[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE COSTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE: RISKS TO
THE U.S. ECONOMY AND THE FEDERAL BUDGET
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 11, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-10
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Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on the Internet:
www.govinfo.gov
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-609 WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky, Chairman
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts, STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas,
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York ROB WOODALL, Georgia
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York BILL JOHNSON, Ohio,
BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania Vice Ranking Member
RO KHANNA, California JASON SMITH, Missouri
ROSA L. DELAURO, Connecticut BILL FLORES, Texas
LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina CHRIS STEWART, Utah
JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan CHIP ROY, Texas
JIMMY PANETTA, California DANIEL MEUSER, Pennsylvania
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York WILLIAM R. TIMMONS IV, South
STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada Carolina
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia DAN CRENSHAW, Texas
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas KEVIN HERN, Oklahoma
BARBARA LEE, California TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
SCOTT H. PETERS, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee
Professional Staff
Ellen Balis, Staff Director
Dan Keniry, Minority Staff Director
CONTENTS
Page
Hearing held in Washington, D.C., June 11, 2019.................. 1
Hon. John A. Yarmuth, Chairman, Committee on the Budget...... 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Hon. Bill Johnson, Vice Ranking Member, Committee on the
Budget..................................................... 6
Prepared statement of.................................... 10
Hon. Steve Womack, Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget,
statement submitted for the record......................... 7
Katharine Hayhoe, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Political
Science, and Director of the Climate Science Center, Texas
Tech....................................................... 12
Prepared statement of.................................... 15
Solomon Hsiang, Ph.D., Chancellor's Professor of Public
Policy, University of California, Berkley, and Gloria and
Richard Kushel Visiting Scholar at Stanford University..... 29
Prepared statement of.................................... 31
J. Alfredo Gomez, Director, Natural Resources and
Environment, U.S. Government Accountability Office......... 42
Prepared statement of.................................... 44
Oren Cass, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute................ 65
Prepared statement and report of......................... 76
Hon. Pramila Jayapal, Member, Committee on the Budget,
testimonies submitted for the record....................... 111
Letters submitted for the record......................... 137
Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee, Member, Committee on the Budget,
statement submitted for the record......................... 173
Hon. Steve Womack, Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget,
questions submitted for the record......................... 179
Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Member, Committee on the
Budget, questions submitted for the record................. 181
Answers to questions submitted for the record................ 182
THE COSTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE:
RISKS TO THE U.S. ECONOMY
AND THE FEDERAL BUDGET
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2019
House of Representatives,
Committee on the Budget,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in
Room 210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. John A. Yarmuth
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Yarmuth, Moulton, Doggett,
Schakowsky, Kildee, Panetta, Morelle, Horsford, Jackson Lee,
Jayapal, Omar, Peters, Cooper; Woodall, Johnson, Smith, Flores,
Holding, Stewart, Norman, Roy, Meuser, Timmons, Crenshaw, Hern,
and Burchett.
Chairman Yarmuth. Good morning and welcome to the Budget
Committee's hearing on The Costs of Climate Change: Risks to
the U.S. Economy and the Federal Budget. I want to welcome our
witnesses here with us today.
This morning we will be hearing from Dr. Katharine Hayhoe,
professor of political science and director of the Climate
Science Center at Texas Tech University; Dr. Solomon Hsiang,
professor of public policy at UC Berkeley, and a visiting
scholar at Stanford; Mr. Alfredo Gomez, director of the natural
resources and environment team at GAO; and Mr. Oren Cass,
senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
We will now begin with opening statements, and I yield
myself five minutes.
Good morning. As we said, this Committee has come to order.
I would like to welcome everyone to the Budget Committee's
hearing on the impacts of climate change on our nation's
economy and federal budget. I would like to thank our witnesses
also for joining us today.
This is a hearing on the future of the country, covering a
topic that we cannot afford to ignore. Americans are already
feeling the effects of climate change: homes have been blown
away in hurricanes that are increasing in intensity, or lost to
wildfires that are spreading farther and taking longer to
extinguish. Our farmers have endured prolonged droughts, while
some states have experienced historic flooding.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's October
report warned that, if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the
current rate, our atmosphere will continue to warm with
dangerous consequences. In addition to more destructive storms,
wildfires, and droughts, we will experience increasingly acidic
oceans, a loss of wildlife, reduced air quality, increased
disease exposure, and a drastic decrease in crop production,
among other disasters that could permanently reshape our way of
life.
Climate change is an environmental issue, it is a public
health issue, it is a national security issue. And, as we will
talk about today, it is increasingly an economic and fiscal
issue. It is my hope that, when faced with the data and
testimony of our esteemed witnesses, we can separate opinion
from fact, and acknowledge that, as a governing body, we must
plan for the consequences of a changing climate if we are to
avoid future catastrophe.
Last November the fourth National Climate Assessment Report
was released, and it painted a dire picture for our future. It
concluded that not only is the evidence of human-caused climate
change overwhelming, its consequences are intensifying. If no
mitigating action is taken, climate change will increasingly
wreak havoc on the U.S. economy, human health, and the
environment.
For example, between 2005 and 2014 we spent an average of
$36 billion annually responding to extreme weather and fire
events. But that level of spending looks tame, compared to
where we are headed. For 2018 alone, Congress appropriated more
than $130 billion for disaster-related purposes. And all
indications are that these costs will continue to dramatically
rise in the years and decades ahead, if no action is taken.
Already, billions of dollars of federal property and
approximately half of all U.S. military sites are threatened by
climate change. That is not my assessment; that is from the
Pentagon's Initial Vulnerability Assessment Report on climate-
related risks to DoD infrastructure. Major assessments from the
Climate Impact Lab and EPA's Climate Change Impacts and Risk
Analysis Project also concluded that, if we continue business
as usual with high emissions and limited resilience efforts,
annual losses across multiple sectors of our economy could
exceed $500 billion, or roughly 3 percent of national GDP, by
the end of the century.
The global investment management company BlackRock
estimates that the median risk of commercial properties being
hit by a category four or five hurricane has increased by more
than 135 percent since 1980. This increase could further rise
to 275 percent by 2050, with major implications for commercial
mortgage-backed securities. They also add that ``extreme
weather events pose growing risks for the credit worthiness of
state and local issuers in the $3.8 trillion dollar U.S.
municipal bond market.''
The only people who fail to understand the seriousness of
climate change are the Trump Administration and some of our
Republican colleagues. If they are not moved by environmental,
health, and security consequences, I hope the economic costs
and the impact on the federal budget will get their attention,
because we cannot afford to wait for them to catch up. We can't
afford to be the only country that is not part of the historic
Paris climate agreement. We can't afford to have an
Administration that continues to deny climate change, and
handicap the agencies and programs responsible for responding
to it, making the problem far worse and, ultimately, more
costly.
It is our responsibility, as the Budget Committee, to
review the issues that threaten our fiscal health and our
constituents. Without serious action to address climate change,
federal spending will continue to rise on everything from
federal disaster response to flood insurance, crop insurance,
and federal facility preservation and repairs, not to mention
the increased public health costs.
I hope today's hearing will make clear that we must rejoin
our global partners in tackling the threat of climate change,
and commit to substantial reductions in carbon pollution,
meaningful investments in clean energy, and policies that
strengthen our communities and prioritize the health and safety
of current and future generations.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Yarmuth follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. And now--just made it under my five
minutes.
Anyway, I now yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Johnson, for
his opening statement.
Mr. Johnson. Well, thank you, Chairman Yarmuth. And I am
going to try and fill some really big shoes, and attempt to
give an opening statement on behalf of our Ranking Member, who
is in Appropriations this morning.
But I would first like to request unanimous consent that
his prepared opening statement be submitted for the record.
Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection.
[The prepared statement of Steve Womack follows:]
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Mr. Johnson. As you have heard, the title of today's
hearing is, ``The Cost of Climate Change: Risks to the U.S.
Economy and the Federal Budget.'' But we can't have a hearing
about climate change without taking a detailed look at the
favored proposal among our colleagues on the left: The Green
New Deal.
Currently, the Green New Deal has 93 cosponsors, about a
dozen of whom serve on the Budget Committee. Following our
hearing last month on Medicare for All, this is our second
hearing featuring a central plank of the progressive agenda. I
will be curious to learn what the focus will be at our next
hearing if we continue down this path.
We are supposed to be the Committee of fiscal discipline,
the Committee that is responsible for managing and addressing
our nation's debt. But instead of talking about a budget,
something Democrats were unable or unwilling to produce, we are
here to discuss a $93 trillion proposal that has been hailed on
the left as a massive transformation of our society.
``Transformation,'' in this case, should be replaced with
``upheaval'' to make the description more accurate.
The proposal has been billed as the cure to our
environmental challenges. In reality, it would dump tens of
trillions of federal dollars into new programs and mandates on
families, businesses, states, and localities that will increase
energy costs, raise taxes, eliminate jobs, and fail to actually
address climate change.
The U.S. has been a leader in reducing greenhouse gas
emissions, but we cannot effectively address climate change
alone. This is a global issue. China and India accounted for
half the increase in global emissions in 2017, the same year
that U.S. carbon emissions were the lowest they have been since
1992.
Congress should focus on policies that encourage research
and development of all sources of energy, such as carbon
capture and sequestration, energy storage, small modular
nuclear reactors, or hydropower, to name a few. We should break
down regulatory barriers to innovation and promote competition
with the goal of making clean energy more affordable,
accessible, and reliable, creating jobs, and growing the
economy. In doing so, America will continue to lead other
countries in reducing our impact on our climate, without adding
to our nation's debt and disrupting the lives of American
workers and families.
Innovation is the cornerstone of America. It is what we do
best. But more government interference and less freedom for
Americans is the wrong policy to get the results we want.
I do want to add that it is not entirely fair to say that
there are no ideas on how to pay for the astronomical cost of
the Green New Deal. The concept of modern monetary theory has
been cited as a solution to all our debt problems because, so
the theory goes, the government can just print more money to
pay our bills. Now, I am skeptical of that claim, but I
understand that Chairman Yarmuth made some news on this topic
in an interview at the Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit this
morning. I am hopeful a hearing on this theory is on the
horizon.
Thank you again Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Bill Johnson follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Johnson for your opening
statement. And I need to apologize to anyone here who is under
the impression that this was about--this hearing was about the
Green New Deal. I know the Republicans put out notices that we
were going to have a hearing on the Green New Deal. There are
11 Committees that have jurisdiction over that piece of
legislation; we are not one of them.
As I said, this hearing is about the economic impact of
climate change, and I am very, very excited that we have four
very, very knowledgeable----
Mr. Johnson. Would the Chairman yield?
Chairman Yarmuth. Certainly.
Mr. Johnson. Mr. Chairman, how can we have a discussion, a
serious discussion about climate change on this Committee,
without addressing the primary plank of the platform that you
and your colleagues have offered, the Green New Deal, to
resolve climate change?
Chairman Yarmuth. Well, as you mentioned, the Green New
Deal doesn't even have a majority of the caucus as cosponsors.
But there are hundreds of proposals to deal with climate
change, and I think a lot of them are very meritorious and we
ought to consider them. We ought to start by agreeing that
there is a problem here, and we need to act responsibly, as a
Congress, to address it.
But now I would like to introduce our witnesses. Once
again, each of you will have five minutes to present your
testimony. Your written statements have become--been made a
part of the record.
So, as--I first get to introduce Dr. Hayhoe.
And Dr. Hayhoe, you are recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF KATHARINE HAYHOE, PH.D., PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF
POLITICAL SCIENCE, AND DIRECTOR OF THE CLIMATE SCIENCE CENTER,
TEXAS TECH; SOLOMON HSIANG, PH.D., CHANCELLOR'S PROFESSOR OF
PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKLEY, AND GLORIA
AND RICHARD KUSHEL VISITING SCHOLAR AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY; J.
ALFREDO GOMEZ, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT,
U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; AND OREN CASS, SENIOR
FELLOW, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE
STATEMENT OF KATHARINE HAYHOE, PH.D.
Dr. Hayhoe. Thank you, Chairman Yarmuth, Member Johnson,
and Committee Members for inviting me to speak today.
My name is Katharine Hayhoe. I am an atmospheric--or
climate--scientist, and a professor at Texas Tech University.
My research focuses on understanding what climate change means
to us in the places where we live. I also spend a lot of time
talking about climate change because, according to the Yale
Program on Climate Communication, while 70 percent of us in the
U.S. agree climate is changing, and it will harm plants,
animals, and future generations, only 41 percent of us believe
it will affect us personally.
But that is not true. The message of the fourth National
U.S. Climate Assessment, or the NCA, is crystal clear. Climate
change is already affecting every region of the U.S., and
nearly every sector, including our ag, infrastructure, water,
and more. Climate change is not just an environmental issue; it
is a health issue, a resource issue, and, most relevant to this
Committee, an economic issue, as well.
So my testimony today highlights the findings of the NCA
across the U.S. And, of course, I am speaking on my own behalf,
based on my expertise in climate impacts and my role as a lead
author of the assessment. This testimony is not a product of
the NCA process, the USGCRP, or Texas Tech University.
Before I begin our brief tour on how climate change is
already affecting the U.S., I want to unequivocally state that,
contrary to what you may have heard, NCA is not based on a so-
called ``most extreme scenario.'' It looks at a range of future
scenarios, from higher ones, where we continue to depend on
fossil fuels as the world does today, to scenarios so low that
we only have a few years left before that ship sails and they
are off the table.
Which of these is most likely? Over the last two decades it
is clear that the observed increase in global carbon emissions
has been consistent with the higher scenarios. Looking to the
future, though, the question of which scenario is more likely
is not one that the science can answer. Instead, the answer is
up to us.
