[Senate Hearing 118-237]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 118-237

                   WARMING SEAS, COOLING ECONOMY: HOW THE 
                   CLIMATE CRISIS THREATENS OCEAN INDUSTRIES

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                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                            January 24, 2024

                               __________

           Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
           
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]           


                            www.govinfo.gov
                            
                              __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
54-923                       WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
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                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

               SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island, Chairman
PATTY MURRAY, Washington             CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
RON WYDEN, Oregon                    MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan            LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont             RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia             MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
TIM KAINE, Virginia                  MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            RICK SCOTT, Florida
ALEX PADILLA, California             MIKE LEE, Utah

                   Dan Dudis, Majority Staff Director
        Kolan Davis, Republican Staff Director and Chief Counsel
                   Mallory B. Nersesian, Chief Clerk 
                  Alexander C. Scioscia, Hearing Clerk
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                      WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2024
                OPENING STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS

                                                                   Page
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Chairman.............................     1
    Prepared Statement...........................................    26
Senator Charles E. Grassley, Ranking Member......................     3
    Prepared Statement...........................................    28

                    STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Senator Ron Johnson..............................................    15
Senator Tim Kaine................................................    17
Senator Ben Ray Lujan............................................    19
Senator Chris Van Hollen.........................................    21
Senator Alex Padilla.............................................    23

                               WITNESSES

Dr. Andrea Dutton, Helen Jupnik Endowed Research Professor, 
  Department of Geoscience, University of Wisconsin-Madison......     5
    Prepared Statement...........................................    30
Dr. Rashid Sumaila, University Killam Professor, Institute for 
  the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia.......     7
    Prepared Statement...........................................    40
Mr. Kyle Schaefer, Fishing Guide and Lodge Owner.................     8
    Prepared Statement...........................................    44
Dr. Thomas Frazer, Professor and Dean of the College of Marine 
  Science, University of South Florida...........................    10
    Prepared Statement...........................................    48
Dr. Phil Levy, Chief Economist, Flexport, Inc....................    11
    Prepared Statement...........................................    50

                                APPENDIX

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record
    Dr. Sumaila..................................................    59
    Dr. Frazer...................................................    62
    Dr. Levy.....................................................    65

 
 WARMING SEAS, COOLING ECONOMY: HOW THE CLIMATE CRISIS THREATENS OCEAN 
                               INDUSTRIES

                              ----------                              


                      WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2024

                                           Committee on the Budget,
                                                       U.S. Senate,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 
a.m., in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room SD-608, Hon. 
Sheldon Whitehouse, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Whitehouse, Kaine, Van Hollen, Padilla, 
Lujan, Johnson, Braun and R. Scott.
    Also present: Democratic Staff: Dan Dudis, Majority Staff 
Director; Kara Allen, Senior Energy and Climate Advisor, Energy 
Lead.
    Republican Staff: Chris Conlin, Deputy Staff Director; 
Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; Jordan Pakula, Professional 
Staff Member; Ken Acuna, Professional Staff Member; Ryan Flynn, 
Staff Assistant.
    Witnesses:
    Dr. Andrea Dutton, Helen Jupnik Endowed Research Professor, 
Department of Geoscience, University of Wisconsin-Madison
    Dr. Rashid Sumaila, University Killam Professor, Institute 
for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia
    Mr. Kyle Schaefer, Fishing Guide and Lodge Owner
    Dr. Thomas Frazer, Professor and Dean of the College of 
Marine Science, University of South Florida
    Dr. Phil Levy, Chief Economist, Flexport, Inc.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN WHITEHOUSE \1\
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    \1\ Prepared statement of Chairman Whitehouse appears in the 
appendix on page 26.
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    Chairman Whitehouse. Good morning, everyone. The hearing 
will get underway. Senator Grassley is much recovered, but is 
not here for the hearing this morning. Senator Johnson has been 
kind enough to fill in for him. We send our very best wishes to 
Chuck as he continues to get better, and we'll see him back 
here in fighting form in short order, I am sure.
    Today's hearing, I want to welcome the witnesses. We have a 
very, very good panel and this is part of a series of hearings 
on the economic and budgetary costs of climate change that 
press the point that caring about debt and deficits requires 
caring about climate change, from creeping climate inflation to 
looming systemic risks families, communities, and the federal 
government will bear and, indeed, are already bearing the costs 
of upheaval in the world's climate.
    For our 13th hearing in this series, we highlight the 
threats of massive carbon pollution to our oceans. Threats 
which, in turn, affect both coastal, obviously, and also inland 
communities. The threat to oceans is profound and often not 
well recognized. The absorb 25 percent of all carbon dioxide 
emissions, which makes them more acidic, and they absorb more 
than 90 percent of the access heat generated by these 
emissions, making them heat up.
    The numbers are immense. Scientists measure how fossil fuel 
emissions are heating up our oceans in zeta joules. A zeta 
joule is a joule, the standard unit of heat energy measure with 
21 zeros behind it. It is a fearsomely big number. For a sense 
of practical scale, the total energy consumption of all 
humankind all around the world of every form sums up to just 
one half of a zeta joule per year. And yet, for the price to 
the fossil fuel component of that one-half zeta joule of energy 
for humankind, our oceans are absorbing about 14 zeta joules of 
excess heat every year. That is the heat equivalent of seven 
Hiroshima bombs detonating every second of every day in the 
oceans. Seven atom bombs every second every day, year after 
year. It is a colossal heat load.
    Where it not for oceans absorbing all that excess C02 and 
all that excess heat, the United States (U.S.) would likely be 
already largely unlivable in many areas. Oceans have saved us, 
but absorbing all those emissions and all the heat is not 
without consequence. The heat is raising the temperature of our 
oceans causing sea levels to rise, both by thermal expansion of 
sea water and by added runoff from melting glaciers and ice 
sheets. As a result, a shadow looms over coastal communities 
and their blue economies.
    Today, 40 percent of all Americans live along the coast. If 
American coastal counties were aggregated into their own 
country, it would be the third highest Gross Domestic Product 
(GDP) country in the world. In these communities and for the 
entire U.S. economy, marine industries are an engine of 
economic growth. They employ nearly 2.3 million workers and 
contribute more than $430 billion to overall GDP.
    Ocean economies face particular risks, obviously, from 
climate changes. In 2021, commercial and recreational fishing 
contributed almost $140 billion to the U.S. economy, but 
fisheries are being harmed by warming ocean temperatures. Fish 
populations are relocating away to cooler waters and economists 
estimate that direct economic losses could reach almost a 
billion dollars annually by 2100.
    Downstream effects in fish processing and fisheries-based 
tourism will make it worse, one example, impacts to Alaskan 
snow crab fisheries have caused one town's revenues to drop 
over 90 percent. Ocean-based tourism and recreation add $275 
billion each year to the U.S. economy and, of course, are 
important to Rhode Island, yet, huge swaths of American beaches 
are likely to disappear in the not too distant future and scuba 
diving, snorkeling, and eco-tourist businesses struggle as 
local wildlife face existential threats from climate changes.
    Coral reefs, for instance, are bleaching and dying and 
oceans are acidifying, making it worse, and not many people 
want to come and see a bleached and crumbling dead reef.
    In Florida, water temperatures reached hot tub level this 
past summer, 101 degrees, not great for ocean life. Rising 
ocean temperatures also cause more intense storms that are 
causing enormous and enormously costly damage. On top of the 
physical damage, the storms shut down travel and tourism until 
storm-hit communities can rebuild. Infrastructure, roads, 
bridges, military bases, and ports are in increased jeopardy 
and when critical infrastructure is lost, local economies 
suffer, and the federal government often has to foot the bill.
    Here we connect to our insurance hearings and the testimony 
that sea level rise has the potential to trigger cascading, 
economy-wide economic catastrophes. One of our witnesses will 
testify that sea level projections will prove to be substantial 
underestimates if we trigger destabilization and collapse of 
the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheets. Cross these tipping 
points and the danger dramatically increases.
    The added sea level rise of crossing those tipping points 
will inundate additional hundreds of billions of dollars of 
real estate and that makes properties in that bigger risk zone 
harder to insure. What you can't insure, you can't mortgage and 
that can trigger a predicted crash in coastal property values. 
The market will have to adjust abruptly to a new realization 
that the youthful life of billions of dollars in property will 
end way sooner than expected, setting off a series of dangerous 
economic cascades.
    We saw in 2008 how trouble in the mortgage market cascaded 
out into the broader economy. The writing is on the wall for a 
climate-fueled repeat. We are actually seeing the early stages 
of just such a trajectory in the Florida insurance market right 
now. The thing about economic crises is that they come on 
slowly until they come on fast and then they can come on very 
fast indeed.
    You've heard the warnings. You've seen the witnesses. They 
were serious grownups, expert in their fields. The early 
evidence of their warnings coming true is already visible. It's 
time for us to wake up. And with that, I'll turn to Senator 
Johnson for the Ranking Member opening remarks and then I'll 
introduce the witnesses.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GRASSLEY 2 3
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    \2\ Prepared statement of Senator Grassley appears in the appendix 
on page 28.
    \3\ Senator Grassley's opening statement was read by Senator 
Johnson.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I 
certainly wish Senator Grassley a full and speedy recovery. The 
good news is he is back voting, but just not recovered to the 
extent to serve as ranking member, so I'm happy to read his 
opening statement, which starts.
    ``Mr. Chairman, the Houthis are firing Iranian missiles at 
American ships in the Gulf of Aden. They're disrupting global 
supply chains forcing international cargo vessels to sail for 
days around the Cape of Good Hope. Meanwhile, they're giving 
Chinese and Russians easy access to the Suez Canal. Instead of 
discussing the most pressing fiscal or maritime issues, 
Democrats have elected to hold an ocean warming hearing to 
scare people about climate change. Their 14th climate change 
hearing.
    This hearing will be similar to those prior. Democrats cite 
extreme statistics attempting to justify their climate alarm. 
Republicans counter with sober facts showing that while climate 
change poses real challenges, Armageddon isn't around the 
corner. Human ingenuity and adaptation are the primary answers. 
Democrats argue for even more climate spending. Republicans 
note that we can't afford the spending we already have. We 
point to the impact of inflation and crushing debt on the 
American people and how our exploding debt will restrict our 
ability to respond to future challenges, whether from climate 
change or economic disaster.
    Democrats attempt to make a case for climate destruction. 
Republicans counter with the sober reality of a slightly 
warming globe while we've also been just through a record artic 
freeze in much of the nation with over 90 people dying from the 
cold.''
    As Senator Grassley has said repeatedly, ``climate change 
is a problem worthy of our attention. If Democrats want to 
discuss budgetary proposals related to climate change, we can 
have that debate, but it's clear they don't. They prefer to 
spread climate alarm rather than face our fiscal reality. A 
reality that nonpartisan experts of the Congressional Budget 
Office and the Budget Accountability Office say is 
``unsustainable.''
    Today Democrats will claim that climate change will 
decimate the ocean economy. The truth is that climate change is 
a real challenge, but nothing we can't overcome. We don't have 
oceans in Iowa, but we depend on them to get our goods to 
market. Global supply chains have proven to be resilient in the 
face of many obstacles, where geopolitical risks make trade 
difficult and more expensive.
    At a hearing earlier this month on climate risks for 
municipal bond issuers, witnesses on both sides of the aisle 
informed us climate change would upend the municipal bond 
market. We look forward to a similar dose of clarity from Dr. 
Levy and Dr. Frazer and we welcome all of today's witnesses.'' 
I only add that I'm not a climate change denier. I'm just not a 
climate change alarmist.
    Chairman mentioned testimony before this Committee, well, 
one of the testimonies was we've spent about five trillion 
dollars, globally, combatting climate change. I've asked 
witnesses, well, have we made a dent in it? Have we moved the 
curve down? You throw on top of that the Inflation Reduction 
Act, the $400 billion of I would say green energy boondoggle 
spending. Goldman Sachs actually said that it'll cost more like 
$1.2 trillion, so now we're got about 6.2 trillion. That's the 
real economic impact and I would say we haven't seen any 
benefit from it whatsoever because I don't think there's 
anything we can do to hold back the tides. But again, looking 
forward to the testimony and entering the discussion.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Let me welcome the witnesses. First, 
is Dr. Andrea Dutton. Dr. Dutton is a professor in the 
Department of Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison. She's a geologist and paleoceanographer, who is 
regarded as an international expert on the study of past 
climate and sea level change. She is also a MacArthur Fellow, a 
Fulbright Scholar and a Fellow of the Geological Society of 
America.
    Our second witness is Dr. Rashid Sumaila. Dr. Sumaila is a 
professor and research chair of ocean and fisheries economics 
at the University of British Columbia. He specializes in bio-
economics and marine ecosystem evaluation and is one of the 
most internationally recognized interdisciplinary ocean 
economists. His work has led to several prestigious awards, 
including the 2023 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, 
often described as the Nobel Prize for the environment.
    Our third witness is Kyle Schaefer, a lifelong professional 
in the outdoor and fishing industry. For the past 15 years, Mr. 
Schaefer's built a fishing charter business in the southern 
coast of Maine and also founded and operates a fly-fishing 
lodge in the Bahamas and takes his clients fishing in many 
different locations around the U.S. and the world. As I told 
him earlier, he has the life many of us dream of.
    Following Mr. Schaefer is Dr. Thomas Frazer, professor and 
dean of the College of Marine Science at the University of 
South Florida. Dr. Frazer's research addresses 
interdisciplinary environmental topics pertaining to water 
quantity and quality, nutrient dynamics, biogeochemical 
processes, and ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems. 
He previously served as a member of the U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency (EPA)'s Oil Spill Research Strategy Review 
Panel.
    Our final witness is Dr. Phil Levy, Chief Economist at 
Flexport, which focuses on supply chain management and 
logistics. During the Bush administration, Dr. Levy served on 
the President's Council of Economic Advisors as senior 
economist for trade and as a member of the Policy Planning 
Staff for the U.S. Department of State.
    Thank you all for joining us today. You each have five 
minutes to summarize your testimony, which in its full form 
will be made a matter of record in these proceedings. Dr. 
Dutton.

