[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.