As NCA concludes, climate change beyond the next few
decades will depend primarily on the amount of heat trapping or
greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, emitted globally.
We humans are in the driver's seat, and we are conducting an
unprecedented experiment with the only home we have.
Returning to our main theme, though, it is clear that
climate change is no longer an issue that can be put on the
back burner for future generations. It is already affecting us
right now in the places where we live. And one of the most
visible ways it is doing so is by exacerbating many of our
naturally-occurring weather and climate risks.
For example, where I live in Texas, hurricanes are nothing
new. They are not getting more frequent, but they are
intensifying faster on average, and getting stronger, bigger,
and slower. It is estimated that between 20 to nearly 40
percent of the rain that fell during Hurricane Harvey, and a
significant share of the over $125 billion worth of damage it
caused, was because of a warmer climate.
Thanks to sea level rise, sunny-day flooding is already
affecting property values in coastal cities like Miami. It is
estimated by one study that, by the end of the century, homes
and commercial properties across the U.S. worth over $1
trillion could be at risk.
In the northeast and the Midwest, heavy precipitation is
increasing. When the fields are too wet, farmers have to delay
their planting by weeks, as happened this very year. Flood risk
is also increasing. In Iowa, for example, what used to be
considered 500-year floods just 30 years ago are now 100-year
floods.
Warmer temperatures are also helping invasive species
spread northward. In Arkansas, for example, herbicide-resistant
Palmer amaranth, known as pigweed, has been called the greatest
pest facing cotton and soybean producers today.
In the western U.S. the number of wildfires is not
increasing, but they are burning twice the area, thanks to
climate change. In addition to destroying homes and
infrastructure, just this past year PG&E, California's largest
utility, sited $30 billion worth of liabilities due to wildfire
in their bankruptcy filing.
Many more details are available in my written deposition
and, of course, in the NCA itself. But the bottom line is this:
We care about a changing climate because it is loading the
natural weather dice against us. It is taking many of our
naturally-occurring risks, and making them worse in ways that
affect us here and now. We are already starting to adapt, but--
this is a very important qualifier--we are not adapting fast
enough. And the further and faster climate changes, the more
difficult and expensive--and, in some cases, ultimately
impossible--it may be to do so.
That is why it is so important to prepare, to build
resilience to the risks we can't avoid, and to reduce our
emissions of heat-trapping gases to avoid the risks that we
can. The NCA sounds the warning, looking ahead down that road
to provide the information that we need to make the good
decisions that will ensure a safe future for ourselves, our
families, our communities, and us all.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Katharine Hayhoe follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for your testimony.
I now yield five minutes to Dr. Hsiang.
STATEMENT OF SOLOMON HSIANG, PH.D.
Dr. Hsiang. Thank you, Chairman Yarmouth, Ranking Member
Womack, and Members of the Committee for inviting me to speak
today.
My name is Solomon Hsiang, and I am the chancellor's
professor of public policy at the University of California
Berkeley, and currently a visiting scholar at Stanford. I was
trained in both economics and climate physics at Columbia, MIT,
and Princeton. My research focuses on the use of econometrics
to measure the effect of the climate on the economy.
The last decade has seen dramatic advances in our
understanding of the economic value of the climate. Crucially,
we are now able to use real-world data to quantify how changes
in the climate cause changes in the economy. This means that,
in addition to being able to project how unmitigated emission
of greenhouse gases will cause the physical climate to change,
we now also can estimate the subsequent effect that these
changes are likely to have on the livelihoods of Americans.
Although, as with any emerging research field, there are
large uncertainties, and much work remains to be done.
Nonetheless, I would like to describe to you seven key insights
from this field regarding future risks if past emission trends
continue unabated.
First, climate change is likely to have substantial
negative impact on the U.S. economy. Expected damages are on
the scale of trillions of dollars, although there remains
uncertainty in these numbers. For an example, in a detailed
analysis of county-level productivity, a colleague at
University of Illinois and I estimated that the direct thermal
effects alone would likely reduce incomes nationwide over the
next 80 years, a loss valued at roughly $5 to $10 trillion in
net present value. In another analysis a colleague from the
University of Chicago and I computed that losses from
intensified hurricanes were valued at around $900 billion.
Importantly, these numbers are not a complete accounting of
impacts, and other notable studies report larger losses.
Second, extreme weather events are short-lived, but their
economic impact is long-lasting. Hurricanes, floods, droughts,
and fires destroy assets that took communities years to build.
Rebuilding then diverts resources away from new, productive
investments that would have otherwise supported future growth.
For example, a colleague at Rhodium Group and I estimated that
Hurricane Maria set Puerto Rico back over two decades of
progress, and research done at MIT indicates that communities
in the Great Plains have still not fully recovered from the
Dustbowl of the 1930s. As climate change makes extreme events
more intense and frequent, we will spend more attention and
more money replacing depreciated assets and repairing
communities.
Third, the nature and magnitude of projected costs differs
between locations and industries. For example, extreme heat
will impose large health, energy, and labor costs on the south;
sea level rise and hurricanes will damage the Gulf Coast; and
declining crop yields will transform the Plains and Midwest.
Fourth, because low-income regions and individuals tend to
be hurt more, climate change will widen existing economic
inequality. For example, in a national analysis of many
sectors, the poorest counties suffered median losses that were
nine times larger than the richest.
Fifth, many impacts of climate change will not be felt in
the marketplace, but rather in homes where health, happiness,
and freedom through violence will be affected. There are many
examples of this. Mortality due to extreme heat is projected to
rise dramatically. Increasingly, humid summers are projected to
degrade happiness and sleep quality. Research from Harvard
indicates that warming will likely elevate violent crime
nationwide, producing over 180,000 sexual assaults and over
22,000 murders across eight decades. Colleagues at Stanford and
I estimate that warming will generate roughly 14,000 additional
suicides in the next 30 years. Increasing exposure of pregnant
mothers to extreme heat and cyclones will harm fetuses for
their lifetime. These impacts do not easily convert to dollars
and cents, but they merit attention.
Sixth, populations across the country will try to adapt to
climate at substantial cost. Some adaptations will transform
jobs and lifestyles. Some will require constructing new
defensive infrastructure, and some will involve abandoning
communities and industries where opportunities have
deteriorated. In all cases, these adaptations will come at real
cost, since resources expended on coping cannot be invested
elsewhere.
Lastly, outside of the U.S., the global consequences of
climate change are projected to be large and destabilizing.
Unmitigated warming will likely slow global growth roughly a
third of a percentage point, and reduce political stability
throughout the tropics and subtropics.
Together, these findings indicate that our climate is one
of the nation's most important economic assets. We should
manage it with the seriousness and clarity of thought that we
would apply to managing any other asset that also generates
trillions of dollars in value for the American people.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Solomon Hsiang follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for your testimony.
I now recognize Mr. Gomez for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF J. ALFREDO GOMEZ
Mr. Gomez. Chairman Yarmouth, Mr. Johnson, and Members of
the Committee, good morning, and I am pleased to be here today
to discuss our work on how to limit the federal government's
fiscal exposure by better managing climate change risks.
This is an area that has been on our high-risk list since
February 2013. The cost to recent weather disasters have shown
us the need for planning for climate change risks and for
investing in resilience. My statement today discusses several
areas where the federal government faces fiscal exposure from
climate change risks, the potential impacts on the federal
budget, and how the federal government could reduce this
exposure.
So early this year we reported that the federal government
faces fiscal exposure from climate change risks in several
areas, including disaster aid; federal insurance programs; and
federal property and land. The rising number of natural
disasters and related federal assistance are a key source of
federal fiscal exposure, and this exposure will likely continue
to rise.
Since 2005, federal funding for disaster assistance is at
at least $450 billion. According to the U.S. Global Change
Research Program, disaster costs are projected to increase as
certain extreme weather events become more frequent and intense
due to climate change.
In addition, the National Flood Insurance Program and the
Federal Crop Insurance Program are sources of federal fiscal
exposure, due in part to the vulnerability of the insured
property and crops to climate change.
From 2013 to 2017, losses under these programs totaled
$51.3 billion. The federal flood and crop insurance programs
were not designed to generate sufficient funds to fully cover
all losses and expenses, and need budget authority from
Congress to operate.
With regard to federal property, the federal government
owns and operates hundreds of thousands of facilities, and
manages millions of acres of land that could be affected by a
changing climate, and represent a significant federal fiscal
exposure. For example, the Department of Defense owns and
operates domestic and overseas infrastructure, with an
estimated replacement value of about one trillion.
In September 2018 Hurricane Florence damaged Camp LeJeune
and other Marine Corps facilities in North Carolina, resulting
in a preliminary repair estimate of $3.6 billion. One month
later, Hurricane Michael devastated Tyndall Air Force Base in
Florida, resulting in preliminary repair estimates of $3
billion.
So, while the federal government faces fiscal exposure from
climate change, it does not have certain information that is
needed to understand the budgetary impacts of such exposure.
For example, the federal budget does not account for disaster
assistance provided by Congress or the long-term impacts of
climate change on existing federal infrastructure and programs.
Also, the Office of Management and Budget climate change
funding reports do not include information on federal programs
with significant fiscal exposure to climate change. A more
complete understanding could help policymakers anticipate
changes in future spending, and enhance control and oversight
over federal resources.
One way to reduce federal fiscal exposure is to reduce or
eliminate long-term risks to people and property from natural
hazards. For example, in September 2018 we reported that
elevating homes and strengthening building codes prevented
greater damages in Texas and Florida during the 2017 hurricane
season. The federal government has made some limited
investments in resilience. Also, Congress passed the Disaster
Recovery Reform Act of 2018, which could enable additional
improvements at the state and local level.
However, the federal government lacks a strategic approach
for identifying, prioritizing, and implementing investments for
disaster resilience.
In summary, the federal government could reduce its fiscal
exposure to climate change by focusing and coordinating federal
efforts. So we have made a total of 62 recommendations. As of
December of last year 25 of these recommendations remain open.
Some of these identified key government-wide efforts that are
needed to help plan for and manage climate risks, and direct
federal efforts toward common goals, such as improving
resilience.
For example, to make buildings and infrastructure more
resilient, we recommended that the Department of Commerce
convene federal agencies to provide standard-setting
organizations with the best available forward-looking climate
information to inform design standards and building codes.
Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking Members, and Members of the
Committee, thank you, that completes my statement.
[The prepared statement of J. Alfredo Gomez follows:]
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Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Gomez.
I now recognize Mr. Cass for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF OREN CASS
Mr. Cass. Thank you, Chairman Yarmouth, Member Johnson, and
all Members of the Committee, for inviting me to testify today.
My written testimony discusses climate economics, estimates
of climate costs, and appropriate policy responses. I would
like to use my brief time here to provide a concrete
illustration of one point in particular: the way in which cost
estimates go astray when they fail to account for adaptation,
meaning they model an implausible future in which human society
takes no action to protect itself against the potential harms
of a warming climate.
I will describe one climate cost in particular, which is
called extreme temperature mortality--or, in other words,
people dying from very high or low temperatures. Both of the
government's major synthesis reports, Dr. Hayhoe's National
Climate Assessment and Mr. Gomez's GAO report, suggest that
heat deaths will be one of the largest costs and, in some
cases, the largest cost of climate change. Both rely on
estimates from the same two studies: one from EPA's CIRA
project, and one published by Dr. Hsiang and his colleagues. So
let's take a look at those estimates.
First, EPA's CIRA. The model here considers extreme heat,
city by city. It takes each city's range of temperatures and
defines the top 1 percent of low temperatures as extremely hot.
Cities tend to experience elevated mortality on such days. So,
for Pittsburgh in 2000, as you see illustrated here, a day with
a low temperature above 71 degrees would count.
Next, the study applies a projection of warming
temperatures under climate change, but it does not update the
threshold for a very hot day. Even as the climate warms, the
study assumes that Pittsburgh will still react to every day
with a low above 71 as extremely hot. The result is many more
such days, as you see in the red compared to the blue, and an
enormous increase in deaths.
The result does not make sense. The three bars on the left
here show the extreme temperature mortality from the study in
2000 for some of the nation's hottest cities: Phoenix, Houston,
and New Orleans. The three bars on the right show the projected
mortality rate in 2100 from the study for some northern cities:
New York, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. Those cities will not be as
hot in 2100, as our southern cities are today, yet EPA claims
people could be dying at a rate 50 to 75 times higher. The
technical term for this is ``a bad model.'' Yet EPA, GAO, and
the National Climate Assessment all reported uncritically.
The second estimate comes from work by Dr. Hsiang and his
colleagues published most recently in the journal, ``Science.''
The approach here is different, assuming that all places react
the same way to extremely hot days. Because climate change will
create the most and hottest days in the South, therefore, you
see on the left side of the chart the dark red areas of much
higher mortality in the South. The right side shows the study's
total estimate of climate cost, also used by the National
Climate Assessment. As temperatures get warmer, cost rises, and
the blue section--virtually the entire cost--comes from this
heat-related mortality.
Now, I would like to show how these estimates might change
if we take adaptation into account.
First, consider a related study by Barreca et al., that
looked at adaptation that has already occurred. For the United
States they found that, ``The impact of days with a mean
temperature exceeding 80 degrees Fahrenheit has declined by
about 75 percent over the course of the 20th century,'' and
that, at 2004 rates of air conditioning, it may even be the
case that such days would have ``no impact on mortality.'' ``It
is apparent,'' they write, that ``air conditioning has
positioned the United States to be well-adapted to the high-
temperature-related mortality impacts of climate change.''
Notably, the science estimate on the left side uses the data
from the study on the right, it just doesn't use the finding
that a focus on the most recent data reduces mortality
substantially.
