Advanced Search
January 21, 2020
Throughout 2019, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Environment held a series of four hearings on climate change. These hearings, conducted by the House’s primary investigative committee, provided insights into the development of climate change as a political issue, explored the health and economic impacts of climate change, and proposed ideas to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and increase resilience. Witness testimony and questions by subcommittee members indicated a desire for bipartisan cooperation on climate policy at the federal level. Furthermore, subcommittee Chairman Harley Rouda (D-CA) indicated that climate change would be the subcommittee’s top priority in 2020, and that it would hold future hearings to evaluate policy solutions.
The first hearing, The History of a Consensus and the Causes of Inaction, was held on April 9, 2019. The purpose of the hearing was to “examine the historic scientific consensus about climate change, the role of the fossil fuel industry in denying climate science, and the economic consequences of policy inaction.”
Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University, condemned the “scandalous inaction of the U.S. Congress” in light of a scientific consensus on climate change and the technical and economic feasibility of decarbonizing the global energy system. Sachs recommended a federal decarbonization plan featuring a shift in electricity production toward renewable, zero-carbon sources; electrification of transportation and heating systems; and the provision of other energy needs by synthetic fuels produced through zero-carbon processes. Former Colorado Senator and Vice Chairman of the United Nations Foundation Tim Wirth and Princeton University’s Michael Oppenheimer stated that the scientific community has long understood the reality of climate change, and that developments since the 1980s have primarily provided more detailed knowledge.
Sachs, Wirth, and Oppenheimer stated their disappointment with the lack of federal action against climate change, and identified industry influence as a cause for the breakdown of bipartisan cooperation on climate legislation. Many representatives agreed with this stance, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who stated that climate change “is not just an environmental issue. It is also a crisis created by massive corporate corruption and misconduct.” Policy recommendations included a reduction of the influence of money in the political process.
Nicholas Loris, of the Heritage Foundation, agreed that a consensus exists on the reality of climate change, but raised concern about scientific uncertainties that remain unresolved. Noting Loris’s position, Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) highlighted the Heritage Foundation’s funding from sources in the petroleum industry such as the Koch Brothers. The Heritage Foundation has also received criticism for its work in spreading misinformation with the goal of raising public doubt on the existence of climate change. Loris did, however, suggest that federal subsidies on all forms of energy should be eliminated, that regulations on renewable energy sources should be reduced, and that infrastructure should be made more resilient, perhaps signaling a shift at this historically staunch anti-climate action group.
The second hearing, The Public Health Effects, was held on April 30, 2019, and focused on the effects of climate change on public health with a particular focus on vulnerable populations and the role of the federal government.
Subcommittee Chairman Harley Rouda (D-CA) opened the hearing by citing evidence indicating the current and potential future effects of climate change on public health. He criticized the Trump Administration’s rollbacks of clean air and water regulations, and called for rapid action to avoid the public health effects of climate change. Ranking Member James Comer (R-KY) acknowledged findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that climate change would negatively affect public health, particularly in developing countries, but raised concerns that climate change legislation would prevent these countries from developing fossil fuel economies to fund basic public health services. This sentiment was shared by Executive Director of the CO2 Coalition, Caleb S. Rossiter, Ph.D., who testified in support of encouraging fossil fuel development in emerging regions like Africa.
The other witnesses at the hearing focused on the negative effects of climate change on public health. Bernard D. Goldstein, M.D., Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, and Harvard University’s Aaron Bernstein, M.D., testified that climate change would negatively affect public health by increasing rates of asthma, respiratory diseases, natural disasters, obesity, and mental illnesses.
Co-Chair of Florida Clinicians for Climate Action Cheryl L. Holder, M.D., testified that physicians are already reporting effects of climate change on patients’ health. Goldstein, Bernstein, and Holder also emphasized the disproportionate health effects felt by vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly, people of color, and the poor. Representative Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) took note of this increased vulnerability and recommended that any climate policy action “prioritize the working class, the underserved, the underpaid, the struggling, those struggling against racial inequality, and those with preexisting conditions.”
The witnesses also provided suggestions for policy action. Dell Medical School Professor Karen DeSalvo, M.D., proposed three areas in which to build resilience to extreme weather and climate change. First, she advocated strengthening public health infrastructure by shifting its focus from responding to instances of crisis toward building capacity. Second, DeSalvo stated that the healthcare sector must be more accountable to patients and take action to reduce its carbon footprint. Finally, DeSalvo recommended using data and technology to spur partnerships between public health and healthcare systems.