 STATEMENT OF DR. ANDREA DUTTON, HELEN JUPNIK ENDOWED RESEARCH 
 PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF GEOSCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-
                          MADISON \4\
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    \4\ Prepared statement of Dr. Dutton appears in the appendix on 
page 30.
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    Dr. Dutton. Thank you. Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member 
Johnson, and Committee members for inviting me to speak today. 
I'm a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am a 
geologist and paleoceanographer who conducts research on past 
climate and sea level change using marine sediments.
    I'm here to report that human-driven climate change is 
rapidly altering our oceans and marine ecosystems, threatening 
not only our economy, but humanity itself. Climate change that 
is driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels poses 
formidable challenges to maintain the health of our oceans and 
coastlines. This impacts a wide range of economic, cultural, 
environmental, and social interests.
    Climate impacts on the oceans have major repercussions for 
marine life, including marine heatwaves that are increasing in 
frequency and intensity, more acidic sea water as the carbon 
dioxide that we pump into the atmosphere gets absorbed by the 
oceans and lower levels of oxygen in sea water. Some additional 
impacts on the oceans includes changes in ocean currents that 
impact weather patterns extending far inland, warmer oceans 
that fuel more intense hurricanes and can lead to rapid 
intensification of those hurricanes before they make landfall 
and accelerating rates of sea level rise and coastal 
inundation.
    These are just a few examples, but they give a flavor of 
the profound and far-reaching impacts of climate change on the 
oceans, marine life, and human life that will produce knock on 
effects for our coastal and national budgets and economies. One 
of these impacts is on coral reefs, home to 25 percent of 
marine life. These ecosystems are important for fisheries, 
tourism, food availability, shoreline protection, and coastal 
economies, but are particularly vulnerable to extreme heat.
    Extreme heat can cause corals to bleach and die as we saw 
this year in Florida and have seen at reefs around the globe. 
The burning of fossil fuels is increasing the frequency of 
marine heatwaves and leaving mass mortality of corals in its 
wake. Coral reefs are actually central to my research on past 
sea level change. Corals live near the sea surface because they 
need the light to survive, so we use them to track the position 
of sea level through time.
    Our studies of past warming episodes reveal that sea level 
can experience sudden jumps as ice sheets melt. These ice 
sheets also have certain thresholds or tipping points beyond 
which melting becomes irreversible on human time scales. There 
is considerable evidence that portions of the West Artic ice 
sheet may be near such a tipping point whereby the grounded ice 
margin could retreat past the ledge of the deep basin in which 
it sits causing the ice sheet to become unstable and retreat 
rapidly down this slope.
    Both data and modeling suggest that some of these 
thresholds for rapid melting of the Greenland and Antarctica 
ice sheets are somewhere between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius of 
warming and could commit us to tens of feet of sea level rise. 
For reference, last year warming reached 1.4 degrees Celsius 
above the pre-industrial baseline. The presence of these 
tipping points and the potential for sudden jumps in sea level 
as ice sheets retreat means that if we are relying on mean 
projections of future sea level rise to estimate risks then we 
will be unprepared for the much greater damages when such 
events unfold.
    The seven worse years of ice loss have all occurred in the 
last decade. If the recent observed acceleration of ice loss in 
Greenland continues, it will track above the upper range 
projected by the IPCC for this decade. In other words, above 
the central estimate.
    As this Committee has heard at previous hearings, risk 
management means planning for high-risk outcomes and not 
assuming that the central case scenarios will occur, as bad as 
they already are. A greater than expected sea level rise caused 
by ice sheet tipping points would be catastrophic for more than 
just the communities along the coastline. To be clear, we 
cannot just adapt to climate change.
    My testimony highlights ways in which marine life is 
already reaching thresholds of survival. While climate change 
may seem like a gradual and slow-moving problem, once we cross 
critical thresholds, the impacts can be sudden, widespread and 
devastating. Because risks increase with every increment of 
warming, the cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of 
action.
    The most important part of my message today is that because 
humans are driving the rapid warming of our planet, this is 
good news. It means we are also the solution to the problem. 
Our climate future is not written in stone. It's not just a 
place we get to go to. It's a place we get to create together. 
Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thanks very much, Dr. Dutton. Dr. 
Sumaila.