One more example of how adaptation assumes--assumptions
affect climate. On the right side is a result from a Climate
Impact Lab working paper published last year. Here the authors
do focus on adaptation and, importantly, the costs of
adaptation, as well as the benefits. We shouldn't forget that
adaptation has costs, as well.
But compare the measure of climate change's effect on the
southeast, on the left, with no adaptation, to the effect on
the right, with adaptation. Now the southeast is blue. It
appears to actually benefit from climate change. The authors
write, ``Failing to account for income and climate adaptation,
as has been the norm in the literature''--and here they
specifically the--cite the study on the left--``would overstate
the mortality costs of climate change by a factor of about
3.5.''
Speaking specifically about the southeast U.S., they say it
is, ``currently so heavily adapted to hot climates'' that
``additional warming leads to limited additional mortality or
adaptation costs.'' These locations then end up benefitting
from reductions in a relatively small number of cold days.
Let me conclude by emphasizing that none of this means that
climate change is not a serious problem or does not require a
policy response. It is, and it does. But in thinking about it,
and responding to it, we should recognize that our society has
shown a remarkable capacity to adapt to and thrive in a wide
variety of climates, some quite hostile, for significant
periods of the year.
[Charts].
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Further, our population continues shifting toward the
South, actively seeking out warmer climates. Cost estimates
that do not account for adaptation are not good estimates, and
reports that rely on such estimates can be misleading to
policymakers and the public. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement and report of Oren Cass follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you very much Mr. Cass. We will now
begin our question-and-answer period. And Mr. Johnson and I are
going to defer our questioning until the end of the hearing.
So I will now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr.
Peters, for five minutes.
Mr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to observe that
something people may not see on TV, that this place is packed.
I see rows of people here, listening to this testimony. And I
judge that maybe three or four of them are over 30 years old.
This is something that is, obviously, of great importance to
people in this building. This is as packed as the Mueller
hearings might be in the Judiciary Committee. Not as many
members, but the crowd is certainly interested.
And I also want to respond to my colleague, Mr. Johnson,
about the Green New Deal. I don't support the Green New Deal
for two reasons. One is a policy reason. It contains economic
strategies and things like guaranteed jobs that are extraneous
to climate action. And I think--with which I disagree. So, in
fact, I think most of the Members of this Committee on the
Democratic side have not sponsored the Green New Deal,
probably--maybe for that reason, but for the other reason that
is even more fundamental--is that it is divisive.
I feel like we are--that people have explained some pretty
overwhelming impacts of climate change. Even Mr. Cass suggests
they may be overstated, but no one denies that these are issues
before us. My mom always told me to pray for the best, but plan
for the worst. So, with respect to you, I am concerned about
what Dr. Hayhoe said. And we need, I think, to make radical
change. But I think, to do that, to get radical results, we are
going to have to moderate our politics.
The first thing I heard in here was about the Green New
Deal and the cost of it. And I think, you know, it is a fact
that most of us haven't endorsed it for that reason. I also
heard from my own side of the aisle how Republicans are to
blame for this, and I don't know whether that is true or not,
but I am not--I did litigation, and that is not what I am here
for. I think we are here to solve problems. And I think we have
got a pretty big one in front of us.
So I have suggested--I have taken a different approach I
just want to call to your attention, to each of the four of
you, which is I was thinking what--you know, what--we have been
working on this for a while. I have been in Congress--this is
my fourth term. People have all sorts of good ideas about what
to do about climate. And I decided to put them together.
So I went back and looked for all the--we have done this in
conjunction with academics from Duke, and Stanford, UCSD. We
have looked back at all the--we looked back at all the ideas,
the bills that had been introduced in this Congress and the
last Congress, and we compiled them into what we called the
Climate Playbook. And for you people under 30, it is the pinned
tweet on my official Twitter account.
I would ask you to look at it, but it is ways to reduce--it
is ideas for reducing emissions from various sectors of the
economy, including manufacturing, electricity, transportation,
agriculture, promoting energy efficiency--something we can all
get behind.
And everything except what Mr. Johnson said about the Green
New Deal, by the way, I agreed with. Reducing pollution,
increasing R&D investment, adaptation resiliency, there is all
sorts of ideas out there that we can get behind today if we get
our politics behind us a little bit and start to work together.
And I want to ask Ms. Hayhoe, who is kind of famous for
being not just a climate scientist, but also an evangelical
Christian.
So you are in circles that a lot of Democrats don't travel
in all the time, and I wanted to know if you had any ideas for
me, as a Democrat, on how we might be able to engage people in
really solving this problem, which is bigger than politics.
Dr. Hayhoe. Thank you. So I am an evangelical Christian, my
husband is a pastor. And what I have found is that so often we
think people don't have the right values to care, and we need
to figure out how to change people's values. But through
thousands of conversations that I have had with people in our
faith community in Texas and beyond, I realize that we all
already have those values. We all care about our families, we
care about our communities, we care about people who are
suffering today, poverty, hunger, and more. And those are the
exact values that we need to care about a changing climate.
So it isn't a case of emphasizing what divides us; it is,
as you just said, a case of emphasizing what unites us, because
that is far greater.
Mr. Peters. I think that is well said. I think you see
this--and the Evangelical environmental movement is taking this
up.
And look, I used up all my time talking. But politics is
about us. It is not about the world. We are here to--we are
here doing politics, ostensibly, as a means to an end. And I
think we ought to think about that. And I would ask my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to--let's work together,
check out these ideas that we have assembled, and see if we
can't start making real action.
I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the gentleman from
California just stated, there is only standing room here,
witnessing this.
I also have to point out that it is pretty unfortunate
that, on this side of the Committee--that is where the
Democrats sit--and you can see on this side is the Republicans.
We are the ones that is here. There is five Democrat members,
and they are the majority. So they may not be as nearly as
interested about the issue that you all are right now. So I
just think it is important to notice that.
Fifty-seven days. Fifty-seven days. This Committee has went
57 days without passing a budget. Yet this week we are doing
five appropriations bills on the floor. The Democrat majority
has rendered the Budget Committee useless, because we have not
done our job, and we are having a hearing on climate change
today, when we still need to pass a budget. There is not even a
budget proposal out there for this Committee to vote on, other
than a Republican budget proposal. Let's do our job. It is 57
days.
A budget is the primary responsibility of governing, it is
the only document that Congress produces that lays everything
out: revenues, spending, deficits, and, of course, our vision
for the future. A statement of values, as Speaker Pelosi has
called it. Yet after 57 days and counting, we have no statement
from the House Democrats.
The reason why is clearly obvious. Free college tuition,
Medicare for all, guaranteed jobs, and, of course, the $93
trillion Green New Deal. The numbers don't work. The Green New
Deal that has been discussed and Medicare for all, just two
priorities of the House Democrats, would together cost $20
trillion more than the net worth of every American household,
$20 trillion more than the compiled net worth of every American
household, over 320 million Americans.
Knowing this wish list only scratches the surface, I have
no confidence Democrats on this Committee can make serious
decisions about our federal budget. And they don't seem to have
any, either. So instead, today we are having a hearing on
climate change.
And what is their proposal to address climate change? The
previous-mentioned Green New Deal, which more than half of the
Democrats on this Committee have sponsored. More than half.
That is why it should be topic of conversation of this
Committee. A plan that would cost every American household
$60,000 a year. Every American household, $60,000 a year, while
not fulfilling its primary objective, which is reducing global
carbon emissions.
While the plan may fail in its primary objective, it would
be very effective in others: mainly, in destroying American
agriculture as we know it today. If you don't believe it, that
it is an objective, look no further than the infamous fact
sheet.
No one cares more about their land than American farmers
and ranchers. Thanks to their innovative solutions, they do
numerous things to protect the soil, the water, the habitat.
Look at the Missouri soil and water conservation. We do it
right in Missouri.
Democrats say they want to improve the environment. But if
they accept that premise, it is hard to understand why they
haven't brought the great trade agreement President Trump has
negotiated to the floor, an agreement that would bring back
jobs, increase purchases of U.S. agriculture goods, and yes,
improve the environment. Thanks to President Trump, our most
recent trade agreement is the most comprehensive--has the most
comprehensive environmental obligations of any previous U.S.
trade agreement in history, which also would provide Canada and
Mexico to up their standards in protecting our environment.
Mr. Chairman, I see my time is yield--my time has expired.
I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the gentleman. And I would note
that, while you criticized Democrats for not being interested
in this topic, you didn't even address climate change in your
five minutes. But we will----
Mr. Smith. I said, ``The Green New Deal.''
Chairman Yarmuth. That is not climate change; that is a
piece of legislation.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Yarmuth. I yield--I now yield five minutes to the
gentlelady from the state of Washington, Ms. Jayapal.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this very important hearing.
And I would just say, with all due respect to my very good
friend across the aisle, if you really want to know which party
cares about climate change, let's look at which party pulled us
out of the Paris accord. Let's look at which party, while they
were in the majority in the last cycle, rolled back all of our
environmental protections around clean air and clean water.
Let's look at which party is putting in charge of major
agencies people who literally are lobbyists for the coal
industry.
And I want to bring this up in the context of--and I--by
the way, I am a proud supporter of the Green New Deal. It is
crazy to talk about it in terms of a cost, because what it is
is a vision. It is a vision for an absolutely critical issue,
one of the top issues in this country and around the world. And
we need to have a big vision that matches the scale of the
crisis.
Last week the House Intelligence Committee held a hearing
on the national security implications of climate change. And
something very odd happened at that hearing: although three
witnesses testified, only two submitted written testimony. That
is because the White House took the unusual step of refusing to
approve the written testimony of a top intelligence analyst at
the State Department, Dr. Rod Schoonover, because it contained
information that did not match the Trump Administration's views
on climate change.
This weekend the New York Times obtained a copy of his
original testimony and a copy of his testimony with track
changes. I have got the whole document here from Dr. William
Happer, a senior adviser in the Trump Administration, who works
with the National Security Council. He is also a climate
science denier. And since we have a panel of climate experts
here with us today, I thought I would take the opportunity for
us to look at Dr. Schoonover's testimony and determine whether
his positions are in line with the science, not whether they
are in line with the opinion of the Trump Administration.
And so let me start with you, Dr. Hayhoe. You are a top
climate scientist and lead author of multiple volumes of the
National Climate Assessment. Is Dr. Schoonover correct in his
written testimony when he says that, ``The earth's climate is
unequivocally undergoing a long-term warming trend''?
Dr. Hayhoe. Yes, chapter one of volume one of NCA concludes
that global climate continues to change rapidly, compared to
the pace of natural variations in climate that have occurred
throughout earth's history.
Ms. Jayapal. That was a comment that was taken out. And how
about when he says 18 of the last 20 years--this is a quote--
have been the warmest on record, and the last five years have
been the warmest five according to NASA's Goddard Institute of
Space Studies?
Dr. Hayhoe. Yes. That information is available, and anyone
can see it for themselves, in chapter two of volume two, which
I served as lead author.
Ms. Jayapal. So once again, that was something that, in the
written comments, it was completely taken out and denied as not
being science.
And how about this one? Ocean waters are also acidifying
from the absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Is that a
true statement?
Dr. Hayhoe. Yes. That is summarized in chapter 13 of volume
one, which was called ``Ocean Acidification.''
Ms. Jayapal. So again, very important facts that were taken
out by Mr. Happer.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter a clean copy of Mr.
Schoonover's--Dr. Schoonover's testimony into the record today,
since it wasn't entered into the House Intelligence record.
And I would also like to enter a copy of the version with
Dr. Happer's track changes, in which all three of these facts
were deleted.
Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you. In late March I sent a letter to
the National Security Council raising concerns about their
decision to assemble an ad hoc Committee headed up by Dr.
Happer to provide an ``adversarial review'' of the federal
government's climate science findings. And in that letter I
said, ``While any president has the right to ignore or act in
contradiction to the advice of top government scientists, it is
clear that the goal of this ad hoc Committee is to undermine
legitimate science itself, which will make it more difficult
for national security officials to prevent and respond to the
changing climate.''
This Administration's interference in this testimony by Dr.
Schoonover is exactly what I feared would happen when I wrote
my original letter. And I never got a response to that letter.
So today I sent a second letter asking for a response to my
original letter, which had a series of questions. And I would
like to, Mr. Chairman, enter my new letter and my original
letter into the record now.
Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you. The Trump Administration's attempt
to bury critically-important scientific analysis by our top
intelligence agents is horrifying and dangerous. It is not the
job of the president to actively undermine the work product of
dedicated civil servants in our intelligence community, like
Schoonover or Dr. Hayhoe, who has done such incredible work on
climate science. It really puts our country and the entire
globe at risk. And I very much hope that my colleagues across
the aisle, if they really care about this issue, will not just
show up to this hearing to talk about everything but climate,
but will actually work on affecting and reducing, mitigating
climate change.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlelady's time has expired. I now
recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Hern, for five
minutes.
Mr. Hern. Mr. Chairman, I am glad we are having this
hearing today. This is a good opportunity for us to explore how
these ideas fundamentally and practically won't work, in
addition to their stunning cost.
I take exception to we shouldn't be worrying about the
cost. Climate change must be addressed without sacrificing our
country's economic and fiscal well-being. Destructive policies
like the Green New Deal, something we don't apparently want to
talk about today; extreme theories such as the modern monetary
theory, which argues that we can simply print more money to
correct Congress's fiscal wrongdoing.
In my home state of Oklahoma, one in five jobs is directly
or indirectly supported by the oil and natural gas industry.
For example, in my district the Williams Company employs 1,250
Oklahomans; Magellan Midstream Partners employs over 900.
