You are given two reports by the government agency.  

Report 1:
According to international and U.S. government sources, climate change poses serious risks to many of the physical and ecological systems upon which society depends, although the exact details of these impacts are uncertain. Climate change may intensify slow-onset disasters, such as drought, crop failure, and sea level rise. Climate change is also increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, including sudden- onset disasters, such as floods, according to key scientific assessments. These effects of climate change may alter existing migration trends across the globe, according to IOM. (See appendix II for further discussion of climate change as a driver of migration in seven geographic regions.) For example, sea level rise, a slow-onset disaster, may result in the salinization of soil and drinking water, thereby undermining a country or community’s ability to sustain livelihoods and maintain critical services, which could cause some people to migrate. Sudden-onset disasters may also contribute to migration as people flee natural disasters, in most cases leading to temporary displacement. For example, people may either voluntarily migrate, or be forced to migrate, to earn money needed to rebuild damaged homes after flooding, especially as extreme weather events increase in intensity and number. If unable or unwilling to migrate, people may find themselves trapped or choosing to stay in deteriorating conditions. Sources agree that the effects of climate change generally impact internal migration, while migration across international borders due to climate change is less common. In deciding whether to migrate, people weigh multiple factors including economic and political factors, social or personal motives, or demographic pressures. The effects of climate change add another layer of complexity to this decision, but there is debate about the role climate change plays in migration. Figure 1 depicts how climate change may influence other factors that drive the decision to migrate or stay. There are limitations to reliably estimating the number of people displaced by climate change because there are no reliable global estimates for those migrating due to slow-onset disasters, and estimates for those migrating due to sudden-onset disasters are based on limited data, according to IOM. The lack of reliable data is due in part to the multi- causal nature of migration. Further, IOM notes that forecasts for the number of environmental migrants by 2050 vary from 25 million to 1 billion. They and others have questioned the methodologies used to arrive at even these broad estimates. Migration, potentially driven by climate change, may contribute to instability and result in national security challenges, according to some international organizations and national governments. For example, an influx of migrants to a city may put pressure on existing resources, resulting in tensions between new migrants and residents, or between the population and its government. The U.S. Global Change Research Program has also stated that migration, such as displacement resulting from extreme weather events, is a potential national security issue. At different times, the United Nations General Assembly and, in 2014, DOD have deemed climate change to be a threat multiplier, as the effects of climate change could increase competition for resources, reduce government capacity, and threaten livelihoods, thereby causing instability and migration. Further, the U.S. intelligence community considers climate change to increase the risks of humanitarian disasters, conflict, and migration. Identifying the cause of a conflict, however, is complicated, and experts debate the connections linking climate, migration, and national security. For example, IOM has reported that existing evidence on climate migration and instability must be considered with caution. Further, some studies stress that other factors can mitigate the effects of climate change on migration and stability, including governance and community resilience, as the World Bank has reported. State, USAID, and DOD are among the U.S. government agencies with a role in responding to issues related to climate change, including as a driver of migration. State interacts with foreign governments and international organizations focused on climate change and migration primarily through the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (State/OES) and the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (State/PRM). USAID supports a range of development programs that help to mitigate the effects of climate change through the Bureaus for Economic Growth, Education and Environment; Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance; Food Security; Asia; and Africa; and individual USAID missions. Additionally, USAID’s Offices of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) and Food for Peace (USAID/FFP) lead and coordinate the U.S. government’s emergency responses to sudden- and slow-onset disasters, and complex emergencies overseas. DOD assists in the United States’ humanitarian response to sudden- onset disasters abroad through its six geographic combatant commands, with support from the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict and the Joint Staff’s Office of Humanitarian Engagement. Climate change as a driver of migration was not a focus of the policy documents we reviewed for either the current or previous administrations during fiscal years 2014 through 2018. Our review of executive actions, budget requests, and executive branch strategies that affected State, USAID, and DOD found only brief mentions of climate change as a driver of migration. None of the documents we reviewed reflected a priority for assessing or addressing climate change as a driver of migration, although these documents reflect a shift in administrations’ climate change priorities more generally. The previous administration issued two executive orders and a presidential memorandum related to climate change. These executive actions had a policy of improving climate preparedness and resilience, factoring