 STATEMENT OF DR. RASHID SUMAILA, UNIVERSITY KILLAM PROFESSOR, 
 INSTITUTE FOR THE OCEANS AND FISHERIES, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH 
                          COLUMBIA \5\
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    \5\ Prepared statement of Dr. Sumaila appears in the appendix on 
page 40.
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    Dr. Sumaila. Thank you. Thank you very much. I want to 
start by thanking the Chairman, Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking 
Member Johnson, and Committee members for inviting me to speak 
today. It is a privilege and an honor.
    My name is Dr. Rashid Sumaila and I'm a University Killam 
Professor and Canada Research Chair in interdisciplinary ocean 
and fisheries economics at the University of British Columbia. 
I have just a few points that I would like to share with the 
Committee.
    The first one is that from our research I think all 
Americans should care about the oceans and the animals they 
host, even people who don't live by the coast, even the 60 
percent of Americans who don't live by the coast. Why do I say 
that? Because our lives are intertwined, connected to the 
oceans, as it provides us with valuable resources, and I don't 
have the time to tell you all here. Just from the fish alone, 
the oceans contribute significantly to our global food supply 
and through international trade, everyone, all Americans get to 
eat nutritious, healthy seafood, which is good for our health, 
right? And globally, commercial ocean fisheries caught about 
120 million tons of fish a year and these fisheries generate 
about $240 billion in worldwide revenue from fishes each year, 
which translates into economy-wide impacts of roughly $600 
billion annually and the ocean provides job security generating 
income for an estimated 260 million people worldwide. I keep 
saying worldwide because we're all connected, right, America to 
the world. And note that these numbers don't even include 
recreational fisheries and shark watching and whale watching.
    Now, in the U.S., and the Chair has given us some numbers. 
I have numbers that are quite similar. In 2020, commercial and 
recreational saltwater fishing alone generated over $250 
billion in sales impact, which describes the total economic 
sales of fish as it passes through the value chain onto our 
plates, for example, so lots of dollars. And the contribution 
to America's GDP is estimated to be over $110 billion a year, 
right, which supports 1.7 million Americans in jobs in the 
marine sector. Huge, huge benefits to everybody. This is just 
the fish. So, not addressing climate change will lead to losses 
in this. Remember, no fish, all of this is gone, so we need to 
protect the fish and climate change is a big threat to that as 
we heard from my colleague.
    In a recent paper, we explored the effect of climate change 
on Atlantic caught yellowtail flounder and Pacific halibut, 
three important species. And they are shared between Canada and 
the U.S., so they are jointly managed. What we found is that 
the fish available as climate changes escalates will be 
shrinking. There will be less fish to catch. But even more 
importantly for the U.S., the proportion of the profit to 
Canada and the U.S. from fishing changes because the fish move 
up, right, so Canada's profitability will increase from the 
current 39 percent for Atlantic cod to 65 percent, so a big 
disadvantage for the U.S.
    And in the case of yellowtail flounder, we see something 
similar. Canadians will get more profit; 76 percent of the 
profits will turn to Canada rather than the current 68 percent. 
In the case of Pacific halibut, we see relatively stable 
profitability, mainly because of the nature of halibut and its 
distribution and we see this rarely in the analysis we do. 
Based on another study, which I will put in the written 
statement that you can see lots of losses for North America and 
the U.S.
    I want to conclude by restating that the U.S. has a lot to 
lose as climate change continues to grow. Consumers, businesses 
will face financial losses if they want to consume and provide 
the same quality and quantity of fish as climate change 
escalates. By reducing the effects of climate change, the U.S. 
will achieve what I have come to call infinity fish. The idea 
that Americans will have the possibility to continue to eat 
nutritious, healthy protein forever and therefore achieving 
infinity benefits. So, I thank you again for the opportunity to 
testify and look forward to your questions.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Doctor. Mr. Schaefer.

 STATEMENT OF KYLE SCHAEFER, FISHING GUIDE AND LODGE OWNER \6\
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    \6\ Prepared statement of Mr. Schaefer appears in the appendix on 
page 44.
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    Mr. Schaefer. Greetings, Senator Whitehouse, Ranking Member 
Johnson, and members of the Committee. It's truly an honor to 
be here as a businessperson, an angler, a captain, a father, 
and a firsthand witness to our changing climate. I'm a fishing 
guide from Maine and founded and own a fishing lodge in the 
Bahamas. Additionally, my work brings me to places across the 
country and the world to experience the best angling 
destinations.
    My businesses succeed only because of thriving, healthy 
ecosystems and relatively predictable climate patterns. 
Unfortunately, in large part, due to climate change, our oceans 
are now desperately lacking stability, balance, and the 
abundance that we rely on. The climate trends of more frequent 
and increasingly severe weather events like extreme heat, 
wildfire, hurricanes, heavy rains, high-tide flooding, and 
marine heatwaves pose a significant increase in risk and weaken 
my confidence in a prosperous future for my fishing businesses.
    Any one of these events can ruin my week, my day, or an 
entire season with enduring effects on the fisheries where I 
make my living. My family and I are being forced to have 
serious conversations, challenging ones about diversifying away 
from our ocean-based livelihood. Put simply, we're searching 
for something that we can rely on.
    As I position my boat searching for striped bass, foreign 
fish now cross my bow that I've never seen in my home waters in 
Maine before. Species that are typically found south of the 
Gulf of Maine, like Atlantic bonito and black sea bass are 
becoming common sights. With black sea bass quickly adapting 
their range northward, they're gorging on baby lobsters, 
competing with other species, and causing major impacts on the 
ecosystem's balance.
    Striped bass, which in 2019, were estimated to contribute 
$7.7 billion a year to our economy are intensely affected by 
climate change. Five consecutive years of failed spawning 
events in the Chesapeake Bay due to low water flows and warm 
winters has left the stock on the brink of collapse. Striped 
bass, just like my businesses, require some stability to 
survive. I may be forced to close my charter business within 
the next few seasons simply because there won't be enough fish 
left.
    I also never thought that fires blazing in the western U.S. 
would impact my business almost 2,000 miles away on the Maine 
coast, but in 2020, a haze of smoke blanketed the skies, 
eliminating the opportunity to sight fish. As a result, I 
cancelled trips and lost revenue. The 2023 fires in Quebec 
provided a similar challenge, but this time poor air quality 
and the smell of charred pines and hardwoods filled our lungs 
and burned our eyes.
    In the Southeast U.S. and the Bahamas, hurricanes have 
become more frequent, stronger, and occur over a longer season. 
Weather events increasingly disrupt our supply chain, 
complicating the already challenging task of operating a remote 
fishing lodge. During the Fall of 2023, I cancelled more trips 
than ever as a result of extreme weather. As hurricanes roll 
through, they don't just inflict damage on homes and 
businesses, they destroy vital fish rearing habitat like 
mangrove forests and seagrass beds where 75 percent of 
commercially harvested fish spend some part of their life 
cycle.
    Major coral bleaching events in Florida, the Bahamas, and 
Cuba were observed during the summer of 2023 as an intense, 
record-breaking marine heatwave suffocated thousands of reefs. 
These key habitats are essential to support the almost $10 
billion Florida fishing industry.
    As a guide and lodge operator that spends almost every day 
outside and on the water, climate change and its impacts on my 
businesses and our natural environment is in my face daily. I 
can't hide from it. I dream of passing healthy businesses down 
to my almost three-year-old son one day. I want to be proud of 
what we leave to future generations. This is why I'm here in 
front of you today to allow you to see climate impact through 
my eyes and encourage decisive action to secure a fishable and 
profitable future. Thank you and I look forward to your 
questions and the discussion here today.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Mr. Frazer (stet)--sorry, 
Mr. Schaefer. Now, Dr. Frazer.

