[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 51 (Monday, March 25, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1943-S1946]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CLIMATE CHANGE
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it is my great honor and pleasure to
be joined on the floor today by my senior Senator from Rhode Island,
the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack
Reed. We are here today on the Senate floor to speak about the perils
that climate change poses to America's national security.
I am going to frame my remarks around a fact and a proposition.
The fact, as reported in the 2017 climate science report, is that the
oceans of the world are absorbing more than 9 zettajoules of heat
energy each year.
The proposition is one that I think most of us agree with--that
America is and remains the world's indispensable Nation, exceptional
and exemplary.
Let's unpack that fact a little bit. More than 9 zettajoules of heat
energy go into the ocean every year.
First, what is a zettajoule? A zettajoule is sextillion joules, or 10
to the 21st power joules. That is a lot of zeros. More practically, 9
zettajoules is around a dozen times humankind's total annual energy
consumption.
More kinetically speaking, the added heat in our oceans is equivalent
to four Hiroshima-sized nuclear bombs exploding in the oceans every
second--every second. So every minute, 240 Hiroshima blasts in the
ocean--in the time of my remarks, probably 3,000 Hiroshima explosions--
with the oceans capturing all of that heat energy.
Let's go back to the proposition that America is the world's
indispensable and exemplary Nation. Years ago, Daniel Webster probably
said it best, describing the work of our Founders as having ``set the
world an example.'' His was not a unique vision of America. From
Jonathan Winthrop at the beginning to Ronald Reagan recently, we have
called ourselves a city on a hill, set high for the world to witness.
From President Kennedy to President Obama, inaugural addresses have
noted that the glow of our ideals ``light[s] the world.'' President
Clinton argued that ``[p]eople the world over have always been more
impressed by the power of our example than the example of our power.''
When Daniel Webster said that our Founding Fathers had set the world
an example, he went on to say this: ``The last hopes of mankind,
therefore, rest with us; and if it should be proclaimed that our
example had become an argument against the experiment, the knell''--
meaning the death nail--``of popular liberty would be sounded
throughout the earth.''
How does the fact of 9 zettajoules and the proposition of America's
role relate to each other? First is the climate chaos mankind will
increasingly have to bear. A recent study published by Nature found
with 99.9999 percent confidence that Earth is warming due to human
activity. I could give you any number of risks, such as global sea
level rise or increasing wildfires and droughts or the unprecedented
CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere. All of this affects
human health, human agriculture, and human economy, and all of these
risks also have national security consequences.
Through the years, America's national security experts could not have
made it much plainer. Fifty-eight former military and national security
leaders sent this letter this month to President Trump warning that
``[c]limate change is real, it is happening now, it is driven by
humans, and it is accelerating.'' They went on to say that the
administration's denial of climate science will ``erode our national
security.'' They warned that the effects of climate change are already
being ``used by our adversaries as a weapon of war,'' citing ISIS's
control of water during climate change-exacerbated drought. This letter
urges President Trump to ``drop the politics, and allow our national
security and science agencies to do their jobs.''
They are not alone. The Pentagon's 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review
described climate change as a ``global threat multiplier,'' warning
that ``the pressures caused by climate change will influence resource
competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies,
and governance institutions around the world.''
Former admiral Samuel Locklear, as head of U.S. Pacific Command,
warned in 2013 that climate change was the biggest long-term security
threat in his area of operation, noting the need for the military to
organize for, as he called it, ``when the effects of climate change
start to impact these massive populations.''
``If it goes bad,'' he said, ``you could have hundreds of thousands
or millions of people displaced and then security will start to crumble
pretty quickly.''
A recent survey of nearly 300 Active-Duty and veteran servicemembers
found that 77 percent ``consider it fairly or very likely that military
bases in coastal or island regions will be damaged by flooding or
severe storms as a result of climate change.''
In response to a provision championed by Rhode Island Congressman
Jim Langevin in the House and by Senator Reed in the Senate, the last
NDAA bill instructed the Department of Defense to provide a report
examining the effects of climate change on the military. Of 79 DOD
installations evaluated, 53 currently experience recurrent flooding, 43
are experiencing drought conditions, 36 are prone to wildfires, 6 are
seeing desertification, and 1 is dealing with thawing permafrost. That
is what is happening now. In 20 years, the DOD predicts, an additional
seven installations will experience flooding, five more will see
drought conditions, and seven will see wildfire risks.
