starving abalone, melting sea stars, and barren underwater
    seascapes where there was once a lush kelp forest--all of this is
    upending a critical coastal ecosystem and having ripple effects on
    fisheries, wildlife, and communities along the North Coast.
        These are just a few examples of climate change impacts that are
    happening now, in my district. I don't have time to mention the other
    ocean impacts, from acidification to sea level rise, but the point is
    that now is the time to do something. Our constituents deserve action.
        It is important to note that while our oceans are at increasing
    risk from the impacts of climate change, oceans can also be part of the
    solution. By comprehensively protecting ocean ecosystems, we will also
    strengthen a key tool to mitigate carbon emissions, naturally protect
    vulnerable coastlines, and keep fisheries sustainable in the face of a
    changing environment.
        I am looking forward to hearing from an esteemed panel of experts
    and community leaders on these topics. We have a lot to learn from
    them. We will be hearing from a former EPA administrator, a leading
    scientist in her field, a representative from the fishing community, a
    leader fighting for the public health of her community, and a Chieftess
    of a historic coastal African-American community that is already facing
    the effects of climate change.
        This Subcommittee is going to hit the ground running. Ocean health
    is critical for people and the planet, and it's time to prepare and
    adapt our coasts for the future that has already arrived. I look
    forward to all the important legislation that will pass through this
    Subcommittee this Congress, and I'm excited to hear from this
    incredible panel of witnesses.

                                     ______

        Mr. Huffman. So, with that, I want to invite my Ranking
    Member to say a few remarks, and then we will welcome and
    introduce the witnesses.

       STATEMENT OF THE HON. TOM McCLINTOCK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
                 CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

        Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we, too, look
    forward to searching for common ground. In fact, I have a
    number of proposals I will share in a few moments to explore
    that search.
        Abraham Lincoln told the story of once boarding with the
    family of a Presbyterian minister on the night of the greatest
    meteor shower ever recorded in North America. He was awakened
    by the minister, who shouted, ``Arise, Abraham, for the heavens
    are falling and the day of judgment has arrived.'' But Lincoln
    noticed that, despite all the hysteria around him and the chaos
    above him, he could still see the familiar constellations fixed
    in the sky, and he knew the world was not about to end.
        No one denies that our planet is warming, carbon dioxide
    levels are increasing, and ocean levels are rising. But before
    we run screaming into the night, let's also do a quick reality
    check: the sky isn't falling.
        Warming is nothing new. Our planet has been warming on and
    off since the last Ice Age. There have been periods within both
    human history and throughout paleo history when scientists tell
    us temperatures were much warmer than they are today.
        Science tells us that carbon dioxide levels have varied
    widely throughout the planet's history, when they have been
    many times higher than they are today.
        Science tells us that at the end of the last Ice Age ocean
    levels were 400 feet lower than they are today. And, as we will
    hear, the current rise has been steady, small, and doesn't
    correlate to increases in carbon dioxide levels.
        Hurricane activity is much lower than that recorded in the
    18th century.
        And despite what we are told, there is a vigorous debate
    within the scientific community over how human activity
    compares with the vastly more powerful natural influencers that
    have driven dramatic climate change for 4\1/2\ billion years.
        As Chicken Little belatedly discovered, there is a big
    difference between an acorn and the sky.
        So, we welcome a civil and open debate on these issues. And
    for that reason, we are pleased to have with us Professor David
    Legates from the University of Delaware, a pre-eminent
    climatologist who has served as its Director of the Center for
    Climatic Research and as Delaware's State Climatologist.
        Science thrives on civil and dispassionate debate. When
    someone tells you the debate is over, that dissent should be
    forbidden, and dissenters should be personally attacked, that
    is not a scientist talking; that is a politician.
        We also need to consider the enormous cost that the left
    would impose on each of our families in pursuit of its Green
    New Deal. We already have a taste of these policies in
    California, where carbon taxes have produced among the highest
    electricity and gasoline prices in the United States.
        We are also pleased to have on the panel Dr. Kevin
    Dayaratna to discuss these issues. He is the Senior
    Statistician for The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data
    Analysis and holds a Ph.D. in mathematical statistics and two
    master's degrees, in business and management and mathematical
    statistics.
        This discussion also offers us the opportunity to find
    common ground. Now, there are many ways to reduce carbon
    dioxide emissions without destroying the lives of working
    families and producing the kind of reaction that we now see on
    the streets of Paris. We have discussed these opportunities at
    great length over the last 8 years.
        For example, if we need to generate power without carbon,
    doesn't it make sense to build new nuclear power plants and
    hydroelectric dams that produce electricity with no air
    emissions at far lower costs and with far smaller footprints
    than wind and solar?
        If temperatures are rising and we can store less winter
    moisture in the mountains of snow, doesn't it make more sense
    to build more reservoirs to save that water rather than lose it
    to the ocean?
        If oceans are rising, doesn't it make sense to phase out
    flood insurance subsidies that encourage people to build in
    flood plains by hiding their risk?
        Last year's wildfires pumped 290 million metric tons of
    carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, making a mockery of our
    carbon dioxide restrictions. Doesn't it make sense to harvest
    excess timber before it can choke off the forest and burn?
    Doesn't it make sense to manage our forests, to match the tree
    density to the ability of the land to support it? Doesn't it
    make sense to space trees so that snow isn't trapped in dense
    canopies to evaporate before it can reach the ground?
        These are desirable policies in their own right, and they
    serve the Democrats' desire to reduce carbon emissions. I would
    offer them as a way forward and one that should have bipartisan
    support.
        With that, I yield back.

        [The prepared statement of Mr. McClintock follows:]
        Prepared Statement of the Hon. Tom McClintock, Ranking Member,
                  Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife
        Abraham Lincoln told the story of once boarding with the family of
    a Presbyterian minister on the night of the greatest meteor shower ever
    recorded in North America. He was awakened by the minister who shouted,
    ``Arise Abraham, for the heavens are falling and the day of judgment
    has arrived.'' But Lincoln noticed that despite the hysteria around him
    and the chaos above him, that he could still see the familiar
    constellations fixed in the sky, and he knew the world was not about to
    end.
        No one denies that our planet is warming; carbon dioxide levels are
    increasing, and ocean levels are rising. But before we run screaming
    into the night, let's also do a quick reality check. The sky isn't
    falling.
        Warming is nothing new: our planet has been warming on and off
    since the last ice age. There have been periods within both recorded
    history and throughout paleo history when scientists tell us
    temperatures were much higher than they are today. Science tells us
    that carbon dioxide levels have varied widely throughout the planet's
    history, when they have been many times higher than today. Science
    tells us that at the end of the last ice age, ocean levels were 400
    feet LOWER than they are today, and as we will hear, the current rise
    has been steady, small, and doesn't correlate to increases in carbon
    dioxide levels. Hurricane activity is much lower than recorded in the
    18th century.
        And despite what we are told, there is a vigorous debate within the
    scientific community over how human activity compares with vastly more
    powerful natural influencers that have driven climate change for 4\1/2\
    billion years. As Chicken Little belatedly discovered, there is a big
    difference between an acorn and the sky.
        We welcome a civil and open debate on these issues, and for that
    reason are pleased to have with us Professor David Legates of the
    University of Delaware, a pre-eminent climatologist who has served as
    its Director of the Center for Climatic Research and as Delaware State
    Climatologist.
        Science thrives on civil and dispassionate debate. When someone
    tells you the debate is over, that dissent should be forbidden and
    dissenters should be personally attacked--that's not a scientist
    talking--that's a politician.
        We also need to consider the enormous costs that the left would
    impose on each of our families in pursuit of its ``Green New Deal.'' We
    already have a taste of these policies in California, where carbon
    taxes have produced among the highest electricity and gasoline prices
    in the United States. We are also pleased to have on the panel Dr.
    Kevin Dayaratna, to discuss these issues. He is Senior Statistician at
    the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis and holds a Ph.D. in
    mathematical statistics and two masters' degrees in business and
    management and mathematical statistics.
        This discussion also offers us the opportunity to find common
    ground. There are many ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions without
    destroying the lives of working families and producing the kind of
    reaction we now see on the streets of Paris. We have discussed these
    opportunities at great length over the last 8 years.
        For example, if we need to generate power without carbon, doesn't
    it make sense to build new nuclear power plants and hydro-electric dams
    that produce electricity at far lower costs and with far smaller
    footprints than wind and solar?
        If temperatures are rising and we can store less winter moisture in
    the mountains as snow, doesn't it make sense to build more reservoirs
    to save that water rather than lose it to the ocean?
        If oceans are rising, doesn't it make sense to phase out flood
    insurance subsidies that encourage people to build in flood plains by
    hiding their risk?
        Last year's wildfires pumped 290 million metric tons of carbon
    dioxide into the atmosphere, making a mockery of carbon dioxide
    restrictions. Doesn't it make sense to harvest excess timber before it
    can choke off the forest and burn? Doesn't it make sense to manage our
    forests to match the tree density to the ability of the land to support
    it? Doesn't it make sense to space trees so that snow isn't trapped in
    dense canopies to evaporate before it can reach the ground?
        These are desirable policies in their own right and they serve the
    Democrats' desire to reduce carbon emissions. I offer them as a way
    forward that should have bipartisan support.

                                     ______

        Mr. Huffman. Thank you very much.
        Let's move on to the witnesses. Let me remind the witnesses
    that, under our Committee Rules, they should limit their oral
    statements to 5 minutes, that the entire statement will appear
    in the hearing record.
        When you begin, the lights on the witness table are going
    to turn green for you. After 4 minutes, there will be a yellow
    light that comes on. And your time will have expired when the
    red light comes on, and I will ask you at that point to please
    complete your statement.
        I will also allow the entire panel to testify before we
    begin questioning the witnesses.
        I will now introduce the witnesses, and I would like to--
    oh, perfect timing. I want to invite my colleague from South
    Carolina to introduce our first witness, if Congressman
    Cunningham is ready.
        Mr. Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        It is my pleasure to introduce my constituent, Queen Quet
    Marquetta Goodwine, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, a
    culturally distinctive African American group from the low-
    country region of Georgia and South Carolina. She founded the
    Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, the premier advocacy
    organization for the continuation of her nation's culture.
        In 1999, she became the first Gullah to speak before the
    United Nations. Very impressive. That is where she testified at
    a hearing of the Commission of Human Rights.
        Queen Quet is a published author and environmental justice
    advocate. And I am honored to call her a constituent of South
    Carolina's 1st District. Please give a warm welcome.
        Mr. Huffman. Queen Quet, welcome to the Committee.

     STATEMENT OF QUEEN QUET MARQUETTA L. GOODWINE, CHIEFTESS AND
    HEAD-OF-STATE OF THE GULLAH/GEECHEE NATION, ST. HELENA ISLAND,
                             SOUTH CAROLINA

        Ms. Goodwine. [Speaking native language.]
        So, as I just said to you, thank you so much for having me
    here today. And I said it to you in my native tongue, which is
    the Gullah language, so many people who have said, ``Well, I
    never heard that language before'' obviously have never been to
    this land where I am from.
        We literally live in the Atlantic Ocean, on islands called
    the Sea Islands, from Jacksonville, North Carolina, to
    Jacksonville, Florida. And you will often hear native Gullah/
    Geechees say, ``The water that bring we, the water gonna take
    we back.'' And many of you have even sung our songs, the
    spirituals that are my South Carolina State music now, where we
    say that ``God gonna trouble the water. Wade in the water.''
        I am very happy to be able to bring this flow from the Sea
    Islands up the Hill this time so that we can sit together and
    talk about our love of the oceans. Because, of course, for us,
    as Gullah/Geechees, the land is our family and the waterways
    are our bloodline.
        So, it is of great concern and grave concern to us when we
    find that pollutants, poisons, overbuilding, acidification,
    erosion, and all of these things are now compounding as
    elements within the water that is changing the ecology of the
    water.
        So, as someone [speaking native language] out the creek. We
    love to eat seafood, and I am sure all of you who come down
    where we are would love to eat some too. We have seen those
    seafoods changing. We have seen less in certain stocks. We have
    seen where the catfish no longer flow around St. Helena Island.
        So, as a founding member of the Gullah/Geechee Fishing
    Association, these are the things that made us form as a group
    to make sure that our voice is heard in the national
    discussions about what can we do to go ahead and have these
    tides that are rising lift all of our boats together. We make
    the battle boat. You might have a yacht. But trust me, if that
    tide is moving and we are all out there, we are going to flow
    with it or we are going to fight against it.
        And I agree with the Chairman, it shouldn't be about the
    fight. It should be about us being able to sit together, the
    same way we do on our beautiful Sea Islands beneath those oak
    trees, even with a little sweet tea--I know up here you all
    don't put the sugar in until later; we put it in in the
    beginning--so we can have some sweet discussions about this
    powerful element that we as human beings are all made of:
    water.
        So, when we talk about healthy oceans and healthy
    economies, I wanted to make sure that you also realize we have
    to talk about healthy communities. And as I prepared to come
    here, 2 weeks ago, all of a sudden the Creator put the words
    into my mind of an acronym for the ocean. I was to come here to
    ask you to be a part of opening culturally enriched avenues of
    navigation, so that when we talk about the ocean and the sea,
    we are not just talking about the fish, we are not just talking
    about the shrimp, but we are talking about the cultural
    communities that live from these fisheries, that have lived in
    harmony and balance with them for all these generations.
        A Gullah/Geechee proverb says: The big fish [speaking
    native language]. Often we think that the people that are
    higher up in the hierarchy of government are the big fish and
    all the rest of us are little. But I always tell people: a
    school of piranha can definitely fight back together against
    that big old whale.
        So, we know this is a whale of a number of issues, but I am
    sure we can navigate this together in such a way that those
    whales will follow our boat the way our dolphins and porpoises
    do on a beautiful Sea Island day.
        I thank you for the opportunity to be here to engage in
    dialogue with you and to be a part of something that I know is
    definitely a ``wow,'' to have all these women here today to
    say, as mothers of the Earth, that we are here to help nurture
    our oceans.
        Thank you, Honored Chairman, for having me this day right
    here during Black History Month. Yes, thank you all.

        [The prepared statement of Ms. Goodwine follows:]
       Prepared Statement of Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee
                                     Nation
        Peace Chairman Huffman and members of the U.S. Congressional
    Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife!
        On behalf of the citizens of the Gullah/Geechee Nation that exist
    from Jacksonville, NC to Jacksonville, FL and encompasses all of the
    Sea Islands and 30 miles inland to the St. John's River, I say to you
    in my native language--Gullah, ``Tenki Tenki fa disya.'' Thank you very
    much for this opportunity! We greatly appreciate your work on behalf of
    America's great outdoors which we treasure due to the fact that since
    the 1600s our people have lived from the land and the sea in the
    southeast along the Intercoastal Waterway. I personally reside in the
    Atlantic Ocean on a historic Gullah/Geechee island called ``St.
    Helena.''
        My families roots not only stem from St. Helena Island, but also
    Polowana and Dataw Islands. I am a native Gullah/Geechee that grew up
    on and has dedicated my life to the Sea Islands where my mother,
    father, grandparents on both sides, and great grandparents on both
    sides all passed down our cultural traditions. Amongst these traditions
    are not only agriculture, musical and spiritual practices, but also sea
    work traditions. We find the latter in jeopardy due to the state of the
    global environment and this is of great concern to us because there is
    a Gullah/Geechee proverb that we truly believe in--``De wata bring we
    and de wata gwine tek we bak.'' We got here via the water and the water
    taking us back has numerous spiritual and cultural context for us
    because our cultural heritage and continued existence is inextricably
    tied to Sea Island land and the waters that surround and nurture us.
        For Gullah/Geechees, water is sacred. It is not only the place to
    which we are taken to literally learn how to feed our families by
    harvesting the fish, shrimps, clams, oysters, and crabs that so many
    visitors come to eat when they vacation in our area by the hundreds of
    thousands of people per year. It is also the place where we baptize as
    a spiritual ritual and the place upon whose shorelines we bury those
    that pass away into the ancestral realm. We gather sweetgrass for our
    traditional baskets here and used to gather the rush or as we call it
    ``sedge'' of the marsh to bring back to higher ground to nourish our
    fields once again.
        Over time, we have felt the pain of the waters as pilings have been
    driven into the shoreline to proliferate private docks and buildings
    that then get damaged and brought down into the water when the
    hurricanes arrive during their season. We have watched the closures of
    oyster beds, the loss of some fish species in certain areas, the
    changes in the types and quantities of shrimp all taking place as
    pollutants ended up in our waterways and flow into the ocean due to
    overbuilding, changes in the climate, and what our scientists now call
    the ``acidification'' of our oceans. We have also stood up to stop this
    pain and prevent its increase by also opposing seismic gun use and
    offshore drilling in our oceans.
        The Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, the Gullah/Geechee Fishing
    Association, and the Gullah/Geechee Sustainability Think Tank have been
    consistently working together to combat these issues and do what we can
    to mitigate any further harm to this body which has done so much to
    nurture and feed us and our family members for generations. We have
    replanted oyster shells in an effort to increase our viable oyster
    beds. We educate native Gullah/Geechees on how to keep alive our
    traditions and pass them on the future generations given that our
    traditional fishing methods have minimal impacts on the environment. We
    take what is necessary and not more in order to allow the natural
    balance to take place so that there will be more sustenance for the
    next generation. As established in ``Da Land da We: Gullah/Geechee
    Sustainability Report,'' we believe sustainability is ``meeting the
    needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of
    future generations to meet their needs.''
        I work with youths as we look toward methods to combat climate
    change by looking back to the work that my ancestors and elders did in
    order to sustain themselves, our culture, and a healthy environment. I
    reflect on these things whenever I go to the ocean to do environmental
    work or to simply pay homage to my ancestors, many of whose bones rest
    at the bottom of the ocean since they did not make it across during the
    Middle Passage journey that many took to get to North America from
    Africa. I am rejuvenated by the power and beauty of the waters which I
    can still see clearly from shorelines around my beloved St. Helena and
    Hunting Islands in South Carolina. As I stand along the Atlantic shore
    with the salty Sea Island breeze embracing me, I see an

    Organism that feeds into other bodies of water including human bodies.
    Climate and
    Environment are acclimating to what is ultimately ending up in this
            water and
    Affecting the economy and the continuation of coastal cultural heritage
            and traditions.
    Neutralizing the acidification of the oceans so that these bodies will
            continue to nurture us physical and spiritually needs to be a
            national priority.

        The flow of the ocean is energizing and the flow of work that it
    takes for us to get to where we need to be in regard to healing the
    waters has to be done by

    Opening
    Culturally
    Enriched
    Avenues of
    Navigation

        So, I appreciate the opportunity to not only provide you with my
    testimony as a person that was raised on an island in the ocean and to
    provide background on my native Gullah/Geechee culture, but to also
    work directly with you to open these new avenues of navigation so that
    we can travel together via open channels of communication and along
    pristine waters from the oceans to our rivers and streams. As we do so,
    we will have the opportunity to celebrate the rich cultural heritage
    and the wonderful environment that we have been able to sustain along
    the shore together.
        I thank you for taking the time to not only hear and read my
    testimony, but for including it in the record of the work that your
    Committee is doing on behalf of us, our waters and wildlife. I look
    forward to hearing more from you and to engaging in work with you.

                                     ______

        Mr. Huffman. I think a lot of us want to get down to Mr.
    Cunningham's district now after hearing your testimony.
        Ms. Goodwine. Come on down. We will fry you some fish.
        Mr. Huffman. Our next witness is the Honorable Carol
    Browner, who previously served as the Administrator of the
    Environmental Protection Agency from 1993 to 2001, making her
    the longest-serving EPA Administrator to date.
        She served in the Obama administration as the Director of
    the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy. She
    also served as the U.S. Representative of the Global Ocean
    Commission and is currently Senior Counselor at Albright
    Stoneridge Group.
        The Chair now welcomes and recognizes the Honorable Carol
    Browner.

        STATEMENT OF CAROL BROWNER, FORMER ADMINISTRATOR OF THE
            ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, WASHINGTON, DC

        Ms. Browner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
    Ranking Member McClintock.
        That was awesome. Thank you.
        Ms. Goodwine. Thank you.
        Ms. Browner. I really do appreciate the opportunity to
    appear before you today to discuss climate pollution.
        As you heard, I spent 8 years running the Environmental
    Protection Agency. I have spent the better part of my
    professional life working to reduce pollution--I am from
    Florida, the Florida Everglades--to the soot and the smog that
    plague our cities and cause asthma attacks in our children, to
    the dangers of toxic chemicals in our communities.
        Throughout, I have relied on science to understand the
    threats, and I have worked with industry to find common-sense,
    cost-effective solutions to these public health challenges,
    including agreements for cleaner, more efficient cars;
    redeveloped brownfields and Superfund sites; and investments in
    clean sources of energy.
        Despite the good work of so many to address the real and
    vexing pollution problems that threaten all Americans, today we
    face the greatest pollution challenge ever: climate change.
        We are already beginning to see the impacts of climate
    change. We are living with more powerful hurricanes, worsening
    drought, melting glaciers, devastating wildfires, and rising
    sea levels.
        And it is not just environmental impacts. Climate change is
    wreaking economic calamity too. Natural disasters cost the
    world $155 billion last year. From 2011 to 2017, extreme
    weather caused $675 billion in economic damages. Hurricane
    Michael and the destruction of Tyndall Air Force Base will cost
    the Air Force over $5 billion to rebuild. Damage from Hurricane
    Florence will cost the Marine Corps roughly $3.7 billion to
    rebuild Camp Lejeune.
        We are not saying that these hurricanes are climate-change-
    caused, but hurricanes are certainly being made worse by
    climate change as our seas warm and the temperature of the
    water changes.
        Climate change is also having a measurable negative impact
    on the lifeblood of our planet, our oceans. Our oceans are in
    decline. Why should we care about oceans and climate change?
    Because failing to do so threatens every life on the planet.
    Oceans cover nearly three-quarters of the Earth's surface. They
    produce almost half of all the oxygen we breathe and absorb
    more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide we emit.
        As you heard, I served on the Global Oceans Commission. Our
    final report noted: all life on Earth, including our own
    survival, depends on healthy, vibrant oceans. Billions of us
    rely on it for food, transportation, energy, recreation, and
    livelihoods.
        The science shows us that the oceans have the mechanisms
    and opportunity to heal. That is the good news: that through
    the regenerative role of the high seas, it is possible to
    restore the whole ocean health.
        The Commission called for a regeneration zone, an area free
    from industrial fishing in the high seas; tougher offshore oil
    and gas safety standards; and closing down illegal, unreported,
    and unregulated fishing.
        Here at home, Congress should maintain marine-protected
    areas already designated and support efforts to identify
    additional areas for protection. Through the Antiquities Act
    and the National Marine Sanctuaries, these areas protect
    vulnerable ecosystems and benefit sustainable fisheries.
        Congress should support more funding for coastal and marine
    habitat restoration programs. And Congress should encourage
    monitoring programs that provide essential information to
    coastal communities and ocean-dependent businesses, including
    the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act,
    the National Estuarine Research Reserves, and the Sea Grant
    Program.
        When it comes to climate change, we have more science than
    we have ever had on any environmental or economic crisis, more
    science than was behind any decision made by EPA to protect our
    air and our water. Waiting will only make it worse.
        In my work, I have known some of the best environmental
    engineers in the country, in the world. There is not a one
    among them that can actually reverse sea-level rise.
        With the new Congress comes a new opportunity to lead and a
    responsibility to act. The scientists are issuing the warnings;
    we are running out of time. You could be our greatest hope to
    reverse the curve of inaction and instead find the solutions
    that will determine our economic and environmental future.
        Now is the time for action that addresses climate change,
    quickens the inevitable transition to clean energy sources,
    protects our oceans and environment for future generations.
        Again, thank you for the opportunity to be with you today.

        [The prepared statement of Ms. Browner follows:]
      Prepared Statement of Carol M Browner, Former Administrator of the
                        Environmental Protection Agency
        Thank you Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member.

        I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss
    climate pollution. I have spent the better part of my professional life
    working to reduce pollution--from the Florida Everglades to the soot
    and smog that plague our cities and cause asthma attacks in our
    children, to the dangers of toxic chemicals in our communities.
    Throughout, I have relied on science to understand the threats and I
    have worked with industry to find common-sense cost-effective solutions
    to these public health challenges, including agreements for cleaner
    more efficient cars, redeveloped brownfields and superfund sites, and
    investments in cleaner sources of energy.
        Despite the good work of so many to address the real and vexing
    pollution problems that threaten all Americans, today we face the
    greatest pollution challenge ever and its impacts--climate change.
        Scientists have been warning for decades that climate change was
    going to have far, wide and expensive economic and health impacts on
    our communities, our country and our world. While we debated the
    problem here in the United States, two things happened: First, our
    international competitors like China outpaced us in innovation that is
    driving a clean energy economy globally. Second: climate change grew
    worse and the impacts on our lives grow more real.
        Yes, we are already beginning to see the impacts of climate change.
    We are living with more powerful hurricanes, worsening drought, melting
    glaciers, devastating wildfires and rising sea levels around the world.
        And it is not just environmental impacts--climate change is
    wreaking economic calamity too.
        Natural disasters cost the world $155 billion last year. From 2011-
    2017 extreme weather caused $675 billion in economic damages.
        Forty percent of Americans live in coastal counties. Hurricanes are
    very expensive. As Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island noted: Hurricane
    Michael and the destruction of Tyndall Air Force Base will cost the Air
    Force over $5 billion to rebuild. Damage from Hurricane Florence will
    cost the Marine Corps roughly $3.7 billion to rebuild Camp Lejeune.
    These superstorms may not have been caused by climate change, but the
    science proves they were made far more intense and more destructive due
    to the elements of climate change, such as warmer water temperatures.
        Climate change is also having a measurable negative impact on the
    lifeblood of our planet--our oceans. Our oceans are in decline. Habitat
    destruction, biodiversity loss, overfishing, pollution, climate change
    are all interconnected and damaging our oceans.
        A recent Science Journal reported a new study that found that 2018
    was the warmest year on record for the global ocean. The U.S.
    government's own National Climate Assessment demonstrates the major
    impacts that warming is having and will have on our oceans and marine
    fisheries.
        Why should we care about oceans and climate change? Because failing
    to do so threatens every life on the planet. Oceans cover nearly three-
    quarters of the Earth's surface. Oceans produce almost half of all
    oxygen we breathe and absorb more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide
    we emit. Again, oceans provide nearly 50 percent of the oxygen we need
    to breathe. That alone merits action. As we consider the threats to
    oceans we should also be mindful of the opportunity that oceans present
    to help address the climate challenge.
        I had the opportunity to serve on the Global Ocean Commission--an
    international group of business and political leaders that worked to
    raise awareness and promote action to address the degradation of the
    ocean and help restore it to full health and productivity. As our final
    report noted: All life on Earth, including our own survival, depends on
    healthy, vibrant oceans. Billions of us rely on it for food,
    transportation and energy, recreation and livelihoods.
        The ocean is basically the kidney of our plant--keeping systems
    health and productive.
        We must adopt ``ocean smart policies.''
        The science shows that the oceans have the mechanisms and
    opportunity to heal--that through the regenerative role of the high
    seas--it is possible to restore whole ocean health. To do so will
    require a series of actions--some can begin here at home, others will
    require international cooperation. But all will benefit.
        Specific actions called for by the Commission included the creation
    of a high seas regeneration zone--an area free from industrial fishing;
    tougher offshore oil and gas safety standards; keeping plastics out of
    the ocean and closing down illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
        Science shows that marine reserves like those created through the
    Antiquities Act and the National Marine Sanctuaries protect vulnerable
    ecosystems, benefit sustainable fisheries, and provide important
    buffers. Marine reserves can build greater ecological resilience to
    climate by maintaining biodiversity and protecting populations for
    faster recovery after disturbances. Congress should maintain marine
    protected areas already designated and support efforts to identify
    additional areas for protection.
        Coastal ecosystems--particularly marshes, mangroves and sea
    grasses--are important tools in the fight against climate change. They
    serve as carbon sinks and provide protection for coastal communities
    during severe weather events as well as provide food for coastal
    communities. Congress should support more funding for coastal and
    marine habitat restoration programs.
        The Coastal Zone Management Act provides a number of avenues
    through which states and local communities can ensure that access to
    key coastal areas are protected in the face of rising seas.
        Ocean and coastal monitoring programs provide essential information
    to coastal communities and ocean dependent businesses. Congress should
    support implementation of the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and
    Monitoring Act. Congress should also support monitoring of harmful
    algal blooms. And to ensure that this data and information can be used
    to develop actions Congress should continue to support programs such as
    the National Estuarine Research Reserves and the Sea Grant program.
        When it comes to climate change we have more science that we have
    ever had on any environmental and economic crisis. It is time to focus
    on solutions. Waiting will only make the task that much harder. In my
    work I have known some of the best environmental engineers but there is
    not a one among them that can actually reverse sea level rise.
        With a new Congress comes a new opportunity to lead and a new
    opportunity to act. The eyes of the world are on the United States. For
    the past 2 years, this country has abdicated is leadership in the
    global community, especially with regard to solving climate change, the
    most serious environmental and economic challenge of our time. The
    scientists are issuing the warnings. We are running out of time. You
    could be our greatest hope to reverse the curve of inaction and instead
    find the solutions that will determine our economic and environmental
    future. Now is the time for action that addresses climate change,
    quickens the inevitable transition to clean energy sources, and
    protects our oceans and environment for future generations who deserve
    to live in a safe and clean world.

