The House Budget

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, today the House released its budget
proposal. It is a proposal divorced from reality that seeks to balance
the budget on the backs of those in the country who can least afford
it. It takes from the middle class and gives to the ultrawealthy.

Without a doubt, my colleagues and I will have much more to say about
the Republican budget in the coming weeks and months, but today I want
to discuss a section of the budget that seeks to deny the very real and very current threat of climate change to our public health and military readiness.

The Department of Defense is responsible for protecting the security
of the United States, and that requires taking into consideration every
threat and every threat multiplier that affects the global security
environment and our national interests, including climate change. That
is why the military spends considerable time assessing the effects
climate change could have on its facilities, capabilities, and
missions, and how those effects could undermine its ability to protect
our national security. It is unfortunate that today in their budget
proposal House Republicans said that this planning is wasteful
spending. I am as against wasteful spending as anyone, but preparing
for threats to our national security planning and operations is the
opposite of wasteful. It is prudent.

Today, I want to talk about how a climate change prohibition would
tie the hands of our national defense strategy.

Climate change affects our national security in two major ways.

First, the DOD has warned that climate change is likely to impact the
military's facilities and capabilities. In particular, America's
military bases may be particularly vulnerable to climate change.

According to a 2008 National Intelligence Council finding, ``more
than 30 U.S. military installations were already facing elevated levels
of risk from rising sea levels.'' In my home State of Hawaii, for
example, Navy and Marine Corps installations such as Pearl Harbor and
Marine Corps base Kaneohe Bay are literally on the water's edge.

According to the Department of Defense, the combination of decreasing
sea ice, rising sea levels, and thawing permafrost along the coast of
Alaska has increased coastal erosion at several Air Force radar early
warning and communication installations. This coastal erosion has
already damaged roads, seawalls, and runways at our bases.

Second, climate change exacerbates the drivers of global instability,
including drought, food shortages, water scarcity, and pandemic
disease.

ADM Sam Locklear III, commander of the USPACOM, said that the biggest
long-term security threat in the region is climate change because ``it
is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that
will cripple the security environment.''

I would like to make a point here. The Department of Defense is in no
position to get caught up in our partisan or ideological battles. The
Department of Defense has to deal with what is. The Department of
Defense has to prepare for and contend with reality. And we should have
debates on the Senate floor. We should talk about whether the
President's clean powerplant is the right approach. We should talk
about how we should approach international agreements coming into the
Paris Accords. Let's have that debate about whether a carbon fee is the
most prudent approach. But what we should not do is make it impossible
for the Department of Defense to do its planning and preparation. That
is what the House budget does.

In its 2014 QDR, the Department of Defense warned that the effects of
climate change ``are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors
abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political
instability, and social tensions--conditions that can enable terrorist
activity and other forms of violence.'' The stresses could break the
backs of weak governments and institutions in countries around the
world where the United States has enduring interests. In particular,
the National Intelligence Council stated in its ``Global Trends 2030''
report that climate change will pose stiff challenges to governance in
places such as Afghanistan and Pakistan.

That is why I find it ironic that many of my Republican colleagues
who are so committed to slowing the pace of our withdrawal from
Afghanistan on the premise that doing so will preserve our security
gains and keep Afghanistan stable are now tying the hands of the
national security community so that they are unable to study the
security effects of climate change on Afghanistan and the region.
Again, I don't think we should tell them how to study it, what
conclusions to draw, what preparations to make, except to say that we
should stay out of their way as they do their security planning, as
they do their security preparation. I am not suggesting that they take
my view on climate change; I am suggesting that they be allowed to deal
with what is and that they not be sucked into a partisan ideological
battle over climate change. They don't have the luxury of getting
sucked into a partisan ideological battle when it comes to climate
change. They have to deal with what is because they are responsible for
our national defense.

Fortunately, while some in Congress play politics, our military
leaders are clear-eyed about the current and present threats posed by
climate change, and they are making the necessary investments in
knowledge of impacts to their readiness and to regional and global
conflicts. We need to back them up and make sure that climate deniers
do not tie one hand behind their back while they work to understand the
threats to defend our country.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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