Oklahoma's priority on energy dominance has paved the way for
local entrepreneurs such as Valerie Mitchell of Corterra Energy
and Don Burdick of Olifant Energy to take on a massive personal
risk that results in job creation, giving back to the
community, and stimulating Oklahoma's economy.
In fact, in 2018 the oil and natural gas industry was also
the largest source of tax revenue in my state, directly paying
over $2 billion in taxes, including the annual $555 million-
plus that go directly to education, and almost $90 million that
go directly to our state's infrastructure. My home state of
Oklahoma's energy industry employs hundreds of thousands of
people, and generates more than $50 billion, annually. Oil and
gas companies bring high-paying jobs to Oklahoma, and have been
the single largest contributor to state revenue in recent
years.
Under the toxic Green New Deal we would lose those jobs and
the important impact those companies have on my state. While my
friends on the other side of the aisle are so focused on
advancing some of the most extreme proposals in Washington,
they are unfortunately ignoring the demands for jobs in some of
their own states.
For example, in Minnesota my colleague, Representative Pete
Stauber, has worked tirelessly, and been outspoken in the
support of replacing an old pipeline known as Line three to
make it safer. It is currently corroded and only about at half
of the capacity, potentially creating roughly 8,600 jobs over a
two-year period, which building trades are saying they are
strongly supporting. There is an old and unsafe pipeline, which
can be improved, modernized, and made more efficient. Yet some
of our colleagues prefer forcing a large-scale transformation
of society, which the Green New Deal suggests, over the needs
of our local communities.
Also in Minnesota mining projects would produce the
precious metals used to make wind turbines. Yet some of my
Democratic colleagues oppose those initiatives, as well. The
U.S. then relies on China and other foreign countries with
little or no labor protections. This is very sad. It is a
shame.
Furthermore, several other states are blocking this type of
critical energy infrastructure, including New York and
Washington State. New York has blocked multiple natural gas
pipelines, despite its growing northeast demand for gas, a move
that not only impacts Williams jobs in my district, but also
forces New York state to rely on foreign oil, which is more
expensive than domestically-produced sources of energy, and
with lesser environmental standards. Blocking those projects
denies consumers even beyond their state's borders access to
more affordable energy.
It seems as though some Democrats are listening to radical
environmental activists, instead of working, seeking new jobs
in their districts, and consumers looking for lower energy
bills.
That said, my questions today are directed to you, Mr.
Cass. Talks of Democrat proposals such as the Green New Deal
have an astronomical price tag. And yes, it matters, $93
trillion. To pay for it, taxes would be severely raised on
every income level. But even these drastic measures would only
pay for a fraction of the Green New Deal. Not only is this
legislation detrimental to our state's economy and key
industries, but it also would destroy the country's economy.
As I just expressed, many of our constituents' jobs rely on
the oil and gas industry. If we implement the Green New Deal,
would our constituents experience job losses?
Mr. Cass. That would be my understanding of the Green New
Deal.
Mr. Hern. And what would cause that?
Mr. Cass. Well, the premise of the Green New Deal would be
to shift our energy consumption away from conventional fossil
fuel sources and toward alternative sources, reducing demand
for the conventional sources.
Mr. Hern. Such as, like, airplane pilots and those kind of
things. We wouldn't be flying any more, according to the fact
sheet, the infamous fact sheet.
Mr. Cass. I am not sure what to make of the fact sheet.
Mr. Hern. Okay, I just wanted to make sure. Thank you for
your answer. You know, on March 26, 2019--I know there has been
a conversation here that many of the Democrats don't support
it. But the Senate voted down the Green New Deal by a vote of 0
to 57. And many of those actually endorsed it and cosponsored
it. So, in fact, 43 Senators refused to even cast a vote at
all. So their silence speaks volumes.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back. I now yield
five minutes to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Morelle.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing on an important topic. And I would, for one, would like
to associate myself with the comments made by Mr. Peters about
this topic, generally.
And I will say, before I get to the questions, I am
frustrated. For all the talk today about the Green New Deal,
which is not before us, and modern monetary theory, the truth
is that the science on climate change is pretty much
universally accepted now in the scientific community among most
people in the country. And the idea that, when we are talking
about the economic or the fiscal impacts of it, we break down
not on this side--not on that side of the table, but on this
side of the table, having this silly argument--to me, it is
just incomprehensible.
We have a problem. It is a significant, it is a persistent,
it is a growing problem. And it will continue to affect people
in this country and around the world. We ought to work
together, I think, as Mr. Peters eloquently said, to try to
find real solutions to it.
And I do appreciate very much, Mr. Chairman, you having
this hearing.
I will say, just for me, I represent Rochester, New York,
which is on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. In 2017 we had
catastrophic flooding. We are experiencing record levels again
today. I was with Governor Cuomo and most of his cabinet who
had come to Rochester yesterday to what--excuse me--to announce
$300 million being spent by the state of New York. That is on
top of $100 million that we spent two years ago to help
homeowners and businesses and municipalities deal with
flooding.
There may be a whole host of reasons, but it certainly
seems to me weather patterns, record rainfall, snow runoff, and
associated weather patterns have had a profound impact just on
the state of New York, and will continue to have here.
So I wanted, if I might, Dr. Hayhoe, what do we know about
how climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of
storms, heavy rainfall events? There seems to be a fair amount
of opinion, again, on this side of the table about what the
severity is. But can you talk about that, both inland as well--
and affecting the river system, as well as coastal, and how
attribution science advanced in the past few years?
Dr. Hayhoe. I am originally from the other side of the lake
from you, and southern Ontario also experienced devastating and
unprecedented flooding this year. We know that storms and
floods have always happened naturally. But in a warmer world,
air holds more water vapor. So when a storm comes along, as it
always does, today there is more water vapor for that storm to
sweep up and dump on us than there was 50 or 100 years ago.
And one of the places that we have seen the biggest
observed increase since the 1950s, and the frequency of heavy
precipitation, has been in the U.S. Northeast and the Midwest,
which puts Upstate New York in exactly the middle.
Mr. Morelle. And the--I assume you gather data on this. So
is there reliable information we can get on--as it relates to
attribution of weather patterns and increasing temperature?
Dr. Hayhoe. Heavy precipitation has been formally
attributed--or, I should say, the observed increase in heavy
precipitation has been formally attributed to human-induced
climate change for quite some time. The signature is very
distinct.
Mr. Morelle. The--it is interesting. This wasn't my
original question, but as I am thinking about it--I only have a
minute-and-a-half left, and I am sorry for that, but the--I was
recently at the Institute on Sustainability at Rochester
Institute of Technology, the world famous--they travel around
the world, talking about how to reduce the carbon footprint in
manufacturing, lean manufacturing, and helping businesses try
to get to zero emissions. And they were talking about how, you
know, even in a world in which we will clearly combust
renewables--there is a whole science around biomass and other
ways to generate heat--they talk about the--sort of the
capture--why carbon captured and petroleum and other products
are so much of a challenge, because you are releasing centuries
and centuries of carbon into the atmosphere.
Could you just comment on that, so--it helps people, I
think, who think about--we are still going to be burning
biomass or other--or anyone else on the panel can certainly
address it. But the science around that would be helpful.
Dr. Hayhoe. Yes. So when we burn biomass--trees, crops,
agricultural waste--we are burning things that contain carbon
that took that carbon out of the atmosphere just years or
decades ago. So it, essentially, is carbon neutral. When we
burn coal and gas and oil, we are digging up and burning
sources of carbon that have not seen the atmosphere for
millions of years.
And, as the National Climate Assessment concludes, as far
back as we can go, at least 50 million years in the past, there
has never been a time when this much carbon was being released
into the atmosphere this fast.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for the answer. I yield back my time.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
yield five minutes to the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Stewart.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And as always, to the
witnesses, thank you for being here and for your efforts to
prepare yourself for this hearing.
I do have questions, and--but I feel compelled to make kind
of some observations about some things I have heard here, and
in other hearings such as this.
I want you to know that I accept that climate change is
real. I think we have redefined a little bit what that means.
It has changed a little bit. But the climate is certainly
always changing. It is something that we need to accept, and we
need to try to understand.
I also accept that human behavior is contributing to it in
some way. I can tell you that I have spoken with--including the
former director of the EPA and other very, I would hope,
knowledgeable individuals on this, and asked them how much of
this can we attribute to man and to human behavior, and the
answer she gave was, ``We don't know.'' And I think that is an
honest answer.
Some of you are shaking your head, but that is an honest
answer. We don't know. Some people think they know, but there
is much disagreement on how much of this is directly
attributable to man.
So the question, I think, is what do we do, and how can we
best mitigate this? How can we mitigate the impacts of it?
Look, I don't want to beat up on the Green New Deal. Talk
about beating a dead horse; that horse has, I think, been dead
and buried. It is the greatest gift given to the Republican
Party in a long time in many ways. I believe it is unserious, I
believe it is based on fear-mongering, I think it is steeped in
the heavy-handed government power that would cost--destroy the
American Dream for us and for our children.
But I think now what it comes down to is what do we do? And
I just think there is a better way. There has to be a better
way. And that is where I would like to bring, then, to my
question. And I think, Mr. Cass, I perhaps would ask you.
Among all these projections of the drought, and flooding,
and family violence, and related deaths, et cetera, if the
earth keeps warming, there are some market solutions to some of
these. And I would be interested if any of you have thoughts.
Again, Mr. Cass, I would look to you to maybe begin. But
look at--help us understand some of the success of free
enterprise, democratic and market-driven solutions that would
maybe help mitigate some of these concerns.
Mr. Cass. Sure. I think when we are talking about how to
address the problem of climate change, it is important to
realize we are having two conversations. One is about what is
mitigation, meaning what can we do to reduce the amount of
carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases we are releasing, and then
one is about adaptation, meaning how can we cope effectively
with any change that does occur?
On both sides I think free enterprise and innovation can be
and have to be central to the solution. So, from the mitigation
perspective, if we want, in particular, to reduce emissions
globally--at the end of the day it is global emissions that
matter--we are going to have to have technologies for the
developing world that are more attractive than fossil fuels.
And we don't have those today. And so, continued innovation
and, actually, the development of new and better technologies
has to be part of the program.
On the adaptation side, you know, one of the wonderful
things about adaptation is that it tends to happen fairly
naturally, if people have the right information, and if they
have the right incentives. So, as an example, if someone is a
coastal property owner, if they understand the best-available
scientific forecast for sea-level rise, and they understand
that they are going to be on the hook if their property faces
damage, they will respond rationally by building resilience, by
community-wide investing in protection, and potentially, in
some cases, by moving away over time.
If they don't have good information, or if they don't have
good incentives. If we tell them the federal government is
going to pay for whatever happens to them, then they won't
react. And so I think, on the adaptation side, it is the
information and the incentives that policymakers really have to
get right.
Mr. Stewart. Well, and I think exactly right. I mean--and
this is a fairly--some people think this is complicated, but it
is really not, and that is the rational behavior of people
through incentives. And you can either compel them through a
very, very heavy-handed government, or you can incentivize them
and expect, as we have for several thousand years, that people
will respond rationally and what is in their best interests.
And I will conclude in the last half-a-minute that I have,
and that is to emphasize one other thing you said, and that is
this has to be a global solution. Without partners on this, we
can't fix this ourselves. And the truth is that our partners
are dishonest and disingenuous in their commitment to this,
many of them.
I don't think China has any intention at all of impeding
the growth of their economy for the next 20 years in order to
address climate change. I don't think Indian does, either. They
have hundreds of millions of people in poverty they have to
lift up to the middle class; that is their goal. And they won't
allow U.S. policy on climate change to impede them in that
goal. And if we don't recognize that we can't do this
ourselves, and find something that works globally, then we are
beating our head against a wall.
Mr. Chairman, thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thanks. The gentleman's time has expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Doggett, for five
minutes.
Mr. Doggett. Thank you very much. The inconvenient truth is
that we have a global climate crisis. And whether you call it
the Green New Deal or a climate action plan, what we need is
bold action, and we need it now. And ignorance and delay and
avoidance and denial is not such a policy.
Last month we had carbon dioxide reaching the highest level
in the history of human existence. And last week we had the
Trump Administration still trying to prevent a State Department
official from testifying about the catastrophic potential of
human-caused climate change. The Trump Administration always
prefers political fantasy to science and scientific fact. They
have questioned and harassed so many scientists across this
country, one agency after another, that you have to begin to
wonder if they believe in gravity.
Of course, willful ignorance of climate change is not a
laughing matter. Across America we are seeing with our own eyes
the impact of inaction: severe and erratic weather, 100-year
floods that become 100-month floods; 60 inches of rain in the
energy capital of America in a very short period of time:
Houston, Texas; West Nile virus and Lyme disease, that were
once uncommon, afflicting more and more of our neighbors. These
changes, of course, will be disproportionately impacting the
most vulnerable, our children and our seniors.
Since everything is bigger, in fact, in my home state of
Texas, the impact of climate change is more far-reaching there.
Of course, Texas is the state that produces the most carbon
pollution and the most climate deniers, increasingly leading
now with the most climate disasters. The National Climate
Assessment predicts rapid swings from extreme drought to flood
and sea-level rise along the Texas coast, twice the global
average. In Texas we have always had two summer temperatures,
hot and hotter. But now it is just hotter, as we are on track
for 30 to 60 days of over-100-degree temperatures every year.
Just a little bit of prevention would go such a long way
towards cost savings.
And there is reference to the marketplace. Well, yes, in
the marketplace one company after another--what insurance
company would not consider the impact of human-caused climate
change? What business along our coast wouldn't consider that?
There are market answers. But in 2017 the 16 extreme weather
disasters in the United States had a market impact. They cost
over $313 billion.
We see companies around the globe that are changing what
they are doing. They are expending billions of dollars because
they know they could face trillions of dollars in loss. The
cost of continuing to do nothing is impacting much more than
polar bears and exotic locations in travel magazines.