        Thank you.

                                     ______

        Mr. Huffman. Thank you very much.
        The Chair now recognizes Ms. Casoni, who has served as the
    Executive Director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen's
    Association, the MLA, since 2014 and has worked for the
    Association since 2008.
        The MLA is a member-driven organization that supports the
    interdependence of species conservation and the members'
    collective economic interests.
        Welcome, Ms. Casoni.

      STATEMENT OF BETH CASONI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MASSACHUSETTS
           LOBSTERMAN'S ASSOCIATION, SCITUATE, MASSACHUSETTS

        Ms. Casoni. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I grew up in a village section called Brantrock in
    Marshfield, Massachusetts, and I have commercial lobstermen in
    my family. I have been working with the Massachusetts
    Lobstermen's Association since 2008 and have been the Executive
    Director for 5 years now. I have extensive experience on
    committees and boards that involve fishermen. Specifically, I
    am on the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team and the
    Massachusetts Ocean Commission. As the Executive Director, I am
    actively engaged in the Northeast Regional Ocean Council
    stakeholder processes, the Massachusetts Coastal Zone
    Management, and the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management
    processes to advocate for commercial fishermen's needs and
    concerns.
        I am here today to give you the perspective of those
    fishermen and outline how climate change is just one of the
    many issues we are facing as we try to operate our businesses.
        Climate change is of concern to the commercial fishing
    industry as a whole. Without a healthy ocean, the many species
    our members harvest to earn a living would cease and many
    coastal communities would fail. For many coastal communities,
    commercial fishing has been a way of life for centuries, and
    impacts to our fishery mean lasting impacts to our communities.
        There are two fundamental ways climate change is impacting
    the lobster industry: warming waters and ocean acidification.
    Warming-water trends are causing lobster stocks to shift,
    impacting fishermen and confounding regulators.
        The Gulf of Maine, for example, is one of the fastest-
    warming bodies of water on the planet. In the last century, it
    has warmed faster than 99 percent of the oceans. It has been
    estimated that by 2050 that warming could cut lobster
    population stocks by 62 percent in the Gulf of Maine.
        Lobster stocks are also moving further offshore to deeper
    waters. That makes them more difficult and expensive to reach.
    This added difficulty means that fishermen have to often travel
    further offshore, increasing fuel costs that impact our
    business, as we pursue stocks that were bountiful near shore.
        Lobster is also shifting to the north, with more and more
    of it now in Canadian waters than U.S. waters. This means less
    lobsters are available for our U.S. fishermen. The lack of
    access due to this shift is yet another impact to our
    businesses and coastal communities.
        To make matters even more complicated, fish that eat
    lobster are also moving north. This means more overlap between
    predators in the once-abundant lobster habitat in
    Massachusetts. We are seeing a compounded effect, and all of
    this disrupts the ecosystem and makes it more difficult for our
    lobstermen to earn a living.
        Ocean acidification happens as the ocean absorbs carbon
    from the atmosphere, adds even more harmful impacts and an
    increasing threat for our industry. Juvenile lobsters have a
    harder time growing the shells they need to protect themselves
    from predators due to ocean acidification.
        These threats from climate change are intensified by other
    challenges lobstermen are facing. We do not have the luxury of
    looking for any one of these impacts on its own. All of them
    collectively together are causing declines in the resource,
    hurting our bottom line and our communities.
        Offshore wind is increasing exponentially on the East
    Coast, impacting habitat and ecosystems. We are concerned about
    offshore oil and gas development in the Northeast region. An
    oil spill would be devastating to our resources.
        Ocean acidification and other climate changes are magnified
    by land uses that increase local pollution and runoff,
    including lawn fertilizers. Our fishermen are also removing
    bags of trash every day. They remove balloons, bottles, bags,
    and even fishing gear. And we are committed to helping clean up
    the ocean through our own marine debris beach cleanups.
        In closing, the commercial lobstermen are stewards of the
    sea. We are the first to see the impacts of the environment and
    currently are experiencing the impacts of climate change. The
    concept of climate change is not something abstract to us. Not
    only are we balancing the challenges created by shifting stocks
    but also a myriad of other challenges and impacts facing our
    industry.
        Without a healthy ocean, there would be no commercial
    lobster industry. We no longer have the luxury of ignoring this
    threat to our livelihoods. We are here today asking for action
    from Congress to help the thousands of commercial lobstermen
    and women to mitigate climate change. We are asking that you
    find effective ways to help commercial lobstermen in the
    industry adapt to the changes that are already here and the
    ones that are coming if we do not stop them.
        Thank you for your time today.

        [The prepared statement of Ms. Casoni follows:]
     Prepared Statement of Beth Casoni, Executive Director, Massachusetts
                            Lobstermen's Association
        I grew up in the village of Brantrock in Marshfield, Massachusetts,
    with commercial lobstermen in my family and have been working at the
    Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association (MLA) since 2008. I have been
    the Executive Director for 5 years now.
        I have extensive experience in committees and boards that involve
    fishermen. Specifically, I am on the Atlantic Large Whale Take
    Reduction Team, the Massachusetts Ocean Commission, the New England
    Fisheries Management Council Herring Advisory Panel, and the Atlantic
    States Marine Fisheries Commission Herring Advisory Panel. As the
    Executive Director, I am actively engaged in the Northeast Regional
    Ocean Council stakeholder processes, Massachusetts Coastal Zone
    Management, the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management, the
    Massachusetts Fishermen's Advisory Board for offshore wind development,
    and the Massachusetts State Ocean Planning processes to advocate for
    commercial fishermen's needs and concerns. I am here today to give you
    the perspective of those fishermen's concerns and outline how climate
    change is just one of many issues we are facing as we try to operate
    our businesses. Climate change complicates our lives and increases the
    uncertainty in an already complex ocean.
        The Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association is one of the leading,
    self-funded, commercial fishing organizations in New England and is
    member-driven, accepting and supporting the interdependence of species
    conservation and our members' collective economic interests. We were
    established in 1963 by commercial lobstermen and the 1,800 MLA members
    hail from ports in Canada down to Maryland, commercially fishing for a
    multitude of species. We strive to be proactive on the many issues
    affecting the commercial lobster industry and, as I outlined above, are
    actively engaged in fisheries management processes at both the state
    and Federal levels.
        The MLA communicates with its members through a monthly newspaper,
    a weekly e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and attendance at meetings. For the
    past 56 years, the MLA has become a trustworthy voice for the
    commercial lobster industry on important issues, and is looked to by
    both the commercial lobster industry and the management community alike
    for guidance on the needs and challenges of our industry.
        Climate change is of concern to the commercial fishing industry as
    a whole. Without a healthy ocean, the many species our members harvest
    to earn a living would cease and many coastal communities would fail.
    For many coastal communities, commercial fishing has been a way of life
    for centuries and impacts to our fishery mean lasting impacts in our
    communities.
        There are two fundamental ways climate change is impacting the
    lobster industry--warming waters and ocean acidification. Warming water
    trends are causing lobster stocks to shift, impacting fishermen and
    confounding regulators. The Gulf of Maine, for example, is one of the
    fastest warming bodies of water on the planet. In the last century, it
    has warmed faster than 99 percent of the oceans. It has been estimated
    that by 2050, that warming could cut lobster populations by 62 percent
    in the Gulf of Maine. Lobster stocks are also moving further offshore
    to deeper waters that make them more difficult and expensive to reach.
    This added difficulty means that fishermen have to often travel further
    offshore, increasing fuel cost that impact our business as we pursue
    stocks that were bountiful near shore.
        Lobster is also shifting to the north with more and more of it now
    in Canadian waters instead of our U.S. waters. This shift means less
    lobster are available for our U.S. fishermen. The lack of access due to
    this shift is yet another impact to our businesses and coastal
    communities. To make matters even more complicated, fish that eat
    lobster are also moving north. This means more overlap between
    predators and once abundant lobster habitat off of Massachusetts. We
    are seeing a compounding effect, lobster are moving further offshore
    and loss of access as lobster as they move into Canadian waters, and
    the increase in those fish that are moving north from warm waters to
    the south that prey on lobster. All this disrupts the ecosystem and
    makes it more difficult for our lobstermen to make a living.
        Ocean acidification happens as the ocean absorbs carbon from the
    atmosphere, adds even more harmful impacts and is an increasing threat
    for our industry. Juvenile lobsters have a harder time growing the
    shells they need to protect themselves from predators due to ocean
    acidification and the risk of disease in lobster also increases,
    compounding the already bad situation that I have outlined here today.
    It's a lot for our industry to deal with and these challenges will only
    increase.
        These threats from climate change are intensified by the other
    challenges lobstermen are facing. We do not have the luxury of looking
    at any one of these impacts on its own--all of them collectively are
    causing declines in the resource, hurting our bottom line, and our
    communities.
        Offshore wind is increasing exponentially on the East Coast. While
    this emerging use has the potential to mitigate climate impacts by
    creating more access to renewable energy, we must be mindful of
    selecting areas that do not put undue burden on important habitats for
    our fisheries. This means selecting turbine and cable areas without eel
    grass or hard bottoms, because these are important habitats for
    different life stages of lobster. MLA has engaged extensively in the
    Northeast Ocean planning process over the years. In doing so, we
    outline for decision makers the complexities of fisheries and their
    interactions with proposed projects. Our hope is that as offshore wind
    proposals advance that state and Federal agencies will engage with
    fishermen early to drive better decisions moving forward. Fisheries
    data must be accurate, complete, transparent, and readily available for
    decision makers, and an important part of this process is talking to
    lobstermen early to ensure conflicts to our industry can be mitigated.
        There is increasing concern about the impact on the future of
    fishing in offshore wind farms and many fishermen are concerned about
    navigating around the turbines. Depending on turbine placements,
    fishermen may not be able to set their gear as they typically do.
    Therefore, mitigation measures must be taken into consideration.
        Additionally, as talks of offshore oil and gas development increase
    in the Northeast region, we worry about the environmental and economic
    risks associated with offshore drilling. An oil spill could decimate
    stocks and local economies reliant on lobster. Yet another concern that
    we have to balance as we consider future impacts to fishing and local
    communities.
        We are also engaged in the difficult challenge of right whale
    conservation, but this issue will only become more complicated as
    offshore wind farms spring up in the feeding grounds of right whales.
    Climate change impacts on right whales, such as water temperature and
    food availability, could alter their distribution patterns and
    eventually call for revised conservation measures. Lobstermen will need
    to adapt accordingly, especially if different areas become closed off.
    This is yet another challenge for lobstermen.
        It is not simply what is occurring in the ocean that is affecting
    lobster. Ocean acidification and other climate change impacts are
    magnified by land use changes that increase local pollution and runoff.
    Land use changes and the increasing use of lawn fertilizers present
    challenges for fisheries. For example, lawn fertilizer contributes to
    polluted and nutrient-rich runoff. Runoff with high nitrogen levels
    often contributes to harmful algal blooms, resulting in low oxygen
    areas where lobster and fish struggle to survive and reproduce.
        On top of all of our climate change concerns and the obstacles to
    fishing I've already described, our fishermen are also removing bags of
    trash every day from balloons, bottles, bags, and even fishing gear.
    The MLA supports many marine debris clean-up initiatives, as lobster
    pots are lost due to storms or vessel traffic creating more marine
    debris. We are committed to help cleaning up the ocean through our own
    beach and island clean-up initiatives.
        In closing, commercial lobstermen are stewards of the sea. We are
    the first to see impacts to our environment and are currently
    experiencing the impacts of climate change. The concept of climate
    change is not something abstract to us. Not only are we balancing the
    challenges created by shifting stocks, but also the myriad of other
    challenges and impacts facing our industry. Without a healthy ocean
    there would be no commercial lobster industry, we no longer have the
    luxury of ignoring this threat to our livelihoods. We are here today
    asking for action from Congress to help the thousands of commercial
    lobstermen and women by mitigating climate change. We ask that you find
    effective ways to help the commercial lobster industry adapt to the
    changes that are already here and the ones that are coming if we do not
    stop them. As you discuss climate change and look for policies to
    support the communities affected, we ask that you consider that these
    impacts are one of many facing our industry and consider the
    multiplying affect that climate change has to the men and women fishing
    our seas.

        Thank you for your time today. I look forward to answering your
    questions and I hope that you will use me as a resource as you develop
    funding and mitigation measures to address the climate change and
    multiplier impacts to our industry.
                                   references
    Albeck-Ripka, L. (2018, June 21). Climate Change Brought a Lobster
    Boom. Now It Could Cause a Bust. New York Times. Retrieved from https:/
    /www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/climate/maine-lobsters.html.

    Associated Press. (2016, June 27). Historic New England fishing
    industry faces warming world. CBS News. Retrieved from https://
    www.cbsnews.com/news/new-england-fishermen-fishing-industry-face-
    warming-world-climate-change/.

    Botkin-Kowacki, E. (2018, September 4). Can offshore wind and
    commercial fishing coexist? The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved
    from https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2018/0904/Can-offshore-wind-
    and-commercial-fishing-coexist.

    Hack, C. (2018, April 25). Offshore wind farms concern fisherpeople.
    The Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved from http://www.browndailyherald.com/
    2018/04/25/offshore-wind-farms-concern-fisherpeople/.

    Kuffner, A. (2015, December 29). Ocean acidification poses threat to
    lobsters. The Providence Journal. Retrieved from https://
    bangordailynews.com/2015/12/29/business/ocean-acidification-poses-
    threat-to-lobsters/.

    Le Bris, A., et al. (2018). Climate vulnerability and resilience in the
    most valuable North American fishery. Proceedings of the National
    Academy of Sciences, 201711122.

    Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. (2018, November 5).
    Recommended regional scale studies related to fisheries in the
    Massachusetts and Rhode Island-Massachusetts offshore Wind Energy
    Areas. Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association. Retrieved from http://
    lobstermen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Offshore-Wind-Regional-
    Fisheries-Studies-11-5-18.pdf.

    Miller, K. (2018, March 7). Maine critics throw cold water on Trump
    administration's offshore drilling plan. Portland Press Herald.
    Retrieved from https://www.pressherald.com/2018/03/07/feds-to-hold-
    public-meeting-wednesday-in-augusta-on-offshore-drilling-plan/.

    Miller, K. (2018, May 23). Climate change to have drastic effects on
    Gulf of Maine lobster and clam fisheries, studies say. Portland Press
    Herald. Retrieved from https://www.pressherald.com/2018/05/23/climate-
    change-to-have-drastic-effects-on-gulf-of-maine-lobster-and-clam-
    fisheries-studies-say/.

    Pershing, A.J., et al. (2015). Slow adaptation in the face of rapid
    warming leads to collapse of the Gulf of Maine cod fishery. Science,
    350(6262), 809-812.

    Tuxbury, S. (2015, June). Considering Habitat: A Closer Look at
    America's First Offshore Wind Farm. NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic
    Region. Retrieved from https://www.greateratlantic.fisheries.noaa.gov/
    stories/2015/june/consideringhabitat.html.

    Virginia Institute of Marine Science. (2018, August 20). Warming waters
    linked to lobster disease: Suggests earlier springs and hotter summers
    foster increase in shell infections. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from
    www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180820122220.htm.

    Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. (2018, January 22). Feeling the
    Heat in the NW Atlantic: Rising bottom temps will drive lobsters
    farther north, offshore. Retrieved from https://www.whoi.edu/news-
    release/feeling-the-heat-in-the-nw-atlantic.

                                     ______

        Mr. Huffman. Thank you very much.
        All of our witnesses have been right on time, so this is
    very good time management we are seeing.
        The Chair next recognizes Ms. Chalk.
        Ms. Chalk is a community organizer from the Seventh Ward of
    New Orleans, where she has participated in the Louisiana
    Strategic Adaptation for Future Environments, which encourages
    residents to be actively engaged in any decision-making process
    that impacts coastal southern Louisiana.
        Welcome, Ms. Chalk.

        STATEMENT OF ANGELA CHALK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HEALTHY
               COMMUNITY SERVICES, NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

        Ms. Chalk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Honorable Committee
    members. Thank you for this opportunity to come before this
    distinguished body.
        As the Chairman has said, I am Angela Chalk, Executive
    Director of Healthy Community Services, a non-profit
    organization based in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans.
        It is my testimony today to discuss our collective
    connectivity. In my opinion, the most significant waterway in
    our Nation is the Mississippi River. The testimony I share with
    each of you today are my personal experiences. While we live in
    a data-driven, metrics society, you will not hear that from me.
    My emphasis is personal, tangible, and has dire consequences to
    real people who call Louisiana home.
        As I was preparing for this testimony, I thought of my
    first encounter with the river. It began with my maternal aunt
    teaching me how to spell ``Mississippi.'' Later, I would learn
    of the river's importance. It is the source of our drinking
    water. The river provided high-paying jobs for African American
    longshoremen, who received cargo for import and export. But,
    most importantly, it is the river pilots who navigate these
    waters daily that provide goods and services for our Nation.
        The safety and natural environment are so very vital to our
    economy that if for any reason river traffic will stop, our
    economy stops. In essence, I was taught the river was and
    remains today the source of life. Life is defined by one's
    culture and heritage, economics and connectivity.
        Each day, I welcome thousands of visitors into the home by
    way of the Mississippi River. We are connected. Surely as the
    snow that falls in the Midwest, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic,
    the snow will melt and find its way via the contributing
    watersheds that will flow to the Mississippi River.
        All of the sediment collected on this journey will settle
    in the Gulf of Mexico. I invite each of you to experience the
    point at which the mighty river connects to the Gulf of Mexico.
    The experience is the freshwater of the river never mixes with
    the saltwaters of the Gulf. You will clearly see the
    connectivity, either by sea, air, or by standing on the many
    barrier islands home to natural rare birds and sanctuaries.
        In order to help foster a healthier economy, it is vital to
    remember that the community organizations engage our residents
    and educate residents about the effects of climate change, sea-
    level rise, and restoration efforts. We are our front line of
    defense to these environmental changes, not because of the
    theoretical signs but because of generational life expectancies
    and reality. You can't come to Louisiana to teach me how to
    make a gumbo if you have never made a gumbo before. But
    certainly you can listen to the people who are experiencing the
    things that are current as a result of our environmental
    changes.
        For as climate change is now, we are adapting now. We have
    been for years. So, as this body makes decisions, remember the
    people. We are real. Remember that we are already fighting
    these battles in our backyards, not just for ourselves but for
    everyone upstream too. And just as our efforts in Louisiana
    matters, your decisions matter too.
        What you are looking at is ``An Island in Crisis,''
    entitled by Ted Jackson. That is the burial place of the
    ancestors of people who live in southeast Louisiana. That was
    taken in 2016. We are in 2019, and that area has vanished by
    the Gulf of Mexico. Sea-level rise is real.
        This is the science that helps protect our coastal
    communities, which is the barrier that surrounds southeast
    Louisiana and, namely, protects New Orleans from the storm
    surge of intense hurricanes.
        But, together, we must marry the science and the green
    infrastructure that is in place and the restoration efforts
    that protect us from storm surge and repetitive flooding and
    more frequent and more severe storms. We must be proactive
    rather than reactive.
        I thank this Committee for the opportunity to come before
    you and to have my testimony. Thank you, and God bless you all.

        [The prepared statement of Ms. Chalk follows:]
      Prepared Statement of Angela M. Chalk, Executive Director, Healthy
                               Community Services
                                  introduction

        As I begin this written testimony, I wish to state that I am
    honored and privileged to come before this body of the U.S. House of
    Representatives. My testimony before the Subcommittee on Water, Oceans,
    and Wildlife is truthful.
        I come before this Subcommittee, proud to represent the people of
    the Great State of Louisiana and provide testimony to our waterways. I
    will speak to the effects of land loss; the work being done by
    community organizations; support and resources as well as current
    restoration efforts.
        My work in the community of engaging vulnerable populations for the
    past 14 years has been both educational and enlightening. The passion
    to understand in detail, the consequences, of climate change, sea level
    rise, urban water management and food insecurity drives my commitment
    to help be that, change agent of people's behavior. I contend that only
    through, true, community engagement, education and outreach that
    residents are better able to understand the environmental factors that
    causes climate change, sea level rise and the actions that can be taken
    to adapt to those changes.
        In the past year, I've participated with the LA SAFE (LA Strategic
    Adaptation for Future Environments (1). As a `table facilitator' to
    explain the participatory process to residents, it became evident, that
    while people may not have been able to explain the science of these
    environmental changes, those changes had been gradually occurring for
    the past 50 years. Residents of both the rural and urban communities
    had been living this reality. Residents now had the opportunity to be
    actively engaged and make decisions about the future of coastal
    southeast Louisiana. The common thread was the ``collective
    connectiveness'' of faith, family, food, culture and heritage. These
    changes were and remain real. Residents of Louisiana live these
    environmental changes daily.
        Finally, my participation in this process of understanding the
    effects of climate change is not abstract. I am a fourth generation New
    Orleanian. I am the beneficiary of the vast natural resources this
    state offers. Therefore, it is incumbent upon me to help protect and
    preserve the waterways of Louisiana. This is not solely for my benefit
    but, for the benefit the residents of 31 states that share the
    Mississippi River water shed \1\ (2),(3).
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ https://www.epa.gov/ms-htf/mississippiatchafalaya-river-basin-
    marb.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                              effects of land loss
    Vanishing Communities/Lost of Cultural Norms

        The science demonstrates that coastal Louisiana has had significant
    land lost, in the past 50 years (1). However, the science doesn't
    demonstrate the value of the communities that have literally been
    swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico. As I write this testimony, I know that
    the residents of Isle de Jean Charles, LA, despite restoration efforts,
    will have to relocate to higher ground, more inland. The cause sea
    level rise (4). This is not an isolated event.
        St. James Church, originally known as St. Jacques de Cabahanoce
    Church dates to 1764 and is the ``First Acadian Coast.'' This is the
    first church of the first Acadian exiles. Cabahanoce is its Indigenous
    name, meaning ``where the wild ducks roost'' (5).
        The ancestral burial space at St. James Cemetary is completely
    submerged in the Mississippi River. If one thinks, that is awful,
    visualize an oil/gas line that is directly above this sacred space (6).
    Can anyone begin to imagine not being able to visit the final resting
    place of relatives?
        The question then becomes what happens to the history of these
    communities, their social and spiritual ``collective connectiveness''
    to their homes. How should one prepare to lose their cultural
    significance and heritage to the effects of land loss?
                      the work of community organizations
    Experiences
        I have enjoyed many experiences but. I salute the ordinary people
    doing extraordinary tasks and who advocate for more resilient
    communities. We each organize around common goals and objectives. We
    know that time is crucial to the work we've committed ourselves. I
    consider myself to be in great company:

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
          Name                 Organization                   Parish
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Collette Pichon   Gulf Coast Center for Law &    St. Tammany Parish, LA
     Battle            Policy
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Bette Billiot     Houma Nation                   Terrebonne Parish, LA
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Sharon Foret      Bayou Interfaith Shared        Lafourche Parish, LA
                       Community Organizing
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Jonathan Foret    South LA Center for the Arts   Lafourche Parish, LA
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Bri Foster        Greater New Orleans Housing    Orleans Parish, LA
                       Alliance
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Ivy Mathieu       Community Advocate             St. John the Baptist
                                                      Parish, LA
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Corey Miller      Coalition to Restore Coastal   Jefferson Parish, LA
                       Louisiana
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Darilyn Demolle   Zion Travelers Coop Center     Plaquemines Parish, LA
     Turner
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Katrina Williams  Coastal Communities            Jefferson Parish, LA
                       Consulting
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------

        In urban communities increased rainfall in shorter amounts of time
    overwhelms the current drainage capacity of New Orleans. However
    increased education through community engagement and outreach efforts,
    have changed the behaviors of residents. For example, Healthy Community
    Services have provided workshops and trainings for residents to learn
    how to implement green infrastructure interventions. The projects in
    the 7th collectively harvest, detain or retain approximately 2,000
    gallons of water.
        This work would not have tangible results without ``collective
    connectiveness.'' Our organizations work to be inclusive of all
    residents regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or social-economic
    status and to be a voice for vulnerable populations.
    Youth Involvement
        Again, time is crucial. That is why, it is imperative for our youth
    to understand the cost to be paid, if this work is left undone. Just as
    recently as Super Bowl LIII, the youth of coastal Louisiana brought
    national attention to land loss and the urgency at which a resolution
    must be achieved (7). Young people spoke out using primetime and social
    media platforms. #Restore the Coast \2\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \2\ http://mississippiriverdelta.org/restore-the-coast-old/
    ?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign= mrd_none_upd_mrd&utm_medium=social-
    media&utm_id=1548714284.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                             support and resources
    Philanthropic Resources
        In this testimony, I must acknowledge the many philanthropic
    organizations, government agencies, public private partnerships that
    provide the resources and technical support that help community
    organizations, put forth this work.
        Because of this support, I've been able to experience the marshes
    of southeast Louisiana by boat to see firsthand, the diversion of the
    Mississippi River which helps to rebuild land; by air, to view the
    point at which the river meets the Gulf of Mexico or to view the
    protection levee which helps safeguards the city of New Orleans from
    storm surge and; by land, to hear the voices of residents that now feel
    empowered to make informed decisions about the effects of climate
    change.
                              restoration efforts
    Reclaiming Land/Projects
        Hope is defined by Webster as a ``desire accompanied by expectation
    of or belief in fulfillment.'' Therefore, it is my hope for humanity to
    understand that there is no amount of money, technology or engineering
    that can compete with the forces of nature.
        As a society, we can however, integrate technology, science and the
    experiences of local residents to help reduce the effects of climate
    change, sea level rise. In New Orleans the Bayou Bienvenu wetlands are
    being revitalized by the planting cypress tree seedlings (8). The cost
    of a cypress tree seedling is approximately $1.59. ``Coastal wetlands
    can provide critical protection against incoming hurricane storm
    surges. The traditional rule of thumb: each 2.7 miles of marsh knocks
    down the storm surge by 1 foot'' (9).
        To further the restoration of land loss, organizations such as
    Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana are recycling oyster shells to
    reclaim the land (10). ``CRCL's Oyster Shell Recycling Program collects
    shell from New Orleans-area restaurants and uses that shell to restore
    oyster reefs that help protect Louisiana's eroding coast line. Launched
    in June 2014, this is the first program of its kind in Louisiana, and
    it has collected thousands of tons of oyster shell'' (11).
        When I speak of ``collective connectiveness,'' each year, ``The New
    Orleans Christmas Tree Recycling Program (12), collects those old
    Christmas trees and strategically drops bundles of them into the
    wetlands in Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge. These trees create
    wave breaks and trap sediment, producing new marsh habitat that
    supports growth of native grasses. Over the years, the program has
    replenished approximately 175 acres of wetlands in Bayou Sauvage.'' The
    power of the people in a regain has incrementally created a massive
    change in coastal restoration efforts.
                                   conclusion
        I hope that I've demonstrated to this Committee the value of
    ``collective connectiveness.'' As each of you move forward with the
    decision-making process, remember that whether you reside to the west
    or east of the Mississippi River; Colorado or Pennsylvania, we share
    the precious space of this waterway, ``the Great River.'' The
    Mississippi River and its contributaries drains 41 percent of the
    contiguous United States and 15 percent of North America (3).
        In closing, I'd like to thank my family, friends and neighbors, for
    providing support, love and encouragement on this journey. Most
    importantly, the people who support me to express my voice, Liz
    Williams Russell, Rachel Sanderson, Caressa Chester and Klie Kliebert
    of the Foundation for Louisiana.
        Again, thank you for this opportunity to come before this body and
    speak the truth of this Nation's greatest waterway.