   STATEMENT OF DR. THOMAS FRAZER, PROFESSOR AND DEAN OF THE 
   COLLEGE OF MARINE SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA \7\
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    \7\ Prepared statement of Dr. Frazer appears in the appendix on 
page 48.
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    Dr. Frazer. All right. Well, good morning, Mr. Chairman and 
members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to 
speak with you today. As you know, my name is Tom Frazer. I'm a 
professor and I'm Dean of the College of Marine Science at the 
University of South Florida and serve also as the Executive 
Director of the Florida Flood Hub for Applied Research and 
Innovation.
    In 2019, I had the honor to testify about how climate 
change affects oceans before the Environment Subcommittee of 
the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, 
and Technology and my position has not changed. Climate change 
and its associated detrimental effects are real, emissions from 
human activities are largely responsible, and managing our 
collective global behavior is the most effective and practical 
way to address the fundamental cause.
    But today's hearing focuses on one key facet of climate 
change, ocean warming. Oceanic temperatures increase because 
atmospheric temperatures rise due to heat that is trapped by 
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. These 
relationships are well established. What may not be fully 
appreciated, however, is that no matter what we do today to 
reduce emissions and stabilize mean global air temperatures, 
the ocean will continue to warm well into the next century and 
beyond, which will generate numerous challenges.
    Given this outlook and my professional background, I want 
to focus on science or how science can help us to deal with the 
challenges on two sectors, fisheries, as a representative of 
the natural environment, and flooding, as an example for the 
built environment. Among the challenges facing fisheries I'll 
focus on two., altered ranges and altered habitats. As the 
ocean warms, some warm-water species can expand their ranges 
northward, but some cold-water species will be forced to 
contract their ranges, thus, the location and size of catches 
for commercial and recreational fishers will change.
    As the ocean warms, we will also see changes in habitats. 
For example, warmer water stresses inshore structural habitats, 
such as sea grasses and corals that provide food and shelter 
for many fishery species. So, what should our respond be? Well, 
our management of fisheries needs to broaden from single 
species management to ecosystem management. An ecosystem 
management considers the changing temperature, but along with 
other physical, chemical, and biological components of the 
environment and their inactions.
    Our management of habitat needs to include increased 
protection from pollution, freshwater runoff, and other 
stressors under our control so that the habitats have the best 
chance of coping with warming water. We should also be prepared 
to restore habitats, if needed, which includes developing new 
techniques for culturing and transplanting replacement 
organisms, exploring genetics to identify more tolerate 
strains, and organizing supply chains that operate at the 
necessary spatial scales.
    In terms of flooding, I'll focus on compound flooding, and 
compound flooding results from intense precipitation putting 
water on the land and higher sea levels inhibiting that water 
from draining. Warming oceans contribute to both components 
because warmer water expands leading to higher sea levels and 
warmer water fuels wetter storms. So, what should we do here? 
We have access to a variety of actions that allow us to 
mitigate or adapt to flooding, such as sea walls, flood gates, 
raises structures, and improved drainage or improved water 
conveyance systems.
    All of these solutions, however, have costs, so that 
determining how much investment is needed is a key issue. An 
accurate assessment of risks or in other words the magnitude 
and likelihood of various levels of flooding promotes optimal 
investment in adaptation and mitigation. Currently, our 
projections of future conditions rely heavily on global climate 
models that are driven, in large part, by changes in the 
atmospheric temperature. These global climate models are 
complex, and they function best at large temporal and spatial 
scales.
    Consider uncertainty surrounds our efforts to downscale 
these long-term global changes in sea level and precipitation 
to projections of risks at temporal and spatial scales that are 
needed for optimal planning. National and state agencies and 
organizations have key roles to play because they have the 
charters and expertise to successfully translate global 
insights into useful and useable local insights. Improved 
projections will help us employ existing solutions optimally 
and highlight the need for innovative approaches moving 
forward.
    So, is anything currently happening? Yes, and I'm just 
going to provide two quick examples. The National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration and Regional Fishery Management 
Councils are expanding their efforts to apply ecosystem 
management that recognizes that the climate is changing. And in 
terms of flooding, the State of Florida is funding the Florida 
Flood Hub for Applied Research and Innovation, which is 
coordinating experts from multiple organizations to tailor sea 
level rise and precipitation projections for Florida to guide 
planning and actions that increase resilience. Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Dr. Frazer. Dr. Levy.