Of course, all of those risks will get worse. This report failed to
list the top 10 most vulnerable installations and ignores the Marine
Corps, but it nevertheless warned that ``[t]he effects of a
[[Page S1944]]
changing climate are a national security issue with potential impacts
to Department of Defense missions, operational plans, and
installations.''
The national security ties to climate change begin with our military.
A second point. Henry Kissinger once told me that the great
revolutions of the world have always come from what he called a
``confluence of resentments.'' I have not forgotten that phrase since
he used it, a ``confluence of resentments.'' The poorest on the planet,
those who live closest to the land, who lead subsistence lives, will
suffer most the brunt of the coming change, and they will resent it. It
is human nature.
If you divide the world into three groups, you can call one group the
very poorest, who will starve when, for instance, their fisheries
collapse. The middle group is distressed when fisheries collapse but
has the resources to find alternative food sources. At the top, the
fish in our air-conditioned supermarket may cost a bit more and come
from a different part of the ocean, and we may drive home in our air-
conditioned SUV with a slightly larger grocery bill, but that will be
it for us. The first two groups will resent it when they feel the pain
caused by the SUV crowd. If you turn that pain up high enough, good
luck defending with those injured people the parliamentary democracy
and market capitalism system that brought this on. The injustice will
amplify the resentments.
My final point. How does America fare as the exemplary Nation through
all of this? Well, very badly. Democracy and capitalism are the
hallmarks of our country, and the failure of those institutions to
address climate change will not be a good story.
Worse than the failure is the reason for it. The climate denial
apparatus that has won unseemly influence in Congress now will surely
lose the test of time. The consequences of climate change are
determined by laws of chemistry, of physics, and of biology. Those laws
can't be repealed or wished away. Propaganda can manipulate people and
passions and politics, but it has no effect on the immutable laws of
nature. So the fossil fuel industry's denial apparatus will ultimately
be exposed as a fraud and a scandal, and history will lament and
condemn it as one of the great American frauds and scandals. History's
judgment will come harshly, and it will fall harshly on an American
democracy that let itself be overborne by this apparatus.
James Madison, in the Federalist Papers, warned of ``moments in
public affairs when the people [can be] misled by artful
misrepresentations of interested men.'' By that, of course, he meant
people with a conflict of interest. He went on to say that misled
people ``may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be
the most ready to lament and condemn.'' We have certainly been misled
by artful misrepresentations of the interested men of the fossil fuel
industry.
It may be hard for us in our world of air-conditioning, SUVs, and
imported fresh fish to contemplate resentment and revolution, but the
harms to the oceans of 9 zettajoules of heat--4.5 Hiroshima explosions
worth of heat per second that we are adding to the oceans--those harms
are on a collision course with our destiny as a city on a hill. We
urgently need to show the world that market capitalism and democracy
don't fail when presented with big problems if we are to head off a
confluence of resentments that we are now making inevitable.
With that, I yield to my distinguished senior Senator, Mr. Jack Reed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, let me commend Senator Whitehouse for his
consistent efforts to illuminate and discuss the problem of climate
change, which affects not just the United States but the entire world.
It is a pleasure to join him and once again call attention to this
urgent threat.
We know that climate change impacts our health, our communities, our
economy, and our infrastructure, but today I would like to focus on how
climate change is affecting our national security--some of the points
Senator Whitehouse also made.
Beginning with the 2008 National Defense Strategy, the administration
of President George W. Bush stated that ``changes with existing and
future resource, environmental, and climate pressures may generate new
security challenges . . . These risks will require managing the
divergent needs of massively increasing energy demand to maintain
economic development and the need to tackle climate change.''
With increasing frequency in recent years, climate change has been
commonly referred to as a threat multiplier. Simply put, climate change
can and will exacerbate conditions in regions with already tenuous
stability.
Numerous intelligence assessments have reached the same conclusion.
Climate change will have broad impacts for U.S. national security
interests over the next 30 years and beyond.
In their words, the National Intelligence Council has found that
``rising sea levels, flooding, droughts, higher temperatures, and more
frequent extreme weather events will increasingly threaten military
capabilities and facilities on both U.S. and foreign territory,
including military bases and training ranges.''
Furthermore, the National Intelligence Council identified six key
pathways: threats to the stability of countries, heightened social and
political tensions, adverse effects on food prices and availability,
increased risks to human health, negative impacts on investments and
economic competitiveness, and potential climate discontinuities and
secondary surprises.
The former Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, has stated to the Senate
Armed Services Committee that ``where climate change contributes to
regional instability, the Department of Defense must be aware of any
potential adverse impacts.'' He also noted that ``climate change is
impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are
operating today.''