                                    appendix
    Sources

         1. (LA Coastal Protection Restoration Authority, 2019)
         2. (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2018)
         3. (Environmental Protection Agency, 2019)
         4. (LA Coastal Protection Restoration Authority, 2019)
         5. (DeLuca, 2019)
         6. (Historic Churches of Acadiana, 2018)
         7. (Restore the Delta, 2019)
         8. (Global Green New Orleans, 2017)
         9. (Jeffrey Masters, 2012)
        10. (Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, 2019)
        11. (Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, 2019)
        12. (Restore the Mississippi River Delta, 2016)

                                     ______

        Mr. Huffman. Thank you very much, Ms. Chalk.
        The Chair now recognizes Dr. Bronk, the President and CEO
    of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. She has a Ph.D. in
    marine, estuarine, and environmental sciences and has more than
    two decades of experience as a professor and an oceanographer.
        Welcome, Dr. Bronk.

        STATEMENT OF DEBORAH BRONK, PRESIDENT AND CEO, BIGELOW
          LABORATORY FOR OCEAN SCIENCES, EAST BOOTHBAY, MAINE

        Dr. Bronk. Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you
    today.
        I will start by saying that I love this country, I love the
    ocean, and I have spent my life in service to both. I am an
    oceanographer who has spent the last 30 years, but thank you
    for the 20, studying the growth of microbes at the base of the
    ocean food web all around the world. I was elected president
    and chair of two different scientific societies, one that
    represents over a million scientists in the United States
    across many different disciplines. I served as director of the
    Division of Ocean Sciences at the National Science Foundation.
    And last year, I became the president and CEO of one of the
    world's most innovative oceanographic institutions, the Bigelow
    Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine.
        In the spirit of transparency, I will say that I am a
    middle child, so I am about as middle-ground in terms of
    politics as you are likely to find. I am not as liberal as many
    of my scientific colleagues, and I am not nearly as
    conservative as my much-loved father wished I was.
        Like the vast majority of environmental scientists around
    the world, I have watched data from many disciplines accumulate
    for years, and there is no doubt in my mind that the Earth's
    climate is changing and that human beings are responsible.
        Every year, humanity releases billions of tons of carbon
    into our atmosphere, and, as a result, our oceans are warming.
    Historically, the oceans have absorbed about a quarter of this
    carbon, and, as a result, they have become more acidic. And
    both of these changes have far-reaching implications.
        Ocean warming leads to a melting sea ice. I have seen the
    massive changes in ice coverage during the last decade in my
    own work in the Arctic, based largely out of Barrow, or now
    called Utqiagvik, Alaska. The reduction in protective sea ice
    is destroying their coast and changing their traditional way of
    life.
        Ocean warming leads to sea-level rise and coastal flooding.
    Sea level, as a result of thermal expansion as well as the
    melting of land ice, like glaciers and ice sheets--since the
    1900s, average sea level has risen by about 7 to 8 inches. And
    this is nothing compared to what we will see if current trends
    of glacial movement in Greenland continues.
        Roughly 40 percent of people in the United States live in
    coastal areas at risk of flooding, shoreline erosion, enhanced-
    risk storms. And all will worsen as sea-level rise continues.
        Ocean warming leads to changes in the migration and
    distribution of marine organisms, from the smallest bacteria to
    the largest fish, because it affects ocean and atmospheric
    circulation, precipitation, and the delivery of nutrients. The
    economic consequences of these changes could be severe. In the
    United States, the fishing sector alone contributes over $200
    billion to our economy each year and contributes 1.6 million
    jobs.
        Ocean warming also leads to reductions in ocean oxygen. At
    the most fundamental level, warm water holds less oxygen than
    colder water. In coastal regions, low oxygen is a particularly
    devastating problem. And low- or no-oxygen dead zones have been
    reported for more than 500 ecosystems.
        Then there is ocean acidification. When carbon dioxide in
    the atmosphere dissolves into seawater, it changes several
    aspects of ocean chemistry, which threatens many organisms,
    including those important to fisheries and aquaculture.
        Coral reefs are perhaps the hardest hit because they are
    impacted by both global warming and ocean acidification. In
    addition to forming the foundation of ecosystems, corals
    provide storm protection to coastal communities and can form
    the basis of local or regional economies. By the end of this
    century, the loss of recreation from coral reefs in the United
    States is expected to reach $140 billion.
        So, here we are. Vast numbers of scientists around the
    world, people that basically argue over data for a living, have
    come together to speak with one voice through the IPCC, the
    National Climate Assessments, and other reports. If this were a
    medical epidemic and the medical community spoke with this
    sense of unity and urgency, every single one of us in this room
    would have taken the treatment prescribed by now.
        But I have almost lost hope in our political process on
    this issue. The economic pressure to keep the status quo is too
    intense. And I do not believe we, as a country or as a global
    community, will make the societal changes in time to ward off
    the extreme climate disruptions--disruptions that will most
    harm those that are least able to respond to it.
        But I believe that in science there is always hope. Climate
    change is a problem that, ironically, science, through our own
    success, has created. And I believe it is through science that
    we will solve it.
        But U.S. investment in the study of our ocean and our
    planet is grossly inadequate considering the challenges we are
    facing. The U.S. investment in social science is grossly
    inadequate considering human behavior and economics are so
    important in charting a sustainable way forward. U.S.
    investment in science education is grossly inadequate
    considering the brainpower we will need to power our global
    recovery. And people in this building can change that.
        We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to capture
    the carbon we have already emitted. And to do this, we need to
    empower scientists and engineers and to fund innovation, from
    discovery all the way to getting it from solutions to the
    market--a notoriously difficult process to fund. I believe we
    can do this, but we need to start now because we are out of
    time.
        Thank you.

        [The prepared statement of Dr. Bronk follows:]
    Prepared Statement of Deborah A. Bronk, PhD, President and CEO, Bigelow
                         Laboratory for Ocean Sciences
                                 my background
        For the last 30 years I have devoted my life to the study of the
    oceans. For 26 of those years I was a college professor who ran my own
    laboratory focused on the study of nutrients and how they control the
    growth of phytoplankton and bacteria at the base of the ocean food web.
    I have participated in over 50 research expeditions from the Arctic to
    the Antarctic. Over the last decade, I have also taken what I learned
    in the ocean, and applied it to help water reclamation facilities.
        Throughout my career I have been committed to service--to science
    and this country. I was a member of the Ocean Carbon and
    Biogeochemistry Scientific Steering Committee and the U.S. Carbon Cycle
    Science Plan Working Group, and have served on numerous review
    committees for tenure and promotion, research funding, and programs,
    including as chair of the institutional review of the Woods Hole
    Oceanographic Institution. I was elected member-at-large and then
    president of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and
    Oceanography, the largest international scientific society dedicated to
    the aquatic sciences. I have also served as member-at-large, treasurer
    and chair of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, an
    organization that represents over a million scientists in the United
    States across all scientific disciplines. From 2012 to 2015, I served
    at the National Science Foundation as section head and then director of
    the Division of Ocean Sciences where I was responsible for programs
    across all ocean disciplines as well as major oceanographic facilities
    including NSF use of the U.S. research fleet, ocean observing, and the
    ocean drilling program. It is an honor to continue that service by
    providing testimony to this Committee. I offer these thoughts as a
    citizen based on my experience as a scientist, an educator, and a
    mother.
        I also note that I am a middle child; we tend to be the
    peacekeepers. I was raised by very conservative parents that I
    respected and adored and I have spent my life working with many very
    liberal individuals who are like a second family. This means I have
    spent my entire life trying to look at both sides of what can be very
    contentious issues. When it comes to the ocean there are many.
        Earth's climate is changing and human activities are responsible.
    As a scientist, I have been trained to be skeptical, to dig deep and to
    look for holes in every argument. I admit it took me longer than most
    of my colleagues to fully acknowledge the truth our changing climate
    and then only after mounting evidence across many scientific
    disciplines was irrefutable.
        My work has taken me to the world's most remote areas and
    humanity's fingerprints are everywhere--on land and in the ocean. One
    need only look at the nighttime composite photos of the Earth from
    space to see how dramatically we have changed the face of this planet.
    From this vantage point, that we have altered our climate should come
    as no surprise.
        There is an abundance of scientific literature documenting changes
    to our climate and oceans and I will not do it justice here. In the
    time and space allowed I have tried to provide a brief tutorial of the
    basics that I would want all of our elected officials to know. I direct
    interested readers to the many excellent summary documents prepared
    through the National Climate Assessments, the State of the Carbon Cycle
    Reports, and the many products developed through the Intergovernmental
    Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
                          why the climate is changing
        Life exists on Earth because the planet has a blanket of
    atmospheric gases, including water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane,
    that acts like the glass of a greenhouse and retains some of the energy
    from incoming solar radiation. Over the past 100 years, mankind has
    taken carbon buried deep within the ground as fossil fuels, and burned
    it to power the incredible technological advances started during the
    Industrial Revolution. The result raised the standard of living for
    billions of people around the globe. It also increased the
    concentration of these greenhouse gases in our atmosphere resulting in
    an average increase in global temperature from 1901 to 2016 of 1.0+C
    (1.8+F; Hayhoe et al. 2018).
        This massive alteration of Earth's atmosphere has had a profound
    impact on our oceans, which have absorbed more than a quarter of the
    carbon dioxide released. Here I highlight two direct effects this
    increase in greenhouse gas concentrations have had on our oceans--they
    are now warmer and the pH of the water has declined, making the ocean
    more acidic.
    A. Ocean Warming
        Every year, humans release about 10 gigatons (36 billion tons) of
    carbon into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and other
    activities (Le Quere et al. 2018). In 2016, atmospheric levels of
    carbon dioxide passed 400 ppm, a striking milestone and a dramatic
    increase from pre-Industrial levels of 280 ppm. This huge surge in the
    levels of carbon and other greenhouse gases blanketing the atmosphere
    traps excess heat in the Earth's climate system.
        The oceans have absorbed 93 percent of this excess heat and store
    it for two main reasons. First, water has the highest specific heat
    capacity of any common material, meaning that it can absorb a great
    deal of heat before its temperature actually increases. Second, the
    global ocean is vast, covering 71 percent of the Earth's surface with
    an average depth of 4 kilometers (12,123 feet). This incredible volume
    makes it a huge reservoir for heat that is continuously distributed by
    currents and other circulation processes.
        The highest degree of warming has taken place in the upper 75
    meters (246 feet), as this upper layer lies closest to the warming
    atmosphere. Average global temperatures in the surface ocean have
    increased by 0.7  0.08+C (1.3+  0.1+F) per
    century between 1900 and 2016 (Jewett and Romanou 2017). The upper
    ocean also mixes vigorously, distributing the heat it absorbs. As more
    energy enters Earth's climate system, heat penetrates deeper into the
    ocean. Warming at the poles is especially impactful because these are
    the sites of deep ocean water formation. The combination of ice
    formation and extreme cold makes the waters in the North Atlantic dense
    relative to surrounding waters. These dense waters sink carrying heat
    to the ocean's interior.
        Most of the remaining 7 percent of this heat goes into melting sea
    ice, glaciers, ice caps, and warming the continent's land mass. Only a
    tiny fraction goes into warming the atmosphere, but even that is felt
    in rising global temperatures. The six warmest years on record have all
    occurred since 2010 (NOAA State of the Climate Report 2019). While
    there is much debate over the record of increasing air temperatures,
    the ocean does not have parking lots or heat island effects and yet
    still we see significant increases in temperature.
        The complex interactions between continued greenhouse gas
    emissions, the resulting energy imbalance, and changes in ocean heat
    storage and transport will largely control the impacts of anthropogenic
    climate change. I focus on five critical impacts here--melting of sea
    ice, sea level rise and coastal flooding, changes in the distribution
    and migration of marine organisms, the decline of coral reefs and
    deoxygenation of the ocean.
    1. Melting of Sea Ice
        The Arctic Ocean is important to the world's ecology, climate, and
    economy. Due to the shape of the planet, more incoming solar radiation
    concentrates at the equator than at the poles. The atmosphere and ocean
    currents address this energy imbalance by transporting heat away from
    the equator. This process has driven annual average temperatures in the
    Arctic to increase more than twice as fast as the global average,
    resulting in substantial loss of sea ice and glacial mass. Climate
    models using the IPCC ``business as usual'' scenario predict average
    Arctic temperatures will increase 7+C (45+F) by the year 2100.
        Since 1979,the annual average extent of Arctic sea ice has
    decreased 3.5 to 4.1 percent per decade, including an 80 percent loss
    in summer sea ice volume (Comiso and Hall 2014; Vaughan et al. 2013).
    The melting of sea ice now starts 15 days earlier than it did in the
    past, and it is predicted that the Arctic will be nearly free of late-
    summer sea ice by the middle of this century (Taylor et al. 2017).
    Diminishing sea ice also further amplifies Arctic warming, because blue
    water will absorb more energy than white ice, thus creating a positive
    feedback loop between warming and continued ice loss.
        The lack of summer Arctic sea ice is increasing seaside erosion,
    undercutting villages, and washing away infrastructure. Alaskans are
    being forced to change their hunting strategies and even the locations
    of whole communities. From 2010 to 2017, I made seven trips to Barrow,
    Alaska, the northern most village in the United States. In that short
    time, the changes to the region and community have been profound
    including the impending destruction of the main road from Barrow to
    Point Barrow due to erosion from the sea.
        The effect of sea ice loss is profound because it is a key part of
    polar ecosystems. Large blooms of algae occur at the ice edge and form
    the base of the Arctic Ocean food web (Arrigo 2014). As ice coverage
    declines, the timing and location of the ice edge blooms change, as
    does critical habitat for more than a thousand species, including polar
    bears, seabirds, and seals. Many organisms hunt, give birth, migrate
    and shelter on ice, and the loss of ice is causing declines in a number
    of species (Laidre et al. 2015). As one example, walruses are moving
    farther from shore as the sea ice extent shrinks, and hunters from
    native Arctic communities that rely on them must now travel further
    across open water, threatening both people's safety and traditional
    ways of life.
        Shrinking ice cover is also making the Arctic more accessible to
    shipping, with access by various countries and commercial entities.
    This brings both new opportunities and risks. The challenges that
    accompany greater access include protecting the border from new threats
    to national security, a heightened threat of oil spills and illegal
    fishing, and the need to update severely outdated nautical charts and
    put search and rescue plans in place.
    2. Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding
        Sea level is rising as a result of warming ocean temperatures and
    the melting of ice on land, such as glaciers and ice sheets. Warming
    water temperatures contribute to sea level rise because of thermal
    expansion--warm water takes up more volume than cooler water. Since
    1900, average sea level has risen by about 16 to 21 cm (7 to 8 inches)
    globally with about a third of the increase due to thermal expansion.
    Even more alarming than the amount is that nearly half of this increase
    has occurred since 1993. Sea level continues to rise at a rate of about
    one-eighth of an inch per year (Hayhoe et al. 2018).
        The ultimate magnitude of sea level rise will vary based on how
    land ice responds to continued warming. Predictions for the century
    between 2000 and 2100 vary from 1 to 4 feet of sea level increase, with
    extreme increases of over 8 feet if the Antarctic ice sheets collapse.
    If the ice sheet on Greenland were to melt, sea level could increase by
    an incredible 21 feet. These scenarios are unlikely, but I note that
    past increases have been larger and occurred more rapidly than
    expected. As a Nation, we need to prepare for the worst.
        There will be many consequences of higher sea levels. Destructive
    and deadly storm surges will reach farther inland, bringing more
    frequent flooding with high tides. These floods are disruptive and
    expensive. Today, nuisance flooding is estimated to be from 300 percent
    to 900 percent more frequent within U.S. coastal communities than 50
    years ago (Sweet et al. 2014).
        As ocean and atmospheric warming trends persist, sea level rise
    over the next centuries will ramp up to rates significantly higher than
    what we see today. Nearly 40 percent of people in the United States
    live in high-population-density coastal areas, where they will be
    subject to the flooding, shoreline erosion, and hazardous storms that
    come with rising sea levels. These impacts will also be felt globally--
    8 of the 10 largest cities in the world are near a coast as are 4 of
    the 10 largest cities in the United States.
        Specific locations will experience sea level rise differently based
    on local factors, such as subsidence and rebounding from natural
    geological processes, changes in regional ocean currents, and
    withdrawal of groundwater and fossil fuels. Sea level rise has already
    increased the frequency of flooding at high tide by a factor of 5 to 10
    since the 1960s for several U.S. coastal communities. The frequency and
    extent of tidal flooding are expected to continue to increase in the
    future and it's anticipated that there will be more severe flooding
    associated with coastal storms, hurricanes and nor'easters (Sweet et
    al. 2014). The infrastructure essential for local and regional
    industries in urban environments will be threatened, including roads,
    bridges, oil and gas wells, and power plants.
    3. Changes in the Migration and Distribution of Marine Organisms
        Increases in water temperatures and its associated effects have
    caused alterations to global patterns of ocean and atmospheric
    circulation, precipitation, and nutrients. Collectively, these effects
    are having a drastic impact on the abundance, diversity, and
    distribution of marine organisms--from the smallest bacteria to the
    largest fish.
        Most of the life in the ocean is microscopic. While we cannot see
    these microorganisms without a microscopic, they produce half of the
    oxygen we breathe and form the base of ocean food webs. As most are
    single-celled organisms that can only drift in the water column, these
    vital plankton are highly vulnerable to ocean changes.
        Broadly speaking, the ocean has two parts--a warmer, less dense
    layer at the surface that receives sunlight but has low nutrients
    (because the microorganisms have taken them all up) and a deep layer
    that is denser and colder, with no light but lots of nutrients (because
    decomposing organisms sink and release nutrients as they decompose).
    Rapid warming of surface water is increasing the temperature difference
    between these layers, increasing the stratification of the ocean and
    preventing the surface and deep water from mixing efficiently. As a
    result, most phytoplankton have a harder time staying near the sunlight
    that they need to grow, and the greater stratification restricts the
    delivery of nutrients phytoplankton need from the deep ocean.
        These changes to the base of the ocean food web reverberate through
    other marine species including the fishing sector, which contributes
    over $200 billion in economic activity each year and supports 1.6
    million jobs (NOAA Fisheries 2017). The species this industry relies
    upon are changing as a result of warming waters. These shifts in
    species distributions are complicating fishery management by changing
    the nature of traditional fisheries and efforts to protect endangered
    species.
        These shifts are especially prominent of the U.S. East Coast. For
    example, surveys conducted by state and Federal agencies have
    documented a number of shifts in distribution in fish, shellfish and
    other species along the mid-Atlantic with a trend toward poleward
    movement and/or movement to deeper cooler water (Lucey and Nye 2010).
    Recent research at Bigelow Laboratory shows that copepods (tiny
    crustacean that eat phytoplankton and are then eaten by higher
    organisms) are less viable if grown in warmer waters. Shrinking copepod
    populations will threaten numerous marine species that rely on them for
    nutrition, including the endangered North Atlantic right whale. As
    another example, surf clams, an important fishery in the mid-Atlantic
    region, have migrated to deeper waters at the southern edge of their
    range, causing regulatory issues for this industry (Weinberg 2005).
        I have provided a few examples of shifts in the distribution of
    organisms but I note that detecting and quantifying these changes are a
    challenge because each species within a community may response
    differently due to differences in their life history, where they live,
    and what they eat.
        Organisms also vary with respect to the outside forces that affect
    them such as fishing, destruction of their habitat or pollution. Due to
    this complexity, detecting and understanding shifts in species and
    populations requires a commitment to long-term monitoring programs,
    which have historically been very difficult to maintain.
    4. Coral Reef Decline
        Coral reefs are the foundations of many tropical ecosystems.
    Temperature is a powerful controlling variable for the health and
    location of coral reefs, and many exist at or near their upper
    temperature limit (Schoepf et al. 2015). As a result, ocean warming has
    had a devastating effect on coral reefs around the world. When corals
    are exposed to waters even slightly above their temperature maximum,
    they can release the symbiotic algae, called zooxanthellae, that live
    within their tissues. This process is known as bleaching because of the
    stark white color it turns corals. The symbiotic algae provide vital
    nutrients to the coral, and so bleaching often kills them.
        During the last 30 years, there have been several global-scale
    coral bleaching events (in 1987, 1998, 2005, and 2015-2016) that have
    resulted in a dramatic reduction of live coral. This puts the entire
    community of plants and animals that rely on the reefs in jeopardy. In
    the United States, mass bleaching events and outbreaks of coral
    diseases have occurred in the waters off Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico,
    the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands
    (Miller et al. 2009; Rogers and Muller 2012).
        In addition to the direct physiological stress of elevated
    temperatures, ocean warming also increases the incidence of coral
    disease, and ocean acidification affects the ability of corals to
    produce their calcium carbonate structures (discussed further in
    Section B below). When these effects compromise reef-building corals,
    the entire reef ecosystem becomes threatened (Jones et al. 2004). This
    includes a vast number of invertebrates and fish, organisms that many
    coastal communities depend on for subsistence. Corals also provide
    storm protection to coastal ecosystems and can form the basis of local
    or regional tourism economies (Pratchett et al. 2008).
    5. Low Oxygen
        Oxygen makes up 21 percent of the air we breathe and supports life
    on Earth, and half of this oxygen was produced by phytoplankton in the
    ocean. In water, oxygen exists in a dissolved form and acts as a
    limiting resource that controls the growth of many marine species. One
    consequence of climate change is the loss of oxygen from the oceans,
    known as ocean deoxygenation.
        Levels of oxygen in the ocean depend on a balance between oxygen
    production through phytoplankton photosynthesis, depletion through
    respiration by animals, and physical mixing processes. Climate change
    is shifting this balance in several ways. At the most fundamental
    level, warmer water holds less oxygen than cold. As the oceans warm,
    they lose their ability to physically hold oxygen.
        In addition, the surface ocean is warming fastest due to its
    proximity to the atmosphere. This makes the surface water less dense
    and less able to mix with the colder, denser water below, limiting the
    distribution of oxygen. At the same time, global ocean circulation
    patterns are shifting with climate change. Slower circulation and more
    upwelling of oxygen-poor deep water are further decreasing oxygen
    levels in the ocean.
        Long-term monitoring efforts reveal that oxygen concentrations have
    declined during the 20th century, and the IPCC 5th Assessment Report
    predicts that they will decrease 3-6 percent during the 21st century
    due to ocean surface warming. In coastal regions, low oxygen is a
    particularly devastating problem and dead zones where most organisms
    cannot live because of insufficient oxygen have been reported for more
    than 479 systems and their numbers have doubled every decade since the
    1960s (Diaz and Rosenberg 2008).
        This decline will be particularly impactful in hypoxic and suboxic
    areas of the ocean where oxygen is already in low concentrations. In
    hypoxic areas, oxygen is so low that it is detrimental to most
    organisms. In suboxic areas, oxygen levels are so low that most life
    cannot be sustained and water chemistry is severely altered. Oxygen
    minimum zones are severely oxygen-depleted waters that underlie
    productive surface waters and comprise 8 percent of the global ocean
    (Paulmier and Ruiz-Pino 2009). These zones are expanding through the
    globe's tropical ocean basins and the subarctic Pacific Ocean,
    compressing the habitat available to marine species around the globe. A
    mere 1+C warming in the upper ocean, less than predicted by even
    optimistic warming scenarios, will increase hypoxic areas by 10 percent
    and triple suboxic areas (Deutsch et al. 2011).
        Changes to biological processes are also contributing to this
    issue. Warmer water temperatures increase oxygen demand from organisms,
    leading to the faster depletion of available oxygen and threats to a
    vast range of species, including those that comprise valuable
    fisheries. For example, off the coast of California, waters between 200
    and 300 meters have lost 20-30 percent of their oxygen in the last 25
    years (Bograd et al. 2008), threatening important fisheries. In the
    tropical Atlantic Ocean, the vertical habitat of tuna and blue marlin
    reduced by 15 percent between 1960 and 2010 due to expanding oxygen
    minimum zones (Stramma et al. 2012; Schmidtko et al. 2017).
    B. Ocean Acidification
        In addition to warming, excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has
    a direct and independent effect on the chemistry of the ocean. Ocean
    acidification is the process of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the
    oceans and causing significant changes to seawater chemistry. Global
    chemical processes keep gasses in the ocean and the atmosphere in
    equilibrium. While humans have drastically increased the amount of
    carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the ocean has been working to keep
    up. About a quarter of the carbon dioxide we generate through
    industrial activity ends up in the ocean, and the resulting change in
    chemistry has caused the surface ocean to become 30 percent more
    acidic. This has occurred at a rate at least 10 times faster than any
    natural acidification event in the past, and affects everything from
    chemical processes to sea life.
        When carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves in seawater, it
    changes three aspects of ocean chemistry. First, it increases levels of
    dissolved carbon dioxide and bicarbonate ions, which are the fuel for
    photosynthesis in phytoplankton and plants. Second, it increases the
    concentration of free hydrogen ions, which makes the water more acidic.
    Third, it reduces the concentration of carbonate ions. Carbonate is
    critical to many marine organisms, which use the mineral calcium
    carbonate to form their shells or skeletons. For some species, rising
    temperatures and decreasing oxygen levels in the ocean may exacerbate
    the effects of ocean acidification.
        The cold temperature of high latitude ecosystems results in great
    carbon dioxide solubility making polar regions highly vulnerable to
    ocean acidification. Sea ice loss is causing Arctic waters to acidify
    faster than expected. Further, acidification along the U.S. coast is
    greater than the global average for a number of reasons, including the
    natural upwelling of acidic waters off the Pacific Northwest and
    California coasts, changes to freshwater inputs in the Gulf of Maine,
    and anthropogenic nutrient input into urban estuaries. Here I'll focus
    on two major consequences of ocean acidification--changes to the ocean
    carbon cycle and the impact on organisms and the industries built
    around them including fisheries and aquaculture.
    1. Changes to the Ocean Carbon Cycle
        Carbon is recycled and reused through biological and physical ocean
    processes including photosynthesis, respiration by animals, and mixing.
    The carbon cycle drives important biogeochemical processes that shape
    the character of the global ocean and planet as a whole. When organisms
    die, they sink, bringing the carbon that composes their bodies into the
    deep ocean. This is referred to as the biological pump because it pumps
    carbon from the surface to the deep ocean and can sequester carbon away
    for hundreds of years. The oceans are by far the largest carbon sink,
    or storage reservoir, in the world.
        The combined effect of ocean warming and acidification lowers the
    ability of the ocean to take up additional carbon dioxide in three
    general ways. First, as noted above, warmer water can simply hold less
    gas than colder water. Second, the warmer water in the surface ocean
    becomes, the more stratified the water column will be. Greater
    stratification reduces mixing and so reduces the ability for carbon
    dioxide dissolved in surface water to be mixed into deeper waters.
    Third, it is generally harder for organisms to build shells out of
    calcium carbonate in more acidic waters. This means that phytoplankton
    that build shells (such as coccolithophores), and are therefore heavier
    and so sink faster, are at a disadvantage. As the ocean continues to
    acidify, any selection away from organisms that build shells and toward
    organisms that do not, will likely weaken the biological pump and
    decrease the transport of carbon into the deep ocean as phytoplankton
    die. These effects are already being seen and the oceans are becoming
    less able to absorb carbon dioxide (e.g. Khatiwala et al. 2016).
    2. Threats to Organisms, including Fisheries and Aquaculture
        The impacts of ocean acidification are diverse. Although certain
    species are favored by more acidic waters, ocean acidification appears
    to negatively impact more marine species than it helps. Organisms that
    use carbonate minerals to build skeletons or shells struggle with this
    basic function in more acidic waters. Organisms like clams, mussels,
    and phytoplankton that use calcium carbonate to build shells and other
    structures are important in environments and economies around the
    globe. Under the IPCC low emissions scenario, 7 to 12 percent of
    calcifying species would be significantly affected by lowering pH, and
    21 to 32 percent of calcifying species would be impacted under the high
    emissions scenario (Azevedo et al. 2015).
        Ocean acidification also appears to favor some toxic phytoplankton
    species that form harmful algal blooms, allowing them to become more
    abundant in changing ecosystems. Including freshwater and marine
    ecosystems, harmful algal blooms are a significant environmental
    problem in all 50 states (EPA).
        Entire coral reef ecosystems are also severely threatened by ocean
    acidification. Corals depend on calcium carbonate to build their
    exoskeletons, and acidification impedes this process. The acidic water
    also literally dissolves coral structures, and the bulk of a coral reef
    itself. Many reefs around the world are dissolving faster than they can
    build themselves back up. In addition to forming the foundations of
    ecosystems, corals also provide storm protection to coastal ecosystems
    and can form the basis of local or regional tourism economies. By the
    end of this century, the loss in recreation from coral reefs in the
    United States is expected to reach $140 billion (Pershing et al. 2018).
        Some of the animals at risk from acidification also comprise
    lucrative fisheries in the United States, like lobsters in the
    Northeast and squid in California. These animals are physically
    compromised by acidification, and they may find it harder to get the
    food they need in acidifying oceans. Acidification impairs the senses
    of some fish and invertebrates, causing them to misinterpret cues from
    predators and engage in risky behaviors, like swimming far from home.
    Damage to key phytoplankton and zooplankton species can reverberate
    through entire food webs, affecting the fisheries that they support.
        The U.S. aquaculture industry is already shifting in response to
    ocean acidification. Larval shellfish cannot build shells under high
    acidity, and high mortality rates have afflicted the Pacific
    Northwest's $270 million shellfish industry since 2005. The poor
    conditions have prompted some shellfish aquaculture facilities to
    relocate. In Maine, some shellfish farmers are also growing kelp in an
    effort to improve local water quality and the health of their stocks.
                              concluding thoughts
        Climate change is bringing societal disruption on a global scale.
    As with any disruption, there will be winners and losers. Our challenge
    as a nation moving forward is to reduce the risks of climate change
    while capitalizing on its benefits, and I believe there will be plenty
    of both. The nation who will own the future will be the one that
    invests in the science of climate change so that decisions are based on
    sound data, that educates its citizen on ways to mitigate its effects,
    and that adapts to the new reality we all face. Here I will focus on
    the investments needed in the science.
        The ultimate cause of climate change is the burning of fossil fuels
    and the resulting release of greenhouse gases. There has been much talk
    about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and as a nation we need to make
    this a priority. At Bigelow we occupy a Platinum LEED certified
    laboratory building that is cost effective to run and have a residence
    powered by a solar array. Supporting programs to advance the science
    and reduce the cost of green technology is critical to our country's
    future. I believe it is too late, however, to rely solely on this
    approach to mitigate severe climate disruption. The carbon ship has
    left the dock and humanity has shown little commitment to taking it
    back into port.
        There is no doubt in my mind that to limit the effects of climate
    change, humanity will geoengineer the planet. This could take many
    forms including seeding the atmosphere with reflective particles, ocean
    fertilization, or large-scale industrial carbon sequestration. I do not
    advocate for this approach but fear that we will quickly reach a point
    where it will seem inevitable. When that time comes, and I fear it will
    come soon, we need the scientific data to maximize the chance of
    success and limit the many risk. We will also need an international
    regulatory and ethical framework to protect the humanity it seeks to
    serve.
        With respect to the science, we need to dramatically increase our
    investments in understanding our own planet if we are to succeed. The
    National Science Foundation (NSF) is the Federal agency that supports
    basic research across all science and engineering disciplines. I
    believe NSF is our secret sauce and the reason the United States has
    been a leader in science and technology on this planet. This
    foundational research supports the many other mission agencies that
    address ocean issues, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
    Administration and National Aeronautics and Space Administration being
    two of the most important. As director of the Division of Ocean Science
    at NSF, I managed a budget of $356M and was responsible for basic
    research across all scientific disciplines. This is a lot of money
    until one considers that it is only about a dollar per person in this
    country. Considering the importance of understanding how the ocean
    works and the rapid changes we see in the world, it is not nearly
    enough. This country must increase its investments in basic and applied
    research at the Federal, state, and local level if it is to efficiently
    understand and mitigate the problems we are facing and it needs to do
    it now.
        Climate change is a global issue and its root causes will only be
    addressed through international cooperation. Just as it took an
    international effort to synthesize and build scientific consensus
    around climate change through the IPCC, so will it take an
    international effort to regulate and control geoengineering with all of
    its many risks. Any regulations will need to be built on a foundation
    of an ethical framework. As the recent birth of two babies born with
    edited genomes has shown, there are real dangers when scientific
    capabilities get ahead of established standards for its ethical use.
        In conclusion, despite the doom and gloom of the proceeding pages,
    I am optimistic about our future. We live in a time of rapid scientific
    advancement where each of us is able to access much of the collective
    knowledge of humanity on our cell phone. That so many scientists around
    the world, a group of people trained to be skeptical, hypercritical,
    and, dare I say, argumentative, have found a way to reach consensus and
    to speak with one voice on climate change is another reason to hope.
    Through my work at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, I
    interact daily with brilliant scientists that are thinking outside of
    the box, students committed to changing the world, people of wealth who
    are stepping in to support innovation, and my fellow citizens who care
    enough to show up for talks, beach cleanups, and recycling events. The
    will is there and we will find the solutions we need but the time to
    act is now. As I have said many times--I believe in science, I believe
    in this country and I believe in good old-fashioned American ingenuity.
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                                     ______

