    [Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 10, 2018)]
    [Senate]
    [Pages S125-S126]
    From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                                 Climate Change

      Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, the Trump administration has come up
    with a name for its energy policy. The energy policy amounts to,
    basically, a big, fat cascade of gifts and special favors for oil, gas,
    and coal companies, which, in turn, make big political contributions.
    Trump officials call the policy ``energy dominance.'' More accurately,
    its name would probably be ``fossil fuel industry political dominance''
    or one might actually call it ``ignorance dominance'' since the
    administration willfully ignores scientific understanding, basic
    economics, market theory, and even the warnings of our national
    security community.
      The situation is not pretty from an environmental point of view. EPA
    Administrator Scott Pruitt is busily trying to roll back rules that
    limit, for instance, emissions of methane, which is a more powerful
    greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. He is considering walking back fuel
    efficiency standards that save drivers money at the pump. President
    Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accord and was
    promptly ignored by every other nation on Earth.
      Last month, on the Interior Secretary's recommendation, Trump took
    big areas of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National
    Monuments, in Utah, away from the public and opened them, instead, to
    big mining and oil and gas interests. Zinke has even proposed to open
    almost all U.S. coastlines to drilling by oil and gas companies. That
    includes drilling in protected areas in the Arctic, drilling up and
    down the Atlantic coast, expanded drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and
    drilling along the Pacific coastline. The plan even includes Georges
    Bank and other crucial fishing grounds for New England.
      This drilling scheme is likely dead on arrival. Republican Governors
    in New Jersey, Maryland, and Florida have all denounced the plan, as
    have Florida's Democratic and Republican Senators. It even runs into
    objections from the Pentagon. When President Obama considered opening
    the southern Atlantic coast to drilling 2 years ago, the Defense
    Department told the Obama administration that offshore energy
    development could interfere with military readiness and missile
    testing.
      Given the dominance of fossil fuel political interests in this
    administration, the whole Trump energy dominance scheme, of course,
    neglects the warnings of our national security experts about climate
    change--climate change as an accelerant of global instability and
    conflict and climate change as a direct hazard to military
    installations and infrastructure, from the Naval Station Norfolk to
    faraway facilities like Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
      In 2008, the National Intelligence Council reported more than 30 U.S.
    military installations facing risk from rising sea levels. A
    vulnerability assessment directed by the ``2010 Quadrennial Defense
    Review'' found that at around 3 feet of sea level rise, 128 military
    installations are at risk. Naturally, many of those belong to the
    Navy--indeed, 56 out of those 128. It is a significant share of the
    Navy's global footprint, totaling around $100 billion in value.
      In 2011, the National Academy of Sciences report, ``National Security
    Implications of Climate Change for U.S. Naval Forces,'' recommended the
    continued review of how sea level rise and changes in storm frequency
    and intensity would affect coastal installations.
      The National Defense Authorization Act, which we just passed, directs
    the Department of Defense to study how climate change will affect our
    most vulnerable military bases over the next 20 years, including ``the
    effects of rising sea tides, increased flooding, drought,
    desertification, wildfires, thawing permafrost,'' as well as how
    climate change may drive new requirements for combatant commanders.
      The law includes a sense of Congress statement that ``climate change
    is a direct threat to the national security of the United States and is
    impacting stability in areas of the world both where the United States
    Armed Forces are operating today, and where strategic implications for
    future conflict exist.''
      That is a sense-of-Congress statement that has passed this
    Republican-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House and
    was signed into law by this administration. Thank you to the author of
    this language, my friend and fellow Rhode Islander, Congressman Jim
    Langevin.
      Even the U.S. Government Accountability Office has engaged. The
    independent oversight agency issued a report titled, ``Climate Change
    Adaptation: DoD Needs to Better Incorporate Adaptation into Planning
    and Collaboration at Overseas Installations.''
      I think that title gives away the punch line. Surveying our bases and
    installations across the world, GAO found that weather and climate
    change pose operational and budgetary risks to infrastructure. GAO
    recommended that DOD's climate planning efforts be expanded and
    increased; specifically, that the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and
    Air Force require defense installations to ``systematically track the
    costs associated with extreme weather events and climate change'' and
    that DOD better coordinate addressing climate change risks across
    different DOD installations.
      This picture in the GAO report shows an unnamed military facility in
    the Pacific that has at times been cut off by flooding from access
    points to its munitions storage complex. If you have a military
    facility that can't get access to its munitions storage, you have a
    problem.
      This is the picture of the flooded entryway, and this is the picture
    of the similar entryway under normal circumstances, able to be
    traveled.
      A 2014 typhoon caused flash flooding here that trapped and imperiled
    American personnel. The point is, when climate change effects inhibit
    military base operations, defense preparedness requires climate
    preparedness.
      Naval Station Norfolk, the largest Navy base in the world, is a
    poster child for the devastation that awaits our coastal military bases
    if we continue to pump out the greenhouse gas emissions that are
    driving sea level rise. A tide gauge operated at the base since 1927
    has shown nearly 15 inches of vertical sea level rise so far. In the
    broader Hampton Roads metro area, home not only to the Navy but also to
    facilities of the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, NASA,
    and NOAA, high tides are already regularly forcing seawater back
    through storm drains and flooding roadways.
      DOD's own environmental research program, the Strategic Environmental
    Research and Development Program, used Norfolk as its case study for
    sea level rise and extreme storm risks to coastal DOD installations.
    The study found a ``tipping point'' of about a half meter, 1.6 feet, of
    sea level rise, at which point ``the probabilities of damage to
    infrastructure and losses in mission performance increased
    dramatically.'' This is mapping of the flood hazard around Naval
    Station Norfolk.
      This tipping point at which the mission performance losses increase
    dramatically is only a few decades away. Retired RADM David Titley, a
    former oceanographer and navigator of the Navy and leader of its
    Climate Change Task Force, said Norfolk has about 10 to 15 years to get
    serious about sea level rise in the region before ``we're really
    cutting it close.''
      In 2017, CAPT Dean Vanderley, who leads infrastructure engineering at
    the Norfolk Naval base, admitted that sea level rise is ``something
    where I don't know that we've fully defined the problem. And we have
    definitely not fully defined the solution.''
      Retired CAPT Joe Bouchard, a former base commander, told
    InsideClimate News that Naval Station Norfolk would need significant
    improvements to nearly every piece of infrastructure, from electrical
    and drainage systems to pier improvements, not to mention a seawall. He
    estimated this work could cost more than $1 billion and take as long as
    a decade to complete. That is just one base with $1 billion and a
    decade's worth of work. The DOD has identified over 128 bases that
    would be at significant risk with 3 feet of sea level rise. I think
    NOAA's current estimate is for 6 feet of global sea rise by the end of
    the century.