climate-resilience considerations into agencies’ international development decisions, and creating forums for interagency coordination. In March 2017, the current administration issued a subsequent executive order revoking some of the previous executive actions related to climate change. See figure 2 for a timeline of these executive actions. The previous administration issued three executive actions related to climate change, which included requirements focused on agencies’ considerations of the impacts of climate change and established forums for interagency coordination. The current administration issued an executive action related to energy independence and climate change. Executive Order 13653: Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change. Executive Order 13653 stated that agencies—including State, USAID, and DOD—shall, among other things, develop, implement, and update comprehensive Agency Adaptation Plans that integrate consideration of climate change into agency operations and overall mission objectives. Executive Order 13653 also established the Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience. Executive Order 13677: Climate-Resilient International Development. Executive Order 13677 requires State, USAID, and other U.S. government agencies with direct international development programs and investments to incorporate climate-resilience considerations into decision making by assessing climate-related risks to agency strategies, and to adjust relevant strategies as appropriate, among other things. Executive Order 13677 also established the Working Group on Climate-Resilient International Development as part of the Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience. 2016 Presidential Memorandum on Climate Change and National Security. The 2016 presidential memorandum required, among other things, that agencies, including State, USAID, and DOD, develop an agency-specific approach to address climate-related threats to national security. It also required agencies to develop implementation plans that would describe how they would identify the potential impact of climate change on human mobility, including migration and displacement, and the resulting impacts on national security, among other requirements, and stated that the effects of climate change can lead to population migration within and across international borders, spur crises, and amplify or accelerate conflict in countries or regions already facing instability. The 2016 memorandum also established the Climate and National Security Working Group. Executive Order 13783, Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. Executive Order 13783 revoked Executive Order 13653 and the 2016 presidential memorandum, among other things, as seen in figure 2. Priorities related to climate change shifted between the past two administrations as reflected in a recent budget request that reduced some climate change funding affecting U.S. foreign assistance. 2017 Presidential Budget Request. The previous administration stated in its fiscal year 2017 budget request that “the challenge of climate change will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other” and that “it is imperative for the United States to couple action on climate change at home with leadership internationally.” The fiscal year 2017 budget request sought $1.3 billion in discretionary funding to advance the goals of the Global Climate Change Initiative, which was established in 2010 and aimed to promote resilient, low-emission development, and integrate climate change considerations into U.S. foreign assistance. The $1.3 billion in requested funding included $750 million in U.S. funding for the Green Climate Fund, a multilateral trust fund designed to foster resilient low-emission development in developing countries. 2018 Presidential Budget Request. The current administration, in its fiscal year 2018 budget request, did not include any funding for the Global Climate Change Initiative. In addition, the current administration’s budget request stated that it “Eliminate the Global Climate Change Initiative and fulfill the President’s pledge to cease payments to United Nations’ (UN) climate change programs by eliminating U.S. funding related to the Green Climate Fund. . .” Some strategies from the current and previous administrations that affect State, USAID, and DOD, among other agencies, reflect a shift in priorities related to climate change. For example, the previous administration cited climate change as a “top strategic risk” in its 2015 National Security Strategy and stated that climate change is an urgent and growing threat to U.S. national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources like food and water. The current administration does not discuss climate change in its 2017 National Security Strategy. Additionally, State and USAID have a Joint Strategic Plan to help the agencies achieve the objectives of the National Security Strategy. The previous State-USAID Joint Strategic Plan included a strategic goal on “promoting the transition to a low-emission, climate-resilient world” that proposed leading international actions to combat climate change. The current State-USAID Joint Strategic Plan does not have a climate change goal. State, USAID, and DOD were required by executive orders to assess climate change-related risks to their missions and, for State and USAID, to their strategies, among other things. In response to Executive Order 13653, which has since been revoked, the agencies completed adaptation plans that integrated considerations of climate change into agency operations and overall mission objectives. In response to Executive Order 13677, which has not been revoked, State and USAID developed processes for climate change risk assessments for their country and regional planning documents. Although these executive orders did not require a specific assessment of climate change as a driver of migration, all three agencies have discussed the effects of climate change on migration in their adaptation plans and risk assessments. However, State lacks clear guidance on its process for assessing climate change-related risks