        Mr. Huffman. Thank you, Dr. Bronk.
        Next, we recognize Dr. Legates, a Professor of Climatology
    at the Department of Geography at the University of Delaware.
        Welcome, Dr. Legates.

       STATEMENT OF DAVID R. LEGATES, PROFESSOR OF CLIMATOLOGY,
                UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE, NEWARK, DELAWARE

        Dr. Legates. Thank you, Chairman Huffman.
        Coasts are naturally hazardous areas due to the impact of
    rising seas, coastal storms, shifting barrier islands, and
    flooding caused by rainfall draining into low-lying areas.
        Globally, sea level has naturally risen at a rate of about
    8 inches per century for at least several hundred years. This
    rate may be higher in some places due to local land subsidence
    caused by glacial isostasy, such as along the Mid-Atlantic
    region, and/or sediment compaction through river
    channelization, such as in southern Louisiana. Shifting sands
    on barrier islands through strong storms change the local
    landscape and can affect life along the coast.
        The question we wish to answer is whether anthropogenic
    increases in greenhouse gas concentrations exacerbate these
    coastal impacts.
        The data I present in my written testimony, sea-level rise
    has been consistently linear at nearly all stations for which
    more than 70 years of data are available. As greenhouse gas
    concentrations have increased--about 45 percent from before the
    Industrial Age--the lack of a significant change in the rate of
    increase implies that sea levels are not significantly affected
    by changes in carbon dioxide.
        Moreover, extreme climate events are becoming neither more
    intense nor more frequent. When Hurricane Harvey made landfall
    near Houston in 2017, it ended a record of nearly 12 years
    without a major hurricane landfall in the United States. Tools
    that chart the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones,
    such as their number and the energy associated with them, show
    a cyclical pattern to hurricane activity but no long-term trend
    over the last 50 years.
        In the United States, 14 Category 4 or 5 hurricanes made
    landfall in the 44-year period between 1926 and 1969, but only
    4 have occurred in the 49 years since. Historically, hurricane
    landfalls are more frequent during colder periods and become
    less frequent as the temperature rises.
        Consequently, we can agree with the IPCC that low
    confidence exists in the attribution of changes in tropical
    cyclone activity to human influence owing to insufficient
    observational evidence, a lack of physical understanding of the
    links between anthropogenic drivers of climate and tropical
    cyclone activity, and the low level of agreement between
    studies as to the relative importance of internal variability,
    anthropogenic, and natural forcing.
        Seawater is naturally alkaline, but the addition of
    dissolved carbon dioxide leads to acidification or a lowered
    pH, so the addition of carbonic acid. Rather than causing the
    dissolution of calcium-carbonate-based shells of various
    animals in the oceans, many species such as lobsters and blue
    crabs actually will thrive on the additional carbonate and
    bicarbonate ions and a slightly lowered pH content. Studies
    which have attempted to demonstrate that calcium-carbonate-
    based shells dissolve in lower-pH conditions often use
    hydrochloric acid rather than carbonic acid, which has a
    considerably different chemistry and a deadlier impact.
        My main concern here today is that we are focusing on an
    expensive solution that will have virtually no impact on the
    Earth's climate. Climate has always changed, and weather is
    always variable due to complex, powerful natural forces. No
    efforts to stabilize the climate can possibly be successful.
        Current climate observations indicate that the events which
    kill or injure the most people and have the biggest economic
    impact are not affected significantly by changing greenhouse
    gas concentrations. Insistence that these events must be caused
    or exacerbated by human activity reflects a denial of basic
    climate science. Decades of failed forecasts of climate doom
    underscore the problem.
        The current emphasis on climate change abatement will do
    far more harm than good. So-called clean energy sources, wind
    and solar, require environmentally degrading strip-mining
    practices to extract rare-earth elements from the ground. Wind
    turbines, hybrid cars, and solar panels require large
    quantities of these rare metals. Mine workers are exposed to
    highly toxic and dangerous working conditions, usually for low
    pay and often with child-labor exploitation. Water from the
    mines contaminates soil and groundwater and the required
    process of strip-mining involves significant environmental
    degradation. These clean energy sources are anything but clean.
        The long-term impact of eschewing fossil fuels will
    unintentionally make energy expensive. Anything that uses
    energy will therefore cost more. Transportation costs will
    skyrocket, making it expensive to travel to work and to
    transport goods to market. Heating and cooling costs will
    become so expensive that many will have to choose between food
    or heat. Energy is necessary to produce almost everything we
    have. To make energy expensive is to make living difficult for
    all but the richest citizens.
        We certainly wish to be good stewards of our environment,
    and we should strive for energy conservation and to search out
    alternative forms of inexpensive energy. But the notion that we
    should fast-transition from fossils fuels to so-called clean
    energy to protect us from climate change and to save the planet
    is a recipe for personal and economic disaster that will have
    virtually no impact on the Earth's climate.
        I urge you to investigate the true science behind climate
    change and not be influenced by climate exaggerations, so you
    can better understand the role inexpensive energy can have in
    lifting the poorest among us.
        Thank you.

        [The prepared statement of Dr. Legates follows:]
         Prepared Statement of David R. Legates, University of Delaware
        I am David R. Legates, professor and climatologist, at the
    University of Delaware. I also hold a joint appointment in the
    Department of Applied Economics and Statistics as well as in the
    Physical Ocean Science and Engineering program. I served as the
    Delaware State Climatologist from 2005 to 2011 and was a founder of the
    Delaware Environmental Observing System, a statewide network for
    environmental monitoring and analysis. I was part of the U.S.
    delegation that negotiated a protocol for the first climate data
    exchange program with the Soviet Union in 1990. I am recognized as a
    Certified Consulting Meteorologist by the American Meteorological
    Society and was the recipient of the 2002 Boeing Autometric Award in
    Image Analysis and Interpretation by the American Society of
    Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. I would like to thank both the
    Chairman and the Committee for the opportunity to provide my
    perspective of 40 years of experience on climate change and coastal
    communities.
        It is a privilege for me to offer my views on the science involving
    sea level rise and coastal impacts due to weather and climate
    variability. I might best be described as a statistical
    hydroclimatologist--someone who researches the interactions between
    water and climate from an observational setting. I have investigated
    biases in our evaluation of precipitation owing to errors in
    precipitation gage measurement and how they influence satellite and
    radar estimates. I also have been involved with the analysis of
    hydrological data to assess the impact of climate variability and
    change.
                                  introduction
        Living along the coasts and in low-lying areas can be hazardous.
    Coastal storms, such as hurricanes, tropical storms, and nor'easters,
    often batter the coast, producing high winds and waves. Heavy rainfall
    pools into low-lying areas, turning flood plains and the mouths of
    streams and rivers into flooded regions with possibly fast-moving
    water. Sea levels are rising, as they have been for the past 20,000
    years, which encroaches upon the land. In addition, the land subsides
    in places due to channelization of the river system or the response of
    the Earth's mantle to glacial isostatic adjustment.
        In Louisiana, for example, the land is subsiding at a considerable
    rate due to sediment compaction. The Mississippi River flood plain is
    naturally replenished by the sediment that is deposited during flood
    events. However, the Mississippi River has been channelized by the
    levee system such that it is like a ``freeway with no on-ramp.'' Rivers
    such as the Amite and Comite no longer empty into the Mississippi.
    Thus, local flooding occurs in Baton Rouge and throughout much of
    southern Louisiana east of the Mississippi River because of the changed
    drainage patterns. Moreover, the flood waters of the Mississippi River,
    which used to bring sediments to replenish the land, are efficiently
    transported to the Gulf of Mexico. The land, therefore, subsides as the
    existing sediments compact, leaving areas such as New Orleans below sea
    level and resulting in an increased loss of wetland areas.
        In the Mid-Atlantic region (i.e., Delaware and New Jersey), the
    land also is subsiding at a rapid rate. At the maximum spatial extent
    of the Laurentide ice sheet (21,500 years ago) that extended as far
    south as central Pennsylvania, the weight of the ice pressed down on
    the land surface causing it to subside, particularly over much of New
    England and eastern Canada. Consequently, the land along the peripheral
    forebulge of the Laurentide ice sheet (i.e., in the Mid-Atlantic
    region) was forced upward due to the pressure placed on the land to the
    north. As the deglaciation of the Laurentide ice sheet occurred during
    the late Holocene, the regions under the ice sheet, much of New England
    has seen relatively rapid uplift, while regions just to the south have
    experienced (and continue to experience) subsidence.
        Barrier islands often block the effect of landfalling storms and
    mitigate the effect of these storms on inland areas. Storms often
    reshape the coastline by moving the sand that comprises barrier
    islands. Problems often arise when humans build upon these shifting
    sands and expect them to remain immobile. The fact is that barrier
    islands are constantly dynamic, and their shape and presence make
    living in coastal regions potentially hazardous.
                       sea level rise and climate change
        Globally, sea level began to rise after the demise of the last
    major glaciation approximately 20,000 years ago (Figure 1), rising
    nearly 400 feet (120 m). As the glaciers covering much of the Northern
    Hemisphere land areas melted, sea level rose quite rapidly. Over the
    last 8,000 years or so, the rise has been much slower, and has occurred
    due to melting of land ice as well as the thermal expansion of sea
    water. The rate over the last century has been about 7 to 8 inches (2
    mm yr-1). However, the North Polar region has not yet
    reached equilibrium such that melting continues to occur. Locally,
    trends in sea levels may vary substantially from the global trend
    because of both tectonic activity and coastal subsidence or coastal
    isostatic rebound.
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

          Figure 1. Sea level rise since the last glacial maximum
                                  (Wikipedia).

        Consider a cube of ice placed into a room at 72+F. The ice will
    continue to melt, even though the room remains at a constant
    temperature. This is because the ice cube has not reached equilibrium
    with the temperature of the room and melt of the ice cube will continue
    to occur.
        Our question today is whether rising concentrations of greenhouse
    gases are causing sea levels to rise dramatically. Specifically, are we
    seeing an increase in the rate of sea level rise? To address this
    question, we can examine historical observations of sea level as well
    as satellite-derived estimates.
        The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
    regularly updates its coastal sea level tide gauge data which includes
    measurements at coastal locations along the East Coast, the Gulf Coast,
    the West Coast, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Gulf of
    Mexico. Their record covers more than 200 measurement stations.
        The longest NOAA tide gauge record in the United States is located
    at the Battery in New York City. Its 160-year record (Figure 2, top)
    shows a steady rate of sea level rise of 11 inches per century,
    slightly higher than the current global average of about 7 to 8 inches
    per century (or about 0.075 inches per year) due to the coastal
    subsidence discussed earlier. Atlantic City NJ (Figure 2, bottom)
    illustrates a steady rise at a higher level--about 16 inches per
    century--due to its location near the peripheral forebulge of the
    Laurentide ice sheet.
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

     Figure 2. Sea level trends for The Battery in New York City (top)
    and for Atlantic City, New Jersey (bottom). Data retrieved on February
                                    4, 2019.

        Although the data from Kings Point is a much shorter record, both
    stations show that sea level rise over the past century (and since 1855
    for The Battery) has been steadily increasing despite periods of
    relatively rapid air temperature increase and cooling that have
    occurred over the past century. Moreover, no correlation exists between
    atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and sea level rise--
    CO2 has exhibited no apparent impact on the rate of sea
    level rise despite the rise in atmospheric CO2
    concentrations from 280 parts per million to 400 parts per million.
        Consider now the West Coast of the United States. The 100+ year
    record in Seattle, WA (Figure 3, top) shows a steady rate of sea level
    rise of about 8 inches per century, near the long-term global average.
    Although a shorter record at Los Angeles CA (Figure 3, bottom), Los
    Angeles has experienced a steady rate of sea level rise of about 4
    inches per century, below the long-term global average.

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

     Figure 3. Sea level trends for Seattle, Washington (top) and for
     Los Angeles, California (bottom). Data retrieved on February 4, 2019.

        Along the United States Gulf Coast, the 100+ year record at Grand
    Isle, LA (Figure 4) also shows a steady rise in sea level of about 35.7
    inches. Although the curve shows a very high rate of sea level rise,
    the increase is linear with little hint of an accelerating trend due to
    the possible impact of increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
    Again, the culprit for this high rate of sea level rise is the
    compaction of sediments and the channelization of the Mississippi
    River.

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 4. Sea level trends for Grand Isle, Louisiana. Data
                         retrieved on February 4, 2019.

        Honolulu, HI (Figure 5), like many island stations, exhibits
    significant yearly fluctuations in sea level due to the impact of
    global ocean currents. However, sea level rise in Honolulu has been
    only about 5.8 inches per century, with virtually no correlation with
    global CO2 levels.

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 5. Sea level trends for Honolulu, Hawaii. Data were
                         retrieved on February 4, 2019.

        By contrast, sea level trends for Sitka, AK (Figure 6) shows a
    decrease in sea level of about 9.2 inches per year. This illustrates
    the effect from both local tectonic activity as well as isostatic
    rebound effect of the unloading of the ice sheet during the last ice
    age.

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

     Figure 6. Sea level trends for Sitka, Alaska. Data were retrieved
                              on February 4, 2019.

        The message of these and many other stations around the United
    States is that while sea level rise is not constant, its rate of change
    over time is not changing because of increasing concentrations of
    greenhouse gases. If CO2 was an agent causing sea level rise
    to increase, the patterns should show an increasing trend in the rate
    of sea level rise over time. The records shown here (and at many other
    stations around the globe) do not exhibit a substantial increase in sea
    level over time. Local and regional changes in sea levels exhibit
    typical natural variability, relatively unrelated to changes in the
    global averaged sea level. Thus, atmospheric trace gas concentrations
    have no measurable impact on sea levels.
                      tropical cyclones and climate change
        The impact of more frequent and intense hurricanes is important
    owing to the damage that may occur to coastal areas. However, much of
    the potential damage due to tropical cyclones along the coast is likely
    due to human settlement of low-lying and coastal areas.
        In 2013, the Fifth Assessment report of the IPCC proclaimed ``there
    is low confidence in long-term (centennial) changes in tropical cyclone
    activity, after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities .
    . . and there is low confidence in attribution of changes in tropical
    cyclone activity to human influence owing to insufficient observational
    evidence, lack of physical understanding of the links between
    anthropogenic drivers of climate and tropical cyclone activity and the
    low level of agreement between studies as to the relative importance of
    internal variability, and anthropogenic and natural forcings.''
        Investigation of the trend in hurricanes making landfall in the
    continental United States since 1990 shows no significant trend in
    either landfalling hurricanes, major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher),
    or normalized damage (Figures 7 and 8). Although the data exhibit
    considerable variability, the long-term trend is fewer landfalling
    hurricanes and major hurricanes while the normalized damage (constant
    dollars) has remained unchanged.

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

       Figure 7. Landfalling hurricanes and major hurricanes for the
    continental United States since 1900. Figure from Klotzbach, P.J., S.G.
     Bowen, et al. (2018). ``Continental U.S. hurricane landfall frequency
      and associated damage.'' Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc. 99(7):1359-1377.
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

         Figure 8. Normalized landfalling hurricane damage for the
     continental United States since 1900 in constant 2017 dollars. Figure
      from Klotzbach, P.J., S.G. Bowen, et al. (2018). ``Continental U.S.
       hurricane landfall frequency and associated damage.'' Bull. Amer.
                        Meteorol. Soc. 99(7):1359-1377.

        In the 1990s, Dr. William Gray (Colorado State University) found
    that natural cycles in the Atlantic basin (sea surface temperatures)
    and air temperature variability drove variability in hurricane
    activity. Variability in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
    (fluctuations of sea surface temperature) may be related to changes in
    the thermohaline circulation. In its positive (warm) phase, hurricane
    formation is more likely while the converse is also true (Figure 9,
    blue line).

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

      Figure 9. Accumulated cyclone energy (green) and the normalized
    Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (blue). Figure from Klotzbach, P.J.,
    W.M. Gray, et al. (2015). ``Active Atlantic hurricane era at its end?''
                        Nature Geoscience 8(10):737-738.

        Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) is the summation (every 6 hours)
    of the apparent wind energy produced by a tropical system over its
    lifetime. The 3-year averaged ACE for the Atlantic Basin is shown
    (Figure 9, green line) and for the Northern Hemisphere and the globe
    (Figure 10). As with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, ACE shows
    much temporal variability but little by way of a trend.
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

     Figure 10. Major (Category 3 to 5) hurricane frequency (top) and
      the accumulated cyclone energy (bottom) for both the globe and the
      Northern Hemisphere. Figure from http://policlimate.com/tropical/,
                        downloaded on February 5, 2019.

        Little-to-no observational evidence exists that tropical cyclone
    activity has worsened over the last 50+ years, let alone address the
    question of whether changes in hurricane activity could be affected by
    anthropogenic activities. None of these data demonstrate any obvious
    long-term trends, but they do exhibit large variability on yearly/
    decadal time scales.
        While devastating, Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy were neither
    unusual nor unexpected. In the 1990s while at the University of
    Oklahoma, I taught that eventually a hurricane would pass New Orleans
    and the cyclonic winds would put stress on the levee system holding
    Lake Pontchartrain back. The pressure upon the levees may be enough to
    cause them to fail and water to flood portions of New Orleans. The
    normal FEMA response is to wait for the storm surge to recede and bring
    in mobile houses if the homes are uninhabitable. But since sediment
    compaction has caused portions of New Orleans to be below sea level.
    Thus, the water would not recede, and the normal FEMA response would be
    inappropriate. I was not a prophet; but rather, what I imparted to the
    students was simply a fact that climatologists knew was likely to
    occur.
        Similarly, Hurricane Sandy was rare in that it turned west while in
    mid-latitudes. It is not surprising that weak storms (Hurricane Sandy
    was extratropical by the time it made landfall) would be affected by
    mid-latitude weather patterns. Hurricane Sandy, therefore, was not
    unexpected but the results were devastating because it made landfall at
    a highly populated location.
                              ocean acidification
        Due to dissolved salts (primarily Na+ and
    Cl-), the pH of ocean seawater is primarily basic.
    With the inclusion of dissolved CO2, the pH of ocean
    seawater is decreasing (i.e., becoming more acidic), which is termed
    ``ocean acidification.'' The question is whether this acidification is
    significant and whether it matters.
        The addition of CO2 to seawater increases carbonic acid
    which lowers the pH. However, the chemistry is more complex as chemical
    buffering by dissolved salts greatly affects the resulting pH. IPCC AR5
    suggests that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 might lower the
    pH by up to 0.2--well within the normal seasonal/diurnal variation in
    seawater pH. Globally, ocean surface pH varies considerably. Many
    factors affect local pH, including components of the ecosystem,
    underlying ocean depth, and dissolved parent material.
        An argument has been made that lowering the oceanic pH due to the
    absorption of more CO2 would likely destroy the
    CaCO3 shells of various animals. Indeed, Dr. Jane Lubchenco
    testified on December 2, 2009 to a U.S. House subcommittee: ``Who in
    the ocean is affected by this [`Osteoporosis of the Sea']? Any plant or
    animal that has a shell or skeleton made of calcium carbonate. The hard
    parts of many familiar animals such as oysters, clams, corals,
    lobsters, crabs, . . . are made of calcium carbonate'' and showed
    pictures from the National Geographic Society of the shell of a
    Limacina helicina Antarctica, a Pteropod, that had largely dissolved
    after about 45 days when subjected to decreased pH. But a study in 2008
    (Iglesias-Rodriguez, M.D., P.R. Halloran, et al. 2008. ``Phytoplankton
    calcification in a high-CO2 world.'' Science 320:336-340) concluded
    that ``Increased atmospheric CO2 also enhances marine life,
    in contradiction to previous claims where lower pH in the ocean was
    said to be dissolving calcium material (i.e., CaCO3) and
    therefore causing harm to marine life.'' They go on to note that ``most
    of these experiments [with lowered pH] used semi-continuous cultures,
    in which the carbonate system was modified by the addition of acid and/
    or base to control pH.'' Indeed, some of these lab studies used
    hydrochloric acid, not carbon dioxide (i.e., carbonic acid) to lower
    the pH of the seawater. While the change in pH may be similar, the
    chemistry involved with the chlorine ion is far different than that
    with the carbonate and bicarbonate ions.
        Dr. Justin Ries of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    raised both lobsters and blue crabs in a CO2-enriched
    environment (Figure 11) and demonstrated that under elevated
    CO2 levels, both species grew faster. He has raised the
    concern that such rapid growth could disrupt the food chain but to
    simply assert that ocean acidification will necessarily diminish all
    life in the oceans is an extreme claim.
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 11. Lobster (top) and blue crab (bottom) grown under
        different levels of atmospheric CO2. On the left are
          crustaceans grown under current (i.e., 400 ppm) atmospheric
    CO2 concentrations and under elevated CO2 on the
    right (i.e., 2800 ppm). Figure from Dr. Justin Ries, marine researcher
                at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

                                    summary
        Coasts are naturally hazardous areas due to the impact of rising
    seas, coastal storms, shifting barrier islands, and flooding caused by
    rainfall into low-lying areas. Global sea levels have risen naturally
    at a rate of about 7 to 8 inches per century for at least several
    hundred years. Locally, this rate may be higher due to local land
    subsidence and/or compaction of sediments or lower due to isostatic
    rebound. Shifting sands on barrier islands change the local landscape
    and can affect life along coastal areas.
        The question we wish to answer is whether anthropogenic increases
    in CO2 concentrations exacerbate these coastal impacts. From
    the data shown above, sea level rise has been consistent linear at
    nearly all stations for which long-term measurements are made. This
    indicates that increasing CO2 concentrations are not
    significantly affecting the rate of sea level rise. As these
    concentrations have increased from before the industrial age when
    atmospheric CO2 levels were about 280 ppm to current
    conditions where they exceed 400 ppm, the lack of a significant change
    in the rate of increase implies that sea level rise is not responding
    to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations.
        Severe weather events--most notably tropical cyclones/hurricanes--
    have not increased significantly over the last 60 or more years. No
    significant trend exists with either landfalling hurricanes in the
    United States, landfalling significant hurricanes (Category 3 or
    higher), or with the accumulated cyclone energy; a measure of the
    energy associated with tropical cyclones integrated over all storms in
    the basin for a given season or month. In all cases, short-term trends
    exist but those reflect natural variability and do not contribute to
    the longer-term trend. Damage for the continental United States from
    landfalling tropical cyclones since 1900 also shows no increasing trend
    in constant dollars despite the increased development along our
    coastlines. Consequently, we can agree with the IPCC that low
    confidence exists in the attribution of changes in tropical cyclone
    activity to human influence.
        Seawater is naturally alkaline, but the addition of dissolved
    CO2 leads to acidification (i.e., lowered pH) through the
    addition of carbonic acid. Rather than leading to the dissolution of
    CaCO3-based shells of various animals in the oceans, many
    species will thrive on the addition of carbonate and bicarbonate ions
    and the slightly lowered pH content. Studies which have attempted to
    demonstrate that CaCO3-based shells dissolve in lowered pH
    conditions often have used hydrochloric acid, rather than carbonic
    acid, which has a considerably different chemistry.
        Coastal living is accompanied by additional hazards, although it is
    unlikely that these hazards will increase in the future due to
    increases in atmospheric concentrations of CO2, in large
    part because concentrations have increased nearly 45 percent over pre-
    industrial levels and no significant impact on these hazards has been
    observed.

                                     ______

        Mr. Huffman. Thank you, Dr. Legates.
        Finally, the Committee welcomes and the Chair recognizes
    Dr. Dayaratna, Senior Statistician and Research Programmer at
    the Institute for Economic Freedom, a program of The Heritage
    Foundation in Washington, DC.
        Welcome, Doctor.