Goldstein and Bernstein both called for a reduction in fossil fuel use as a way to reduce the effects of climate change on public health. Although these steps would cost money, Bernstein and DeSalvo testified that the savings to the healthcare sector, particularly to Medicare and Medicaid, from avoiding public health effects of climate change, would outweigh the costs of transitioning to renewable energy.
The third hearing, held on June 25, 2019, was entitled Recovery, Resiliency and Readiness – Contending with Natural Disasters in the Wake of Climate Change. The hearing examined preparations at the federal, state, and local level for the upcoming hurricane and wildfire seasons and the recovery processes for wildfires in Southern California and Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria in the Gulf and Caribbean. The subcommittee also sought to understand the effect that climate change will have on federal disaster preparedness and recovery and the connection between warming temperatures and the intensity of hurricane and wildfire seasons.
Subcommittee Chairman Harley Rouda (D-CA) identified climate change as a factor that would increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, and acknowledged that this trend is creating additional challenges for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Former FEMA Director James Witt, the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) Christopher Currie, and Michael Mann, of Pennsylvania State University, all mentioned the link between climate change and extreme weather. Rouda also criticized the removal of all references to climate change from FEMA’s strategic plan, calling the move “baffling.” At the conclusion of his testimony, Rouda identified a need to improve disaster response and preparedness. Witt agreed, stating that FEMA’s recovery duties will be made more difficult in the future due to climate change and a lack of adequate training among FEMA staff.
The representatives and witnesses broadly agreed on the need for pre-disaster mitigation. Judith Curry, president of the Climate Forecast Applications Network, identified a need to invest in resilience before disasters occur, as well as a need to reform the recovery process to make it easier for federal, state, and local agencies to respond to disasters.
Members of the subcommittee raised concerns over FEMA’s response to recent natural disasters in California, Texas, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Members specifically called out the slow state of recovery from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the availability of emergency housing in response to wildfires in California.
The final hearing in the subcommittee’s climate change series was titled, Current Economic Effects of Climate Change and the Costs of Inaction. The purpose of the December 19, 2019, hearing was to examine the economic impacts of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions on various sectors of the economy in the present and future.
Alfredo Gomez, the director of GAO’s Natural Resources and Environment Team, and Dave Jones, Senior Director for Environmental Risk at the Nature Conservancy, emphasized the increased economic risk to the federal government—and to the economy as a whole—engendered by climate change. Jones testified that more frequent and costly natural disasters will increase costs to insurance companies, causing them to raise prices for consumers and exclude certain hazards from coverage. Gomez recommended reducing long-term risk to people and property by “focusing and coordinating” federal efforts to invest in resilience to natural disasters. Jones also recommended improving community and landscape resilience, specifically through natural climate solutions that address the needs of both communities and ecosystems. Jones also called for Congress to resolve the “underlying driver of catastrophic risk” by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Mayor Stephen Benjamin of Columbia, South Carolina, provided insight into the effects of climate change on city government budgets and local economies. According to Benjamin, “mayors and cities throughout the country are already grappling with the impacts of climate change,” an effort that is made difficult by small city budgets. Benjamin emphasized the importance of increasing the resilience of infrastructure and reducing emissions and called for an increase in local-federal partnerships to support the actions of states and cities.
In his testimony, Dr. Michael Greenstone, of the University of Chicago, criticized the Trump Administration’s undervaluation of the social cost of carbon (SCC). The SCC is an estimate of the damages imposed on the U.S. economy from each ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted. Based on Greenstone’s estimates the SCC is $51/ton, but the Trump administration reduced its SCC to $1 to $7/ton using, according to Greenstone, faulty assumptions. Greenstone emphasized the increased mortality rates caused by CO2 emissions, and recommended policies that place a price on CO2 emissions such as a carbon tax or cap and trade program.
In this series of hearings, members of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Environment indicated their interest in developing policies to reverse decades of federal inaction on climate change. Moving into 2020, Congress is likely to show continued interest in bipartisan solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase investments in resilience. In the new year, the Subcommittee is also likely to conduct additional hearings into the consequences of further inaction and into the strategies best able to address the problems raised in previous hearings.
Author: Abby Neal
Advancing science-based climate solutions
Top-Rated Climate Nonprofit – 4-Star Charity