More recently, Gen. Joe Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, was asked about climate change at an event held by Duke
University's Program in American Grand Strategy. He said:
When we look at, when I look at, climate change, it's in
the category of sources of conflict around the world and
things we have to respond to. So it can be great devastation
requiring humanitarian assistance/disaster relief, which the
U.S. military certainly conducts routinely. In fact, I can't
think of a year since I've been on active duty that we
haven't conducted at least one operation in the Pacific along
those lines due to extreme weather in the Pacific. And then,
when you look at source of conflict--shortages of water and
those kind of things--those are all sources of conflict. So,
it is very much something that we take into account in our
planning as we anticipate when, where and how we may be
engaged in the future and what capabilities we should have.
The Department of Defense has already observed many negative impacts
to readiness and resources due to extreme weather as a result of
climate change.
The Congressional Budget Office has concluded ``costs associated with
hurricane damage will increase more rapidly than the economy will
grow''--$39 billion annually by 2075.
In 2017, the Government Accountability Office found that ``weather
effects associated with climate change pose operational and budgetary
risks'' to the Department of Defense.
The GAO also found that ``even without knowing precisely how or when
the climate will change--[DOD] knows it must build resilience into its
policies, programs, and operations in a thoughtful and cost-effective
way.''
Last year, the Pentagon also submitted its screening level
vulnerability assessment surveys to Congress. It found that roughly
half of all military installations that responded stated they had
experienced adverse impacts from climate change: damage from high
winds, flooding due to storm surge and non-storm surge events, extreme
temperatures, droughts, and wildfires. However, that figure is likely
much higher because the other half of military installations around the
globe didn't even respond to the survey. Oddly enough, those military
installations that said they had not experienced negative impacts from
climate change were very close to other installations, which said they
had. Clearly, this is a broad problem for our military.
The Department's most recent report on climate change was like an
introductory primer and carried about as much value as a phonebook. It
failed to provide many required elements, such as a top 10 list of the
most vulnerable
[[Page S1945]]
installations from each military service. Instead, the report focused
on 79 installations important for mission assurance and found that
about two-thirds of them are--in their words--``vulnerable to current
or future recurrent flooding [and] more than half are vulnerable to
current or future drought, and wildfires.''
Perhaps the most recent and high-profile impacts occurred this month
when a particular type of storm in the Midwest, called a bomb cyclone,
left at least one-third of Offutt Air Force Base underwater from
flooding.
Just a few months ago, Hurricane Michael made a direct hit on Tyndall
Air Force Base in Florida, which was only shortly after the astonishing
1,000-year event of Hurricane Florence in North Carolina, which caused
severe damage at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. In other words, the
amount of observed rain during Hurricane Florence had a 1-in-100 chance
of occurring each year.
While initial reporting indicated at Tyndall that roughly 17 F-22s
were destroyed or severely damaged after being left at the base during
Hurricane Michael, fortunately, the actual damage to aircraft turned
out to be minimal. However, the fact that over a dozen advanced
fighters costing roughly $130 million per aircraft had to be abandoned
in the first place is a fundamental flaw in readiness and aircraft
maintenance.
Despite the minimal damage to aircraft, the projected cost to rebuild
Tyndall is still roughly $4.1 billion. The underlying issue that must
be addressed is that hangars and other facilities are not adequately
designed and built to withstand an increased trend of heavy winds above
130 miles per hour or other extreme weather. Meanwhile, the estimated
cost to rebuild what was at Camp Lejeune--according to the Commandant
of the Marine Corps--is roughly $3.7 billion.
Fortunately, at Camp Lejeune, several hangars survived and did not
flood. This is because they were appropriately designed in the first
place.
These glaring examples of Offutt Air Force Base, Tyndall Air Force
Base, and Camp Lejeune clearly demonstrate that we must plan for
climate adaptation now or we will pay much, much more in the future.
General Neller, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, recently wrote to
the Secretary of the Navy saying that the Marine Corps ``faces fiscal
challenges without precedent'' given that ``Hurricane Florence damage
is negatively impacting Marine Corps readiness.''
To put some of that in context, the Commandant said the ``total
recovery cost is 9 percent of our annual budget; the building repair
cost is 150 percent of our total annual building repair budget; and the
building replacement cost is four years' worth of non-Guam MILCON.''
The Commandant closed the letter by warning that the next hurricane
season is only 3 months away.
Beyond these most recent events, climate change continues to cost DOD
significant resources, measured in taxpayer funding and negative
impacts on readiness.