Energy-efficient alternatives shouldn't be the alternative;
they should be the standard.
Trump always says that he hates losers. But he has picked
the losing coal industry. And coal, the war on coal, has been
very real. And coal has lost. It has lost in the marketplace to
cleaner Texas natural gas and renewable energy.
Of course, the Trump Administration would say that our
years and years of record-breaking heat isn't a dangerous sign
of climate change. I guess they would call it alternative
climate.
I believe that we must treat climate change as a national
security concern, as have so many senior defense officials.
The Green New Deal, while aspirational and imperfect,
offers a road map far stronger than the do-nothing Republican
alternative of rejecting science in favor of obstruction. Just
as a little bit of prevention goes a long way toward cost
savings, a little temperature increase goes a long way toward
disrupting our weather patterns. We have got to do more than
just pray for rain in modest amounts.
Dr. Hayhoe, I appreciate the testimony of all the
witnesses. But as a fellow Texan, I would ask you, since you
have testified in front of both the Austin and San Antonio City
Councils, do you believe that these local climate action plans
are important to adopt in the face of inaction in Washington?
And what do you see as the impact in Texas of climate--the
climate crisis?
Dr. Hayhoe. Well, first of all, in our state of Texas, we
are seeing that our natural patterns of feast, and famine,
flood, and drought, are being amplified across much of the
region. This is affecting our agriculture, our water, our urban
infrastructure, and more. City-level plans absolutely make
difference, both in preparing and building resilience to the
impacts of a changing climate, as well as to weaning ourselves
off the fossil fuels that are the primary cause of this issue.
DFW Airport is the first carbon-neutral airport in North
America.
Mr. Doggett. Thank you.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Roy, for five minutes.
Mr. Roy. I thank the Chairman. I thank the witnesses for
taking time out of your schedules to come here and join us
today.
Ms. Hayhoe, I would say to you my dad is a Texas Tech
graduate, grew up in West Texas. And I will tell you, I took
him to Minneapolis for the basketball game, which seems like a
magnanimous and awesome thing to do for your father, until you
realize that I went to the University of Virginia. So--but I
was sitting with Jody Arrington, who is the congressman from
Texas--from Lubbock, and Texas Tech made a great run.
But I appreciate you being here. I do want to pick up on a
few things that have been said here today, and offer a few
thoughts.
But first of all, that I think it is really important, as
we think about this issue, to factor in human flourishing and
the world--the benefit that is provided for humankind by the
clean, abundant energy. You know, in the 1870s the average
American family, 80 percent of their income was on food,
shelter, and clothing. Today is it about a third. We have seen
a--in the 1955, for example, only 2 percent of the American
people had access to air conditioning. By 1980 it was 50
percent. Over the last 100 years, deaths from climate-related
events have fallen from somewhere in the zip code of half-a-
million to 20,000, while the population has nearly tripled.
We have created an environment because of adaptation that
was previously discussed by a witness that is critically
important to recognize in the context of what we are talking
about.
You know, today, however, if you look around the world, you
still have a billion people--a billion--without access to
electricity. You have 2.7 billion, 38 percent, who are using
biomass and dung, basically, for fuel, for cooking. You have
got half of the world population lacking enough electricity for
the essentials that we just take for granted in the United
States today. You have hospitals in countries that are not
first-world countries, where you have got doctors having to
squeeze bags to keep babies alive on incubators. Here, we don't
have that problem.
So what I would ask for the people, as we are going through
these issues, to put a little perspective on the benefits that
we have in this world and our lives, from access to abundant
energy. And then we got to figure out, well, how are we going
to get that energy?
And if you look at what has been happening in the world,
where people have sort of bowed down at the altar of this sort
of climate change hysteria, instead of dealing with it head on,
and thinking about making sure there is clean, abundant energy,
you have Germany, where retail electricity is up 50 percent
from 2007 to 2017 because of taxes and subsidies; $24 billion
increase--I am sorry, $24 billion euro in 2017 is the cost of
direct--of the direct taxes and subsidies for renewable energy.
The IHS estimated net export losses to Germany due to high
electricity prices of $52 billion euros from 2008 to 2013.
Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide in Germany has fallen only 9
percent from 2003 to 2016.
Now, you talk about partisanship here. Who produces the
most natural gas in the world? I am proud to say, as a Texan,
it is Texas. Who produces the most wind energy in the United
States? I am proud to say, in Texas, it is Texas. We got a
quarter of the nation's wind energy. We just cracked 19,000
megawatts in December of wind production.
But it is still a fraction of our overall peak demand. And
it does have consequences in that conversion. And if you think
about that, let's strike a balance. Who was doing that? My
former boss, Governor Rick Perry. Oh, the dastardly
Republicans, who bury their head in the sand on energy. We were
creating a all-of-the-above approach in Texas. But there are no
just magic energy trees.
I am always amazed--I was at an event one time and there
was somebody in the crowd, and they said, ``Well, where are we
going to get power if we don't use fossil fuels?''
And this person said, ``Electricity.'' Like just magic
generation of electricity.
We have to have power to have what we enjoy in this world.
And, you know, I think if you think about what the--on the
terms of these impacts, I would say that we got to think about
it here in the Budget Committee, about what the actual impact
will be on civilization, if we go down the road of the Green
New Deal. We have enormous benefits in terms of life
expectancy, in terms of the benefit that we have to our
families, our children, jobs, access to hospitals, access to
clean air and water. If you overlay the freest countries in the
world with a map of those that have the cleanest environments,
it is almost a direct correlation.
We will lead this fight if we think about what we are
trying to produce in terms of access to clean energy, and
making sure that we have got abundant energy to make our lives
better.
And with that I will yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
yield five minutes to the gentlelady from Illinois, Ms.
Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. Mr. Cass, I just wanted to ask you a yes-
or-no question. Let me see. Where did it go?
I have information here that says the Manhattan Institute
has received funding from the Koch Brothers. The Claude R.
Lambe Foundation, one of the Koch family foundations, reported
giving all--over $2 million to the Manhattan Institute. Is that
correct?
Mr. Cass. I don't know, I am sorry.
Ms. Schakowsky. Okay. I think it is. I am really frustrated
in this hearing today.
And what I am hearing is that those people who feel a sense
of urgency about what is happening to our planet--actually, the
planet will probably do better without us. But to the
preservation of our species right now, that there is an urgency
about this, that, in fact, in the last year--and one of you, I
think, can confirm this--that we actually saw an increase in
carbon emissions. And I wonder if you could--one of you could
talk about that, 3.4% or something like that last year, in
2018. Doctor----
Dr. Hayhoe. That is correct. U.S. emissions did increase
last year. And globally, carbon emissions continue to increase.
Ms. Schakowsky. You know, 20 years ago--a reporter found
that over 20 years ago--when I was in the state legislature, I
made a speech on the floor of the House about how we have to
get serious about this. And then he followed up with me not too
long ago. And I said, you know, ``Twenty years and we are going
in the wrong direction.''
It seems to me--am I overstating this? This is existential.
This is about the future of the young people that are in this
room.
I agree in the--noticing what Congressman Peters did, that
young people are here. But that is because what I am hearing in
my district is from young people.
Can you--can anybody talk about this in terms of, really,
the--why we have to have a sense of urgency now?
Dr. Hayhoe. The first time that scientists formally warned
a U.S. President of the risks and the dangers that climate
changed posed to our society was over 50 years ago, and that
president was Lyndon B. Johnson.
It is not, as you stated, our planet that is at risk. It is
not even our species. It is our civilization. It is everything
that makes our lives worth living. And it absolutely is our
economy, as well. We have progressed tremendously over the last
300 years, and I am actually very grateful, personally, for the
benefits fossil fuels have brought us. But just as we
transitioned from horses and buggies to automobiles, in the
same way we must now transition our energy systems into the
future to ensure our continued security.
Ms. Schakowsky. So the President of the United States, when
he was running for office, said that he would break the
Environmental Protection Agency into little tidbits. That is
what he talked about.
There is a hearing going on also in Energy and Commerce on
what is happening to the Environmental Protection Agency, and
the kinds of changes that have happened. What should we be
expecting from regulation right now?
I am worried about the Midwest. That is where I am from. We
have floods, many of our farms are under water. But I am also
worried about climate refugees, because I think we are seeing
that already. And if we want to stop people coming from places
where they can't farm any more to the United States, we better
do something about this. What do we need to do, in terms of
regulation?
Dr. Hsiang. I think, at present, we are very poorly
equipped, from an institutional standpoint, to cope with what
we might expect to see, in terms of the influx of migrants,
migrants coming from other countries as well as the internal
displacement of Americans. I think the Dustbowl is maybe the
closest analog we have to what we might expect to see in the
Midwest, with roughly a 25 percent chance.
And so, thinking about the movements of our own internal
populations trying to cope with climate change, it is a form of
adaptation, and it is incredibly costly to the people who have
to pick up and move their lives.
Ms. Schakowsky. So I was sitting on Lake Michigan. Is
someone going to be coming after this source of water? Are
people going to be moving?
Dr. Hsiang. It seems implausible that the places where
people are currently conducting agriculture and making their
livings are going to be the same places in the future where
people can continue to make livings.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlelady yields back. I now yield
five minutes to the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Woodall.
Mr. Woodall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will pick up where
Ms. Schakowsky left off.
Given that you have about 25 percent of the world's fresh
water close by, I can promise you that we in the deep South
will be coming for your water one day. And I want to--I just
want to prepare folks for that.
I also want to ask Mr. Cass the easy yes or no question. I
actually have two for you. If Ms. Schakowsky is able to wrangle
up some dollars from anywhere on the ideological spectrum to
help you do your research, are you willing to accept those
dollars?
Mr. Cass. I have no role in fundraising at the Institute.
So you would have to ask them.
Mr. Woodall. Then I will ask the opposite question. Does
the quality of your research vary, based on where the funding
for the Institute comes from?
Mr. Cass. No.
Mr. Woodall. I tell you. I have been incredibly pleased,
Mr. Chairman, with this hearing. I did not expect to come and
be inspired, but I really have been.
Dr. Hsiang, it was your testimony about managing the
climate--well, managing the earth as an asset that got me
started in the right place, because I think that is something
we can agree on, up and down the ideological spectrum. We all
understand managing assets. And managing assets doesn't mean
there is a foregone conclusion of where we are going to go, it
just means we are going to try to maximize that ability.
Dr. Hayhoe, for you to say it is not about preservation of
the species, it is about preservation of the civilization,
there is a quality of life here that we are operating on, too.
I think there is just so much that we can agree on.
Mr. Woodall. I put back up Mr. Cass's chart here, because I
do have a complicated time sorting through which facts are the
facts, and which facts are the angle.
[Chart].
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Does anybody disagree with what he has put on the board
here, to say that the research is projecting that Pittsburgh is
going to have 12 deaths per 100,000 because of extreme heat,
but Phoenix today only has 0.17? Is--does anybody disagree with
those conclusions?
Dr. Hsiang. In a careful review of Oren Cass's earlier
work, we were unable to confirm these numbers.
Mr. Woodall. But, I mean, is--that is--these--we are
talking about orders of magnitude here that, yes, if I look at
the numbers on the right, I am incredibly frightened. But when
I look at the numbers on the left, I am incredibly comforted
that there should be some sort of agreed-upon metric.
Now, I don't--you don't have to agree it is 12.8 instead of
12.7, but is double digits right on the one hand, and
fractional digits right on the other? Again, I--if we can agree
on that, foundationally, it just seems that it offers us a
different place to have a conversation.
Dr. Hsiang. I think the three bars on the left do not come
from a peer-reviewed analysis. And, in fact, I have no idea
where they came from. And we were unable to confirm them when
we tried to understand what Oren Cass did in his earlier
calculations.
Mr. Woodall. The--Mr. Cass, sure.
Mr. Cass. Yes. In my paper that I assume he is referring,
it cites specifically to the website at EPA that provides a
downloadable spreadsheet from which those numbers come.
And could I also add that the 2017 version of the EPA study
actually provides a map that shows these numbers in circles.
And you can go straight to the EPA study and find the map that
shows in the year 2000 those are the values, and in the year
2100 those are the values.
Mr. Woodall. Well, I would just share with you this whole
conversation about adaptation, it is the first time I have
heard it from a witness panel. Generally--my chairman
excepted--when we call witnesses, we sometimes get the most
extreme views on both sides, and the opportunity for
conversation is eroded. But yes, I am not talking about
stopping everything I am doing today. We are going to continue
to progress.
Let me ask about nuclear energy for a moment, because
carbon is the--is our baseline. We are getting ready to move an
energy and water appropriations bill to the floor of the House.
It has--contains zero money for licensing Yucca Mountain. As
you know, that is a political issue. We have spent billions out
there. This isn't to open it, this is just to license it, to
finish the studies. If we opened it today it would be full,
because we have so much nuclear material across the country
that needs to be stored.
Is it the position of folks at the desk--do we have a
position, in terms of addressing climate change, on supporting
nuclear energy and, thus, providing safe storage?
Dr. Hayhoe, do we have a position?
Dr. Hayhoe. There is not a formal position among climate
scientists. But I can tell you for sure that it doesn't produce
carbon pollution.
Mr. Woodall. we used to be the largest coal-burning state
in the nation. We are on our way to being the--having more
solar generation and more nuclear generation than any other
place. But I need that all-of-the-above strategy to work with.
I appreciate what you said about renewables, in terms of
forestry, too. In Georgia, trees are crops, just like corn and
cotton are. You don't clear-cut your land and leave it there.
You manage it, you cut it once, you cut it again, you replant,
you do all of those things to be a good steward of the land
that you love. But the EPA has grappled with that. The European
Union is grappling with where to continue that.