STATEMENT OF DR. PHIL LEVY, CHIEF ECONOMIST, FLEXPORT, INC. \8\
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    \8\ Prepared statement of Dr. Levy appears in the appendix on page 
50.
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    Dr. Levy. Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Johnson, and 
members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to 
appear before you today.
    I'd like to address two topics in my testimony. First, how 
we may think about the topic of supply chain resilience. 
Second, the implications of the U.S. fiscal situation for 
adopting measures that could enhance supply chain resilience. 
It's my hope that in combination these two topics will lead us 
to the right cost benefit questions to ask about potential 
climate measures to address ocean supply chain resilience.
    Increasing resilience to supply chains has been a major 
policy goal in the wake of the disruptions and inflation of 
recent years, but what exactly does it mean? At a simple level, 
we could take this as the ability of the supply chain to 
deliver the goods and inputs that American business and 
consumers want or need, but that rather begs the question. In 
the ocean supply chain business, there are capacity 
constraints. The capacity of factories, the availability of 
ships and containers, the size of ports, the speed at which 
those ports can process containers and move them to other modes 
of transport such as trucking or rail, and the ability of 
warehouses to store the goods.
    There are two key constraints that limit resilience. The 
first is that it's costly to purchase capacity that's unlikely 
to be used. The second is that adjustments take time. Any 
decision to expand ports, rearrange rail, build warehouses or 
purchase new ships can take months or even years to carry out. 
A resilient supply chain will be able to handle fluctuations in 
demand interruptions to supply within a normal range. However, 
when we move beyond that normal range, we're likely to see 
strains.
    So, how do we think about the COVID-era shipping crisis 
when prices for moving containers across oceans quintupled or 
went higher than that and delivery times elongated 
substantially? In short, it was a period where we saw demand 
move well above its normal range. While there are indisputable 
instances in which factories or port terminals or other links 
in supply chains were disrupted by disease or disease 
prevention measures, the net effect was a very substantial 
expansion of supply, which points toward the demand shock as 
the culprit.
    Quantities increased substantially, whether we measure this 
by U.S. personal consumption expenditures on goods or whether 
we look at real imports into the United States. The spikes in 
income and consumption that drove this expanded demand 
correlate very well with fiscal stimulus measures and came at a 
time of negative real interest rates, a feature of highly 
expansionary monetary policy.
    Of course, we do have clear instances of supply shocks 
playing a dominant role. At this very moment, as Senator 
Johnson alluded to, supply chains are being impeded by missile 
threats in the Red Sea and also by the effects of drought in 
the Panama Canal. With these potential challenges in hand, 
there are some categories of remedies, perhaps three, that we 
could look at.
    You can either try to limit the frequency and magnitude of 
shocks. You can try expanding supply chain capacity or you 
could try enhancing the efficiency and flexibility of supply 
chains. I'd be happy to return to the relative merits of each, 
but all require a cost-benefit analysis. Given the topic of 
today's hearing, I would note that this cost-benefit can be 
particularly difficult in the case of climate investments.
    If, for example, the U.S. were to invest a billion dollars 
in climate amelioration today, can we quantify how much this 
would reduce the probability of, say, droughts that limit the 
operation of the Panama Canal? Then, even if we were to have 
that number, what is the marginal benefit of a better-
functioning Canal, given the existence of work arounds, such as 
shipping to the U.S. West Coast and distributing across the 
country by truck or rail or perhaps transporting some goods by 
air.
    However difficult, such an analysis is particularly 
important in the current U.S. fiscal situation, with highly 
elevated debt to GDP and structural concerns about the budget 
deficit. By that last point, I mean the persistence of 
substantial deficits even in periods of positive real GDP 
growth as we have had since the beginning of 2021. These 
considerations lend support to supply chain resilience measures 
that place a relatively smaller dent in the public purse.
    So, to conclude, supply chain resilience involves the 
ability to deal with significant shifts in supply or demand for 
global shipping, which takes place heavily on oceans. Shocks 
can come to either demand, as in the pandemic-era, surge in 
goods consumption, or to supply, the current situation in the 
Red Sea. It's a fundamentally difficult problem because excess 
capacity is costly, adjustment takes time, and extraordinary 
surges will always be difficult to deal with. Fortunately, 
there are measures that can be undertaken by governments to 
limit these shocks and by both governments and the private 
sector working together to enhance supply chain efficiency.
    In the interest of time, let me stop on that more 
optimistic note and I would welcome any questions you might 
have. Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Dr. Levy. Let me 
particularly thank Mr. Schaefer for his hands-on experience in 
the testimony he brought here. I'll share with you that a 
friend who's a Rhode Island fishing captain has said to me--a 
guy who started on his grandfather's boat. Sheldon, this is not 
my grandfather's ocean anymore. Things are getting weird out 
there. And that seems to align very much with your experience 
in Maine. We, too, are seeing black sea bass moving up through 
Rhode Island waters without appropriate adjustment in the 
fishing regulations to track that move.
    We've seen our lobster fishery essentially disappear. We 
used to have a fishery for something called winter flounder. 
That is gone. It's now by catch. So, your stories of what is 
happening in Maine are true for us in Rhode Island as well. I'd 
also add that I made a trip to Florida to look at climate 
issues down there sometime ago and meet with the mayor, 
Republican mayor of Monroe County, which is the southern most 
county, I believe, in Florida. And I asked her about the reefs, 
and she said they're beautiful unless you were here 10 years 
ago. So, we are seeing these dramatic changes and I just wanted 
to validate your experience with the experience that I've 
encountered from people who are actually directly involved.
    Dr. Dutton, in Rhode Island, we've got a thing called Storm 
Tools. It's a very, very well-developed storm coastal flooding 
risk assessment tool run by the Coastal Resources Management 
Council, or Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) agency. It 
operates off of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
(NOAA) data, but it sounds like it's your testimony that the 
averaging effect, the mean that we look at in sea level rise 
predictions could be dramatically off by very considerable feet 
of sea level rise and that we will find that out fairly 
suddenly. Is that accurate and would you elaborate?
    Dr. Dutton. Yes, that is accurate. So, part of my testimony 
is that if we would rely on this central estimate we will most 
likely be underestimating what will actually happen. That's for 
a couple of different reasons. Part of it is the nature that 
the reports or the guidance that is provided is done by 
consensus, so what can we all in this room as scientists agree 
upon how much sea level is going to rise and no one wants to 
seem like an alarmist, right, which is a term that Senator 
Johnson brought up a few minutes ago. Say, well, this is what 
we're really certain, it's going to rise this much, but we know 
there are these tipping points there and it's more a question 
of when rather than if.
    If we keep warming the oceans, we will reach those tipping 
points. But because the models are not very good yet at telling 
us exactly when that is going to happen, it's hard for us to 
fold that in and so we have less certainty, so it doesn't fall 
within that central estimate. So, this is a fundamental problem 
in the way this information is communicated and then 
implemented and then risk is assessed because the economists 
are going to be using those central estimates that we provide, 
right, which, indeed, are underestimates. So, that hopefully 
explains your question.
    Chairman Whitehouse. And if you take it to the shore, Dr. 
Frazer, you said that there is considerable uncertainty as to 
how the large-scale predictions of sea level rise can be 
drilled down to what you called local insights. That 
uncertainty creates a fairly significant problem for the 
insurance industry, doesn't it?
    Dr. Frazer. So, I'm an ecologist or an ecosystem scientist 
and I just want to preface my comment here by saying that what 
my goal is, is to provide the science that allows people to 
evaluate risks and that's the magnitude of the threat, right, 
and the probability that it will occur.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Okay. Well, I'll leave that then, but 
I do extend my sympathies to Florida on what is going on down 
there in the insurance markets, which seem to be very 
distressed, and having lived through a couple of insurance 
crises in Rhode Island, I see the early signs of the market 
swirling the drain.
    Dr. Sumaila, what do you think are the climate tipping 
points or the climate risks that are most likely to do serious 
damage to the fisheries' supply chain and how?
    Dr. Sumaila. In my written report, I talk about the four, 
what I call, the deadly quartet, the deadly four. And this has 
been mentioned by my colleagues here. The first is that the 
warming is taking place. Because of the warming, fish, like 
every living thing, when the conditions are difficult you try 
to move, right? Those that can move, move with the cold water 
and we see that happening, and those that can't perish. And 
we're seeing that the more the temperature rises the more we're 
going to get closer to a tipping point. And there's some places 
where we're actually seeing some of these things happening, 
where fish that were plentiful are gone, partly because of 
climate change, plus overfishing there too, and pollution, 
right? So, you have that.
    The second thing is acidification, and this worries me a 
lot, ocean acidification, because you see the fish are moving 
towards the poles and the Artic is actually known to be a 
hotspot for ocean acidification because of all the changes that 
are happening. So, here is fish moving from southern Florida 
now because it's hot to the Artic and then they get to the 
Artic they meet acidification, so from hot, boiling water to 
acidic water. Just think about that.
    And then you have de-oxygenation. The processes are 
actually reducing the oxygen in the ocean and the Pacific Coast 
is a hotspot of that. So, if there is no oxygen, no life, 
right? This applies to fish too. Finally, you have the sea 
level rise, which really knocks off so much, so this all pushes 
us towards a tipping point.
    Chairman Whitehouse. I'll turn to Senator Johnson, but I'd 
add just one observation because I've been looking at this for 
a long time. It was maybe most of a decade ago that scientists 
went out into the waters off the Pacific Northwest and they 
looked at the therapod, which is a tiny snail that swims and 
operates in the pelagic environment and it is a very, very 
important food source for the ocean food chain and they in 
their sampling I think found that 50 percent of the therapods 
had exhibited what they called moderate to severe shell damage 
from the acidification out there.
    And, of course, if you take a foundational part of the 
fisheries food chain and it collapses because the little 
creature can't make a shell properly any longer and therefore 
can't survive in that acidified environment, then the whole 
rest of the--I think Dr. Dutton would probably call it trophic 
cascade falls down as well, so just another point of data. 
Senator Johnson.