    STATEMENT OF KEVIN DAYARATNA, SENIOR STATISTICIAN AND RESEARCH
       PROGRAMMER, INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC FREEDOM, THE HERITAGE
                       FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, DC

        Dr. Dayaratna. Thank you. Chairman Huffman, Ranking Member
    McClintock, and other members of the Subcommittee, thank you
    for the opportunity to testify about healthy oceans and healthy
    economies.
        My name is Kevin Dayaratna. I am the Senior Statistician
    and Research Programmer at The Heritage Foundation. The views I
    express in this testimony are my own and should not be
    construed as representing any official position of The Heritage
    Foundation.
        Energy is literally the basis of anything and everything we
    do, from flipping on the light switch, to starting up your car,
    to enabling this very hearing to operate. And, unfortunately,
    many people take energy for granted.
        Over the course of the past decade, it has been the
    fundamental goal of policy makers in Washington to expand
    regulations across the energy sector of the economy. During my
    work at Heritage, my colleagues and I have used various
    academic models to examine the impact of proposed regulations.
    In our work published with The Heritage Foundation, we have
    found that the policies aimed at decarbonization will result in
    devastating economic impacts, with negligible impacts on the
    climate.
        The primary metric used by policy makers to justify carbon-
    based regulations is the social cost of carbon, which is
    defined as the economic damages associated with a metric ton of
    carbon dioxide emissions summed across a particular time
    horizon.
        Our work is based on the same models that the Federal
    Government used to estimate the social cost of carbon. This
    work, published at Heritage as well as in the peer-reviewed
    literature, has repeatedly demonstrated, while these models
    might be interesting for academic exercises, their assumptions
    can be readily manipulated by regulators and bureaucrats.
        These models make fundamental assumptions regarding climate
    sensitivity. The idea is that these models attempt to forecast
    temperatures centuries into the future to quantify the
    associated cost of carbon dioxide emissions. A very reasonable
    question is how accurate these forecasts actually are.
        Equilibrium climate sensitivity distributions are used to
    quantify the Earth's temperature response to a doubling of
    carbon dioxide concentration. A vast amount of recently
    published research has shown lower-than-expected sensitivity to
    carbon dioxide. Indeed, recent sensitivity assumptions have
    lowered the social cost of carbon by as much as 80 percent or
    more.
        A more fundamental question not discussed by the Federal
    Government is: Are there actually any benefits associated with
    carbon dioxide emissions? Well, a model often employed by the
    EPA actually quantifies these benefits. In fact, under some
    very reasonable assumptions, there are substantial
    probabilities of negative social cost of carbon, or, in
    layman's terms, actual benefits, in some cases as high as two-
    thirds, resulting from greater CO2 prevalence
    allowing increased agriculture and forestry yields. This
    negative social-cost-of-carbon estimate would signify that
    carbon dioxide emissions are not a cost but a benefit to
    society.
        So, the bottom line is, these regulations are predicated on
    models that have been manipulated to justify a particular
    regulatory agenda. At Heritage, we have an exact clone of the
    Department of Energy's National Energy Modeling System to
    quantify the economic impact of this agenda.
        In particular, we modeled the regulations suggested by the
    previous administration's interagency working group and found
    that the economic impacts would be quite devastating. In
    particular, by 2035, the country would see an average
    employment shortfall of nearly 400,000 lost jobs and up to a
    20-percent increase in household electricity expenditures and
    an aggregate $2.5 trillion loss in GDP.
        Last, I will talk about the climate impact of these
    policies. The primary goal of any of these carbon-capture/
    carbon-reduction policies is to reduce global climate change.
    At Heritage, we have used one of the EPA's models, the Model
    for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change, to
    quantify the climate impact associated with the policies that I
    have described.
        In one series of simulations, we assumed the United States
    reduced carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels by 80
    percent and assumed a climate that is more sensitive than what
    was even assumed by the interagency working group. We found
    that by 2100 there would be a temperature reduction of one-
    seventh degree Celsius and a minuscule 1.35 centimeters of sea-
    level-rise reduction.
        In conclusion, regulatory policies regarding carbon dioxide
    emissions are predicated on faulty models, will have
    devastating economic impacts, and will only have negligible
    impact on the climate.
        Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to your
    questions.

        [The prepared statement of Dr. Dayaratna follows:]
    Prepared Statement of Kevin D. Dayaratna, PhD, Senior Statistician and
                  Research Programmer, The Heritage Foundation
        Chairman Huffman, Ranking Member McClintock, and other members of
    the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify about
    healthy oceans and healthy economies. My name is Kevin Dayaratna. I am
    the Senior Statistician and Research Programmer at The Heritage
    Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are my own and should
    not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage
    Foundation.
        Energy is the fundamental building block of civilization from
    flipping on a light switch, to starting up our cars, to enabling this
    very hearing to operate. Unfortunately, however, many people take
    energy for granted. Over the course of the past decade, it has been a
    fundamental goal of policy makers in Washington to expand regulations
    across the energy sector of the economy. As a result, it is important
    to quantify the impacts of this fundamental building block both in
    terms of the economy as well as in terms of the climate. Over the
    course of my work at The Heritage Foundation, my colleagues and I have
    used the same models that the Federal Government has used to quantify
    these impacts ourselves. We have found in our work published both at
    Heritage and in the peer-reviewed literature that these policies aimed
    at decarbonization are predicated on user-manipulated models. Moreover,
    we have found that these policies will result in devastating economic
    impacts along with negligible impacts on the climate. Policies aimed at
    taking advantage of our vast oil and gas supply, on the other hand,
    will grow the economy for years to come.
                   the justification behind these regulations
        For much of the past decade, the Federal Government has sought to
    expand regulations across the energy sector of the economy. One of the
    primary justifications for doing so has been the social cost of carbon
    (SCC), which is defined as the economic damages associated with a
    metric ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions summed across a
    particular time horizon.\1\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The official definition of the social cost of carbon is the
    economic damages per metric ton of CO2 emissions, and is
    discussed further in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ``The Social
    Cost of Carbon,'' http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/EPAactivities/
    economics/scc.html (accessed September 14, 2013).
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        There are three primary statistical models that the Interagency
    Working Group (IWG) has used to estimate the SCC--the DICE Model, the
    FUND model, and the PAGE model.\2\ Over the past several years at The
    Heritage Foundation, my colleagues and I have used the DICE and FUND
    models, testing their sensitivity to a variety of important
    assumptions. Our research, published as Heritage Foundation
    publications, in the peer-reviewed literature, and discussed in my
    prior congressional testimony, has repeatedly illustrated that although
    these models might be interesting academic exercises, they are
    extremely sensitive to very reasonable changes to assumptions.\3\ These
    models can be manipulated by user-selected assumptions and are thus not
    legitimate for guiding regulatory policy.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \2\ For the DICE model, see William D. Nordhaus, ``RICE and DICE
    Models of Economics of Climate Change,'' Yale University, November
    2006, http://www.econ.yale.edu/nordhaus/homepage/dicemodels.htm
    (accessed November 6, 2013).
        For the FUND model, see ``FUND--Climate Framework for Uncertainty,
    Negotiation and Distribution,'' http://www.fund-model.org/ (accessed
    November 6, 2013).
        For the PAGE model, see Climate CoLab, ``PAGE,'' http://
    climatecolab.org/resources/-/wiki/Main/PAGE (accessed November 6,
    2013).
        See also U.S. Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of
    Greenhouse Gases, ``Technical Support Document: Technical Update of the
    Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive
    Order 12866,'' May 2013, revised November 2013, https://www.epa.gov/
    sites/production/files/2016-12/documents/sc_co2_tsd_august_2016.pdf
    (accessed February 6, 2019); U.S. Interagency Working Group on Social
    Cost of Greenhouse Gases, ``Addendum to Technical Support Document on
    Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analyses under Executive
    Order 12866: Application of Methodology to Estimate the Social Cost of
    Methane and the Social Cost of Nitrous Oxide,'' August 2016, https://
    www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-12/documents/addendum_to_sc-
    ghg_tsd_august_2016.pdf (accessed February 6, 2019); and U.S.
    Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, ``2010
    Technical Support Document: Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact
    Analysis under Executive Order 12866,'' February 2010, https://
    www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-12/documents/scc_tsd_2010.pdf
    (accessed February 6, 2019).
        \3\ Kevin D. Dayaratna and David W. Kreutzer, ``Unfounded FUND: Yet
    Another EPA Model Not Ready for the Big Game,'' Heritage Foundation
    Backgrounder No. 2897, April 29, 2014, http: / / www.heritage.org /
    research / reports / 2014 / 04 /unfounded-fund-yet-another-epa-model-
    not- ready-for-the-big-game; Kevin D. Dayaratna and David W. Kreutzer,
    ``Loaded DICE: An EPA Model Not Ready for the Big Game,'' Heritage
    Foundation Backgrounder No. 2860, November 21, 2013, http://
    www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/11/loaded-dice-an-epa-model-not-
    ready-for-the-big-game; and Kevin D. Dayaratna, and David Kreutzer,
    ``Environment: Social Cost of Carbon Statistical Modeling Is Smoke and
    Mirrors,'' Natural Gas & Electricity, Vol. 30, No. 12 (2014), pp. 7-11;
    K. Dayaratna, R. McKitrick, and D. Kreutzer, ``Empirically Constrained
    Climate Sensitivity and the Social Cost of Carbon,'' Climate Change
    Economics, Vol. 8, No. 2 (2017), p. 1750006; Kevin D. Dayaratna, ``An
    Analysis of the Obama Administration's Social Cost of Carbon,''
    testimony before the Committee on Natural Resources, U.S. House of
    Representatives, July 23, 2015; and Kevin D. Dayaratna, ``At What Cost?
    Examining the Social Cost of Carbon,'' testimony before the Committee
    on House, Sciences, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives,
    February 28, 2017.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        These models are estimated by Monte Carlo simulation. The general
    idea behind Monte Carlo simulation is that since some aspects of the
    models are random, the models are repeatedly estimated to generate a
    spectrum of probable outcomes. As a result of principles in probability
    theory, repeated estimation for a sufficient amount of time provides a
    reasonable characterization of the SCC's distributional properties.
        As with any statistical model, however, these models are grounded
    by assumptions. In our work, my colleagues and I have rigorously
    examined three important assumptions: the choice of a discount rate, a
    time horizon, and the specification of an equilibrium climate
    sensitivity distribution.
                                 discount rate
        The concept of discount rates is best viewed by considering an
    expenditure today as a benefit in the future via an investment.
    Discounting future benefits of averting climate damage compares the
    rate of return from CO2 reduction to the rate of return that
    could be expected from other investments. In principle, discounting
    runs the compound rate of return exercise backward, calculating how
    much would need to be invested at a reasonably expected interest rate
    today to result in the value of the averted future climate damage.\4\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \4\ D. W. Kreutzer, ``Discounting Climate Costs,'' Heritage
    Foundation Issue Brief No. 4575, June 16, 2016, https://
    www.heritage.org/environment/report/discounting-climate-costs.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        The Environmental Protection Agency has run these models using 2.5
    percent, 3.0 percent, and 5.0 percent discount rates despite the fact
    that the Office of Management and Budget guidance in Circular A-4 has
    specifically stipulated that a 7.0 percent discount rate be used as
    well.\5\ In my research, we re-estimated these models using a 7.0
    percent discount rate in a variety of publications. Below are our
    results published in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Change
    Economics:
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \5\ Office of Management and Budget, ``Circular A-4,'' Obama White
    House, February 22, 2017, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/
    circulars_a004_a-4/ (accessed February 6, 2019), and Paul C. ``Chip''
    Knappenberger, ``An Example of the Abuse of the Social Cost of
    Carbon,'' Cato-at-Liberty, August 23, 2013, http://www.cato.org/blog/
    example-abuse-social-cost-carbon (accessed February 6, 2019).

                                     DICE Model Average SCC--Baseline, End Year 2300
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Year           Discount Rate--2.50%   Discount Rate--3.0%    Discount Rate--5.0%    Discount Rate--7.0%
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2010                 $46.58                 $30.04                  $8.81                  $4.02
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2020                 $56.92                 $37.79                 $12.10                  $5.87
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2030                 $66.53                 $45.15                 $15.33                  $7.70
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2040                 $76.96                 $53.26                 $19.02                  $9.85
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2050                 $87.70                 $61.72                 $23.06                 $12.25
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                     FUND Model Average SCC--Baseline, End Year 2300
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Year           Discount Rate--2.50%   Discount Rate--3.0%    Discount Rate--5.0%    Discount Rate--7.0%
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2010                 $29.69                 $16.98                  $1.87                 -$0.53
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2020                 $32.90                 $19.33                  $2.54                 -$0.37
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2030                 $36.16                 $21.78                  $3.31                 -$0.13
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2040                 $39.53                 $24.36                  $4.21                  $0.19
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2050                 $42.98                 $27.06                  $5.25                  $0.63
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        As the above tables illustrate, the SCC estimates are drastically
    reduced under the use of a 7.0 percent discount rate. In fact, under
    the FUND model, the estimates are negative, suggesting that there are
    actually benefits to CO2 emissions. These changes in the
    discount rate can cause the SCC to drop by as much as 80 percent or
    more.
                                  time horizon
        It is essentially impossible to forecast technological change
    decades, let alone centuries, into the future. Regardless, however,
    these SCC models are based on projections 300 years into the future. In
    my work at Heritage, I have changed this time horizon to the
    significantly less, albeit still unrealistic, time horizon of 150 years
    into the future, and we obtained the following results for the DICE
    model in our work published in 2013: \6\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \6\ Dayaratna and Kreutzer, ``Loaded DICE: An EPA Model Not Ready
    for the Big Game.''

                                          DICE Model Average SCC--End Year 2150
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Year           Discount Rate--2.50%   Discount Rate--3.0%    Discount Rate--5.0%    Discount Rate--7.0%
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2010                 $36.78                 $26.01                  $8.66                  $4.01
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2020                 $44.41                 $32.38                 $11.85                  $5.85
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2030                 $50.82                 $38.00                 $14.92                  $7.67
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2040                 $57.17                 $43.79                 $18.36                  $9.79
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2050                 $62.81                 $49.20                 $22.00                 $12.13
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Clearly, the SCC estimates drop substantially as a result of
    changing the end year (in some cases by over 25 percent).
               equilibrium climate sensitivity (ecs) distribution
        These models, of course, take into account assumptions regarding
    the planet's climate sensitivity. The real question, however, is the
    degree of accuracy statistical models have at doing so. Professor John
    Christy testified in both 2013 and 2016 regarding the efficacy of
    climate change projections and juxtaposed them against actual weather
    balloon and satellite data.\7\ Christy has exposed the sheer inadequacy
    of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) models in
    forecasting global temperatures:
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \7\ John R. Christy, testimony before the Committee on Science,
    Space & Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, February 2, 2016,
    and John R. Christy, ``A Factual Look at the Relationship Between
    Climate and Weather,'' testimony before the Subcommittee on
    Environment, Committee on Natural Resources, U.S. House of
    Representatives, December 11, 2013.

        The climate specification used in estimating the SCC is that of
    an ECS distribution. These distributions probabilistically quantify the
    earth's temperature response to a doubling of CO2
    concentrations. The ECS distribution used by the IWG is based on a
    paper published in the journal Science 12 years ago by Gerard Roe and
    Marcia Baker. This non-empirical distribution, calibrated by the IWG
    based on assumptions that the group decided on climate change in
    conjunction with IPCC recommendations, has been deemed to be ``no
    longer scientifically defensible.'' \8\ Since then, a variety of newer
    and more up-to-date distributions have been suggested in the peer-
    reviewed literature. Many of these distributions, in fact, suggest
    lower probabilities of extreme global warming in response to
    CO2 concentrations. Below are a few such distributions: \9\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \8\ Patrick J. Michaels, ``An Analysis of the Obama
    Administration's Social Cost of Carbon,'' testimony before the
    Committee on Natural Resources, U.S. House of Representatives, July 22,
    2015, https://www.cato.org/publications/testimony/analysis-obama-
    administrations-social-cost-carbon (accessed February 6, 2019).
        \9\ Gerard H. Roe and Marcia B. Baker, ``Why Is Climate Sensitivity
    So Unpredictable?'' Science, Vol. 318, No. 5850 (October 26, 2007), pp.
    629-632; Nicholas Lewis, ``An Objective Bayesian Improved Approach for
    Applying Optimal Fingerprint Techniques to Estimate Climate
    Sensitivity,'' Journal of Climate, Vol. 26, No. 19 (October 2013), pp.
    7414-7429; Alexander Otto et al., ``Energy Budget Constraints on
    Climate Response,'' Nature Geoscience, Vol. 6, No. 6 (June 2013), pp.
    415-416; Nicholas Lewis and Judith A. Curry, ``The Implications for
    Climate Sensitivity of AR5 Forcing and Heat Uptake Estimates,'' Climate
    Dynamics, Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 1009-1923, http://link.springer.com/
    article/10.1007/s00382-014-2342-y (accessed February 6, 2019); and U.S.
    Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, ``2010
    Technical Support Document: Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact
    Analysis under Executive Order 12866,'' February 2010, https://
    www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-12/documents/scc_tsd_2010.pdf
    (accessed February 6, 2019).

       The area under the curve between two temperature points depicts
    the probability that the earth's temperature will increase between
    those amounts in response to a doubling of CO2
    concentrations. Thus, the area under the curve from 4 degrees C onwards
    (known as a ``tail probability'') provides the probability that the
    earth's temperature will warm by more than 4 degrees Celsius in
    response to a doubling of CO2 concentrations. Note that the
    more up-to-date ECS distributions (Otto et al., 2013; Lewis, 2013;
    Lewis and Curry, 2015) have significantly lower tail probabilities than
    the outdated Roe-Baker (2007) distribution used by the IWG. In our
    research published in Climate Change Economics, we re-estimated the SCC
    having used these more up-to-date ECS distributions and obtained the
    following results: \10\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \10\ Dayaratna, McKitrick, and Kreutzer, ``Empirically Constrained
    Climate Sensitivity and the Social Cost of Carbon.''

        DICE Model Average SCC--ECS Distribution Updated in Accordance with Lewis and Curry (2015), End Year 2300
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Year           Discount Rate--2.50%   Discount Rate--3.0%    Discount Rate--5.0%    Discount Rate--7.0%
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2010                 $23.62                 $15.62                  $5.03                  $2.48
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2020                 $28.92                 $19.66                  $6.86                  $3.57
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2030                 $33.95                 $23.56                  $8.67                  $4.65
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2040                 $39.47                 $27.88                 $10.74                  $5.91
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2050                 $45.34                 $32.51                 $13.03                  $7.32
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        FUND Model Average SCC--ECS Distribution Updated in Accordance with Lewis and Curry (2015), End Year 2300
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Year           Discount Rate--2.50%   Discount Rate--3.0%    Discount Rate--5.0%    Discount Rate--7.0%
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2010                  $5.25                  $2.78                 -$0.65                 -$1.12
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2020                  $5.86                  $3.33                 -$0.47                 -$1.10
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2030                  $6.45                  $3.90                 -$0.19                 -$1.01
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2040                  $7.02                  $4.49                 -$0.18                 -$0.82
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2050                  $7.53                  $5.09                  $0.64                 -$0.53
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Again, we notice drastically lower estimates of the SCC using these
    more up-to-date ECS distributions. These results are not surprising--
    the IWG's estimates of the SCC were based on outdated assumptions that
    overstated the probabilities of extreme global warming, which
    artificially inflated their estimates of the SCC.
                                   negativity
        When people talk about the social cost of carbon, they tend to
    think of damages. Not all of these models, however, suggest that there
    are always damages associated with CO2 emissions. The FUND
    model, in fact, allows for the SCC to be negative based on feedback
    mechanisms due to CO2 emissions. In my research at The
    Heritage Foundation, we computed the probability of a negative SCC
    under a variety of assumptions. Below are some of our results published
    both at Heritage as well as in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Change
    Economics: \11\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \11\ Dayaratna and Kreutzer, ``Unfounded FUND: Yet Another EPA
    Model Not Ready for the Big Game,'' and Dayaratna, McKitrick, and
    Kreutzer, ``Empirically Constrained Climate Sensitivity and the Social
    Cost of Carbon.''

      FUND Model Probability of Negative SCC--ECS Distribution Based on Outdated Roe-Baker (2007) Distribution, End
                                                        Year 2300
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Year           Discount Rate--2.50%   Discount Rate--3.0%    Discount Rate--5.0%    Discount Rate--7.0%
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2010                  0.087                  0.121                  0.372                  0.642
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2020                  0.084                  0.115                  0.344                  0.601
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2030                  0.080                  0.108                  0.312                  0.555
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2040                  0.075                  0.101                  0.282                  0.507
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2050                  0.071                  0.093                  0.251                  0.455
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    FUND Model Probability of Negative SCC--ECS Distribution Updated in Accordance with Otto et al. (2013), End Year
                                                          2300
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Year           Discount Rate--2.50%   Discount Rate--3.0%    Discount Rate--5.0%    Discount Rate--7.0%
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2010                  0.278                  0.321                  0.529                  0.701
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2020                  0.268                  0.306                  0.496                  0.661
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2030                  0.255                  0.291                  0.461                  0.619
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2040                  0.244                  0.274                  0.425                  0.571
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2050                  0.228                  0.256                  0.386                  0.517
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     FUND Model Probability of Negative SCC--ECS Distribution Updated in Accordance with Lewis (2013), End Year 2300
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Year           Discount Rate--2.50%   Discount Rate--3.0%    Discount Rate--5.0%    Discount Rate--7.0%
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2010                  0.390                  0.431                  0.598                  0.722
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2020                  0.375                  0.411                  0.565                  0.685
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2030                  0.361                  0.392                  0.530                  0.645
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2040                  0.344                  0.371                  0.491                  0.598
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2050                  0.326                  0.349                  0.449                  0.545
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     FUND Model Probability of Negative SCC--ECS Distribution Updated in Accordance with Lewis and Curry (2015), End
                                                        Year 2300
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Year           Discount Rate--2.50%   Discount Rate--3.0%    Discount Rate--5.0%    Discount Rate--7.0%
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2010                  0.416                  0.450                  0.601                  0.730
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2020                  0.402                  0.432                  0.570                  0.690
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2030                  0.388                  0.414                  0.536                  0.646
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2040                  0.371                  0.394                  0.496                  0.597
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2050                  0.354                  0.372                  0.456                  0.542
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        As the above statistics illustrate, under a very reasonable set of
    assumptions, the SCC is overwhelmingly likely to be negative, which
    would suggest the government should, in fact, subsidize (not limit)
    CO2 emissions. Of course, we by no means use these results
    to suggest that the government should actually subsidize CO2
    emissions, but rather to illustrate the extreme sensitivity of these
    models to reasonable changes to assumptions and can thus be quite
    easily fixed by policy makers.

                                economic impact
        In our research at The Heritage Foundation, we used the Heritage
    Energy Model, a clone of the Department of Energy's National Energy
    Modeling System to quantify the economic impact of both implementing
    further carbon-based regulations as well as repealing existing ones.
    One policy we analyzed was the Clean Power Plan, a policy initiated by
    the Obama administration to regulate carbon-based emissions. We found
    that by 2035, the policy would result in an average employment
    shortfall of over 70,000 lost jobs, a loss of income of more than
    $10,000 for a family of four, an up to 5 percent increase in household
    electricity expenditures, and an aggregate $1 trillion loss in gross
    domestic product (GDP). I discussed these facts during congressional
    testimony for the House, Sciences, and Technology Committee in June
    2016.\12\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \12\ Kevin D. Dayaratna, ``The Economic Impact of the Clean Power
    Plan,'' testimony before the Committee on House, Science, and
    Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, June 24, 2015, https://
    www.heritage.org/testimony/the-economic-impact-the-clean-power-plan.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        In addition, we also used the Heritage Energy Model to quantify the
    economic impact of the Paris Agreement on the American economy. In our
    research published in 2016, we found that the economic impacts would be
    quite devastating--in particular by 2035, the country would see an
    average employment shortfall of nearly 400,000 lost jobs, a loss of
    income of more than $20,000 for a family of four, an up to 20 percent
    increase in household electricity expenditures, and an aggregate $2.5
    trillion loss in GDP.

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        In other research at The Heritage Foundation, we considered the
    impact of taking advantage of the significant shale oil and gas supply
    available here in the United States. The Institute for Energy Research
    has noted that North America alone has over 1.4 trillion barrels of oil
    and 2.2 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas. My colleagues and I have
    used the Heritage Energy Model to look into the impact of actually
    taking advantage of these resources. Our research found that if this
    vast supply were actually utilized that by 2035, the country would see
    an average employment gain of nearly 700,000 jobs, an increase in over
    $27,000 for a family of four, a marked reduction in household
    electricity expenditures, and an aggregate $2.4 trillion increase in
    GDP.\13\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \13\ Kevin D. Dayaratna, Nicolas D. Loris, and David W. Kreutzer,
    ``The Obama Administration's Climate Agenda: Will Hit Manufacturing
    Hard,'' Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2990, November 13, 2014,
    http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/11/the-obama-
    administrations-climate-agenda-underestimated-costs-and-exaggerated-
    benefits; Kevin D. Dayaratna, Nicolas D. Loris, and David W. Kreutzer,
    ``The Obama Administration's Climate Agenda: Underestimated Costs and
    Exaggerated Benefits,'' Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2975,
    November 13, 2014, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/11/
    the-obama-administrations-climate-agenda-underestimated-costs-and-
    exaggerated-benefits; Nicholas D. Loris, Kevin Dayaratna, and David W.
    Kreutzer, ``EPA Power Plant Regulations: A Backdoor Energy Tax,''
    Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2863, December 5, 2013, http://
    www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/12/epa-power-plant-regulations-
    a-backdoor-energy-tax; David W. Kreutzer, Nicholas D. Loris, and Kevin
    Dayaratna, ``Cost of a Climate Policy: The Economic Impact of Obama's
    Climate Action Plan,'' Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 3978, June
    27, 2013, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/06/climate-
    policy-economic-impact-and-cost-of-obama-s-climate-action-plan; David
    W. Kreutzer and Kevin Dayaratna, ``Boxer-Sanders Carbon Tax: Economic
    Impact,'' Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 3905, April 11, 2013,
    http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/04/boxer-sanders-carbon-
    tax-economic-impact; ``Consequences of Paris Protocol: Devastating
    Economic Costs, Essentially Zero Environmental Benefits,'' Heritage
    Foundation Report, April 13, 2016, http://www.heritage.org/environment/
    report/consequences-paris-protocol-devastating-economic-costs-
    essentially-zero; Institute for Energy Research, North American Energy
    Inventory, December 2011, https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/
    wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Energy-Inventory.pdf (accessed February 6,
    2019); and Kevin Dayaratna and Nicholas Loris, ``Turning America's
    Energy Abundance into Energy Dominance,'' Heritage Foundation Report,
    November 3, 2017, https://www.heritage.org/energy-economics/report/
    turning-americas-energy-abundance-energy-dominance.

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                     negligible environmental benefits
        In our research at The Heritage Foundation, we have also estimated
    the environmental impact of a number of pertinent policies using the
    Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change. In
    one exercise, we simulated the impact of reducing CO2
    emissions in the United States by 80 percent. Assuming a climate
    sensitivity of 4.5 degrees Celsius, we found that by 2100, the earth
    would incur a temperature reduction of 0.135 degrees Celsius and 1.35
    cm sea level rise reduction. In a second exercise, we simulated the
    impact of eliminating all CO2 emissions from the United
    States completely. We found a similarly trifling change of 0.2-degree
    Celsius temperature reduction and 2 cm of sea level rise reduction. In
    a third exercise, we modeled the climate impact of taking advantage of
    the oil/gas resources discussed in Dayaratna et al. (2017). We again
    found a negligible impact of less than 0.003-degree Celsius change in
    temperature and 0.02 cm of sea level rise increase.\14\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \14\ Kevin Dayaratna and Nicholas Loris, ``Turning America's Energy
    Abundance into Energy Dominance,'' Heritage Foundation Report, November
    3, 2017, https://www.heritage.org/energy-economics/report/turning-
    americas-energy-abundance-energy-dominance, and University Corporation
    for Atmospheric Research, ``MAGICC/SCENGEN,'' http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/
    cas/wigley/magicc/ (accessed January 9, 2017).
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                  conclusions
        Policies aimed at ``decarbonizing'' the American economy are
    predicated on faulty models that are prone to user-selected
    manipulation. These policies will raise the cost of energy, thus
    resulting in devastating economic impacts. On the other hand, policies
    that are aimed at taking advantage of fossil-based fuels have
    tremendous potential to grow the economy. And moreover, either policy--
    regulatory or de-regulatory--will have negligible impact on the
    climate.