Is it an agreed-upon, settled conversation here in the
States, that biomass is, in fact, carbon neutral?
Dr. Hayhoe. It depends on how it is grown. If more energy
is put into growing it than burning it, no.
Dr. Hsiang. Absolutely.
Dr. Hayhoe. Yes.
Mr. Woodall. Mr. Chairman, you have been generous. I thank
you very much. And I thank you all for the conversation today.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
yield five minutes to the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson
Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and to
the Ranking Member, as well, and to my colleagues. It is
important that every single Committee that has jurisdiction on
this question, I believe, should be engaged in the question of
climate change, because it is a impactful condition that is
going to skew the economic health of the nation. And it
certainly, for me, poses a serious question why everyone is not
looking, reviewing, researching, and that those who are climate
deniers as to the impact, I would argue vigorously or suggest
further in-depth consideration of the numbers I am about to
give you.
In 2018 we had $306 billion in cost from natural disasters;
16 disasters were a billion-plus in costs. We were dealing with
five of the warmest years. Just those mere facts, and the
evidence of what I witnessed as an impacted individual--and my
constituents--in Hurricane Harvey, which saw 51 trillion
gallons of water to create an ocean in the City of Houston.
Now, I want to say to my friends in energy that I represent
those constituents, as well. What I have said to the multi-
nationals is let everybody know that you are engaged in
research on climate change and renewables. Let everybody know
that you are aware, because of your scientists, of what can
transpire as relates to this issue of climate change.
I don't know how anyone can proudly claim themselves a
denier. They did not walk in my shoes. They did not walk in the
12 to 1,500 people who died in Hurricane Katrina, the 3,000 to
4,000 who died in Puerto Rico, only to be discovered way late,
when Harvard University used its research to determine how many
died. And, obviously, wildfires and the massive flooding that
just occurred in America the last three weeks across the
landscape of the Midwest.
So I believe this is a crucial and important discussion.
Let me quickly--I am going to give three questions. And if you
can answer them--and I will give them all at this point.
Dr. Hayhoe, how is climate change expected to impact water
supplies, drought, and wildfires in various regions of the
country? And why are we seeing both increased flooding and
increased drought--i.e. in the state of Texas, Austin, and that
west area, or middle of the state area we are seeing that.
Dr. Hsiang, if you would, comment on the assessment--
estimate that the future cost of inaction on climate change
could reach roughly 3 percent of the national GDP annually by
the end of the century. What is the right way to think about
these estimates, and the way we should use them to plan for the
future?
And then I want to ask Mr.--sorry, I can't see your name
right now. If you would, follow up on the same comment about
the cost of climate change. And you may incorporate something
else.
My time is short, but if you all could go ahead, I yield to
you on the answers, that this is an imperative that we
understand this.
Dr. Hayhoe. Wherever we live, our precipitation follows
natural patterns of wet and dry, wet and dry. If we live in
Texas, it follows natural patterns of wet and dry and wet and
dry. And as the planet warms, this natural pattern is being
stretched in both directions.
Warmer air means more water vapor. When a storm comes
along, it picks it up and it dumps it on us, creating heavier
rain. When the storms don't come along, during drought, it
means longer and stronger droughts.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Doctor?
Dr. Hsiang. I would like to confirm that the number you
mentioned is in the reasonable range of previous estimates.
Thinking about what large fractions of GDP could be lost
from climate change is like thinking about just paying a tax,
except you get nothing in return. So we estimate that just
replacing destroyed assets during hurricanes, even in the state
of Florida, is going to cost roughly 12 grand a year. And it
only cost 14 grand to go to Berkeley, where I teach. But
instead, you will just be replacing broken things, you won't be
getting an education in return.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So a massive cost.
Dr. Gomez, you are with U.S.----
Mr. Gomez. Sure. From our perspective, we look at climate
change from a fiscal exposure, and so we have reported on the
variety of areas on which the federal government is exposed,
being a owner of facilities, an insurer of property, and also
crop insurance, and then also in the provider of disaster aid.
I just wanted to mention--in your question about impact on
water supply, so GAO currently is doing an audit at the moment,
looking at the resiliency of water infrastructure systems
across the country. You mentioned how Houston was devastated by
it, and how the--its own water infrastructure was affected.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes.
Mr. Gomez. So we are looking at ways in which some water
systems are building resilience into their structures. So we
hope to get that report out to you folks soon.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlelady's time is expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the Chairman.
Chairman Yarmuth. I now recognize the gentleman from Texas,
Mr. Crenshaw, for five minutes.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My generation cares
a lot about climate change and a clean environment. And so I,
too, care about it. And we have a vested interest in developing
cleaner energy and ensuring that the air we breathe is clean.
No one would dispute that, despite the highly dishonest claims
about denialism from the other side. That kind of language is
meant to divide and cause resentment.
But I also have an interest in getting to the truth of the
problem, the actual cost we can expect, and the most
reasonable, efficient, and plausible solutions. This is where
our true--our two sides differ, fundamentally.
The narrative on the left is that catastrophe is looming,
and that no cost is too high. Well, of course, this isn't true.
Costs do matter. Proper estimates of our ability to adapt to
climate change matters. Common-sense analysis of the problem
does matter. A true cost-benefit analysis free from political
bias does, in fact, matter.
So let's do away with some of the most absurd claims right
away. For instance, that climate change will cause not just
heat-related deaths in massive numbers, but hundreds of
thousands more murders and sexual assaults. That is what was
testified earlier. Is this a serious claim? No, it isn't. Of
course it isn't. You make such a claim if your goal is to
torpedo good discussions right off the bat. Oren Cass, here
testifying today, has already done an excellent job debunking
the bad and, frankly, highly dishonest economic modeling used
to come up with those absurd numbers, so I won't dwell on that.
I do want to dwell on real solutions, not insane, Green New
Deal solutions based on a false premise. Not a Paris Climate
Agreement, which foolishly undermines the most innovative
economy in the world, the United States, while freeing up China
and India to continue pumping out emissions, or any other
ridiculous solutions that rely solely on solar and wind. These
are feel-good solutions. They are based on flowery notions of
vision and purpose, as opposed to serious policy ideas.
Serious policy ideas will take advantage of the greatest
innovation machine the world has ever known, the U.S. economy.
And we should be focused on providing the world with cheap,
clean energy that can thrive in the marketplace.
The U.S. is responsible for around 15 percent of global
emissions. That is what a Green New Deal would address, 15
percent. For an enormous $93 trillion price tag you address
just a fraction of the problem. We should be addressing 100
percent of the problem. And the only way to do that is to
export our expertise.
In Houston we have a privately-backed investment, like the
net power plant. It is in La Porte, right outside my district.
This plant burns natural gas to generate electricity, which is
already cleaner than most fossil fuels, and is readily
available in the Permian Basin, just two hours away from Texas
Tech. The thing is, this natural gas plant has zero emissions.
It captures the carbon it emits, and recycles it into the power
plant. No emissions. And it is self-sustaining.
Natural gas fracking has had an enormous impact already,
reducing our emissions greatly. What if we did a better job
exporting clean, natural gas to dirty coal-burning countries
like China and India?
Well, we can answer that. The Department of Energy
estimates that the promise of natural gas plus carbon capture
is so great that if China and India switched just their coal-
burning boilers to natural gas, they would reduce emissions by
43 percent. Adding full-scale turnover to natural gas and
carbon capture, and you are looking at an 88 percent reduction
in carbon emissions. More natural gas exports, carbon capture
technology, modular nuclear reactors, research on nuclear
fusion: these are the future. They work. And they can make our
air cleaner, keep growing our economy, and provide sustainable
energy for our growing global needs.
We must also invest in adaptation, as human beings have
been doing for thousands of years. There is a reason that
climate-related deaths have dropped drastically over the last
100 years, by around 90 percent, even though our population has
increased by orders of magnitude.
We must have realistic projections of the cost of climate
change, followed by realistic solutions. That is the way
forward.
My time for a question--Ms. Hayhoe, if I may give you one
question, there is a lot of estimates on the cost. But what I
never hear, and what I think the right question to ask is, if
we implemented the most extreme solutions--let's just assume
the Green New Deal. Let's assume 0 emissions in 10 years coming
out of the United States. What would be the effect on the
global--what would be the global effect of that? What would be
the temperature effect? What would be the effects after that?
Do we measure those things?
Dr. Hayhoe. First of all, if you look at cumulative
emissions, which is what climate does respond to, the U.S. is
responsible for just under 30 percent of those.
If the U.S. eliminated its emissions, it would actually
have an impact beyond its current 15 percent because, as you
pointed out, that technology would percolate around the world,
and that leadership would have a huge impact in places that are
emerging economies and developing----
Mr. Crenshaw. What technology? What technology does the
Green New Deal create?
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. Thank
you.
I now recognize the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Horsford,
for five minutes.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. One of the
areas that really hasn't been explored today is the impact of
climate change on the poor and marginalized communities. And,
you know, with all due respect to those who want to focus on
one proposal, I would like to focus on the people who are
actually impacted.
Extreme heat conditions and increases in air pollutants
negatively impact the health of my constituents, increasing
cardio-vascular and respiratory illnesses. And, even more
alarmingly, sometimes leading to premature death. Further,
these incidences of illness are having a devastating impact on
people's quality of life, to live a healthy life, to be able to
raise their family, and to work.
In my home state of Nevada, a desert state, it is
particularly vulnerable to the changing climate. In Nevada we
face droughts, particularly impacting Lake Mead, which supplies
water to roughly 25 million people across Nevada, California,
and Arizona. Forty-six percent of Nevadans live in areas that
face dangerous wildfires. And Nevadans face an increasing
number of heat waves. By 2050 it is projected that the City of
Las Vegas will experience 106 days per year with temperatures
upwards of 105 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, if you open the
newspaper today, we are experiencing a severe heat wave, with
temperatures over 105 degrees through Thursday.
The consequences of climate change disproportionately
affect pregnant women, children, the elderly and disabled,
minorities, and poor communities.
So Dr. Hsiang and Dr. Hayhoe, what evidence is there
confirming that climate change will have more severe impacts on
low-income and other vulnerable and marginalized populations?
Dr. Hayhoe. The best description I have heard of climate
change is that coined by the U.S. military, which calls it a
threat multiplier. It takes issues like poverty, illness, lack
of access to clean water, economic hardship, and it exacerbates
them in very specific ways.
Dr. Hsiang. We are now able to measure these types of
inequality that you are describing. For example, you can take a
wealthy family and a poor family, and have them try to
experience the exact same heat wave. And because the wealthy
family has more resources to cope with it--maybe they can go to
the movies to stay cool, or do something else--the poor family
is then struggling, and often substituting away from other
types of things that they would need to spend on. They might
take money out of their clothing budget, or their food budget
to try and cope with some sort of disaster.
So there is mounting evidence that climate change and the
events that come along with climate change will actually widen
the existing inequality across the country today.
Mr. Horsford. And you talked about inequality, as far as
health and quality of life. What about income inequality, and
how climate change is impacting people in the United States?
Dr. Hsiang. That is a very good question. For example, we
often see that lower-income households are participating in
industries where they are exposed to outdoor temperatures for
long periods of the day. So people working in agriculture,
people working hard in construction, those individuals are the
most heavily impacted, in terms of their ability to work and
their living for their families, when exposed to increasingly
adverse outdoor conditions.
Mr. Horsford. So you touched on agriculture and
construction, which are two major industries in Nevada.
Also leisure and hospitality, which is the largest economic
sector in Nevada, accounting for 27 percent of our workforce.
So can you elaborate further on how more extreme temperatures
will cause lost working hours for outdoor laborers,
particularly those working in these industries, and how they
are impacted?
Dr. Hsiang. Absolutely. We have numerous studies using
government data on how much work people are able to supply, how
many hours people are allowed to work and earn their wages. And
we find that people, when the temperatures start exceeding, you
know, 80 degrees, temperatures regularly experienced in Nevada,
we see that people start being able to work less. And the time
that they are working, they are less productive. So their
employer is also getting less bang for their buck, in terms of
paying these workers.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I appreciate
you holding this hearing on the devastating impacts that
climate change is causing to individuals. But I think
particularly those who are in marginalized communities and from
poor communities deserve to have a voice in this process. And
we need to have a policy that works for them, as well.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
yield five minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr.
Burchett.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member. I
have only been here about, I guess, less than 120 days. So I
haven't been here long enough to be bitter towards anybody. So
I will--my comments will be--I am sure, if you check back with
me after 200 days, then I might have changed my position.
So--and I appreciate all these young folks here, and I want
to encourage you all. Because what ends up happening, in my
100-plus days of being here, is, you know, one side points the
finger at the other, and the other one does the other, and then
we all go out and issue a press release, and we tell our folks
back home, ``Look what we are doing,'' and nothing gets done.
Nothing gets done.
And I am a conservative. I have no--and like this young
lady, I am--I try to be a Christian. I am on the forgiven end.
And I appreciate you, because we all need to be good stewards.
But I am also a capitalist.
And I am--thought he was coming up to take the mike away
from me.
But you know, we talk about the Chinese and the Indians.
The Chinese are putting 300 new coal plants online. That--you
talk about pollution. And their safety controls are probably
something that we would have not done in the 1970s. India, the
Ganges River, their most sacred river, it is horribly, horribly
polluted. Their landfills have been described as time bombs.
And I want to encourage you young people--and I am a
capitalist, as I stated, but I think capitalism plays a huge
role in this.
At one time I was the mayor of Knox County, and I used to
read these statistics, and we generate about one tire per
person per year. And if you can figure out what to do with
those tires, young folks, Bill Gates will be calling you all
for a loan, because it is--the devastating effect of those
things that you just see every day, and it just kind of gets
ingrained in you, and you don't pay it much attention.
