WASHINGTON
–
U.S. Senator Tom Udall
joined ten other Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to introduce legislation to ensure that political ideology on climate change does not compromise the quality of U.S. intelligence and national security strategies.
The introduction of
The Climate Security Act of 2019
follows recent
reports
that National Security Council Senior Director, William Happer, an outspoken climate-change denier, is working on an Executive Order for the Trump Administration to “reassess” the threat of climate change and contradict the current consensus within the national intelligence community.
“As New Mexicans know all too well, climate change is real and we are already seeing its dangerous effects,”
said Udall.
“We simply cannot afford to deny or ignore this existential threat, which not only poses grave dangers here at home, but also threatens to upend global stability and security. For too long, politics – not science or facts – have determined the completely inadequate response from some in government to climate change. We must change that, and we must do so urgently.”
Just last week, more than 50 former senior military and national security officials security officials, including former Secretary of State John Kerry and former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, penned a
letter to the President
emphasizing the need to include climate change in national security planning. The Climate Security Act of 2019 provides the statutory muscle necessary to address this need.
In addition to Udall, t
he Climate Security Act of 2019
is
cosponsored by Senators
Robert Menendez (D-N.J.),
Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).
For decades, and across both Democratic and Republican administrations, the integration of climate change data and forecasting has grown increasingly important and relevant to accurate national security planning and intelligence gathering. In 2014, the Department of Defense, in its Quadrennial Defense Review, labelled the effects of climate change as a “threat multiplier” that both creates technical challenges for military readiness and increases shocks and stresses in vulnerable countries currently in or on the verge of conflict.
Key provisions of
The Climate Security Act of 2019
include:
-
— Establishing a “Climate Security Envoy” within the State Department responsible for developing strategies for improving the integration of climate change science, data and forecasting in national security operations as well as facilitating interagency collaboration between the federal government’s science and security agencies.
-
— Outlining policies for how climate change data and forecasting should inform
national security planning and analysis, while calling for periodic global assessments on the risks climate change poses to national and global security.
-
— Formally reestablishing the Special Envoy for the Arctic. The Arctic region is undergoing rapid and dramatic changes due to climate change, which in turn is creating new security challenges, driven by aggressive expansion of Russian influence and naval activity in the region that requires specials attention from the State Department in the form of this Special Envoy. President Trump dismantled the Special Envoy to the Arctic’s office in 2017.