In 2017, the trio of hurricanes--Maria, Irma, and Harvey--cost the
Department over $1.3 billion in military construction and facilities
sustainment restoration and modernization alone. Hurricane Harvey was
the third 500-year flood in the Houston area in the last 3 years--we
are getting 500-year floods every 3 years in parts of the United
States--and it left four times more than the entire flow of the
Mississippi River on the city of Houston, TX.
At Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, there were 81 black flag
training days. These are days where training is canceled due to heat.
That was in 2012. In 2016, there were 226 black flag days.
The Marine Corps experienced 478 heat-related injuries in 2013. By
comparison, there were 688 in 2017 and 744 in 2016.
In Alaska, three locations of early warning radar infrastructure have
been damaged and moved due to coastal erosion that was not expected to
occur until 2030.
In 2016, a 10,000-acre wildfire in California closed the south side
of Vandenberg Air Force Base, stalling the launch of an Atlas V rocket.
Wildfires also led to training range closures for multiple months in
North Carolina, South Carolina, Idaho, Florida, and New Mexico.
In Arizona last summer, a heat wave caused 40 flights to be canceled,
with clear implications for DOD aircraft, ships, and vehicles that must
be able to continue to operate in extreme hot and cold temperatures.
Yet current adaptation measures attempted by DOD have yet to be
comprehensive or entirely successful.
In what could be the beginning of a startling trend, the Air Force
recently had to cancel a fiscal year 2018 military construction project
in Alaska due to ``thawing permafrost under the existing facility
causing significant settling'' with the facility foundation.
Warming Arctic temperatures at Thule Air Force Base in Greenland have
caused extensive airfield pavement repairs at a cost of over $30
million, which is roughly the cost of one Army Combat Training Center
rotation. So instead of getting brigades down to Ft. Irwin for the
training exercises they need, we are going to have to repave and repave
bases that are exposed to some of these climate effects.
Meanwhile, melting ice caps continue to open up new sea lanes in the
Arctic--a topic that the Presiding Officer knows better than anyone
else in this body--increasing commercial traffic and prompting several
countries, including Russia, to vie for influence and control over the
region.
Notably, the current force structure of the Navy is not adequately
postured to respond and operate in the Arctic, and the GAO recently
found that even the Navy admits ``significant limitations for operating
surface ships in the Arctic.''
Protecting our national security requires tough decisions that are
made through a careful evaluation of risks, which, as I have described,
must include the real risks posed by climate change.
I am concerned by many actions coming by the current administration,
not only to downplay these risks but also to actively undermine the
scientific consensus on climate change. Instead of heeding the warnings
of scientists, including those from the 13 Federal Agencies that worked
on the ``National Climate Assessment,'' the administration is working
to create a climate security panel led by a noted climate denier to
contradict these warnings.
I will continue--and I know others will continue--fighting any
efforts to cast doubt on the fact that climate change is real and that
it is human-caused. We need to be able to acknowledge these basic facts
so that we can quickly come together to work toward meaningful
solutions.
Again, let me thank Senator Whitehouse for inviting me to join him
today to highlight the impacts of climate change on national security.
The dangers of inaction are many, and as ranking member of the Armed
Services Committee, I will be continuing to sound the alarm on this
critical issue.
I have tried to emphasize the effects of climate change on our
training facilities, on our bases here in the United States, and on our
regions that are close by, where we prepare our forces to be sent
overseas. But if you look overseas in areas that are suffering drought,
in areas where agricultural land is diminishing, and in areas where
farming used to be the mainstay of the population and now has
disappeared and the population is unemployed, if you look at places
like Pakistan, which has significant environmental problems,
significant financial problems, and significant problems with terrorist
organizations, if you look in thousands of places around the globe,
those are real threats that are being accelerated by climate change
that our military will have to adapt and adjust to.
This is a multiphase issue. We have to take steps here at home to
preserve our training bases and to make sure that our airfields can
operate in all types of weather so that we can have the Marine Corps
facilities in Camp Lejeune in A-1 condition.
It is the major force-generating position for the Marine Corps on the
Atlantic coast. We have to be able to do that. That is just part of the
problem.
The other part of the problem is the potential for conflict overseas.
In many countries, it is accelerating because they are losing their
quality of life, their economic ability, and all these things. There is
drought, severe weather, hurricanes, and storms. There was
[[Page S1946]]
huge cyclonic activity just reported last week in parts of Africa. That
is causing disruption for families, death, and a host of problems that
are causing not particularly stable governments to become less stable.
This is an issue that we must address. I look forward to working with
all of my colleagues in order to provide the resources and the
direction to do that.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The Senator from Oregon.
____________________