And I would encourage, as I have done since the 1970s, to
compost. You always talk about what can we do? We are not going
to do a dadgum thing up here. You all are going to have to do
it. And you should do it in your own communities. You should
compost, you should recycle. Make sure you get the ratio 20 to
1, because if it goes the other way, you get that awful smell.
Then you are putting some very noxious gases into the
atmosphere, outside of just the carbon that you get in a 20-to-
1 ratio when you turn it.
I think God has given us some great solutions, I just think
we have turned our back on Him in more ways than one, and we
are not looking at what is going on around us.
And I do represent east Tennessee. And east Tennessee is
home to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Tennessee Valley
Authority. And I am wondering--and they both have a huge
influence on our nuclear power--or nuclear power, as some
people say.
And I am wondering. Do--the question is to--I would like to
ask every Member. Just a quick, short answer. Do you all
support nuclear power? And where do you see improvements in it,
possibly in the funding?
Start here, and just go down the line, if that would be all
right.
Mr. Cass. Yes, I do. I think we need to fund more
innovation on new reactor types, and we need to make sure it is
eligible for any subsidies that other zero-carbon technologies
are eligible for.
Mr. Burchett. Right.
Mr. Gomez. So at GAO we don't take a position, sir, on
energy. But we do audits on any type of energy that Congress
wants us to look at.
Mr. Burchett. All right. Safe answer, thank you.
Dr. Hsiang. We don't have a--I don't have a position on
nuclear power, but I think careful economic analysis indicates
that it is a decliningly--it is becoming increasingly
expensive, and the rate of return on those investments to the
ratepayers tends to be declining over time.
Dr. Hayhoe. And, as a climate scientist, I am in favor of
any form of energy that does not produce carbon, can be done
safely, including both operations and disposal of waste, and
can be done cost-effectively. And I think that is where the
biggest improvements remain to be made in nuclear.
But the small modular reactors that were mentioned
previously are a positive step in that direction.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you. And Oak Ridge National Laboratory
is leading the way in that direction. And I look forward to
them in the future.
And Mr. Cass, where do you see the free market? See, there
you go, we are out of energy already.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Burchett. Where do you see the free market having the
biggest impact in the United States' energy markets?
Mr. Cass. In terms of innovation and new technologies?
Mr. Burchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cass. Well, I think, at the end of the day, it is going
to be private-sector innovators that are going to drive a
tremendous amount of--somewhat on the research, certainly on
the development and the deployment side.
And so they need to face--they need both a good flow of
research and new technologies coming toward them from the
universities, and then they need to be facing a market where
they will have a chance to enter and compete.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you. And you young people, don't get
bitter up here. You all get out and solve the problems, all
right? Thank you all.
I have become an old man. I am 54, and I am calling these
folks young people, Mr. Chairman. I have become my father. But
thank you.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
yield five minutes to the gentlelady from Minnesota, Ms. Omar.
Ms. Omar. Thank you, Chairman.
So Dr. Hsiang and Dr. Hayhoe, are you all offering
flowering ideas in solving our climate crisis?
Dr. Hayhoe. I am a climate scientist, and we are really
good at diagnosing the problem, telling you what is happening,
why it is happening, and how bad it is going to be. But we are
not a one-stop shop. We need everyone. We need engineers, we
need business people, we need innovators, we need creators. We
need all of us, really, on board to fix this thing and to make
sure that we end up in a better place in the future, not worse.
Dr. Hsiang. I think the entire field of economics uniformly
agrees that what we need is to somehow find a way to put a
price on carbon. And, in fact, it is a market solution which is
consistent with aligning everyone's incentives with increasing
national and global welfare.
And so, most of the research that we are being--that we are
conducting at the Climate Impact Lab, and a huge amount of
research at Berkeley, is trying to understand what is the
appropriate price to put on carbon. And there is a variety of
options. You can do cap and trade options, you can charge
something at the pump. There is lots of ways to deal with it.
And I think the moment you put a price on carbon, markets will
respond instantly. Markets are very efficient, they know how to
move resources around. It is a very effective strategy.
Ms. Omar. In your testimony, Dr. Hsiang, you say that the
estimate for the Hurricane Maria will set Puerto Rico back two
decades of progress. What would be, like, the cost associated
with trying to catch up that progress that could have been made
for two decades?
Dr. Hsiang. Just to be clear about what that statement was
trying to say, what we see is, when communities are struck by
hurricanes, they lose a lot of assets, things that they have
spent a long time accumulating, things that are productive.
Businesses close. And so, if you were to look at the trajectory
of Puerto Rico over time, it was going this--it was increasing
steadily, and then it gets hit by a storm. And what we expect
is that it will never catch up.
It is kind of like when you are riding your bicycle with
your friends. If you slow down for a short period of time, you
fall behind. And even if you get going at your original speed,
you never catch up with your friends unless you pedal a lot
faster for a while to catch up.
And so, what we would need to do is we would actually need
to gas the economy a lot. We would need to put in a lot of
investments to sort of re-inflate all the things that were
lost. And so right now we are not on track to do that.
Ms. Omar. I mean, so we are not only talking about the
costs associated with the loss of infrastructure. We are not
only talking about the cost associated with the loss of
business. We are also talking about the cost associated with
the loss of the human life that would have been able to create
that production, as well.
Dr. Hsiang. Yes. A lot of the research out there indicates
that, actually, the loss numbers that you see in the newspaper,
in terms of damages from a hurricane, are roughly only one-
tenth of the actual economic loss. Most of the loss shows up as
foregone earnings in future decades. But most people are not
very good at keeping track of money they didn't earn, right?
Ms. Omar. Yes.
Dr. Hsiang. But what we see is that that is actually 10
times the cost of the number that you read in the newspaper as
the damage, which is really just accounting for sort of
buildings and structures that have fallen down in a very short
period of time.
Ms. Omar. Yes. I mean so let me get back to what one of my
colleagues earlier was trying to address so eloquently, from
the point of view of what this means for poor communities.
We know that there is a cost associated with the kind of
crisis that is being created because of pollution. In my
district, one zip code, 55411, has the highest asthma
hospitalizations in the state. And these are communities that
are mostly African-American. And, you know, we are talking
about 230,000 asthma attacks in children, 188,000 missed school
days and work days each year.
There is cost associated with that, as you have pointed out
in some of your research. It seems like we are investing and
subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, and exasperating this
problem. So there is a double cost to society. How do you
propose we mitigate that?
Dr. Hsiang. Again, as I said before, I think we need to put
a price on carbon.
Ms. Omar. I have a proposal to get rid of this welfare
system to the fossil fuel industry. I think it is really
important for us to take a stance and make sure that we are
making investments in poor communities around our country.
And in regards to composting, I also have a zero waste
grant bill that will help communities get that going. And so I
am hoping my colleague will help sponsor that so we can try to
make sure that we are doing our part in having a sustainable
environment. Thank you.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlelady's time has expired. I now
recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, the Vice Chairman
of the Committee, Mr. Moulton, for five minutes.
Mr. Moulton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was one of the
first Members of Congress to sign on to the Green New Deal as a
signal to what a priority it must be for America to lead the
world in addressing climate change. But I also signed on when
it was an empty framework. And I believe it is critical that
the Green New Deal focus on three major goals.
First, investing in carbon-free energy technologies and
other green technologies to lead the world in de-carbonizing
our country. Economically efficient policies like a carbon tax,
will incentivize the private sector to help; massively
increasing our deficit, as some colleagues of mine have
proposed, will not help.
Two, while America should set the pace for the developed
world, the share of carbon output coming from the developing
world increases every year. We, therefore, need to develop the
distributive power technologies necessary to bring carbon-free
power to rural communities around the globe.
Three, we need to develop carbon capture technologies.
Although some activists believe doing so gives us an excuse to
keep polluting, the truth is that it is already too late to
live without carbon capture, because of how much carbon we have
already released into the atmosphere. Doing these things is the
boldest way to stop climate change, and it will grow American
jobs. The two should go hand in hand. We have already broken
our climate; we don't need to break our economy to fix it.
Now I would just like to ask a few questions of some
Members of the panel, starting with Mr. Gomez.
Mr. Gomez, what are the largest sources of carbon-free
energy in the United States today?
Mr. Gomez. Sure. So, according to the Energy Information
Administration, last year, in terms of total energy
consumption, 12 percent comes from renewables, and 8 percent
comes from nuclear.
Mr. Moulton. Great, thank you very much. Now, Mr. Gomez,
with regards to national security, GAO declared the federal
government's fiscal exposure to climate change as high-risk,
and estimates the value of infrastructure owned and operated by
the Defense Department worldwide to be about $1 trillion.
In January Defense reported roughly two-thirds of mission-
critical installations are vulnerable to current or future
climate impacts. What would be the cost of building new
infrastructure, or moving facilities to preserve our national
defense strategy?
Mr. Gomez. That is a really good question. And I don't
believe that GAO has estimated that cost yet. But as you said,
there is a really large infrastructure with a high asset value.
We focused on making recommendations to the Department to
better prepare its facilities, to make sure that it is building
in resilience, but also that it is incorporating climate change
risks to its everyday planning that they do for their
facilities, so they can be better prepared.
Mr. Moulton. I can tell you, as a Marine veteran, that when
I visit installations around the world, American military
officials, American general officers, repeatedly advise us
about the national security threat of climate change.
Dr. Hsiang, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate stated
with high confidence that limiting global warming to 1.5
degrees Celsius with no or limited overshoot would require
rapid and far-reaching transitions in infrastructure, including
transportation. To what degree are we currently making
transportation investment decisions based on limiting climate
change?
Dr. Hsiang. That is primarily outside my expertise, but I
would say, from what is visible, very limited progress in that
regard.
Mr. Moulton. I mean it is interesting to think about a
country like France, where a high percentage of travel,
relatively speaking, is done by high-speed rail running off of
nuclear power plants. And so you essentially have a fast,
modern--way faster than anything we have in the United States--
transportation system that is carbon-free.
Mr. Cass, I want to give you a chance to chime in here, as
well. Our President tweeted that, ``The concept of global
warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make
U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.'' Mr. Cass, do you agree
with the President's assessment?
Mr. Cass. No.
Mr. Moulton. So how is it that people are going to make
rational decisions, if the President of the United States is
providing completely irrational assessments like that?
Mr. Cass. I think there are, unfortunately, a lot of
counter-productive and irrational statements made by both
people who refuse to accept what scientists are telling us
about climate change, and those who wildly overstate the
problem, in that, for instance, Bernie Sanders saying that----
Mr. Moulton. So you would put President Trump in the
category of people who refuse to accept the reality of climate
change?
Mr. Cass. I have not spoken with him about it. That is how
I would characterize that tweet, certainly.
Mr. Moulton. Great, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, I
yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back.
So, Mr. Womack is not going to be coming to the Committee.
He would normally question at this time. So, instead of that,
and since the two of us are the only Members remaining, Mr.
Woodall is going to be allocated five minutes to make a
closing--closing remarks, and then I will conclude with my
questions.
Mr. Woodall. Because we do have such a learned panel here,
is there anyone here who believes we should be setting climate
policy based on anybody's last tweet that goes out the door?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Woodall. Is Twitter the best foundation for good
climate policy that we have?
I really am grateful that you all are here.
I wanted to ask the audience that is behind you, though.
You all are protected. You are in the circle of trust here on
the Budget Committee, but also the camera is facing this way,
instead of that way, so you will not be on the hook for
anything that you do. But I just wanted to get a show of hands.
We talked about the urgency of climate change. Who feels
the urgency that is here today?
All right. Let the record reflect that is a lot of hands,
Mr. Chairman.
Put those hands down. We have also talked a lot about
nuclear today, most recently with the gentleman from Tennessee.
How many folks think that part of our strategy going forward is
going to include nuclear energy?
All right. Fewer hands, but still a lot of hands.
I was with one of my Democratic colleagues the other day,
and she said, ``Rob, we are never going to do a big, public
works project like the Hoover Dam again, because you
Republicans just refuse to pay for it.''
And I said to her, ``No, I am happy to pay for it, but you
refuse to give me the permits to build it.''
How many folks--we still have some hydro opportunities
here, but we haven't built major hydro projects in a long time,
because of environmental concerns. How many folks would say
that expanded hydro is part of our pathway forward? I have got
many, many fewer hands this time around.
You all might not have seen all the urgency hands that went
up, but I have a tough time in this business of compromise that
is Washington, D.C. melding the urgency with the ``Oh, but we
can't do it that way,'' and, ``No, that shouldn't be part of
the solution.''
Dr. Hsiang, you said your opposition to nuclear was that
the economics weren't there as they should be, but you
expressed great faith in the free market. If we move to a
carbon tax, my concern is we don't take our thumb off the rest
of the scale. We would continue to have laws that disadvantage
hydro, we would continue to have laws that disadvantage
nuclear. In your vision of a carbon tax that would immediately
bring the market forces to bear to solve the problem, would you
see a repeal of all of the other laws that put their thumbs on
the scale of what the outcome of energy choice should be?
Dr. Hsiang. I think whether or not we put a price on carbon
is unrelated to whether or not we do or do not choose to change
any other policies in the market.
But just to clarify my earlier statement, I have no
particular opposition or support for nuclear power. All I was
stating is that the price has, relative to other energy
sources, been rising. And so the investments seem to have a
declining rate of return over time. That is all.
Mr. Woodall. The--let me ask you, Mr. Gomez, because I know
you can't talk policy, but you are absolutely right about
federal exposure. I certainly think of that as something that
would bring us together on both sides of the aisle.