to its integrated country strategies. State, USAID, and DOD each completed adaptation plans in 2014 that included limited discussions of migration as one potential effect of climate change. Executive Order 13653 directed the agencies to develop or continue to develop, implement, and update comprehensive Agency Adaptation Plans that integrate consideration of climate change into agency operations and overall mission objectives. Each adaptation plan was to include, among other things, a description of how the agency would consider the need to improve climate adaptation and resilience. State. In its 2014 adaptation plan, State included a brief discussion of climate change as one of multiple factors that potentially will drive migration and impact its mission. State reported that the specific impacts of climate change on the ability of the department to promote peace and stability in regions of vital interest to the United States were unknown. For example, according to the plan, an increase in heavy precipitation events around the world could damage the electric grid and transportation and energy water infrastructure, upon which State depends, making it difficult to maintain operations and diplomatic relations. In its plan, State reported that climate change impacts may threaten international peace, civil stability, and economic growth through aggravating existing problems related to poverty and environmental degradation. Further, environmental and poverty- related issues and regional instability could stress relationships with some foreign governments. However, the plan noted that specific impacts of climate change on conflict, migration, terrorism, and complex disasters were still unknown. USAID. In its 2014 adaptation plan, USAID included a brief discussion of migration as one potential effect of climate change that could also impact security. USAID stated that the impact of climate change on its programs and operations, if left unaddressed, could compromise the agency’s ability to achieve its mission. Further, USAID’s plan referred to increased migration as a potential risk of climate change. Flooding and other extreme climate events can result in increased migration, among other impacts, that could affect existing and planned USAID programming. In particular, programs in areas like agriculture and food security, global health, water and sanitation, infrastructure, and disaster readiness and humanitarian response are vulnerable to climate change, according to USAID. In the infrastructure area, climate change may necessitate new protective measures for coastal homes and infrastructure, and in some cases even mass evacuations or permanent migration. USAID stated that climate change could further reduce or alter the distribution of already limited resources like food and water, or force temporary or permanent migration of communities. According to the plan, in areas with high risk factors for conflict, climate change stresses can aggravate tensions and contribute to conflict. DOD. In its 2014 adaptation roadmap, DOD included a brief discussion of migration as one of multiple potential effects of climate change that could impact national security. DOD referred to climate change as a threat multiplier that can aggravate other risks around the world, with migration being one effect that could increase requests for DOD to provide assistance. The roadmap stated that as climate change affects the availability of food and water, human migration, and competition for natural resources, the department’s unique capability to provide logistical, material, and security assistance on a massive scale or in rapid fashion may be called upon with increasing frequency. Furthermore, DOD stated that the impacts of climate change may cause instability in other countries by, among other things, impairing access to food and water, damaging infrastructure, uprooting and displacing large numbers of people, and compelling mass migration. These developments, according to the department, could undermine already fragile governments that are unable to respond effectively, or challenge currently stable governments, as well as increase competition and tension between countries vying for limited resources. In response to Executive Order 13677, State and USAID developed processes for climate change risk assessments for their country and regional planning documents. Though these assessments are not specific to migration, a few of the assessments identified the nexus of climate change and migration. State. State required climate change risk assessments for all new integrated country strategies drafted in 2016 or later. We reviewed 10 integrated country strategies from the two regions that were the first to implement the climate change risk assessment requirement— Africa, and East Asia and the Pacific. All 10 of the strategies included climate change risk assessments, one of which—Cambodia— identified migration as a risk for the country. The Cambodia strategy states that internal migration due to climate change hinders access to health care and the prevention of infectious diseases like malaria. We also reviewed 10 strategies from State’s functional and regional bureaus for assessments of climate-related risks, including 3 functional bureau strategies (State/PRM, State/OES, and State’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs) and 7 regional bureau strategies. All of the functional bureau strategies we reviewed identified climate change as a risk and State/PRM cited the impact of climate change on migration. Of the regional bureau strategies we reviewed, we found that one, the Bureau for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, identified climate change as a driver of migration as a challenge or risk in its region. For example, the strategy states that climate change is becoming increasingly disruptive, potentially increasing migration due to rising sea levels. None of the other six regional bureau strategies we reviewed identified the nexus of climate change and migration as a risk or challenge. However, five regional bureaus identified climate change as a risk or challenge and one identified migration as