                                     ______

        Mr. Huffman. Thank you very much.
        We will begin our questions now.
        And I am reminded that here in the U.S. Congress we often
    hear lots of different perspectives and different interests put
    forward--folks to advance their perspectives, sometimes their
    agendas. And years ago, of course, we had scientists and
    doctors telling us that smoking was completely beneficial and
    maybe even good for you. Years later, I don't know where those
    doctors and scientists are or how they feel about what they
    said, but I think history has rendered judgment on what they
    said. And I have to wonder if we haven't heard some similar
    testimony here today.
        I want to ask several of the other witnesses about a couple
    of the claims that were just made, one being Dr. Legates saying
    that ocean acidification should cause lobsters to thrive. And
    that all sounds benign and great. We just heard, in fact, from
    Dr. Dayaratna that there could be all kinds of beneficial
    effects of increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere
    and that, in fact, there may even be an EPA model that points
    to all of this. And I am so glad we have a former administrator
    of the EPA to tell us about that.
        So, why don't I start with you, Ms. Browner. Tell us about
    this model.
        Ms. Browner. Well, thank you for the question, and thank
    you for your comments.
        The model that I think the gentleman is referring to would
    have been developed after my tenure at EPA. But I think it is
    important to note that cost-benefit analyses are a tool that
    are frequently used in evaluating the impacts of regulations.
    And when I was at EPA in the 1990s, a long time ago, we did a
    lookback under the Clean Air Act of all of the regulations and
    what the costs had been with those regulations and what the
    benefits had been. And across the board, what we found is, the
    costs were lower than anticipated--industry, even EPA, got it
    wrong; they were lower, and the benefits were greater.
        So, why is that? Because you cannot factor in American
    ingenuity and innovation. When you set a standard, when you
    adopt a regulation requiring CFCs to be replaced, you create a
    market opportunity, and the investments flow, and suddenly you
    have a replacement--faster, cheaper, more efficient than you
    had originally anticipated.
        Similarly, the benefits, they are hard to measure at the
    starting point, but what you find is that putting scrubbers on
    coal-fired power plants will reduce the pollutant you were
    targeting but it will reduce other pollutants as well. So, the
    benefits grow.
        So, across the board, what we saw is that regulations,
    properly done, that the cost-benefits done at the moment were
    not completely informed, because you couldn't be, but, in
    retrospect, the costs were lower and the benefits were greater
    of reducing pollution.
        Mr. Huffman. Ms. Casoni, how about from the perspective of
    the lobster industry? Surely, you have seen things happening
    with respect to acidification that maybe suggested lobster are
    not going to thrive, but I am sure you have also reached out to
    the best scientists on this subject because this is kind of an
    existential thing for you.
        Ms. Casoni. Correct. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        With all due respect, I am not a scientist, and I have been
    following ocean acidification for about 5 years. Congressman
    Keating held a panel at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in
    Falmouth. The highest level of scientists there studied ocean
    acidification for their careers. And they were focused
    primarily on scallops, and the scallops cannot reproduce their
    shells.
        So, I asked a question of the panel. I said, what about the
    lobsters? And they kind of shrugged their shoulders and said,
    we really haven't done a lot of research on lobsters, but they
    seemed OK. Big lobsters. It is the small lobsters, it is the
    larval, the sediment; that is the future stocks of the lobster
    industry.
        It takes 8 years for a lobster to become harvestable, so we
    are talking about the eggs, the larval stages, the near-shore
    acidification where the waters are warming the fastest. The
    runoffs are having a severe impact on that. And through the
    state of Massachusetts and the region, they have what is called
    the Lobster Settlement Index. They are seeing less and less of
    the lobsters settling near shore.
        So, that is the concern where we are seeing it. And without
    the future stocks, we don't know where the lobster industry
    will be in 8 years. I can come back and let you know.
        Mr. Huffman. Yes. Thank you.
        Dr. Bronk, as an oceanographer and a scientist, do you see
    any beneficial effects of ocean acidification, CO2
    concentrations, and other impacts of climate change?
        Dr. Bronk. Definitely not of ocean acidification.
        And to comment on some of Dr. Legates' testimony, it is
    true that some of the early studies were done using acids that
    added more of an artifact into some of the findings. And it was
    the scientists themselves that in peer review got hammered by
    other scientists that said, this is not the way to do it. There
    was a whole community that got together to do best practices.
    And now we run experiments very differently, by doubling the
    atmosphere, which is much more realistic to what is happening.
        And, in that case, Ms. Casoni is correct, it is the larval
    stages that are impacted. And it is definitely not good for
    shellfish, lobsters, corals.
        Mr. Huffman. Excellent. Thank you all very much.
        By the way, I forgot to mention, as I thank the panel for
    their testimony, I need to remind you, the Members, that
    Committee Rule 3(d) imposes a 5-minute limit on questions.
        The Chairman will now recognize the Ranking Member of the
    Full Committee, Mr. Bishop, I believe. Or are we going to go--
    we will go to Ranking Member McClintock.
        Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Dr. Legates, you are the only climatologist on the panel,
    and you are a pre-eminent one at that.
        Let me first ask you to comment on the critiques of the
    studies that you have cited.
        Dr. Legates. Some of this was work done by the University
    of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And one of the things they
    did is they put blue crabs and lobsters into water with 400
    parts per million of carbon dioxide, the others into 2,800
    parts per million of carbon dioxide----
        Mr. McClintock. Is this the study where they actually
    doubled the----
        Dr. Legates. They actually did, yes, and they found that
    they grew faster.
        As I mentioned, it doesn't hold for every species. But the
    issue is that, in general, some species looked better, some
    species looked worse, and it is----
        Mr. McClintock. So, the lobsters actually looked better
    when they did the science correctly, used the atmospheric gases
    that Dr. Bronk mentioned, and discovered that lobsters grow
    faster, healthier, and stronger with higher concentrations. Is
    that what you are saying?
        Dr. Legates. Yes.
        Mr. McClintock. OK. And with respect to the dissolving of
    the clam shells?
        Dr. Legates. Well, yes, calcium-carbonated shells. That was
    the original argument that was made, that, essentially, if you
    increased acidification, it would cause them all to
    disintegrate.
        Mr. McClintock. And they simply got the chemistry wrong.
        Dr. Legates. And they found that that is not necessarily
    the case. Yes.
        Mr. McClintock. You know, the thing we hear all the time
    is, ``Oh, all the scientists agree,'' and yet here you are, a
    former climatologist with the state of Delaware. We heard from
    Judith Curry yesterday in the Full Committee, a former chair of
    the School of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute
    of Technology. I read the work of Roy Spencer and John Christy,
    who pioneered satellite sensing global climate; Fred Singer,
    former Director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service;
    Freeman Dyson, often referred to as Einstein's successor at
    Princeton.
        They are all telling us what you are telling us, and that
    is that this is not unusual and that there is still a great
    debate going on over the extent of human contributions to the
    climate issues, to the powerful natural forces that have driven
    it for millennia. Can you shed some light on this?
        Dr. Legates. Yes. I mean, I don't have enough time to do
    it, but the argument is that carbon dioxide is not this magic
    knob that decides the temperature of the planet. In particular,
    there are an awful lot of other things that happen. The planet
    does not warm like a greenhouse. That is simply pure radiation
    balance. But essentially the atmosphere moves, and we have
    vertical convection, we have horizontal convection.
        There are a lot of other processes that go on that I talk
    about in my Intro to Physical Climatology class that are more
    complicated than just simply the----
        Mr. McClintock. Let me ask you the same question I asked
    Dr. Curry yesterday. Are we experiencing the highest
    temperatures in the planet's history?
        Dr. Legates. The planet's history? No. Probably over the
    last 150 years, yes. But that has little to do with carbon
    dioxide. It has to do with the demise of the Little Ice Age and
    warming conditions we have had due to an increasing sun.
        Mr. McClintock. Are we experiencing the highest levels of
    atmospheric carbon dioxide in the planet's history?
        Dr. Legates. No, not in the planet's history.
        Mr. McClintock. Are we experiencing the worst droughts in
    recorded history?
        Dr. Legates. No, we are not.
        Mr. McClintock. Are we experiencing the most ferocious
    hurricanes in recorded history?
        Dr. Legates. No, we are not.
        Mr. McClintock. Over the last 30 years have our actual
    climate observations tracked with the predictions that were
    made by the IPCC and folks like James Hansen?
        Dr. Legates. This generally gets into a discussion of
    climate sensitivity, and most models are tuned to have a
    sensitivity of somewhere between 2\1/2\ and maybe 3\1/2\
    degrees Celsius warming for doubling of carbon dioxide.
        Generally what we found and what a lot of other people have
    found more recently is that number is very high, probably on
    the order of about 1 degree Celsius per doubling. That is why
    the models have tended to show warming that is much greater
    than we have actually seen in the observations.
        Mr. McClintock. Dr. Dayaratna, you have studied the
    economics of the situation. I am sure you have looked at the
    Green New Deal. Again, just in layman's terms, what is that
    going to cost an average working family in America and what is
    it going to get us?
        Dr. Dayaratna. We haven't specifically modeled the Green
    New Deal yet, but we have modeled very similar carbon capture/
    carbon reduction policies. For example, the economic impact of
    the Paris Agreement--I think we are running out of time, so I
    won't show the slide--but we noticed that over the next 20
    years there would be, using the heterogeneity model, an average
    employment shortfall of over 400,000 lost jobs, a loss of
    income of over $20,000 for a family of four, an up to 20
    percent increase in household electricity expenditures, and an
    overall $2.5 trillion loss in GDP--all, again, for negligible
    changes in the climate.
        Mr. McClintock. And what do we get for all of that
    according to the climate models?
        Dr. Dayaratna. Less than 0.2 Celsius degrees temperature
    reduction, and about less than 2 centimeters of sea level rise
    reduction.
        Mr. McClintock. Over what period?
        Dr. Legates. In 2100.
        Mr. Huffman. All right. Thank you.
        Mr. Levin is recognized.
        Mr. Levin. Thank you, Chair Huffman. I appreciate you
    holding this hearing.
        Thank you to our witnesses for taking the time to join our
    Subcommittee today.
        Yesterday, I was very pleased to participate in our Full
    Committee hearing highlighting the urgent challenge climate
    change presents. And I think Chair Grijalva, it was the first
    committee on climate change we have had in about 6 or 8 years.
    Long overdue.
        I think the testimony from our witnesses yesterday and
    today was overwhelmingly conclusive that climate change is
    driven by human activity and that Congress cannot waste any
    more time with inaction. Otherwise, the consequences for our
    communities and planet will be devastating.
        Today's focus on the state of our oceans is critical,
    particularly critical to me because my district in southern
    California, in northern San Diego County and South Orange
    County, has more than 50 miles of coastline. And my
    constituents are dealing with the impacts of climate change
    every day. It is not some theoretical concept for them.
        Already cliff erosion driven by sea level rise and wave
    energy is posing a public safety hazard to my constituents. In
    fact, the U.S. Geological Survey last year projected even
    higher levels of climate change-driven coastal erosion in San
    Diego and Orange Counties over the next century. And just a
    couple days ago there was an article in the Orange County
    Register, a historically very conservative paper, about coastal
    erosion in our beach communities in Orange County.
        And in South Orange county towns, like San Clemente and
    Dana Point, stronger storms influenced by climate change are
    literally washing away our beaches. We have seen a sea wall
    crumble, coastal trees topple over. In many cases they have
    been there for decades or even close to a century. Orange
    County now even plans to demolish public basketball courts and
    restrooms on the beach that are no longer safe to use.
        It is clear something is not normal about all of this. And
    I think it is important that our Subcommittee continue to
    explore these climate challenges that directly impact our
    coastal communities.
        I would like to turn to a couple of questions.
        Specifically to Dr. Dayaratna, did I get your name correct?
        Dr. Dayaratna. Yes.
        Mr. Levin. In your testimony, which I read, you discuss the
    social costs of carbon at length. I believe you refer to it as
    the negative social cost of carbon. And you say that at the
    Heritage Foundation you used the same data that the Obama
    administration used for its social cost of carbon calculation,
    presumably that the EPA uses and other agencies use. Obviously,
    you came to a very different conclusion.
        You also claim that the Federal Government manipulated the
    data to support, as you say, a regulatory agenda, implying an
    obvious bias, at least in your opinion.
        I will remind you that the Environmental Protection Agency
    was created under President Richard Nixon and that the Clean
    Air Act and Clean Water Act enjoyed broad bipartisan support,
    near unanimous support.
        The agenda, and I have known people from the EPA in past
    administrations, both Republican and Democratic--their agenda,
    at least their original agenda as intended from President Nixon
    and both the Democrats and Republicans who supported the Clean
    Air Act and the Clean Water Act at the time, was simply to
    protect human health and the environment.
        On the other hand, Dr. Dayaratna, I find your agenda
    perhaps a bit more suspect. So, please answer yes or no, just
    yes or no. Do studies funded by fossil fuel money have an
    agenda?
        Dr. Dayaratna. I am sorry, Congressman. I cannot answer
    that question because that has nothing to do with my research,
    so----
        Mr. Levin. I think it is clear your organization has an
    agenda.
        Dr. Dayaratna. Congressman, our financial records are
    available online. You can go to www.heritage.org and look them
    up.
        Mr. Levin. I have researched them. I have researched them
    extensively, as a matter of fact.
        Dr. Dayaratna. You can look at them all you want. I
    encourage you to get to the meat at hand, which is what these
    policies----
        Mr. Levin. I encourage you to answer my question, sir. Does
    your organization have an agenda?
        Dr. Dayaratna. Does my organization have an agenda?
        Mr. Levin. Yes, and specifically your conclusions, are they
    based on objective evidence or perhaps an agenda funded by
    fossil fuel money.
        Dr. Dayaratna. Congressman, I am an independent scholar
    within the Heritage Foundation, and my work can be scrutinized.
    It has been published both in Heritage, as well as----
        Mr. Levin. If you follow the money it is clear, Doctor,
    that you have an obvious, blatant agenda.
        Dr. Dayaratna. I have no agenda besides doing high quality
    research.
        Mr. Levin. And yet the decades of experienced people before
    you at the EPA who used that very same data to calculate a true
    social cost of carbon reached an entirely different conclusion,
    including one of our past administrators of the EPA, who I beg
    will differ with you, sir, and your false conclusion. Thank
    you.
        Dr. Dayaratna. Congressman, if you look at the assumptions
    that they make----
        Mr. Levin. I yield my time.
        Mr. Huffman. Thank you.
        Mr. Lamborn is recognized.
        Mr. Lamborn. Thank you. Thank you for having this hearing.
        I am going to try to stick to the issues and policies and
    facts, not personalities. And I would like to stick to the
    solutions that are being proposed. And one solution that is
    being proposed we heard about today, we heard about today at
    12:30, there was a big press release. And we all got our first
    chance to see what Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls the Green Dream.
    But instead of a dream the Green New Deal looks more like a
    nightmare.
        This non-binding resolution makes grandiose and socialistic
    promises of jobs for everyone, free college, and prosperity,
    but at the same time it calls for policies that will actually
    bankrupt our economy and destroy jobs.
        The Green New Deal includes a proposal to move 100 percent
    of U.S. electricity production to renewable resources by 2030,
    11 years from now. The numbers are being worked on, but it
    seems that it will require at least $5 trillion of investments
    in renewable energy and storage and will have a transition cost
    of $13 trillion over a 10-year period. It will eliminate 88
    percent of our current energy sources and about 6 million jobs.
        So, here are some facts on transportation and electricity,
    and I am going to leave aside heating, winter heating and
    manufacturing and other uses of energy.
        For transportation, Americans own roughly 250 million cars
    and trucks, and they drive 11 billion miles a day--a day. The
    vast majority of these cars and trucks are powered by gasoline
    and diesel. How will we replace that in 11 years?
        There are 30,000 commercial aviation flights a day in the
    United States, and these are all powered by jet fuel. How will
    we replace that in 11 years?
        With electricity, 82 percent of U.S. electricity is
    generated by coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy. The
    remainder is hydropower, about 7 percent, wind 8 percent, and
    solar 2 percent.
        So, to meet the need for electricity that is currently
    provided by hydrocarbons and nuclear would require, if you want
    to go to wind turbines--I will leave aside solar panels for a
    moment--but the wind turbines you would need because you can't
    put them right next to each other, they have to have some space
    between each other, you would need an area twice the size the
    state of California. OK, where are we going to put those?
        So, Dr. Dayaratna, if we go to 100 percent renewable there
    is a cost involved. Electricity is going to go up, just
    electricity. And I know this is a big range. I hope people keep
    working on these numbers and we will refine this. But right now
    the range is, with an average electrical bill in the country of
    $111 per household nationwide, of between $576 and $3,882 per
    family per year.
        What kind of impact will that have, maybe not on the middle
    class or upper class, but on working class and poor Americans,
    elderly people on a fixed income?
        Dr. Dayaratna. OK. I am sorry, Congressman, that statistic
    you cited was regarding electricity?
        Mr. Lamborn. Electricity alone.
        Dr. Dayaratna. Yes, well, that is a great question,
    Congressman. The fundamental issue is, yes, obviously household
    electricity expenditures are going to go up, and that is
    another thing that families are going to have to deal with, but
    when you think about it, like I said, energy is the most
    fundamental building block of society. So, costs regarding
    everything will go up, costs of hiring are going to go up,
    costs of transportation are going to go up. It is going to be
    more expensive for businesses to hire. Jobs will decline. The
    economy will suffer overall. And hundreds upon thousands of
    jobs will be lost as a result of these policies at this moment.
        Mr. Lamborn. Are there other social or economic impacts of
    a proposal such as the Green New Deal?
        Dr. Dayaratna. The biggest issue is that these policies are
    going to kill jobs, destroy the economy in many regards, and
    they will only have a negligible impact on the climate. These
    policies will not meaningfully impact the climate. So, when you
    really think about the cost-benefit analysis there are
    significant costs, and the benefits are basically minuscule.
        Mr. Lamborn. OK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield
    back.
        Mr. Huffman. Thanks. I do want to remind Members that this
    hearing is about the health of our oceans.
        And with that, I recognize Mr. Lowenthal.
        Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you. And thank you, Chair Huffman, for
    this important hearing.
        And thank you to all the panelists.
        This hearing, getting back to the oceans and to water,
    comes on the heels of new and unprecedented melting in
    Antarctica and in the Himalayas that we have just heard, I mean
    staggering.
        I had the good fortune of being on a Congressional
    Delegation to Tibet and the Himalayas and to see the potential
    impacts on the rivers. This is going to create chaos in all of
    Asia in terms of drinking water in Asia. This is unbelievable
    magnitude.
        I was also recently on a National Graphic exploratory to
    Antarctica and visited with naturalists, and was shocked by
    what I learned was happening in Antarctica.
        So, we are experiencing this crisis that I am going ask
    some questions, and we are not doing anything about this impact
    really on oceans.
        In the State of the Union address, the President did not
    mention climate change at all, it was just completely ignored,
    which is totally unacceptable. If we are having any kind of
    national emergency, it is climate change. It is not our
    Southern border.
        We are all accountable. I am not blaming the President at
    all. We are all accountable and we are all responsible for what
    is happening to the planet and what impacts it is having on our
    oceans and our water supply. And that is the reason why I
    mentioned the Himalayas and also Antarctica.
        Dr. Bronk, in your written testimony you mention that the
    magnitude of sea level rise, as I have it, depends upon the
    amounts of ice sheets and glacier melts in Greenland and in
    Antarctica. As I just pointed out, just last month a new study
    came out that is showing that there is a huge cavity now under
    a glacier, under the glaciers in the west Antarctica that is of
    major concern to scientists studying the rate at which
    Antarctica glaciers are melting.
        And it was shocking listening to the people, the percentage
    of the world, the planet's water that is in Antarctica, that
    some of the glaciers are 800 million years of age, and they are
    melting at a much faster rate than we thought before.
        Can you explain why scientists are so alarmed by the rapid
    melting of these glaciers in Antarctica now, what that means to
    sea level rise that is going to happen, and how it will impact
    the already existing that we have talked about from Arctic and
    other causes of sea level rise?
        Dr. Bronk. All right. So, both the ice that is on the land
    in Antarctica and on the land in Greenland, when that melts
    that will flow into the ocean and it will increase sea level
    rise. I am not an expert on glaciers, but my understanding is
    that there is a grounding area where the glacier is actually
    held back from going into the ocean. And what has been
    discovered over the last decade is that ocean water will erode
    underneath it, and it basically creates a skid that makes the
    glaciers move faster. And this is what seems to be happening
    especially in Greenland, and now we are discovering it also in
    Antarctica. And the idea behind it is just going to move things
    up. And the question is, are we going to reach a tipping point
    where we are not going to be able to stop it?
        Mr. Lowenthal. The same thing with the Himalayas, which are
    going to have a tremendous impact on the water supply of all of
    Asia.
        Dr. Bronk. Of all of Asia, correct.
        And, yes, so that is basically my understanding of the
    glaciers. Once you start eroding underneath and kind of
    greasing the glacier from the bottom, and we have known it has
    been happening for about a decade in Greenland, and now we are
    seeing it in Antarctica.
        Mr. Lowenthal. And I was told in Antarctica that almost 80
    percent of the world's water supply is there in Antarctica. So,
    this is of a magnitude that we did not understand before and
    now see, because we thought more of it was happening in
    Greenland and the Arctic, now we are seeing the great vast
    amounts of water.
        Dr. Bronk. And I believe that if the ice sheets that people
    are most worried about in Antarctica, if they were to flow into
    the ocean and melt, we are talking about a 21-feet increase.
        Mr. Lowenthal. That is what they were talking about.
        Dr. Bronk. Yes.
        Mr. Lowenthal. If anybody else wants to comment on an
    event.
        Recently in my district we had a meeting of homeowners,
    because I am a coastal district, where the executive director
    of our aquarium talked to everybody and said all along the
    coastal region, which is very expensive homes, sometimes we
    think the most impact will be on less expensive, but this is
    along the peninsula and Venice and Belmont Shore, those that
    know Southern California, these are beautiful, that they all
    better have an exit strategy because it is coming, flooding is
    coming, and the ability to live in those areas is coming down
    the road.
        And they had never--they kept asking, well, isn't climate
    change, can't we stop it? And there are things we can do, which
    we must do. But economically the impacts of climate change will
    totally overwhelm the impacts of what else we are doing.
        So, thank you.
        Mr. Huffman. Thank you, Mr. Lowenthal.
        Mr. Bishop is recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Bishop. That is 5 minutes, wasn't it? OK. Good.
        I appreciate the opportunity to be here and listening to
    all the good science that we have heard from all over the
    place. And having experienced that now, I want you to know that
    never in my life have I been so grateful that I was a liberal
    arts major. I don't know what the hell you all are talking
    about, but it sounds really nice.
        And for Mr. Grijalva, I have been practicing. As I have
    walked around today I have been chewing gum hopefully to get
    ready for this so I can illustrate the solutions you are going
    to be presenting. So far I have just wasted of a pack of gum,
    but I am still trying. I will still work with you. As soon as
    we come up with that it is going to be exciting.
        Mr. Dayaratna, I am really happy to see you here again. You
    have been a witness before in this Committee on those meetings
    apparently we never had, but for some reason you were here
    testifying, so thank you for that, in the last couple of years.
        I am interested that both of you were talking in some
    respect about, as we do all the modeling that we come up with,
    obviously the important criteria is the assumptions that are
    made.
        Dr. Dayaratna. Oh, absolutely.
        Mr. Bishop. So, you change the assumptions, then you change
    the outcome. So, that becomes the significant one.
        Dr. Dayaratna. Exactly.
        Mr. Bishop. I am interested in the idea that energy which
    is a cost, and energy which is a concept we don't actually
    quantify very well. If the cost of that energy increases, is it
    the lowest income people that are hurt the most in our society?
        Dr. Dayaratna. Absolutely. Yes, these policies are going to
    impoverish lower income people and hurt them the most.
        Mr. Bishop. Like yesterday, when I was forced to leave
    because I had work to do, Democrats suggested that innovation
    is not the answer.
        So, I want to know from both of you, if you would, if you
    have any thoughts about pragmatic solutions that are within the
    jurisdiction of this Committee that we can do. We have proposed
    in the past that active forest management actually has a
    positive impact on the environment, that grazing and
    sequestration can have a positive impact on the environment,
    that hydropower, water storage, could have a positive impact.
        Have you seen any of these concepts that really are the
    purview of this Committee being integrated in the proposals
    that have been set forth by the other party yet?
        Dr. Dayaratna. I have not, but those policies would not
    have the economic impacts that these other things that I have
    heard about today such as the Green New Deal and other policies
    would have on the economy, and they do have the capacity to
    reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Yes.
        Mr. Bishop. So, it could still be one of those things that
    pragmatically we could actually do if we were to further those
    efforts we have started in the past?
        Dr. Dayaratna. Quite possibly, yes.
        Mr. Bishop. Dr. Legates, if I could just yield to you.
    Look, I have 2 minutes, do only a minute in the answer. But it
    was brought up about the melting of Antarctica, for which I do
    not know much. Can you just tell me very briefly about what is
    causing that, if there is something that can be actually----
        Dr. Legates. Well, part of the discussion that comes with
    the east Antarctica ice sheet is that the east Antarctica sheet
    is actually growing in mass. The west Antarctic ice sheet is
    losing mass. And part of the concern is whether or not there is
    tectonic activity underneath that is leading to a heating from
    below, which is causing it to move.
        I will point out that essentially we are not at equilibrium
    anyway. That is, if I were to take an ice cube and place it
    here in the room during the time period of this hearing that
    ice cube would continue to melt even though the room's
    temperature didn't change. I mean, that is why we have seen sea
    level rising essentially since the demise of the last ice age
    and it has been rather continuous over the last several hundred
    years. So, it is because we haven't reached equilibrium, which
    is why we are seeing sea level rise.
        Mr. Bishop. I appreciate that. I appreciate you doing it
    within the 1 minute.
        Let me actually make up for some others and yield back
    faster than I could. I do have one unanimous consent request.
    And also I am going to be looking forward to the ``so what''
    phase when we get there on what solutions actually will be
    proposed in here which will be a much more meaningful
    discussion at that point in the game.
        But, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chair, I am going to ask unanimous
    consent to enter into the record a study from the Journal of
    Agricultural Economics, from the journal, Agriculture,
    Ecosystems, and Environment, titled ``Grazing management
    impacts on vegetation, soil biota and soil chemical, physical
    and hydrological properties in tall grass prairie.''
        And if that doesn't put you all to sleep, nothing else
    will. It is a wonderful title. It is a long article. But
    actually it has some data that is useful.
        Mr. Huffman. Without objection.
        Thank you, Mr. Bishop. And I am going take your testimony
    as an invitation to co-sponsor the bills that I have on all the
    issues you walked through in this Congress. So, we are off to a
    great collaborative start.
        Mr. Bishop. And if they are good bills then I will be happy
    to do that. Otherwise I will save the ink.
        Mr. Huffman. Mr. Van Drew, you are recognized.
        Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Chairman.
        First of all, let me congratulate the Chairman on holding
    these hearings and also ensuring that there is a Minority and a
    Majority viewpoint. I think that helps a lot in the future as
    we all deal with each other. We really are all in this
    together. I know many of us think we are not, but we are, so I
    think that is a good thing.
        I am from New Jersey, coastal New Jersey, Cape May County,
    which is considered the fifth most vulnerable place during an
    evacuation literally in the East Coast and maybe the United
    States of America. This is an issue between the Delaware Bay
    and the Atlantic Ocean and the whole area that concerns me a
    great deal.
        And the second thing I wanted to say that I really
    appreciated on everybody's part, I deal with a lot of
    fishermen, always did. I was a State Senator before. I really
    appreciate that people generally understand that the majority
    of fishermen are not individuals who want to hurt the ocean,
    that they really do realize in order for their lives to go
    forward there has to be fish. So, they are really concerned.
        And I will say, third, that I have spoken to a lot of them,
    I do all the time, and they have noticed that there are
    different fish that are coming in different areas of the ocean
    as we speak.
        The part that has always been complicated for me with this
    is, whether it is RGGI or whether it is many of the other
    programs or policies that we can have, how is the United States
    going to be able on its own to be able to make a tangible
    impact for those that do believe in global warming when so much
    of the world doesn't care? For those that believe it, how are
    you going to do it? China doesn't care, Russia doesn't care, a
    lot of Asia doesn't care.
        So, I wonder how are we really going to be able to effect
    real change even if you do believe it? Anybody have thoughts,
    any of you, on that? We are such a small part of the globe
    relatively.
        Ms. Browner. Right, but we have a long history, and so I
    think many of us would believe that we have a responsibility
    that we have to provide global leadership. And under the prior
    administration, which I was honored to be part of, we were
    doing just that. We were working with other countries around
    the world, working in global forums to craft solutions, while
    also doing the work we needed to do here at home, whether it
    was working with the car industry to agree on a program to
    bring cleaner, more efficient cars, which means a tank of gas
    would go further, saving people money at the tank, our children
    would breathe easier. So, it is a combination.
        Mr. Van Drew. And it is, and those things are good and I
    agree with you, and we certainly did the right thing. The
    problem now is that, for example, China is burning coal. I
    mean, we are talking about many steps beyond that.
        So, I would just like to express my one concern--I am
    concerned of how we even get it done, period. I know we can
    help, I know we can make things a little better, but this is
    going to be a very huge challenge.
        The second issue I have--and I know these are kind of tough
    questions and I don't mean to put anybody on the spot, and I
    really do respect all of you a lot for being here--why is it
    now being scientists or some of you being scientists that you
    do disagree? Why do you disagree?
        I mean, this is a major difference. I am a dentist, which
    is kind of a little bit like being a scientist, and a cavity is
    a cavity. It is just there. And there are only so many ways to
    fill it.
        Dr. Bronk. I think the degree of disagreement is vastly
    overstated here. To put it bluntly, you can find a scientist
    that will say just about anything you want them to say.
        I would look at the consensus documents. For a scientist to
    agree on anything, you can get six of them to agree to go to
    the restaurant, one of them needs to pick one. We argue by
    nature. The fact that there are thousands of scientists that
    have reached consensus on documents around the world, that is
    what we should be paying attention to. Of course you are going
    to find people that are going to have other agendas.
        Mr. Van Drew. Would you say that literally it is 90
    percent?
        Dr. Bronk. It is more than that.
        Mr. Van Drew. Ninety-nine percent?
        Dr. Bronk. It is more than that. And I would also--for all
    of you, when you are looking at the kind of written statements
    that people had to submit here, what are they referencing, what
    are they citing? Are they citing themselves? Are they citing
    their own testimony? Are they citing peer-reviewed literature,
    and not journals that didn't exist 5 years ago? Where are they
    publishing in the journals that were here 100 years ago?
        Mr. Van Drew. Last real quick question, and I don't mean to
    rush you, it was a good answer, it is just that I am out of
    time.
        Do you think--and it alludes to the other question I had--
    even if we do these things--two things: Do you think we can do
    it without really hurting the economy and making sure that
    people of lower socioeconomics aren't hurt? And second, do you
    think we can really make a major difference, a major difference
    worldwide, globally?
        Mr. Huffman. A little question, in 30 seconds.
        Ms. Chalk. Congressman, I am sorry. I would like to add
    that it is the real people in south Louisiana that are starting
    to make the change. And once we begin to educate residents
    around this issue people can make informed decisions based on
    the best science, based on the reality that we are living,
    because we are living this every day.
        So, no matter what the scientists may say, I beg to differ,
    because we are living and we are seeing it. We are seeing our
    vanishing coastline and communities moving. We are seeing the
    population shift. So, I would say visit us.
        Mr. Van Drew. Oh, believe me, I see it in New Jersey. I
    live 2 miles from the beach, so I know.
        Thank you all very much.
        Mr. Huffman. Thank you, Mr. Van Drew.
        Mr. Graves is next.
        And Mr. Graves, I am sorry, when I introduced Ms. Chalk
    earlier I looked over to see if--I thought there might be some
    southern Louisiana greeting you might want to offer. But it is
    your turn now, so you are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Graves. Ayeee, there we go.
        Ms. Chalk. Ayeee.
        Mr. Graves. We are done.
        Hey, thank you all very much for being here, and I enjoyed
    your testimony.
        Queen Quet and Ms. Chalk, I enjoyed the fact that each of
    you put a lot of emphasis on community and culture. And being
    from south Louisiana, which I share with Ms. Chalk, I think
    that Louisiana has--south Louisiana has amazing people, amazing
    culture, amazing food, amazing music.
        And I can't tell you how much I appreciate somebody else
    walking into this Committee to talk about south Louisiana
    because every single one of those people are so sick of hearing
    me talk about it and talking about the land loss. So, I was
    telling the truth. We have other people that believe it.
        But also you put a face on it. And I do appreciate that.
    South Louisiana has lost 2,000 square miles, and it is really
    extraordinary, and it is losing communities, it is losing
    people. Isle de Jean Charles, one of our native communities
    down there, is effectively having to leave, and they have been
    around there for 300 years.
        So, yes, this is something that is today, that is now, that
    your community is facing, that our community is facing, and it
    is awful. It is. It is awful.
        One thing that I think we can agree upon, Mr. Chairman, is
    that I do believe that the climate is changing, and I think I
    have said that at virtually every hearing we have had where
    climate has been discussed.
        Number 2, I believe that we need to be focusing, right now,
    on adaptation measures and figure out how to protect Queen
    Quet's community, how to protect the community where Ms. Chalk
    lives, where my family lives, where 2-plus million people in
    south Louisiana live.
        And I know, Mr. Cunningham, I have been to your district
    and have seen some of the challenges with sustainability you
    have over there as well, and I think that is an area where we
    need to all be focusing.
        Ms. Browner, you noted that you think we need more funds
    invested in ecological restoration. I agree with you. And it is
    something we have been battling to try to address now for many
    years, including in this Committee, and I have expressed much
    frustration whenever this very Committee has tried to cut
    ecological restoration for south Louisiana or the various
    administrations have, because here we have wetlands laws
    protecting our wetlands at the same time we have lost 2,000
    square miles in south Louisiana, and I think it is wrong.
        There was a dialogue that I watched from the anteroom that
    I will tell you I was disturbed by. There was a line brought
    up--and I am not going to try to pronounce your name because
    you are not going to even know I am even talking to you. Help
    me out pronouncing your name.
        Dr. Dayaratna. Dayaratna.
        Mr. Graves. Dayaratna. If I would have tried, you wouldn't
    have known I was talking to you.
        Dr. Dayaratna, I want to ask you a question, yes or no. Is
    every member on this panel right now, did we receive
    contributions? Every member on this panel.
        Dr. Dayaratna. I am sorry, receive contributions?
        Mr. Graves. Did we receive campaign contributions, every
    Member on this panel?
        Dr. Dayaratna. Can you receive campaign contributions?
        Mr. Graves. Did we, have we, do you think we received
    campaign contributions to be elected?
        Dr. Dayaratna. I would assume so.
        Mr. Graves. That would be a yes. That would be a yes. And I
    will tell you, I was a little offended by the suggestion that
    anybody who has received a contribution suddenly has been
    bought in regard to an agenda. That offended me. That is not
    how I do business, and I don't think that is how people on this
    panel do business. And I want to apologize to you because I
    didn't think that was fair to you to make that suggestion.
        Dr. Dayaratna. Thank you.
        Mr. Graves. Look, let's all be clear, there are people that
    do, but I don't think it is fair to have a default position
    that everyone who has accepted a contribution has been bought
    or then takes that agenda and moves forward, and I want to make
    note that the questioner in that case has received I think it
    is over $6.5 million in contributions, and I hope we have an
    opportunity to be a little more fair with that in the future.
        Last, Dr. Legates, could you very quickly, there were
    questions brought up earlier about the relationship between
    ocean warming and hurricanes and tropical activities. I am from
    south Louisiana where we experience more than our share of
    those. IPCC, as I believe, has assigned low confidence. Could
    you expand on that, please?
        Dr. Legates. Yes. Warmer waters do provide the energy. I
    mean, hurricanes are latent heat engines. They run off the fact
    that you have evaporating water, then the energy condenses, and
    you get the energy back into the atmosphere.
        But the issue happens to be that there is an awful lot more
    to hurricane formation than simply water temperature
    underneath. Particularly, one of the important components is
    wind shear. What you need for that is the hurricane to develop
    vertically.
        So, if you have a lot of wind shear, which simply means
    winds moving at different speeds at different levels, then as
    the air starts to rise it literally gets shifted and moved over
    or shorn apart, and so the storm doesn't develop.
        So, a lot of cases we see where we have very warm water, we
    have no hurricane development, simply because the wind shear
    keeps that from happening. There are a lot more ingredients in
    the hurricane formation.
        Mr. Graves. Thank you.
        If you can just very quickly, Ms. Quet, Queen Quet, I did
    an amendment in this Committee a few months ago trying to
    designate Cajuns as endangered species. I am trying to get
    endangered species protection. Perhaps we can do your folks, as
    well, and Congressman Cunningham and I can work on that.
        But seriously, I appreciate you all being here, and I am
    looking forward to working with all of you.
        Ms. Goodwine. And I would appreciate you doing that today.
    Thank you.
        Mr. Huffman. Thank you.
        Mr. Cunningham is recognized.
        Mr. Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        As you may know, protecting the coast of South Carolina
    from offshore drilling has been----
        Mr. Huffman. Mr. Cunningham, would you indulge me? I will
    restore your time. I forgot I was supposed to tell the
    witnesses that if anybody has to catch a flight, because I know
    we are running late, we won't hold that against you and we will
    understand.
        Otherwise, let's give Mr. Cunningham a full 5 minutes, and
    I apologize for the interruption.
        Mr. Cunningham. I appreciate it, Mr. Chairman.
        As you may know, protecting South Carolina's coast has been
    my Number 1 priority, especially protecting the coastline from
    offshore drilling. It is one of the reasons my constituents in
    the 1st Congressional District sent me here, and it is a
    commitment that I intend to honor. It is why on the very first
    full week of being on the job, I introduced the Coastal Economy
    Protection Act, which would put into effect a 10-year
    moratorium on oil and gas pre-leasing, leasing, and related
    activities on the Outer Continental Shelf, and that includes
    the North Atlantic, Mid Atlantic, South Atlantic, and the
    Straits of Florida planning areas, and in the Eastern Gulf of
    Mexico.
        Our oceans are at an increasing risk from the impacts of
    climate change. We have heard the testimony here today from
    warming waters, and we see those impacts in South Carolina. We
    see hurricanes intensifying and presenting a more clear and
    present danger. Climate change is an immediate threat. It is
    the greatest non-military threat to our world, and we have to
    take it seriously. And I appreciate each and every one of you
    all taking the time to provide testimony here today, because we
    realize what is at stake, and not just the beautiful beaches,
    but also our culture.
        And I appreciate Queen Quet coming up here and to testify
    as to that and the Gullah Geechee corridor and making sure that
    corridor is preserved beyond 2021, 2022, which we will talk
    about at a later date. But, Queen Quet, I wanted to give you an
    opportunity to educate the rest of the Committee as to the
    Gullah Geechee culture, why it has such an impact on South
    Carolina and our region and why it is of the utmost importance
    that that culture be preserved and how intertwined culture and
    the oceans are and the impact of climate change and what you
    would suggest that this Committee do to take its first step in
    addressing that.
        Ms. Goodwine. Thank you. Thank you greatly for all the work
    you have done in a short period of time that you have been
    seated here up the Hill from the low country, all right,
    because we come from the flat area, you know that. One of the
    things that is so powerful in what you asked about is how to
    deal with climate change and deal with culture, and I think it
    is important for this Committee and all of the policy setters,
    not just in the United States, but around the world to
    calculate cultural heritage. You can't.
        I am a mathematician and computer scientist by degree. You
    cannot actually calculate the cost of the loss of all the
    cultures that are the communities that are along these coasts.
    We have heard all the different percentages of how many
    communities of the world, how much coastline of the world is
    part of what feeds the rest of the world. Eighty percent of the
    country is being fed from these coastal communities. So, if we
    don't listen to the people who live on the land, live from the
    water, live in the water about how they sustain themselves, we
    won't be able to form the right policies, whether we are
    dealing with resilience, sustainability, climate change, sea
    level rise or any of these things.
        We formed the Gullah Geechee Sustainability Think Tank 8
    years ago to start to look at a lot of these issues before
    there were even some of the scientific data that we have been
    talking about today, because we knew Gullah Geechee culture
    would not continue to thrive or survive if we get displaced
    from the sea islands.
        So, it is critical to us that this Committee start to look
    at, where is the money? I have heard that term in this room
    today, follow the money. Well, follow the money because it
    proves what you truly are vested in and investing in. And I
    believe that if we put the money back directly in the hands and
    the pockets of the people literally living on the shorelines,
    it can make all the difference in the world because when you
    take the leelee children like Alicia, and you teach them about
    the water from that age, they will be just like me when they
    get older. They will realize the value of the coast and what
    they need to do as individuals and what they shouldn't do as
    individuals, so that collective consciousness will continue to
    move this whole process forward and be able to reverse a lot of
    what we did when we didn't know any better.
        I think that we need to invest more in citizen science. We
    need to invest directly in the cultural communities and the
    people there instead of consultants that fly in from elsewhere
    and parachute in, then parachute out and just write a paper and
    make a PowerPoint about us, while we are still there trying to
    yet hold on. I think it is critical that we work together, and
    that is why I said what I said earlier, that we need to make
    this a culturally relevant discussion, because there are things
    that we know from over 400 years on the sea islands that nobody
    else knows, and now everyone in the scientific world is looking
    at us saying, hey, maybe they had something that we all need to
    know because they are still there, and they don't leave when
    they say evacuate, and we the Beenyas and we still ain't going
    nowhere until we told. And I'm going to be there when you get
    home.
        Mr. Cunningham. I appreciate Queen Quet and educating
    people both in the Beenyas and the Comeyas on the different
    types of cultures that make the low country a special place to
    live. And I want to thank the rest of the panel as well and
    everyone who put the time and effort to get here to educate me.
        I yield back the remainder of my time.
        Mr. Huffman. Thank, you Mr. Cunningham.
        Ms. Velazquez, you are recognized. Thanks for your
    patience.
        Ms. Velazquez. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank
    you so much both Mr. Grijalva, our Chairman, and you for
    holding this important hearing. It is important to me because I
    am a Member of Congress who happens to be Puerto Rican
    American, and we all know what happened in Puerto Rico.
        I would like to ask whether or not you see a correlation
    between Hurricane Maria, Harvey, Irma, all of them happening in
    1 year? And it is not only that there were three, but the
    force, Category 4 and 5. Do you think there is a correlation
    between the fact that Earth experienced one of the warmest
    years ever recorded and the number of hurricanes Category 4 and
    5?
        Dr. Bronk. I will take this. The hurricanes are difficult
    in terms of getting--because they are so sporadic, so in terms
    of the IPCC, there is not solid evidence, strong evidence to
    suggest that there is a link with climate warming in terms of
    the force of the hurricanes. What we are finding is evidence
    that because the ocean is warming, evaporation is greater,
    there is more moisture in the air, there is more precipitation
    coming from the hurricanes. But right now, we can't say
    necessarily that global warming is dramatically increasing the
    strength of hurricanes, but they are making it more devastating
    in terms of the precipitation they bring. And it may be quite a
    while before we will see anything like that because they are so
    sporadic to begin with, but warmer ocean water is what powers
    hurricanes.
        Ms. Velazquez. I would like to borrow something from the
    Republican playbook today, and that is quite weird for me, but
    they always say that localities, local communities, they know
    better. And when you look at how public sentiment is changing
    among people in this country regarding climate change, there is
    this collective awareness from Florida to New York, Louisiana,
    everywhere in our country, farming, agriculture, all those
    communities that think that there is something that must be
    done. And today, the polls are telling us that close to 70
    percent of the American people believe that there is climate
    change.
        Mr. Dayaratna, you mentioned the cost-benefit analysis.
        Dr. Dayaratna. Correct.
        Ms. Velazquez. For many people, particularly low-income
    communities, communities of color, indigenous communities, they
    care less about cost analysis when they know that they have
    been victims of climate change and environmental degradation.
        If you go to New York and talk to communities of color,
    particularly Latinos who come from the Caribbean, they feel
    strongly that climate change is here and that we need to
    confront it. So, inaction on this is not a choice, it is not an
    option. And what is the best way to proceed? Well, this is why
    we are bringing all the experts here. But to reject it based on
    studies that maybe, yes, are funded by fossil fuels or not--
    this is an issue that is not going away. Even the majority of
    Republicans, 64 percent, believe in climate change, so I
    welcome that.
        We say that low-income communities will be the victims of
    the cost of energy because of the impact of regulations on
    their lives. Well, the fact of the matter is that they are the
    victims, not about paying more for electricity, but by the
    inaction that is happening in our agencies or our government in
    terms of addressing the issue of global warming and climate
    change.
        Dr. Dayaratna. OK. Can I respond? She addressed me.
        Mr. Huffman. Take 10 seconds, if you would.
        Dr. Dayaratna. Ten seconds. OK. Well, like I said, first, I
    am not denying that the climate is actually changing. I believe
    that the climate has been changing, the planet is warming, but
    it is warming at a much, much lower pace than a lot of people
    would have you believe. I would say that it is luke-warming.
        And second, these policies are not going to do anything to
    impact it, even if it is accelerating at a significantly high
    pace.
        Mr. Huffman. Thank you, Dr. Dayaratna.
        Dr. Dayaratna. And these people are going to suffer from
    these types of policies that I have talked about, including
    low-income communities.
        Mr. Huffman. Thank you.
        Last, but certainly not least, the illustrious Chairman of
    this Full Committee, Mr. Grijalva, is recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
    you for the hearing. Excellent witnesses and excellent work you
    and the staff do to put this together, and I appreciate it very
    much, and that you made a priority of the fact that oceans and
    the jurisdiction of your Subcommittee had to be part of the
    solution. I appreciate that, and I think everybody appreciates
    that.
        Queen Quet, I was going to ask you a question, but my
    colleague, Mr. Cunningham, asked you almost the same question.
    I think he was looking at my notes, but I am not going to
    mention that--regarding culture, the importance, what that glue
    means to people and what that means to regions, and thank you
    very much for that answer.
        Ms. Chalk, I was going to ask you, what is your response to
    people who say that climate change isn't real?
        Ms. Chalk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would say that they
    have not experienced the things that we have experienced in
    southeast Louisiana or coastal Louisiana. I had 6 feet of water
    in my home due to Hurricane Katrina, 6 feet, and my house is
    raised 4 feet. So, until or unless you have water in your home
    or you can no longer get to a community because of rising sea
    levels, there is nothing that you can say that is more
    impactful than having experienced that. If you are familiar
    with the canopy at the Lowe's store, the water in my
    neighborhood was as high as the canopy on that store.
        And I had the privilege of participating with the Louisiana
    Strategic Adaptation for Future Environments, and no matter
    where I participated in that process, everyone across the six
    parishes that participated in that program had the same
    sentiment: family, faith, and food in our culture. And as the
    climate changes and those communities disappear, we lose that.
    So, I want this Committee to remember my face when you are
    making these decisions.
        Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
        Ms. Chalk. This is real impact to real people.
        Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, and I appreciate that
    very much. Before we start shedding a lot of crocodile tears
    about the poor, the people that are being displaced, the ones
    that are suffering the most, let's put some substance behind
    those crocodile tears, and not make it worse, but factor and
    bring to the table the impacted communities so they can be part
    of the solution. I appreciate very much your comments.
        Ms. Chalk. Absolutely.
        Mr. Grijalva. Before I ask Ms. Browner--and thank you, good
    to see you again--any questions, the Green New Deal, you
    already hear the rumblings of creeping socialism. Planes are
    going to fall from the sky. Cars and trucks will be abandoned
    in highways and then blow away in the dust. The economy as we
    know it will be destroyed. Nothing will be left of this
    civilization. And you will hear more and more on that because
    that is going to be the new set of talking points--because
    there has been some progress made.
        We are not dealing with full throated denial of climate
    change; we are dealing with climate change avoidance. Let's
    talk about forests, let's talk about this, let's talk about,
    well, maybe the science isn't what it should be, and excuses
    not to act. And regardless of the talking points against the
    Green New Deal, it is simply this: it is aspirational. It puts
    the climate change at the top of the legislative agenda and the
    specificity on committees, like Mr. Huffman that will put
    together the legislative language and packages to begin to deal
    with resiliency and adaptation. That is the work of Congress
    and that is the work we should be doing.
        But I support the aspirational statement, the resolution
    that is non-binding, people don't have to sign it, but the fact
    remains that it is setting--it is bringing to light something
    that has not been discussed around here for a good 8 years. So,
    I think that is good.
        Ms. Browner, have you ever seen the discussion around
    environmental stewardship and the topic today this partisan?
        Ms. Browner. I think the partisanship has grown
    significantly over the last----
        Mr. Grijalva. Take the snapshot here--and why?
        Ms. Browner. Well, I think that there are more and more
    interests that are separated. And the polluters want certain
    things, and other people, the communities, want other things.
    But when I was confirmed to my job at EPA, in 1992 was my
    hearing in the Senate, and John Chafee, a Republican, chaired
    that hearing, and he said to me at the end of the hearing,
    ``Ms. Browner, I hope I never hear you say the word `balance,'
    because your job is not to balance. You are running the EPA.
    Your job is to protect.'' And I think we need to remember that
    we have these institutions of the government that are there to
    protect our citizens, whether it is these women from these
    local communities or the children who are experiencing asthma
    and it is getting worse, that we have a responsibility in the
    government, and it is unfortunate that we do not focus on that
    responsibility and on that problem solving.
        I want to say one thing about the Green New Deal. I totally
    agree with everything you said. We put a man on the moon
    because we committed ourselves to it. There is nothing this
    country can't do with innovation and ingenuity. I have absolute
    faith in our ability.
        Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank
    you.
        Mr. Huffman. Terrific. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I do want to thank all of the witnesses for your time and
    your expertise and coming to Washington and sharing your
    testimony. I do hope this hearing serves as a baseline on what
    we hope to address in this Subcommittee. We will prioritize
    ocean-related climate adaptation and mitigation measures as we
    go forward. And Ranking Member Bishop has sometimes asked where
    is this heading, where is it going? I know at least in this
    Subcommittee, there is going to be a strong emphasis on those
    things, and that is squarely within this Subcommittee's
    jurisdiction.
        Especially I want to thank you, Dr. Bronk, because the
    Committee Rules are very limiting. If I were to provide a panel
    of witnesses that truly reflected the scientific consensus on
    climate change, I would have needed over 90 more witnesses, and
    this room just can't accommodate that many, and the Committee
    Rules would never let me get away with that. But you were
    carrying the water, so to speak, for the overwhelming global
    scientific consensus on these issues, and I thank you and all
    the other witnesses.
        Going forward, again, just by way of preview of this
    Committee's work, we will have opportunities for coastal and
    marine habitat restoration programs to be considered, to
    reauthorize and strengthen the Coral Reef Conservation Act, to
    bolster programs addressing ocean acidification, uphold and
    strengthen the Coastal Zone Management Act, to improve data and
    monitoring efforts. And there are many of those that seem, I
    think, to be bipartisan, the Digital Coast and Integrated Ocean
    Observing System, National Estuarine Research Reserves, Sea
    Grant Program, and Harmful Algal Bloom Monitoring system.
        We will have a chance to address shifting fish stocks and
    management of our fisheries, to strengthen the National Coastal
    Zone Management Program, which works with coastal states and
    territories to address some of today's most pressing coastal
    issues, to conserve and restore blue carbon, particularly
    marshes, mangroves, and sea grasses. We will have an
    opportunity to pursue policies that support living shorelines
    that will certainly be talking about offshore drilling in this
    Committee. And I know Mr. Cunningham and many others are
    looking forward to that.
        We will have an opportunity to consider marine protected
    areas and possible expansion of those and to expand the Coastal
    Barrier Resources Act to cover more areas in order to protect
    our coasts from wind and tidal forces caused by coastal storms,
    and, of course, that is critical habitat for aquatic species.
        Finally, we will include the issue in this Subcommittee of
    marine plastics. Not only is that hurting our oceans--we didn't
    have enough time to talk about that today--but the greenhouse
    gas emissions associated with plastic production are part of
    this bigger problem we are talking about. And I hope we will be
    able to reauthorize and bolster the North American Wetlands
    Conservation Act and many, many more things.
        So, again, thanks everyone for participating in a terrific
    first hearing of this Subcommittee. The members of the
    Committee may have some additional questions for the witnesses,
    and I will ask, if you would, to respond to those in writing
    under Committee Rule 3(o). Members of the Committee must submit
    written questions within 3 business days following the hearing,
    and the hearing record will be held open for 10 business days
    for responses.
        If there is no further business, without objection, this
    Committee stands adjourned.