In fact, on the Budget Committee four years ago--four terms
ago--we tried to begin budgeting for disaster, saying let's
look back over the last three years of disasters and put that
amount of money, the average, aside for next year. We do a
terrible job of budgeting for disaster. Does your examination
of that lead you to any conclusions why--again, it should be a
shared value--we have struggled to better budget for tomorrow?
Mr. Gomez. So--right. So we make recommendations to
agencies, right, to improve and to get more information. So we
have some recommendations outstanding exactly to that point.
So we have recommended that the Office of Management and
Budget, for example, in their funding reports that they provide
to Congress, provide information to you all on those programs
that face growing fiscal exposure. So then you can then make
tradeoffs, as you look at the information, to see what to focus
on, both in the short term and the long term.
Mr. Woodall. There is not a single serious problem up here
that I have seen solved without trust amongst folks. And
sometimes I show up at hearings that erode that trust, and
sometimes I show up at hearings--much more rarely--that build
that trust.
Going back to your closing statement, Mr. Cass, there are
those things that are not helpful when folks ignore the world
around us. And there are also those things that are not helpful
when folks seek to scare the dickens out of us. I can go down a
laundry list of public policy decisions that are--that can be
framed in exactly that way.
I just want to thank you all.
I do believe, Mr. Chairman, while we have virtually zero
jurisdiction in this space outside of what Mr. Gomez has come
here to try to get us to focus on, I do not believe there will
be another hearing on this topic that has as much opportunity
to provide a pathway forward among folks who still continue to
have substantial policy disagreements. And I thank you all for
the role you play in that. I yield back.
Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the gentleman. I now yield--Mr.
Panetta sneaked in, so I now yield five minutes to the
gentleman from California.
Mr. Panetta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that
introduction and using the appropriate word of sneaked, rather
than snuck. Thank you.
Gentlemen, ma'am, good afternoon. Sorry I have not been
here; I had some other obligations. But obviously, thank you
for your presence here. And more importantly, thanks for your
preparation to be here. I know it takes a lot. But obviously,
with your expertise, I am sure it is a lot easier for you to be
here than it would be for many of us in this room. So thank you
very much.
I am just going to kind of dive right into it.
Dr. Hsiang, if you could--and I know in your testimony that
I read you spoke about the substantial net-negative impacts of
unmitigated climate change on the U.S. economy. I come from the
central coast of California--Monterey, Big Sur, Santa Cruz,
what I would contend is the most beautiful district in the
nation. Others would disagree, but I would not. Especially if
you have been there, you would understand.
But could you elaborate on the economic costs of climate
change on coastal homes and businesses, such as my community,
and explain, if you can, what fraction of these costs will be
attributed to physical damages versus the loss of economic
opportunity? Please.
Dr. Hsiang. There are a variety of costs associated with
coastal communities. Sea level rise is clearly one of them. And
sea level rise is one of these costs where it is very difficult
for us to constrain the amount of uncertainty. So there was a
very recent study coming out suggesting that it is possible--
there is roughly a 10 percent chance of getting some very rapid
rises in sea level over the next coming decades. And it is hard
to rule those out.
So that is a case where you are really thinking about how
you want to manage risk. Do we want to do something that has a
small risk of something very bad happening, or are we willing
to invest to avoid that possibility?
In addition to having higher sea levels, as storms come
in--so particularly on the East Coast, less of a problem for
California--each storm that comes in pushes a wall of water
ahead of it that is the surge in front of a hurricane that then
floods homes and does a huge amount of damage. As the sea level
rises, and then those storms intensify, those surges become
larger and more difficult to manage.
We will probably adapt to those storms by investing in
fortifying our coastlines. So actually, the United States is
one of the worst-performing countries at our income level in
terms of managing storm risk. If you look at a country like
Japan, they actually suffer much lower mortality rates in their
storms. But part of the reason is because they have an
essentially fortified coastline. It is not as an enjoyable
place to live if everything is covered with concrete sea walls.
Mr. Panetta. Right.
Dr. Hsiang. So those are some of the types of compromises
people living on the coast will have to make in the coming
years, if the previous trends of emissions continue.
Mr. Panetta. And that type of fortification, I mean, you
can't really apply that across the board, though. That is the
thing. I mean there is obviously, you know, geographical
limitations. And I can tell you, in my district there would
probably be a lot of political limitations about obstructing a
seawall along a scenic drive in Carmel, California.
But, you know, what--you know, in regards to that type of
fortification, I mean, where do you see that being
appropriately done?
Dr. Hsiang. That is a very open field of research. There
are a lot of individuals trying to understand what would be the
types of cost-effective adaptations that the government or
local communities ought to deploy, and a fair amount of it is
going to be individuals actually investing their own private
resources in trying to protect their own home.
But, of course, in the case of something like a seawall, if
I build one in front of my home, and my next-door neighbor
chooses to not invest quite as much money in theirs, then I am
now subject to risk based on their choices.
Mr. Panetta. Right.
Dr. Hsiang. And so this is going to create a situation in
which we now have to negotiate over these types of adaptations.
We are going to spend money on those negotiations. We are going
to spend our, like, sort of our patience with one another on
those types of conversations, instead of focusing on how to
make the schools better, instead of focusing on other things
that we like to invest in, as a community.
Mr. Panetta. And let's say--you know, obviously, you
mentioned private investment. What are we talking in public
investment? How much is the government--and Mr. Gomez might
have a answer for this.
How much of these types of costs are going to be undertaken
by the U.S. Government when it comes to this type of
fortification?
Mr. Gomez. Sure. So in the area of coastal property
damages, you know, we--again, our role is to provide Congress
with information in terms of where those exposures are.
And currently, in the federal government, it is through the
National Flood Insurance Program. I mean that is a program that
owes the Treasury $21 billion, currently. And the program was
never really set up to take care of all the expenses and
losses. We have made recommendations that Congress should also
make structural changes in that program, so that it can send
clear signals to the folks that are buying insurance. That is
just one example.
I also wanted to mention--because earlier we were talking
about communities that are at risk. And one set of communities
that we haven't talked about where we see the impacts already
taking place, and that is Alaska Native communities. They live
on the coast and on rivers. So GAO has a body of work, we have
looked at those communities, looked at what federal programs
are available to help them retreat, but to help them adapt to
those changes.
Mr. Panetta. My time has expired. Thank you again for being
here.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. And I
will mention for the record that the Pebble Beach Golf Course,
where the U.S. Open is being held this week, actually fortified
the 18th fairway, because of the sea, as well. You know where
my head is at this week.
So I now yield myself 10 minutes. I want to follow up on
what my good friend, Mr. Woodall, was talking about, because
the reason that we wanted to do this hearing was because we
have--we believe that there are things that we need to look
forward at, and anticipate what policy consequences might ensue
from an analysis of what the costs of certain things are--
climate change certainly being an important one.
We are going to have a hearing on immigration policy, as
well, as to what the financial impact--what the consequences
for the taxpayer will be, moving forward.
We are going to have a hearing at some point on artificial
intelligence, and what that is going to mean for the budget and
the taxpayers, because I think it is going to be the most
disruptive force in--probably in the history of the world,
moving forward.
And the idea behind these hearings is not really to
convince anybody of any policy preference or any philosophical
argument. It is just to get information.
And unfortunately, I think what you see sometimes--I saw it
today on both sides--is that there is less of a governing
mentality in Washington than there is in electoral mentality.
And regardless of what the issue is, there is always an attempt
to figure out where the electoral advantage lies, or the PR
advantage might lie, as opposed to where we can search for an
appropriate governing strategy in that particular area. And I
know Mr. Woodall is very much committed to that, as am I. And I
hope we can influence our colleagues in that direction.
On the subject of the future, I--there was a representative
of Microsoft in my district last week. She is the chief
technology officer of Microsoft. And she was there because they
are entering into a partnership with our community in terms of
developing it higher--a better tech community, and getting more
tech jobs. She made a statement which I found absolutely
astounding. She said that, in the next 10 years, we will
experience 250 years of change. Think about that, that in the
next 10 years we will experience as much change as we have
experienced since the founding of the country.
And so, when I think of the opportunity for technology to
develop to help us both adapt and to mitigate climate change, I
am reassured by those--that projection, even though I am sure
there is a plus or minus 150 years in that assessment. But this
leads to a question I have of Dr. Hayhoe.
You talked about loading the dice. And essentially, that is
what we are doing right now, is rolling the dice, because you
have got different assessments; Dr. Cass, you have different
assessments where the impact may be. And we know there is a
considerable amount of variation as to what that might be.
But the costs of being wrong are pretty dramatic. Is that
the point you were trying to make?
Dr. Hayhoe. Yes. The world is changing very quickly. And
our civilization is built on the assumption of a stable
climate. Our agriculture, our water, the allocation of our
energy resources, even our economics and our international
policies are all built on the assumption that climate is
stable, as it has been over the history of human civilization.
Today it is changing faster than that. And the best analogy
I have is actually from west Texas. So it is very flat there,
and we have a lot of dead, straight roads. And you can get down
the road staying in your own lane, looking in the rearview
mirror, because where you were five minutes ago is a perfect
predictor of the future. But when you hit a curve, you have to
take your eyes off the rearview mirror, and you have to look
ahead, because if we do not do that we will not make it around
the curve safely. And we are facing and are already on the
largest curve we have experienced, climatically speaking, in
the history of human civilization, and our wheels are already
on the rumble strip.
Chairman Yarmuth. I appreciate the metaphor.
Dr. Hsiang, I know Mr. Crenshaw asked you a question, and
it was a rhetorical one, because he didn't want you to answer,
but I would like you to elaborate on this question of the
health impacts, whether it is mental health or otherwise. How
exactly--just walk that--walk through us why there would be
more suicides, why there would be damage to fetuses, why the
crime rate would go up as a result of these climate changes?
Dr. Hsiang. Thank you. Thank you for giving me the chance
to revisit this issue.
There is a variety of ways in which environmental
conditions affect human health. We all know that we get less
comfortable when it is hot. And part of that is because our
body is actually experiencing difficulty functioning at higher
temperatures, and it is actually making you uncomfortable,
trying to incentivize you to go somewhere safer.
We see, for example, on extremely hot days, increases in
cardio-vascular mortality rates, largely due to people trying
to--their hearts have to work harder to move more blood to the
surface of your skin to cool your body down. This is a very
serious issue, and there are different discussions about how
much we have adapted to this in the past. In fact, a lot of the
numbers that were discussed earlier were completely consistent
with the rates of mortality we see on hot days in U.S. counties
right now, today.
There is other types of vector-borne disease. There is
projections about mosquitos traveling much further north and
surviving for much longer periods of time, as temperatures
warm. And, in particular, humidity rises. So our projections
indicate that humidity in, you know, the Northeast, in New
England in the future, in the next 80 years, could easily feel
like humidity in Louisiana today. Okay? That is a completely
different world, from a human health standpoint.
When you think about fetuses, what we have observed using
Census data--my colleague, Reed Walker, has done some
fascinating research, where you actually see--if a pregnant
mother is exposed to a very hot day, we actually can see that
by tracing that child over time in their earnings 30 years
later. So a child born the year before on the exact same day,
or the year after on the exact same day, but when they were
not--their mother was not exposed to a heat wave, they are
actually earning more for multiple decades into the future.
Now, we don't know exactly what the mechanism is. But what
people think is happening is that the stress of the mother is
affecting the development of the child that she is carrying.
The last question you are asking is about mental health and
crime. And this is actually--you know, calling it ridiculous is
something that I can understand when you first hear these
facts. But actually, in law enforcement, for example, it is
well known and understood that on extremely hot days violent
rates go up. And so police departments everywhere actually
adapt today by deploying more police forces to cope with this
very human response.
Now, we don't know exactly what is happening, and why
people change their behavior. But it is, in my experience,
for--looking at this type of data for over a decade, one of
perhaps the single-most robust statistical facts. Anyone in the
world can look at their data. You can look at any state, any
city, and you see that, as the temperatures rise, levels of
interpersonal violence go up.
And now, in our latest study over the last year, we showed
that people perpetrating violence against themselves. Self-harm
and suicide rates are incredibly responsive to temperature. In
fact, you can look almost anywhere in the world and see this
relationship. We don't understand exactly why it occurs, but it
is the type of thing that is not going away, as air
conditioning is deployed across the country. We actually see
that this relationship is getting tighter and stronger over
time. And in fact, it is occurring most strongly in the
wealthiest communities in the United States.
Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you.
Mr. Gomez, I think Mr. Panetta asked about budgeting, the
issue of budgeting at federal agencies for costs of disasters.
Is that a good idea? And how would you do it?
Mr. Gomez. So again, I think I mentioned earlier that one
way is to provide you all with information that you can use,
that gives you information on those programs across the federal
government that are exposed to a high fiscal exposure, so that
you can make those trade-offs.
And so--but one other thing that I wanted to mention that
is really important, from a federal perspective, and actually
that affects all levels of government and the private sector,
and that is that we have recommended in the past that we create
a climate information system that provides authoritative
climate information that then--that has information on
observations and projections that can be updated on a regular
basis. And then to have a non-government entity be able to
translate that information for all users, for local government,
state government, private-sector folks.
As you know, we spend, from a budget perspective--we give
billions of dollars a year around the country to build
infrastructure. And it is those local folks, decision-makers,
state decision-makers, that are having to plan and construct
these things. And they are telling us that they need better
information, forward-looking climate information, so they can
build these things with resilience.
So I think, from a budget perspective, that is where we can
save money in the long run.
Chairman Yarmuth. Well, I thank you for your answer. I
thank all four of you for your testimony and your responses. I
think it has been a fascinating hearing. And I appreciate your
participation very much, and your work.
And with that, with no objection, the meeting is--the
hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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