[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

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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

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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.

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