On the recordJuly 7, 2015
The overwhelming scientific consensus is that climate change is real. Leaders of the communities of faith, such as His Holiness the Pope, are now urging us to take this issue very seriously. No matter how often the fossil fuel industry whispers that we have nothing to worry about, no matter how much manufactured science they gin up to create doubt, climate change is real. We should have begun assessing the costs of climate change decades ago, but we did not. The legislation before us today would require a report on climate change expenditures. But the purpose of this section is not to assess the impacts of climate change; the purpose is to root out climate funding in the budget, so that next year's Interior bill can prohibit that spending. Madam Chair, the report requirement as written is not only pointless, it is counterproductive. The Obama administration is open about responding to climate change. Most of their climate expenditures are clearly labeled and can be discovered by simply reading their budget request. For the remainder, I would be happy to write the President asking him to list these programs, and I suspect he would be pleased to answer. As written, this reporting requirement is a waste of time. We should be instead asking the administration to report back to us on the costs of climate change to our health, our environment, and our economy.…
