MSNBC "The Ed Show"- Transcript: Climate Change and the Military

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Congressman, good to have you with us tonight, what impact do you think
climate change is having at this time on military readiness and national
security? And I know that`s a rather generic question but...

JOHN GARAMENDI, (D) NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: Yes.

SCHULTZ: ... when you now narrow it down what you, folks, in Congress do
is allocate money for future projects procurement, how do make these
decisions, Congressman, if you`re looking at climate change? And then, of
course, you`ve got some deniers in Congress as well, what about all of
that?

GARAMENDI: Well, the Congress of the United States is controlled by those
who deny climate change. And so, for science, for the research necessary
to understand what`s happening on our planet, they cut the funding. And
they refused in a bill that passed off to the floor of the House, they
refuse to allow any discussion and any science, and anything about climate
change.

And so, we can carry forward but we cannot use any of that information in
any of the policies by the administrative agencies. This is really
foolhardy.

Maybe our President was at Coast Guard Academy, the coast guard, all of us
know, that there is a northwest passage today and it`s going to be more
readily available, already ships are passing through the Arctic Ocean, we
are not able to get there because we have been able to allocate the money
because of sequestration because of the Republican budget cuts, to build a
heavy ice breaker to protect the U.S. Navy in the Arctic Ocean and to
protect commercial commerce in the Arctic Ocean.

This is serious stuff and it covers everything. It covers from our food,
the growing of crops in the United States, water supplies in the west when
it drought. This is drought related to climate change, well, we`ve never
had one quite this bad before the climate warmed up, and we do know this.

The ground is hotter, the weather is warmer and whatever rain falls and
snow falls, it evaporates or melts more rapidly. We got a problem here,
Ed...

SCHULTZ: So...

GARAMENDI: . and the climate deniers are making it really, really tough
with this nation to adopt and to change and to modify our policy.

SCHULTZ: Well, Republicans always want to support the military who can
fight them for that in many respects. But the bottom line here is,
Congressman, you`re telling us tonight that there are places on the globe
were are military can`t go because of environmental changes, because of the
lack of funding.

GARAMENDI: That`s absolutely correct. I`ll give you another example.

You talked about that oil spill in Santa Barbara, big problem. California
is not allowed anymore oil drilling and it`s territory three miles out
since the 1960s, yet. In this year`s National Defense Authorization Act,
there is a specific prohibition against the U.S. military using any, any
alternative fuels, any green fuels can`t use it, can`t contract, cannot
even think about using alternative fuels for oil and that solar in -- I
mean what is this guys doing? It is the most obnoxious I`ve seen and
foolhardy policy you can imagine but that`s where their driving the U.S.
Congress and these characters are in control.

SCHULTZ: Well, Congressman, you saw the report we had just moments ago.
How do you view this oil spill is this a, you know, is it bigger than it
seems at this hour and how much of an impact you think it`s going to have?

GARAMENDI: Well, it certainly has an impact it has a political impact to
be sure. Again, the climate deniers in Congress have passed legislation
out of the House of Representatives to open the East Coast along the
Atlantic and all of the West Coast to oil drilling. You want to have more
spills? I guess they do because they want to open the West Coast areas
that have been closed the drilling. They want to open it to drilling. In
addition to that we`ve got a pipeline problem here.

We have known. We have hundreds of thousands of miles of pipelines in the
United States and the agencies that suppose to regulate and oversee those
pipelines, under fund it, not given the authority and the resources it
needs to make sure the pipelines are safe. So we get spills in Santa
Barbara, we get spills on the Yellowstone River, on the Mississippi River.
We get bursting pipes, gas pipe in California, people dying.

And now we`ve got the oil trains running through our communities with
highly volatile fuels, why, because we are addicted to oil.

We need to move off to that. We need to move to this other sources of
energy.

SCHULTZ: Congressman John Garamendi, great to have you with us tonight,
sir. Thank you so much. Sits on the House...

GARAMENDI: Thank you.

SCHULTZ: ...Armed Services Committee from California. Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSRIPT

Source