        [Whereupon, at 5:18 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

                [ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD]

     Prepared Statement of the Hon. Raul M. Grijalva, Chair, Committee on
                               Natural Resources
        Thank you to my friend from California, and thanks to all of the
    witnesses for being here today. Thank you for sharing your stories of
    how climate change is affecting your work and your neighborhoods. In
    holding hearings on climate change at both the Full Committee and
    Subcommittee levels, we were hoping to turn over a new leaf in the
    important work of addressing climate change and its impacts in this
    Committee. However, the Minority is sticking to its old, big oil-funded
    playbook, continuing to be out of step with the scientific consensus on
    climate change. That may have worked for the past 8 years, but
    unfortunately we are running out time to address climate pollution
    before the impacts devastate our economy. One need not look any further
    than our oceans and coasts, and the communities that depend upon them,
    to see just how quickly the costs of climate pollution are adding up.

        For example, over the past 8 years, as Republicans were in control
    of the House of Representatives but did nothing about climate change,
    our country experienced:

         96 storm events with over a billion dollars in damages,
                totaling $674 billion

         26 fishery disasters declared or pending

         Loss of a football field of coastal wetlands every 100
                minutes in Louisiana

         Spent $1.9 billion to nourish 130 beaches across the
                country

        Needless to say, it's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work
    on climate change.

                                     ______

                            Conservation International,
                                            Arlington, Virginia

                                                      February 19, 2019

    Hon. Jared Huffman, Chairman,
    Hon. Tom McClintock, Ranking Member,
    House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife,
    1324 Longworth House Office Building,
    Washington, DC 20515.