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON

    Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll start out 
with an observation myself. I've not observed a reluctance 
toward climate alarmism. I think it's readily available and out 
there. I've actually got a couple pages of just dire 
predictions that just never came true, which is kind of a 
problem for climate alarmists. They've been alarming people for 
decades, whether it's global cooling, global warming, sea level 
rise taking over cities hasn't panned out.
    That being said, again, I don't deny climate change. It 
always has, always will change. Don't deny the impacts you're 
talking about on the oceans. I'm concerned about the same 
thing. I hate to see the destruction of coral reefs, the 
disruption of fisheries, that type of thing.
    My point and my question is what can we realistically do 
about it? Again, in testimony we here that we spent about five 
trillion dollars so far combatting climate change.
    Also heard in testimony from the majority witnesses when I 
asked does anybody really think that India and China are going 
to stop burning fossil fuels? Not only do they say, no, that's 
not going to happen, neither will we. So, that's just the 
reality of the situation. I would say it's actually immoral to 
ask less developed countries not to power their populations out 
of poverty. I guess we can sit back here and go, yeah, we can 
afford, you know, like 25, 30, 50 percent increase in power to 
move toward green energy. People impoverished in China and 
India can't and they won't. So, my point always is what can we 
honestly do about it.
    Dr. Levy, you're the economist here, do you think it's a 
moral thing to do to impose green energy on China and India? 
And by the way, do you think it's even possible?
    Dr. Levy. We're going to be in a difficult situation if we 
turn to economists for moral guidance, but I think you raise a 
very good point, which is that when you have global problems, 
if we're looking at the efficacy, it's going to differ 
dramatically whether we're able to do global solutions or local 
solutions, which may then get overwhelmed. And I would say the 
degree of cooperation on these issues with emerging countries 
has not been especially high. It's high when it comes to making 
pledges for the distant future, less so when it comes to 
implementing measures and I think that is a serious concern.
    Senator Johnson. Again, I remain a skeptic in terms of the 
total impact, but again, it sounds like this panel is pretty 
solid with that, so I don't want to argue the point. I will 
point out somebody like Bjorn Lomborg, who I think is on your 
side in terms of man-made climate change, also says we 
shouldn't spend a dime on it because with limited resources, 
and we have limited resources, there are far more effective 
ways to alleviate human suffering and we should focus on that.
    And Dr. Frazer, that kind of sounds like your approach to 
this thing. What can we actually do? Why don't you speak to 
that issue?
    Dr. Frazer. Thank you. I'm going, again, to preface my 
response in a couple of ways, right? I think that everybody on 
this panel would recognize that, as I said before in my 
testimony, that climate change is real and it's a concern with 
a lot of potential impacts.
    But we're seeing real effects now and it's important to 
figure out how we're going to spend our limited resources. I'm 
a scientist and not a policymaker or an appropriator, right, 
but I do recognize that our resources are limited and there are 
difficult decisions to make.
    And so, what I'd like to do, in my profession, is to 
provide credible information that allows people like yourselves 
to make informed decisions about should we invest in a higher 
bridge, a higher road, an improved water conveyance system, or 
stormwater systems so that we better protect the livelihoods of 
people in my state, for example, in Florida, right?
    But at the end of the day, if we don't address the issue of 
increasing emissions, we will continue to deal and grapple with 
increased temperatures, both in the atmosphere and in the 
ocean, which will make it more difficult with time. But again, 
I appreciate and recognize that resources are limited, right, 
and hopefully we can provide you the best information possible 
to spend those resources in a wise manner.
    Senator Johnson. Okay. And we're not in a position to bend 
China and India to our will.
    Dr. Frazer. Again, what I would say in that regard, it's a 
global problem, right, and I think that it's all of our 
responsibility as a society to work to a common solution.
    Senator Johnson. Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. As Senator Kaine settles in, I'll take 
a minute of Chairman time to say that we actually are in a 
position to put very strong encouragements on China and India 
and other heavily carbon-intensive polluting countries. And in 
fact, it's happening right now through carbon border tariff 
work. The European Union (EU) has passed the Carbon Boarder 
Adjustment Mechanism (C-BAM) into law. It's a carbon border 
adjustment mechanism that is underway.
    The United Kingdom has announced that it will be joining 
the EU into a common tariff platform. That is estimated to put 
enormous pressure on China to clean up its act and I'm 
encouraging the U.S. to join in that and Senators Cassidy and 
Graham and Koons and I and a few others are working on a 
bipartisan carbon tariff proposal that we could try to pass 
here in the United States Congress. When it's free to pollute, 
polluters will pollute.
    When there's a very significant tariff charge for being a 
big carbon polluter, that puts a very significant economic 
incentive and I think those economic incentives will do much 
better than the moral suasion and efforts to work cooperatively 
that we've undertaken so far. So, I personally am a big fan of 
the carbon border adjustment mechanism and encourage the EU to 
go for it. Senator Kaine.

                   STATEMENT OF SENATOR KAINE

    Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the 
witnesses. Virginia has an interesting experience with climate-
related issues. This is a hearing that's focused on sea level 
rise and the oceans, but the Hampton Roads area of Virginia is 
about the second most vulnerable to sea level rise. It's a 
combination of sea level rising and land subsidence that's 
driven by aquifer reduction and it is causing very serious 
issues.
    The other part of Virginia that really is seeing 
significant climate effects is at the opposite end of the state 
in Appalachia, where Appalachia is a coal-mining area, so it's 
traditionally been a producer of fossil fuels in the coal 
mines. But Appalachia also, as you know, the topography is 
really dramatic with very steep, narrow valleys. And what we're 
seeing is rainfall that on an annual basis isn't changing that 
much, but it's just coming more episodically, violently, 
unpredictably.
    And when you have built infrastructure in these narrow 
hollows, a road that can barely hug the level right next to the 
stream or a school that you can wedge in, the infrastructure 
has been built based upon a more kind of normal rainfall 
pattern and as rainfall gets spikier then we see--we've had, 
and the same has been true in West Virginia and eastern 
Kentucky, we've had really significant damage of infrastructure 
because of episodic ran events. So, it's kind of interesting 
that the two parts of my state that affected the most are the 
area that has traditionally produced coal seeing violent rain 
events that hurt people, home, infrastructure, and then the 
Hampton Roads coastal area.
    Hampton Roads is probably second to New Orleans in the 
degree of risk from sea level rise. The sea level around 
Hampton Roads is already 14 inches than it was higher in 1950, 
and just during my 30 years in public life in Virginia, I've 
seen dramatic changes in Hampton Roads. Neighborhoods that 
might've experienced flooding two, three times a year now 
experience flooding from storm surges and sometimes not even 
from storms, just from high tides, multiple times a month. This 
affects homes, it affects businesses, it has a pretty 
significant effect on our military base, the main road into the 
Norfolk Naval Base, the largest base in the world, is inundated 
fairly often.
    I've been frustrated and I know the Chair has too, that 
we've not been able to do what I would consider climate change 
legislation that focuses on causes and prevention, but it's not 
to say that we don't do climate change legislation. Every time 
we do an emergency supplemental to do hurricane relief, Super 
Storm Sandy or something like that, it's dealing with climate 
effects.
    Every time we have to rewrite the flood insurance programs 
and get more federal support and subsidy for that, I mean, it's 
sort of climate change research legislation. So, we're willing 
to do climate change on the back end. I'm glad that in bills 
like the Inflation Reduction Act and others, we're now starting 
to make investments around adaptation, but I understand the 
thrust of the testimony is that's not enough.
    Here's a particular effect that I wanted to ask Dr. Dutton 
about. In Hampton Roads, the sanitation district is really 
concerned about sea level rise and its effect on wastewater and 
groundwater. They're a national leader in water reuse that's 
called the Swift Program and it replenishes dwindling 
groundwater supplies to fight sea level rise by reducing the 
rate of land subsidence.
    But for rural, underserved, financial stressed communities, 
and a number in Hampton Roads, fit the financially stressed 
side, where they have wastewater infrastructure that's 
primarily septic tanks and drainage field septic system 
failures brought in by sea level rise are very challenging and 
very, very costly. So, Dr. Dutton, could you talk about the 
economic impact that sea level rise might have for the nation's 
water infrastructure?
    Dr. Dutton. Yes, thank you, Senator Kaine for this 
question. I think when people think about sea level rise, they 
think the only risk is from your home getting flooded, right, 
the actual inundation of the land, but it is a threat to the 
water supply, the aquifer itself that becomes salinized, which 
is a huge issue.
    Yes, you can build a de-salinization plant, but they are 
very expensive and hugely energy intensive, right, which 
doesn't help either. But as you mentioned, also sewage is a big 
issue. Septic tanks that become corroded from the saltwater, 
right, can fail as sea levels rise and that water becomes more 
saline. Also, the sewer pipes, so the sunny day flooding, 
coastal flooding that we have, it turns out--I learned in one 
of my earlier trips to South Florida, thinking about this 
issue, I talked to the Deputy Director of Water and Sewer, who 
said, well, you know those sewer pipes are leaky. And I'm like, 
what'd you mean they're leaky? Well, they're not built to 
withstand the water pressure of groundwater rising above them, 
right?
    So, what happens is that sewage leaks into the water. So, 
on this sunny day flooding when you're walking through the 
water, people have tested the water and there's high levels of 
e-coli in there. And so, this becomes an immediate health issue 
and all these communities in our coastline that are getting 
this sunny day flooding from either high tides or these 
rainstorm events where it can't run off, which brings me to my 
last point this, which is stormwater runoff, right?
    When sea level rises, those are gravity-fed systems and 
that stormwater has no way to go and so you see now flooding 
that's happening not even on high tide days, but just days when 
you get a lot of rain because those systems can't work and 
drain as they're designed to do anymore.
    Senator Kaine. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Whitehouse. It would take another Chairman 30 
seconds just to mention the phrase that Dr. Frazer used, which 
I think is very pertinent to this conversation, in which I had 
not heard before of compound flooding. Compound flooding when 
the rainstorm from a storm is pouring down and causing the rain 
flooding and at the same time the storm has raised sea level 
rise with storm surge and that convergence, so compound 
flooding, new term for me. Thank you, Dr. Frazer.
    Senator Lujan.

