WASHINGTON — An amendment to the annual defense policy bill requiring the Pentagon to submit a report on the national security threats posed by climate change was approved by members of the Republican-led House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.
The text, co-sponsored by every Democratic member of the committee, calls climate change “a direct threat to the national security of the United States,” and cites similar statements made by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and other top military brass, highlighting the rift between President Donald Trump and the Pentagon when it comes to global warming.
“By talking about it in terms of national security, it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to ignore the fact that climate change is here, it’s real, it’s happening,” Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., who proposed the amendment, told McClatchy.
The Pentagon would have a year to submit an assessment of the 10 military bases within each service most threatened by rising sea levels, drought and thawing permafrost. It also asks for the costs of mitigating those effects.
Only one lawmaker, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., spoke against the amendment, saying “there is no evidence that climate change causes war.” Some Republicans backed the measure, saying it was a small, common-sense step.
“We are talking about a report,” said Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla. “It is just a report.”
Ultimately, most Republicans on the GOP-controlled committee sided with the Pentagon’s long-held view that the effects of climate change pose an increasingly urgent security threat. The final bill still has to be approved by the full House.
“I know there are many individuals on the other side of the aisle who don’t want to talk about climate change, or don’t believe it’s man-made, (but) we’re not even getting into what the causes are,” Langevin said. “We have to deal with it. We can’t just put our heads in the sand and hope it’s going to go away.”
This isn’t new for the military. For more than a decade, as climate change became a political football, the Pentagon was quietly gathering data, publishing roadmaps for climate change adaptation, and assessing how to mitigate the risks.
The Defense Department “is by its very nature an organization that prepares for contingencies and focuses on managing the unavoidable,” said John Conger, who served as principal deputy undersecretary in the Pentagon comptroller’s office and assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment.
Scientists estimate that rising sea levels threaten at least 128 U.S. military bases and installations, nine of which are major hubs for the U.S. Navy. Military installations on waterfront properties are facing hundreds of floods a year, and some could be mostly submerged by 2100, according to a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Military leaders have consistently warned that extreme weather patterns, drought and floods are aggravating social tensions, destabilizing regions and feeding the rise of extremist groups like al Qaida and the Islamic State.
At his confirmation hearing, Mattis called climate change a “driver of instability” that requires a “whole-of-government response” to address. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, has said that climate change and rising sea levels pose the most serious long-term security threat to the country. In a letter supporting the amendment, retired Admiral James Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander for NATO, urged Congress to support incorporating climate science into strategic planning to take “concrete action” to mitigate the “pressing national security issue.”
In stark contrast, Trump has frequently and openly questioned climate change, calling it “a hoax” and saying that that global warming was a concept “created by and for the Chinese” to hurt U.S. manufacturing. Earlier this month, he withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement. His pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, has expressed skepticism about global warming and said during his confirmation hearings that it had leveled off, an assertion refuted by scientists.