The House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 (HR 4435) on May 22. The bill specifies the budget and expenditures of the United States Department of Defense and sets the policies under which money (somewhat in excess of $600 billion) will be spent on our country’s defense. Congress knows that this bill must be passed each year in order for our armed services to continue to operate, making it a good vehicle for some interesting rogue amendments.
One such amendment, presented by Rep. David McKinley of West Virginia, never should have found its way into the final house legislation, but it did. Nestled in Title III, Subtitle B, Section 320A is a “prohibition on use of funds to implement certain climate change assessments and reports.” It reads:
None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to implement the United States Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, the United Nation’s Agenda 21 sustainable development plan, or the May 2013 Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order No. 12866.
This amendment, in effect, keeps the Department of Defense from preparing for or performing any military activities that include any construction related to climate change. For example, it precludes protecting facilities such as the Norfolk Naval Base from changes in sea level.
Introducing the amendment, McKinley remarked, “This amendment would prohibit the Department of Defense from spending money on climate change policies forced upon them by the Obama administration. We shouldn’t be diverting our financial resources away from the primary missions of our military and our national security in pursuit of an ideology.” McKinley followed with several statements about climate change that are common among deniers, but flat out wrong. Defending this amendment he stated, “If every institution in America stopped burning coal today, we would reduce the emissions of CO2 in the globe…by 0.2 percent.” That would be great if it was true. But it is a misrepresentation of the facts that has been misused by deniers numerous times.
The amendment passed by voice vote. The final bill included this amendment when passed by the house with a vote of 325 to 98.
What is going on? McKinley is an honorable man. He has a legitimate obligation to pay attention to his constituency and to look out for the interests of West Virginia coal. He is a Republican congressman and adheres to the ideals and principals of his party. More germane to this amendment, he has held hearings and symposia to become informed on climate change. Evidently, he has concluded that even though climate change is happening, its consequences will be no big deal and can be dealt with without a reduction in the use of fossil fuel. But why target the military?
Just last month, the CAN Corporation Military Advisory Board of 16 retired generals and admirals from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines updated their 2007 report on national security and climate change. The updated report documented six recommendations for action emphasizing that “impacts of climate change could be detrimental to military readiness” and that “the United States has an obligation to take a leadership role” in addressing climate change issues. Furthermore, the report asserted that “failure to consider how climate change might impact all elements of U.S. national power and security is a failure of imagination.” These strong words echo concerns voiced in the Quadrennial Defense Review 2014 issued by the Department of Defense to define our military as it prepares for the strategic challenges in the years ahead. In both documents, the military perspective on climate change is that it is a “threat multiplier that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions — conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence.” It is all too apparent that this is exactly what is happening in strife-ridden Syria, where the supply of water is now one-third the level it was before the drought began in 2011, affecting 9.6 million Syrians in the ensuing armed conflict. Drought conditions now threaten to encompass Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, creating further despair and conflict and perhaps destabilizing U.S. interests in that region.
The world is too complex a system for a leadership nation like the United States to be held captive by a divided legislature that would sacrifice the effectiveness of its military for the sake of winning an ideological battle. As a climate scientist, I am baffled by the degree of stubbornness shown by those who shun the obvious. As a citizen, I am appalled by an elected government that even considers denying the men and women of our military the capability to carry out their mission to defend and protect our country.
Ron Sass, Ph.D., is the fellow in global climate change at the Baker Institute and the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Natural Sciences emeritus at Rice University. He consulted for the Environmental Protection Agency and advised the United Nations Development Programme Interregional Research Program on methane emission from rice fields in Asia. His work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change helped establish guidelines and values for national greenhouse gas inventories throughout the world.