    [[Page S126]]

      Even though our President is clueless about the basics of climate
    change, his Secretary of Defense understands and acknowledges the
    risks. In response to congressional questioning last year, Secretary
    Mattis said, ``Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the
    world where our troops are operating today. . . . It is appropriate for
    the Combatant Commands to incorporate drivers of instability that
    impact the security environment in their areas into their planning.''
      Well, for political reasons, the White House can't acknowledge the
    problem so the recently published ``National Security Strategy''
    totally disregards all of these recommendations. It will not even
    mention the forbidden words. We know these words are forbidden in the
    Trump administration because over and over again the memos leak out
    about people being told don't say the words ``climate change.''
      Instead, with all these warnings from GAO, from senior military
    officials, from the National Intelligence Council, from a decade of
    Quadrennial Defense Reviews, and the testimony of Secretary Mattis--
    instead of listening to that, Trump parrots climate change denial
    talking points that come from the phony fossil fuel front groups. It is
    pathetic. Calling this deliberate ignorance ``energy dominance'' may be
    a fine fossil fuel flourish, but it is completely disconnected from
    actual safety, security, and military readiness--and don't get me
    started on what the fossil fuel industry's systematic corruption of our
    democracy means for America's fabled status as that ``city on a hill.''
      I yield the floor.
      I suggest the absence of a quorum.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
      The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
      Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
    the quorum call be rescinded.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.