                   STATEMENT OF SENATOR LUJAN

    Senator Lujan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, 
everyone. Welcome to our panelists as well.
    Now, it may surprise you that someone from New Mexico is 
showing interest in a hearing pertaining to warming oceans, 
specifically to how the climate crisis is threatening ocean 
industries.
    Chairman Whitehouse. You used to have a coastline, just a 
couple million years ago.
    Senator Lujan. Yes, sir. I'm going to let that go, Mr. 
Chairman. I'm not going to jump in that area.
    Chairman Whitehouse. I'll reset your clock, so I'm not 
wasting your time.
    Senator Lujan. I was very proud to introduce a piece of 
legislation with Senator Blackburn to improve access to the 
fastest computers in America to help us better understand the 
ocean models to build advanced models, mainly, working with the 
Department of Energy. Now, this effort will result in better 
forecast of extreme ocean events and support a new generation 
of weather and climate models.
    The challenge of rapidly changing ocean conditions requires 
further research and development, using tools like cutting edge 
super computers and AI. Oceans industries like fisheries and 
tourism need accurate forecasts to be able to plan ahead for 
the next day's weather and adapt to changing seasonal ocean 
patterns and we all rely on national weather service forecasts 
for our livelihoods, and I am proud to support the services 
collaboration with the Department of Energy national labs 
already. I want to see it improve and see that access 
dramatically change.
    Now, Dr. Dutton, yes or no, has climate change made 
historical weather patterns a less reliable basis for weather 
forecasting?
    Dr. Dutton. Yes, that's correct.
    Senator Lujan. And Dr. Dutton, yes or no, would advanced 
models that better predict the rapidly evolving ocean 
conditions help businesses and communities adapt to climate 
change?
    Dr. Dutton. 100 percent. Yes.
    Senator Lujan. And Dr. Dutton, is there more that Congress 
can do to help ocean industries use better forecasts of extreme 
ocean events as they adapt to a warming ocean?
    Dr. Dutton. That's a great question. Captain Schaefer might 
be better able to explain how that information gets transferred 
to the people who need to use it out on the seas actually.
    Mr. Schaefer. Can you repeat the question one more time, 
please?
    Senator Lujan. Is there more that Congress can do to help 
ocean industries use better forecasts of extreme ocean events 
as they adapt to the warming ocean?
    Mr. Schaefer. Thank you for the question. And I think 
absolutely. Science and data drive not only management of our 
fish stocks, but the health of our oceans, so I would 
absolutely.
    Senator Lujan. I appreciate that. Now, as I understand it, 
better forecasts of ocean conditions would benefit all of us, 
not just those in the ocean industry. All of us, and especially 
those of us in the Southwest, need better forecasts of El Nino 
to help us prepare for the extreme weather that drives the 
devastating wildfires and flash flooding like we saw recently 
in 2022. Alternating drought and heavy rainfall have impacted 
New Mexican agriculture, recreation, livelihoods. We depend on 
the snowpack for recreation, but also to ensure that our 
surface water, irrigation, agricultural way of life exists.
    Improving our ocean modeling capabilities isn't just 
important for protecting our ocean economies. New Mexico 
communities and businesses also depend on these models for 
accurate rainfall predictions. Now, Dr. Dunn, yes or no, do the 
extreme ocean cycles that are harmful to ocean industries also 
impact inland states like New Mexico?
    Dr. Dutton. Yes. And you mentioned one, El Nino, is a big 
one, right?
    Senator Lujan. Dr. Sumaila, yes or no, do our communities 
and businesses in New Mexico experience economic costs from 
climate-induced extreme ocean warming?
    Dr. Sumaila. Yes, absolutely. Yes.
    Senator Lujan. And a follow-up question to that, would 
improved forecasts of weather and ocean conditions allow my 
constituents to plan for severe weather and save them money and 
potentially save lives?
    Dr. Sumaila. Yes, sir.
    Senator Lujan. I very much appreciate the calling of this 
hearing, Mr. Chairman. And what we have seen coming out of 
national institutions like the Department of Energy is, their 
missions depend on climate, on the movement of what the wind is 
going to do or blow or the warming of those oceans, things of 
that nature.
    Two years ago, when there was this extreme fire event in 
New Mexico it started as a prescribed burn. For whatever 
reason, the weather forecast that the forest was using that day 
said that they could start this fire and all the rest. One 
thing that I've never figured out, Mr. Chairman, is on the 
little farm that I still call home, we'll go and we'll burn the 
brush from the Acequia where the water is going to flow so that 
it's easier to clean and maintain, and it's an earthen 
structure that we clean by hand every year.
    The same day that that prescribed burn was started that 
someone at NSF was told that the weather was okay, my brother 
called to actually burn the little ditch on our little piece of 
land on that little farm and he was told no by our local fire 
station. This fire resulted in the largest fire in New Mexico's 
history and subsequently, we've seen flooding that has been 
taking out the homes that many of the firefighters and first 
responders even saved. It's been devastating. And so, I'm 
hopeful that more accurate data, more accurate models will help 
us all across America and this is an area that I hope that we 
can all work together as well but thank you for calling this 
important hearing.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you. And to complete the circle 
that you mentioned of how problems in the ocean affect the New 
Mexico economy and you mentioned the wildfire. Earlier, Captain 
Schaefer mentioned that his fishing business off of Maine was 
affected by the western wildfires and the clouding and the 
smoke made it harder to spot the fish for his clients. And he 
had to, as I recall correctly, Captain, you had to cancel all 
the trips. Yes.
    Mr. Schaefer. Mm-hmm.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Van Hollen has joined us from 
the oceanic state of Maryland.

                STATEMENT OF SENATOR VAN HOLLEN

    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
Thank all of you for your testimony today. And I'm going to 
start with you, Captain Schaefer, because the rockfish, also 
known as striped bass, is the Maryland state fish and I know 
you mention it in your testimony. We are seeing a declining 
habitat due to warming temperatures in the Chesapeake Bay. And 
as you've noted, we've had less spawning success in recent 
years. Can you just elaborate a little more on your views of 
the impact of climate change on rockfish/striped bass?
    Mr. Schaefer. Absolutely. And thank you, Senator, so much 
for the question. I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay, so it's 
great to be here and chat with you. So, I've been guiding for 
striped bass in Maine for years and I've noticed a steady 
decline. A lot of it's been kind of a conjunction of climate 
change and also management.
    Management is certainly something that we do have more 
control over to be more conservative in how we manage our fish 
stocks, but we've seen science over the past five years showing 
basically failed spawning events in the Chesapeake Bay where 70 
percent of the entire coastal stock for striped bass comes from 
the Chesapeake Bay and that estuary. And the science shows that 
it's been warm winters and low water has created an environment 
that hasn't been conducive for successful striped bass spawns.
    When you couple that with some management challenges, we're 
looking at a fishery stock that has been steadily declining. 
Thankfully, I've been getting a little bit better at my job 
every year, but I have to work way harder to find fish and keep 
my clients happy and I truly am facing reality within the next 
few years that I may not be able to operate my charter business 
in Maine and striped bass are a wonderful fish that have an 
economic impact all the way from North Carolina all the way up 
to Maine. So, they're a big part of our culture and my 
livelihood.
    Senator Van Hollen. Well, thank you for raising the alarm 
on this and I'm seated, of course, next to Senator Kaine and 
between Maryland, Virginia, D.C., and the other Bay States, we 
do try to take seriously the fact that the Chesapeake Bay, as 
you said, is the spawning ground for this vital fish and many 
other fisheries.
    Dr. Dutton, you studied fossilized coral to understand past 
patterns of sea level rise and changing climate. There are 
those who argue that changes to climate are cyclical, that 
there are natural warming and cooling trends. You've argued 
that this warming period is different, noting, for example, 
that the Great Barrier Reef has withstood hundreds of thousands 
of years of warm periods and Ice Ages, but faces an existential 
risk now. Could you elaborate on the evidence that you see that 
points to climate change now being both manmade and tied to 
fossil fuels and impacting places like the Great Barrier Reef?
    Dr. Dutton. Yes. Thank you for the question, Senator. So, 
it's unlikely for scientists to use strong language like 
unequivocal, yet, those are the types of words that you see 
scientists using to answer this question is that it's 
unequivocal that humans are causing this warming, and we know 
that from many different ways, this very rapid warming, right? 
More rapid than anything we've seen in the geologic record, 
right, that I've studied.
    We know it from data, and we know it from models. So, 
sometimes people are hesitant to trust the models, but we have 
a lot of data evidence, too, right? We can look in many 
different ways, not just how much carbon dioxide has increased. 
We look at something called the isotopic composition of that 
carbon. It makes its way into the ocean, that isotopically 
different carbon, even turns out in the skeletons of these very 
corals that I study and so we can see this trend of the 
fingerprint of fossil fuel in the atmosphere make its way into 
the coral skeletons over time. So, this is telling us this is 
what's driving the increase in CO2. This is just one 
example that we have, and the models cannot reproduce that 
warming trend unless you put in human greenhouse gas emissions.
    Senator Van Hollen. There's also a--and you reference 
this--sort of a new form of climate denial, which is 
acknowledging what's happening, but arguing that mitigation 
alone will be sufficient to avoid the worst impacts of climate 
change. What is your view of that argument? I think you've been 
clear on it, but I think it is worth emphasizing the points 
you've made.
    Dr. Dutton. Just a clarification for the record, I think 
you meant to say that adaption alone will not----
    Senator Van Hollen. Adaptation alone, exactly. Sorry.
    Dr. Dutton. Yes. So, the example I gave in my oral 
testimony was that we are already reaching the limits of 
threshold of survival of some of the species like corals that 
cannot just swim away and find the cooler water, so hence, much 
more susceptible to dying. But in the context of sea level, 
right, we should talk about that. We can't just build a 
fortress on our coastlines where they are today. First of all, 
we wouldn't have enough money probably to do it around the 
entire United States, but the IPCC actually even refers to this 
as a maladaptation unless you are also planning for having 
those communities retreat out of harm's way because eventually 
that wall will get breached. It will fail.
    We have seen this happen in New Orleans. We know what that 
looks like. We don't want to repeat that. So, it's a temporary 
measure, right, to help us prepare. It buys us time. It's not a 
permanent fix, right, so we can't just engineer our way out of 
this problem. We actually know what's causing the problem. It's 
easier to mitigate, right, and to reduce our emissions.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you. Thank you all.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Padilla has joined us. Let me 
add one little data point here because my friend, Senator 
Johnson, mentioned that he believes five trillion dollars has 
been spent on climate change trying to address it. I can't 
vouch for that number, it's his number, but I would put it in 
the context of Deloitte, which is a pretty well-known corporate 
consulting firm that hires a lot of very smart and able people 
and puts its reputation behind its public reporting.
    Deloitte has projected that if we do nothing about climate 
change the cost to global GDP will be $178 trillion negative, 
that if we hit net zero by 2050, that will create $43 trillion 
in added GDP, globally, for a $220 trillion swing between 
getting this right and getting this wrong. So, like the Zeta 
Joules, that's a pretty darn big number and I wanted to add 
that to the record. Senator Padilla.