    Re: Subcommittee Hearing on Healthy Oceans and Healthy Economies: The
            State of Our Oceans In the 21st Century

        Dear Chairman Huffman and Ranking Member McClintock:

        Thank you for the opportunity to provide input to the Committee's
    hearing: Healthy Oceans and Healthy Economies: The State of Our Oceans
    In the 21st Century.
        Our ocean is a 21st century wild west; its resources are in peril
    and its governance is weak--and yet it is also a major economic
    frontier, ripe for exploitation. Policy needs to be forward-looking and
    agile in responding to these opportunities and challenges.
        Overfishing, pollution, habitat loss and climate change have
    resulted in coastal and ocean ecosystems that are often unrecognizable
    from their pre-industrial state. These changes are accelerating--
    including the dramatic projections of climate change impacts on our
    oceans, coastlines, and low-lying areas. This leads to lost economic
    opportunities and threats to the safety, livelihoods and culture of
    coastal communities in places like Florida, Puerto Rico, Hawai'i,
    Texas, Rhode Island, and every other coastal state.
        At the same time, there are clear opportunities to derive more
    economic value from the phenomenal size and productivity of the ocean,
    to deliver new sources of energy, and to build resilience to growing
    climate impacts.
        Emerging technologies now enable us to reach parts of the oceans
    that have been inaccessible until now, with parallels to the `wild
    west' era--opening up a region of untapped potential but limited
    governance.
        Smartly designed policy, including leveraging new technologies such
    as satellite monitoring and unmanaged submersibles, and partnering with
    coastguard and military interests, can help the ocean to support a
    thriving US economy while respecting its ecological and cultural
    significance. Sticking to the status quo would fail to maximize this
    opportunity; leave economic assets and communities exposed to
    unacceptable levels of risk; and drive overexploitation, wholesale
    conversion of territory into poorly regulated productive systems, and
    loss of species akin to the fate of the American Bison in the 19th
    century.
        Conservation International believes that a positive vision for the
    ocean's future is achievable, and that government, academia, civil
    society, and the private sector all have important roles to play.
        For example, in Hawai'i our work with the local fishing communities
    is supporting a vibrant culture and economy around seafood. Hawai'i's
    fisheries are valued at $539 million and provide over 45 million lbs.
    of seafood annually. Working with traditional and local fishers we are
    creating markets for sustainable seafood, implementing seafood
    traceability, and working with businesses to reducing seafood waste.
        Similarly, strong conservation in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine
    National Monument led to over $100 million of investment in research,
    vessel operations, and education in the first ten years of its
    establishment. Lessons learned from research and management in this
    remote part of the archipelago have also helped to transform management
    practices and science in the populated islands. Such momentum has
    helped to inspire the state government, all four counties, the
    University of Hawai'i, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to commit to
    the Hawai'i Green Growth initiative and goals of the Aloha+ Challenge.
    The private sector
        It is particularly notable that looking out to the ocean will
    provide rich opportunities for businesses to innovate and develop new
    product lines in fields such as aquaculture, algae production, maritime
    technology, insurance, and renewable energy--alongside the ongoing
    revitalization and recovery of wild-capture fisheries and the growth of
    ocean-facing industries including shipping, ports, marine engineering
    and coastal tourism. Businesses (and municipal governments) would also
    benefit greatly from increasing their awareness of the many risks they
    face from accelerating ocean change--an awareness which is often
    lacking at present.
        Conservation International is partnering with universities,
    governmental and non-governmental organizations to develop the Natural
    Capital Protocol for the Ocean--a framework, case studies and guidance
    to help business leaders to assess these opportunities and the options
    available to them, by considering their dependencies and impacts on
    ocean natural capital.
    National Security
        On a global scale, the human importance of the ocean becomes clear:
    The asset value of the global ocean has been estimated at $24 trillion;
    \1\ 2.4 billion people live within 100 kilometers of the coast; \2\ 90%
    of global trade is shipped; 2 more than 3 billion people
    depend on fish for at least 20% of their total animal protein intake;
    \3\ 93% of the heat released by climate change has been absorbed by our
    ocean; \4\ and the ocean provides 99% of the living space on planet
    `Earth'.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ WWF, Reviving the Ocean Economy--The Case for Action. 2015.
        \2\ United Nations, The Ocean Conference Factsheet: People and
    Oceans, 2017.
        \3\ FAO, Fish and human nutrition factsheet.
        \4\ IUCN, Explaining ocean warming: causes, scale, effects and
    consequences, 2016.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Many of the most vulnerable communities--and the highest
    unemployment rates--are found in coastal and port communities, across a
    range of countries from Colombia to China. Sea-level rise and
    increasing impacts from hurricanes, storms and flooding is already
    exacerbating the situation, and this will only intensify in future.
    These social conditions often contribute to increased social unrest,
    illegal activity, and migration, which impacts on US national security
    interests. By investing to maintain healthy forests, wetlands,
    aquifers, and rivers, we can help blunt the impacts of natural
    disasters when they strike and make communities more resilient to
    extreme weather events.
        Targeted U.S. investment in international conservation efforts
    contributes to America's long-term foreign policy objectives and
    enhances U.S. economic and national security interests around the
    globe.
    Science and data
        Conservation International employs economic analysis, innovative
    financing, and ocean science to support coastal communities,
    businesses, and policymakers in securing a positive, sustainable
    future.
        The Ocean Health Index has scientifically measured the state of the
    ocean for the past seven years. It is the first and only ocean
    assessment tool to scientifically assess key elements from all
    dimensions of the ocean's health--biological, physical, economic, and
    social--equipping managers and policymakers with meaningful information
    to help manage oceans sustainably. While the global average score has
    remained fairly stable at 70/100, the United States' ranking has
    dropped from 53rd in the world in 2014 to 91st in 2018; its score is
    now 68, below the global average. Significant declines have been seen
    in the US scores for fisheries, natural products, coastal protection,
    and biodiversity. The large decline in the coastal protection score,
    from 94 to 75, is in part due to a substantial loss in coastal sea ice
    in Alaska, as climate change impacts accelerate.
        More detailed regional Ocean Health Index assessments have been
    completed for the US west coast and for Hawai'i, providing insights to
    inform management decisions in those regions. Declines in coastal and
    ocean habitats in these regions are having negative consequences to
    ocean economies and livelihoods. For example, tourism in Hawai'i is
    directly linked to Hawai'i's unique natural environment, generating $24
    billion annually. But Hawai'i's alluring habitats are literally
    eroding--72% of Hawaii's beaches are shrinking, and up to 50% of coral
    cover has already been lost in some areas over the last five years,
    with greater losses projected to follow as oceans warm further.
        The ocean, once considered inexhaustible and unknowable, is now
    open for business. Understanding and respecting the resulting
    opportunities, dependencies and risks; encouraging innovation and new
    technologies; nurturing sustainable businesses; and ensuring that
    regulatory frameworks are agile and ready for the changes ahead will
    ensure that our ocean frontier will positively influence economies,
    communities and ecosystems for decades to come.

                Sincerely,

                                              Dawson J. Hunter,
                               Senior Director, U.S. Government Policy.

                                     ______

                                     Ocean Conservancy,
                                                 Washington, DC

                                                       February 7, 2019

    Hon. Jared Huffman, Chairman,
    Hon. Tom McClintock, Ranking Member,
    House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife,
    1324 Longworth House Office Building,
    Washington, DC 20515.

    Re: Subcommittee Hearing on Healthy Oceans and Healthy Economies: The
            State of Our Oceans In the 21st Century

        Dear Chairman Huffman and Ranking Member McClintock:

        Thank you for the opportunity to provide input in regards to
    today's hearing. We commend the Subcommittee's leadership in addressing
    oceans and climate change, and urge continued focus and action on this
    critical issue as we move further into the 116th Congress.
        Ocean Conservancy creates science-based solutions for a healthy
    ocean and the wildlife and communities that depend on it. Climate
    change is one of the most pressing challenges for our ocean, and Ocean
    Conservancy has been deeply engaged in supporting solutions at the
    local, national, and global levels. Our work ranges from supporting
    ocean acidification funding and research, to fisheries management
    adaptation and modelling, to addressing ocean policy in venues like the
    International Maritime Organization and Arctic Council. The ocean is a
    system at risk, struggling to keep pace with rising temperatures,
    pollution, and the absorption of greenhouse gases. It is increasingly
    clear that urgent action is required to preserve the essential
    functioning of both the ocean and climate systems, and that saving one
    can't happen without saving the other. Congress must act on climate
    change. The science is clear, solutions are available here and now, and
    the ocean must be at the heart of climate action.
    Why climate change matters to ocean and coastal communities
        The ocean and America's coastal communities are on the frontlines
    of climate change impacts. Thirty-nine million people live near the
    coast in the United States. They, and the ocean they depend on, are
    experiencing major risk from extreme weather events, sea level rise,
    high water temperatures, low dissolved oxygen levels, and ocean and
    coastal acidification. Extreme events associated with the ocean are
    projected to become more common and severe as these conditions
    intensify and intersect. All of this is putting jobs and resources at
    risk, including America's multi-billion dollar seafood and ocean and
    coastal recreation industries, and trillion dollar coastal property
    market. In addition, the recent Fourth National Climate Assessment
    (NCA4) report found that the impacts of climate change along our coasts
    are actively worsening social inequality (NCA4, Chapter 1). American
    lives, livelihoods, and culture are at risk.

        Below are just a few examples of how climate change is dramatically
    affecting ocean and coastal communities and economies:
    Sea level rise
        Repeated tidal flooding, coupled with sea level rise and heavy
    precipitation events, are already significantly harming America's
    public infrastructure and trillion-dollar coastal property market.
    Global average sea level has risen by about 7-8 inches since 1900, with
    almost half this rise occurring since 1993 as oceans have warmed and
    land-based ice has melted. Sea level rise, driven by expansion of
    warming seawater and melting of glaciers, now causes regular flooding
    in coastal communities around our country--euphemistically called
    ``sunny day flooding'' or ``king tides.'' 50 million housing units are
    within 1/8 of a mile of the coast, and projections suggest that between
    $66 and $106 billion of real estate value may be underwater by 2050
    (NCA4, Chapter 8). Moreover, 60,000 miles of roads and bridges are
    located along the coast (NCA4, Chapter 12), and many if not most of
    these will need to be repaired or relocated. These costs will become an
    increasing economic liability for municipalities and programs like the
    National Flood Insurance Program, which may become insolvent when
    properties become unsellable (NCA4, Chapter 8).
        Around the country, costs of forced adaptation are already
    mounting. In Florida, there are already 120,000 properties at risk from
    frequent tidal flooding (NCA4, Chapter 19). Sea level around Florida is
    8 inches higher than it was in 1950, and the state is planning over $4
    billion in sea level rise solutions (SeaLevelRise.org). Cities like
    Miami are installing pumps to remove floodwaters from coastal streets.
    Some communities are considering leaving the coastal zone altogether:
    the Biloxi-Choctaw tribe in Louisiana has a $48 million grant from the
    Federal Government to develop a relocation plan (NCA4, Chapter 15). In
    California alone, the cost to elevate ports to withstand 6 feet of sea
    level rise could be $12 billion (NCA4, Chapter 8). The nation's largest
    naval base, in Norfolk Virginia, is at major risk from sea level rise,
    a fact acknowledged by the Department of Defense (January 2019 Report
    of Effects of a Changing Climate to the Department of Defense).
    Fisheries
        U.S. commercial and recreational fisheries generate $212 billion in
    sales impacts each year (Fisheries Economics of the United States
    Report, 2016) and are a critical economic driver for thousands of
    coastal communities. But ocean warming, acidification, and oxygen loss
    are rapidly altering the abundance, productivity, and distribution of
    fish stocks. These impacts on fish are resulting in a cascade of
    management and sustainability challenges, which impact fishermen and
    fishing communities.
        In ocean waters, species distributions are shifting at an estimated
    70 kilometers per decade (Poloczanska et al., 2013), with most species
    moving poleward or to deeper waters as the oceans warm (NCA4, Chapter
    9). Scientists expect 10-50 percent decline in fish from warmer regions
    by 2085 (NCA4, Chapter 9), while catch could increase elsewhere. Warm
    water has already contributed to overfishing of the iconic Atlantic cod
    in the Gulf of Maine, and negatively affected the allowable catch of
    Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. American lobster
    has experienced a major range shift, with its center of abundance
    having moved 3 degrees north in latitude from Long Island to Maine. The
    Gulf of Maine has warmed faster than 99 percent of the rest of the
    global ocean in the last century; by 2050 lobster populations could be
    cut by more than half with continued warming (La Bris et al., 2018). As
    stocks move, research suggests fisheries have only been able to shift
    10-30 percent as much as their target species, likely due to economic
    and regulatory constraints (Pinsky and Fogarty, 2012). Changing ocean
    conditions will also affect the productivity of fish stocks by
    influencing habitat suitability, interactions between predators and
    prey, and the life history parameters of fish such as growth and
    recruitment (Karp et al. 2018). These changes in productivity make it
    more difficult to define and achieve management targets (Karp et al.
    2018).
        With changing abundance and distribution of fish stocks, changes in
    fishing patterns follow, and commercial, recreational, and subsistence
    fishermen are on the front lines. A survey of commercial fishermen in
    the Northeast found that the majority attributed changes they saw to
    climate change and 65 percent believed that climate change would
    ultimately force them out of their fishery (Center for American
    Progress, 2014). Climate change is also already affecting U.S. fishery
    management as species shift their distributions and productivity is
    altered. Among the pressing issues are jurisdictional and boundary
    conflicts for managing stocks, coordination and allocation issues among
    and across states and regions, the need to manage new and emerging
    fisheries, and increased costs for fishermen to pursue fisheries over
    longer distances. Taken together, these issues make fisheries harvests
    less secure and complicate management of both fisheries and protected
    species. Recognizing the urgency of these issues, the National Oceanic
    and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Regional Fishery Management
    Councils, and others are working to refine the science, assess fish and
    community vulnerabilities, incorporate insights into planning and
    decision-making, and develop a more climate-ready fishery management
    system (for example, see Link et al. NOAA Fisheries, 2015).
    Arctic
        The potential impacts from climate change and acidification in the
    U.S. Arctic warrant particular attention. The Arctic region is warming
    at twice the rate of the rest of the planet. This warming is already
    causing significant effects in Alaska, America's only Arctic state,
    some of which ripple through the rest of the United States. Alaska
    marine ecosystems and coastal communities are inextricably linked and,
    together, they are threatened by climate change. Coastal communities
    are being forced to relocate as homes and other infrastructure erode
    into the ocean. Warming is also disrupting subsistence that has existed
    in coastal communities for millennia, including making hunting more
    dangerous and less predictable, which contributes to the loss of food
    security and cultural continuity.
        Warming is causing the loss of sea ice. The 2018 sea ice minimum
    was tied for the sixth lowest on record, and NASA scientists estimate
    that approximately 21,000 square miles of ice--an area the size of
    Maryland and New Jersey--has been lost for each year since the late
    1970s (Earth Observatory 2018). The loss of sea ice is disrupting
    marine ecosystems and contributing to erosion and other impacts. It is
    also opening the region to other industrial activities--like oil and
    gas exploration and development and commercial fishing--in addition to
    increasing vessel traffic. These changes, in turn, are having profound
    impacts on maritime transportation in the Arctic. Vessel traffic in the
    Arctic has already grown significantly, and is poised to increase
    rapidly in coming years as the ice-free season lengthens. As vessel
    traffic increases, so too does the potential for significant impacts to
    residents of the region and to the marine ecosystem.
        Warming ocean conditions are also affecting commercial,
    recreational, and subsistence fisheries in Alaska. Pacific cod
    populations in the Gulf of Alaska have diminished by more than 80
    percent, and that loss has been attributed to a ``warm blob'' of ocean
    water in the Pacific. Pacific cod has also seen a significant decline
    in the Bering Sea. The reduction in cod had dramatic impacts of the
    Pacific cod fishery, which has been worth as much as $50 million per
    year in the past. The warm blob has also been linked to sea bird die-
    offs, whale strandings, and algal blooms (Seattle Times, 2017). Arctic
    waters are particularly susceptible to ocean acidification because they
    are colder and because freshwater inputs from melting glaciers make
    them less saline. Acidification will have dramatic effects on Arctic
    marine ecosystems by disrupting the base of a fragile food web.
    Why climate change matters to ocean ecosystems
        The ocean is our largest single buffer against climate change. It
    is the Earth's largest heat and carbon sink: it has absorbed 93 percent
    of the excess heat generated by industrial-era carbon dioxide
    emissions, and it captures nearly 30 percent of the carbon dioxide
    released into the atmosphere every year. Recent headlines have
    highlighted new research that suggests the ocean is storing even more
    heat than previously estimated (Cheng et al. 2019). Ocean surface
    waters have warmed 0.7 degrees Celsius since 1990. Dissolved oxygen in
    the ocean is falling because warmer water holds less oxygen and
    decreased circulation is causing oceans to become increasingly
    stratified; these impacts have already been detected as far as 1000
    feet below the surface. By 2050, 86 percent of the ocean will see
    temperature and ocean acidification conditions that modern ecosystems
    and species have never experienced (NCA4, Chapter 9). Each new
    scientific assessment confirms that the pace and scale of change is
    greater than scientists previously thought.

        Below are just a few examples of how these changes are dramatically
    affecting the functioning of ocean ecosystems:
    Mass disruption of ocean ecosystems and food webs
        The NCA4 report found that changing ocean conditions and increasing
    temperatures are already causing the loss of important habitats and
    changing food webs and species distributions, an effect that will only
    increase as warming, acidification, and oxygen loss continue.
        In one dramatic example, just last week a new study from Cornell
    University documented that sea star wasting syndrome, a climate-change
    driven disease, has virtually extirpated Pycnopodia helianthoides
    (colloquially called the sunflower star) along a 3,000 mile stretch of
    the West coast (Harvell et al. 2019). This loss is threatening the
    survival of kelp forest ecosystems. A classic example of a ``keystone
    species'', sunflower stars keep purple sea urchin populations in check,
    which in turn allows giant kelp to grow prolifically, creating the
    physical structure that harbors all the other species that collectively
    comprise the kelp forest. Science warns that without Pycnopodia--and
    the other sea stars killed by the wasting disease--there could be no
    kelp forests. And that is what is happening. As sea star abundances
    have tumbled across the west coast, the abundance of kelp has likewise
    fallen and these once vibrant habitats have increasingly become barren
    zones dominated by sea urchins. This is just one example of the types
    of major trophic cascades ocean scientists are anticipating as a result
    of climate change.
    Ocean Acidification
        One of the major drivers of atmospheric climate change, carbon
    dioxide, is also responsible for driving ocean climate change by
    causing ocean acidification. Carbon dioxide dissolved in water creates
    carbonic acid, which changes not only the pH of oceans but also other
    chemical balances important for marine life. Thirty-year ocean time-
    series datasets provide direct evidence of this process worldwide (2018
    2nd State of the Carbon Cycle Report: Chapter 17).
        In the mid-2000s, mass mortality at shellfish hatcheries in the
    Pacific Northwest alerted the shellfish aquaculture industry to a major
    systemic problem. Partnering with federal and university researchers,
    they identified the problem as ocean acidification, caused by fossil
    fuel emissions absorbed by the Pacific Ocean over the last several
    decades, upwelled to coastal waters decades earlier than previously
    predicted (Feely et al., 2008, Science). To protect multi-generational
    businesses that support an industry employing thousands of people and
    sustaining the entire Pacific oyster industry, hatchery owners invested
    in ``future proofing'' steps such as monitoring seawater intakes,
    modifying the water chemistry of intake water, and researching the
    prospects for selective breeding to help safeguard the industry. At the
    same time, research on other impacts of ocean acidification took off.
    Since ocean acidification was identified as a threat to marine life,
    laboratory studies have shown it can alter fish and marine invertebrate
    reproductive success (e.g., Kroeker et al. 2013), fish and shark
    behavior (Dixson et al. 2010), and predator-prey relationships.
    Modeling studies suggest that these effects together have the power to
    decrease fishery yields of lucrative fisheries such as sea scallops
    (Cooley et al. 2018), red king and Tanner crabs (Punt et al. 2016), and
    Puget Sound fisheries (Busch et al. 2013). Surprisingly, preliminary
    studies suggest that OA worsens the toxicity of harmful algal blooms by
    increasing domoic acid toxin production (Sun et al. 2011), and it can
    decrease the flavor and food appeal of northern shrimp (Dupont et al.
    2014). It is clear that the full effects of ocean acidification on
    marine life are still being determined, but we know that it can
    interact in subtle and difficult to predict ways with other marine
    drivers like warming, oxygen loss, and nitrogen loading.
    Loss of Coral Reefs
        Coral reef survival, along with the ecosystem and storm buffering
    services they provide, are at significant risk from warming and
    acidifying oceans. In the United States, coral reefs fringe the warm-
    water coastlines around Florida and Hawaii and territories of Puerto
    Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The past
    several summers in Hawaii, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern
    Mariana Islands, widespread coral bleaching occurred. The 2015 event
    killed approximately half of the coral cover in Western Hawaii (NCA4,
    Ch. 27). Cold-water-loving coral species also ring the entire coast,
    from Alaska to Hawaii. Both warm and cold-water reefs provide vital
    habitat for a wide variety of marine life, many of which are species
    that sustain economically important fisheries. In addition, reefs in
    shallow waters also help protect coasts from waves, acting like ``speed
    bumps'' that help dissipate wave energy. Erosion of reefs in Florida,
    U.S. Virgin Islands, and Hawaii from the combined effects of wave
    action, storms, and acidification is changing the seafloor topography
    enough that changes in wave runup on land can be expected. Losses of
    $140 billion in recreational revenue alone are projected from loss of
    coral reefs by 2100 (4th US Climate Assessment, Ch. 9). With forecasts
    calling for increased flooding threats from hurricanes that carry extra
    precipitation because of anthropogenic climate change (Patricola and
    Wehner, 2018), it is essential to maintain these invisible coastal
    protections that help defend against wave-based flooding.
    Solutions: Ocean-based mitigation and adaptation
        The ocean, and the coastal communities and economies that depend on
    it, are an important part of the solutions to climate change. The
    fundamental solution to ocean warming and acidification is decreasing
    atmospheric greenhouse gas levels, particularly carbon dioxide, and the
    ocean can help us to do that. In addition, even if we stopped emitting
    greenhouse gases today, there would still be years of ``momentum'' in
    the system, as existing atmospheric greenhouse gases continue to warm
    and acidify the ocean. As we work toward reducing our carbon footprint,
    there are concurrent steps that should be taken to decrease other ocean
    stressors and to support adaptation to ocean climate change.

    The ocean can help us reduce our carbon footprint.

        The ocean is more than a victim of climate change. It is a
    potential solution to the mitigation targets we must achieve to keep
    global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius. The ocean provides
    critical carbon sinks, such as ``blue carbon'' ecosystems (mangroves,
    seagrasses, and tidal marshes, which have the added benefit of
    insulating communities from the effects of sea level rise and storm
    surges) and other elements of a living ocean. The ocean also provides
    important opportunities for decarbonization, such as clean energy via
    offshore renewables like wind and wave power, and reduction in
    emissions from offshore activities such as shipping and drilling. For
    example, shipping accounts for about 90 percent of global trade, and
    emission of greenhouse gases from shipping represent 2-3 percent of
    total global emissions. It is possible to reduce or eliminate these
    emissions using short-term measures such as design and technology
    solutions for new ships, adoption of low-carbon fuels, reduction of
    black carbon emissions, and mandatory speed reductions. These solutions
    should be addressed with industry in the dialogue as we work to develop
    a holistic approach to carbon reduction. Regardless of the mitigation
    mechanisms employed, any mitigation targets should include a specific
    focus on CO2, since CO2 has a significantly greater impact on the ocean
    by causing ocean acidification.

    Ocean communities, industries and ecosystems need resources and support
    to secure long-term adaptation & resilience.

        As noted above, the ocean impacts of climate change present
    significant and growing risks to coastal communities, economies, and
    ecosystems. We must invest in making them resilient to the climate
    change impacts we can't avoid. Functioning fisheries are needed to
    support populations, and healthy ecosystems are needed to protect
    coastlines. Protecting coastal and marine ecosystems against the
    adverse effects of climate change is vital for human and ecosystem
    adaptation and, in many cases, also contributes to reduction of
    emissions. Reducing anthropogenic stressors on the oceans, such as
    overfishing and other unsustainable exploitation of marine resources,
    habitat degradation, pollution and nutrient runoff, may also enhance
    the ocean's capacity to absorb the impacts of climate change and reduce
    the acidifying impact of CO2 emissions. We need to ensure the actions
    we take are designed with a changing climate and the goal of building
    resilience in mind.

        In particular, we recommend focusing on two key approaches to
    adaptation and resilience:
        Work to decrease ocean stressors: Studies show that multiple
    layered drivers on ocean ecosystems have a greater chance of acting
    synergistically--that is, exerting more stress on ocean life together
    than they would singly, or simply added together--than to counteract
    each other (Harley et al. 2006). This implies that reducing as many
    ocean drivers as possible, to reduce overall stress on ocean life, is
    warranted. Actions to reduce ocean stressors should include activities
    to combat things like oxygen loss, nitrogen pollution, sedimentation,
    disease, and other types of chemical pollution (Kelly & Caldwell,
    2013). Marine resource management has sought to reduce these problems
    as part of general water quality improvement for decades, with
    progressive success in doing so (Cote et al. 2017), but the need is
    even more pressing in the face of climate change. Preventing the
    expansion of offshore oil and gas activities, especially in sensitive
    or remote places where the risks of these activities far outweigh any
    potential benefits, is also an important way to decrease additional
    ocean stressors. Decreasing marine pollution and other stressors to
    ecosystems is a ``no-regrets'' policy approach because of the multiple
    benefits that accrue--both the immediate value of reducing single
    stressors, and the likely synergistic effect of the stressors acting
    together (Cote et al. 2017).
        In the Arctic in particular, we can put in place measures and best
    practices that will both decrease unnecessary ocean stressors and
    increase safety and protect communities. We can take common-sense steps
    to prevent maritime accidents from happening, such as implementing
    targeted vessel routing measures, tightening limitations on discharges
    into the water, supporting advancements in vessel tracking and
    communication, and improving nautical charts. We can also improve our
    ability to respond effectively if an accident does occur by increasing
    spill response equipment and training in local communities, continuing
    to fund design and construction of new ice-breaking polar security
    cutters and supporting seasonal Arctic Shield operations and additional
    Coast Guard outreach activities in Arctic communities.

        Support community adaptation planning: To date, ocean climate
    change has driven piecemeal adaptation. As more adaptation efforts
    begin, there is an increasing risk that overlapping, uncoordinated
    efforts could be at best inefficient and at worst interfere with each
    other. Around the world, nations are currently planning both mitigation
    and adaptation actions to address climate change as part of their
    Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement, but
    little guidance exists to ensure coordination and inclusion of the
    ocean in these activities. A similar dynamic exists within the U.S.,
    where state and local governments nationwide are at widely different
    stages and levels of coordination in adopting ocean-smart climate
    policies.
        Resources and support for long-term resilience and adaptation
    planning are desperately needed. At a minimum, this should include
    support for regional ocean planning through tools that support
    coordinated data and management like regional ocean data portals.
    Comprehensive planning approaches underpin community and ecosystem
    resilience and ecosystem-based management. States and regional ocean
    partnerships across the country have found value in comprehensive
    planning, and resources should support the priorities outlined by
    states. It should also include support for policies and programs,
    particularly those within NOAA, that support ocean and coastal
    resilience. This includes priorities such as ocean acidification
    monitoring and funding, ocean and coastal habitat and coral reef
    restoration, and fisheries management adaptation. In addition, there is
    a particular need to increase resilience and adaptation planning in the
    Arctic. Funding and support is needed for communities that must
    relocate, and there are opportunities to plan for coming changes and
    ensure that Alaskan communities, ecosystems, and economies will be
    resilient in a changing future.
    Growing Global Momentum for Ocean-Climate Action
        We are seeing energy for coordinated, ocean-focused action on
    climate change occurring at the local and regional levels, and we are
    also seeing it at the international level. There is excellent
    interagency work happening on climate change through the U.S. federal
    agencies. All of this action has not been matched by action at the
    federal legislative or executive level. This must change.
        Ocean acidification, until recently an issue unknown outside the
    science community, has been the cause of much regional organizing. In
    the United States, scientists are joining largely self-organized groups
    such as the Global OA Observing Network (GOA-ON), the regional Coastal
    Acidification Networks (CANs) associated with the OOS network. These
    groups are also engaging regional industry and resource management
    experts, as well as educators and science communicators. As a result,
    lessons learned in one region are being transferred to other regions,
    accelerating the application of adaptive solutions and technology to
    monitor ocean climate change. This bottom-up energy has recently
    contributed to the creation of the International OA Alliance, a non-
    binding network of governments and nongovernmental members dedicated to
    enhancing ambitions to reduce CO2 emissions, sharing knowledge about
    ocean acidification, increasing actions to address it, and
    international capacity building efforts, through programs like the
    International Ocean Acidification Coordination Centre (OA-ICC), funded
    by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
        Regions across the U.S. are also focusing on oceans and climate
    change more broadly. The recent Global Climate Action Summit, led by
    the state of California, is one prominent example where oceans were at
    the fore of the discussion. Other examples include the work of the
    Arctic Council and Pacific Coast Collaborative. In the international
    sphere, there is growing energy to address ocean issues in
    international climate policy, evidenced by the push to include ocean-
    focused actions in Nationally Determined Contributions as well as large
    number of ocean-focused meetings and panels at U.N. climate meetings
    over the past year.
    Conclusion: U.S. Action is Needed Now
        The time is right for the United States to consider how it can
    safeguard ocean resources and ecosystems for now and into the future.
    Heightening ambitions to cut carbon dioxide is a necessary first step
    to genuinely address ocean warming and acidification. Considering how
    climate-focused action, or inaction, impacts the ocean is also a
    necessary step. Plans for climate adaptation must be coordinated.
    States and regions are taking steps to do so, which can be learned
    from, exported, and applied to other areas to accelerate action.
        Congress must debate and move aggressive climate legislation that
    will ensure communities and ecosystems are spared the most devastating
    potential impacts from climate change, and are able to successfully
    adapt to those they can't avoid. That work must start now. But in
    addition, Congress can and must take action immediately using the tools
    we already have. This spring Congress will take up appropriations
    legislation for the next fiscal year. Those bills must prioritize
    critical funding for the climate research, coastal resilience, and
    adaptation programs that are already working to tackle our climate
    challenges.
        Ocean climate change is happening now. It will get worse before it
    gets better. Congress must act now to curb climate change and plan to
    protect coastal communities as pro-actively as we can from the changes
    that are coming.

                Sincerely,

                                           Janis Searles Jones,
                                                                   CEO.

                                     ______

    [LIST OF DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD RETAINED IN THE COMMITTEE'S
                                OFFICIAL FILES]

    Submission for the Record by Rep. Bishop

      --  ``Grazing management impacts on vegetation, soil biota
                and soil chemical, physical and hydrological
                properties in tall grass prairie,'' by W.R.
                Teaguea, S.L. Dowhowera, S.A. Baker, N. Haile, P.B.
                DeLaune, D.M. Conovera, Agriculture, Ecosystems and
                Environment, 141(2011)310-322.

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