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA

    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you know, I'm 
very proud of California's leadership in this space and so let 
me also offer a couple of data points. California's blue 
economy employs over one million people and generates $143 
billion annually. However, ocean acidification, sea level rise, 
and ocean warming are increasingly threatening this booming 
sector.
    As our changing climate continues to warm the Earth's 
oceans and atmosphere, the phenomenon we now refer to as 
atmospheric river events are becoming longer, wetter, and more 
severe, not even referencing last winter's storms. I'm talking 
about just this week San Diego, the second largest city in 
California, one of the largest cities in America, having to 
declare a state of emergency after an atmospheric river brought 
a record of three inches in three hours and flooding that left 
hundreds of families seeking shelter from the storm.
    A research team at Scripts Institution of Oceanography in 
California found atmospheric river storms caused one billion 
dollars annual in flood damages, not just in California. I'm 
talking about across 11 western states, so it's not just a 
California concern. It's a regional and national concern which 
could triple, by the way. The damage could triple by the end of 
the century.
    My question is for Dr. Dutton. Can you expand on your 
testimony about how sea level rise is increasing coastal 
flooding frequency?
    Dr. Dutton. Yes. So, this is a really important question, 
so thank you for asking it. Oftentimes, when people are 
planning for sea level, they look at projection curves to 
understand how much time do we have until it gets to a certain 
level, say, like two feet above sea level. And so, if you're 
planning, I have three decades until we get there. We don't 
need to worry about it.
    That's actually the wrong takeaway from that graph because 
what's going to happen is you'll have high tide flooding events 
like you see at Hampton Roads will become more frequent and 
you'll reach that two feet more frequently. First, one time a 
year, then five, then ten, people who are living at that level 
are not going to wait until three decades when it's there, on 
average, right? So, the tolerance for sea level hitting that 
point will come much sooner than is implied if you're just 
looking at that sea level curve and that would be true, not 
just for California, but all over.
    Senator Van Hollen. And so, given that, less time to 
prepare, less time to adapt, less time to insure, less time to 
build better, et cetera, in so many places that haven't 
experienced this dynamic before.
    I do want to raise another area for conversation. In 2019, 
the Port of San Diego in California launched their Blue Economy 
Incubator Program to help launch sustainable blue tech 
companies. To date, the port has funded nine pilot projects, 
ranging from stormwater monitoring to contaminant remediation 
to shellfish nurseries. The University of California-San Diego 
also host an accelerated program called Start Blue, which 
provides small ocean technology business trainings, mentorship, 
and funds, access to capital.
    Dr. Sumaila, what are some other examples of ways people 
have successfully leveraged public/private investments to 
finance a sustainable blue economy and how can the federal 
government further incentivize similar investments?
    Dr. Sumaila. Thank you, Senator, for the question because 
in all this finance and economics it's so central. You can see 
the discussion. And if you look around the world, there are 
efforts being made by groups, even financial companies to work 
with communities to develop special vehicles to try to make 
finance accessible, especially to the most vulnerable groups in 
the world, the communities, indigenous people.
    And there is one group that I have been working with in 
Singapore and their leader, she's a lady, she created this 
financial vehicle to support women in Asia and around the world 
to deal with climate change and other issues related to climate 
impacts, so I see quite a number of them around the world. So, 
California, can lead the world as usual as the examples you've 
given show.
    Senator Padilla. Any recommendations for what this 
Committee can do, or Congress can do for federal incentives for 
similar programs?
    Dr. Sumaila. Yes, I think one of the ways the federal 
government can do--we talk a lot about money and tradeoffs and 
costs and benefits. The thing is at the moment we're really 
pumping a lot of public funds to subsidize fuel, which actually 
leads to more climate change. I think there is a big potential 
there to recoup some of these subsidies and turn them around to 
support communities and innovators to try to move us forward. 
And we're talking about trillions of dollars going to the oil 
and gas industry alone in terms of subsidies, public funds.
    My thing about subsidies is please let's use public funds 
to support people and the environment rather than use them to 
undermine the environment, which then goes to hit our people 
and make their life conditions bad. So, that is one potential 
place to get resources for incentives.
    Senator Padilla. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. 
Chair.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you. Let me thank so many 
colleagues for attending. Let me thank the witnesses for a 
truly, I think, useful and important hearing. We are 
terrestrial beings, we humans, and we tend to overlook what is 
going on in the oceans and the scale of it when you're talking 
about zeta joules of heat, when you're talking about seven 
Hiroshima-sized atomic detonations worth of heat per second 
being added to the oceans you can expect very, very significant 
outcomes and they will not be good ones. And so, I appreciate 
this panel of witnesses for bringing those to our attention.
    I'll close with a story--a book I read not too long ago 
called Ship of Gold in a Deep Blue Sea, I think, which is a 
little bit of a morality tale for where we are. This was a ship 
bringing people home from the California Gold Rush who had made 
their fortunes and the ship was full of ingots and gold bars 
and people who'd become rich and very happy and they came up 
the Carolina coast and came into a very big ocean storm and the 
ship began to founder and so they took action. They stopped 
service in the dining room. They put the stewards to work in 
the pumps. They began to throw furnishings overboard.
    Ultimately, they took the passengers and put them to work 
in the pumps. They began destroying structure on the boat to 
throw it overboard and they ended up throwing gold bars 
overboard to try to save the boat. They did everything that 
they could and everything that they did was just too late and 
so the boat sank.
    And the second half of the story is the recovery of the 
gold, but how the ship sank when the crew and passengers did 
everything that they could, but just did it all a little bit 
too late, ultimately throwing gold bars over the side to try to 
save their lives, I think that's a pretty good analogy for the 
situation that we are in right now.
    And the one thing that I would point out, because there are 
lots of people who say we should slow down and analyze, if they 
had slowed down to analyze what the effect would be of throwing 
this sofa overboard in terms of how many inches of free board 
you gained before they threw the sofa overboard if they had 
stopped to do a study of what it would add to add passengers to 
the crew to crank the pumps in the boat and stop doing stuff 
while those studies took place that boat would've sunk a lot 
sooner. And again, I think those are two of the climate lessons 
for us. We have to really get after this. Time is not on our 
side. We are behind the curve and studying around what we 
already know to be true is a fool's errand.
    So, thank you to the witnesses for being here. The record 
will remain open for a week for any additional questions for 
the record. And with that, the hearing is concluded.
    [Whereupon, at 11:23 a.m., Wednesday, January 24, 2024, the 
hearing was adjourned.]

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