a risk or challenge. USAID. USAID also requires the integration of climate risk management into all country or regional development cooperation strategies drafted since October 1, 2015. Missions must document in a climate change appendix to the strategy any climate risks they identified and how they considered climate change in their strategy. As of August 2018, USAID had completed five country or regional development cooperation strategy updates initiated since October 1, 2015—Uganda, Tunisia, East Africa, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe—and all five included the required appendix. Of the five updated strategies, three—Uganda, Tunisia, and East Africa—discuss the indirect effect of climate change on migration, among other issues. For example, Uganda’s 2016-2021 country strategy states that increased frequency and duration of droughts is likely to be the most significant climate‐related change in Uganda. The strategy also notes that droughts have affected, and will continue to affect, water resources, hydroelectricity production, and agriculture, among other sectors. As agriculture, forestry, and fisheries decline in Uganda, the strategy asserts that people will migrate to urban areas, leading to the formation of slums. We also reviewed USAID’s nine regional development cooperation strategies, one of which—East Africa—had been updated since the requirement to include climate risk management. Of the other eight strategies that have yet to be updated, seven identified climate change as a challenge or risk and three identified climate change as a driver of migration as a challenge or risk. For example, the Southern Africa regional development cooperation strategy states that water scarcity, natural disasters, and other climate change related events will most likely increase migration throughout the region. Additionally, the Asia regional development cooperation strategy discusses the risks of climate change in urban areas. In Asia, the number of migrants seeking economic opportunities in urban centers is likely to increase. According to the strategy, migrants are moving into hazard-prone areas located along coastlines, flood plains, and other low-lying areas in many Asian primary and secondary cities—areas that experts predict will experience more frequent and intense storm surges, floods, and coastal erosion as a result of climate change. The requirement in Executive Order 13677 to assess climate change- related risks to agency strategies remains unchanged; however, State now lacks clear guidance on its process for assessing climate change- related risks to its integrated country strategies. Specifically, State’s 2016 guidance for developing integrated country strategies stated that all missions should assess the risk of climate change on their strategies’ goals and objectives and included reference to the climate risk screening tool—a method that missions could use to assess climate change risks. State issued new guidance to its missions in 2018, but this guidance does not include information on the process for assessing climate change-related risks to agency strategies. According to State officials, the 2018 guidance for integrated country strategies does not reference climate change risk assessments because, in September 2017, State decided that the strategies should not single out climate change risks in a separate appendix. State officials said this decision resulted, in part, from the new administration’s shift in priorities on climate change. Officials also said that this decision reflects a new approach to risk management by State and that the missions could choose to include climate change and other potential risks in the general risk discussion section of their strategies. Officials from State’s Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources said that it is now up to each mission to decide whether a strategic objective may have a climate challenge. However, those missions that choose to include an assessment of climate change risks are not provided guidance on the process for doing so and there is no reference to the climate risk screening tool—or to climate change at all—in the 2018 guidance. Executive Order 13677 directed State to incorporate climate-resilience considerations into decision making by assessing climate-related risks to agency strategies, among other things. Subsequently, a State cable from September 2016 further explained that State would implement the executive order’s requirement by screening for climate risks as part of the process for drafting all new integrated country strategies. Additionally, the Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government state that documentation is a necessary part of an effective internal control system. If management determines that a principle is not relevant, management must support that determination with documentation that includes the rationale of how, in the absence of that principle, the associated component could be designed, implemented, and operated effectively. Because State lacks clear guidance on its process for assessing climate change-related risks to its integrated country strategies, it is less likely that the current round of strategies will include the assessment of climate- related risks. It is also possible that those missions that choose to conduct climate change risk assessments will not do so in a consistent manner. Such assessments might identify climate change as a driver of migration, as at least one previous assessment did under the 2016 guidance. Thus, without clear guidance, missions may not examine climate change as a risk to their strategic objectives and could miss opportunities to improve the climate resilience of foreign assistance activities. For fiscal years 2014 through 2017, State, USAID, and DOD had some activities that could potentially address climate change as a driver of migration, although none of these activities specifically focused on the issue. For example, USAID has climate change adaptation activities, but to date migration has not been a focus of this programming. With the shift in priorities related to climate change in fiscal year 2017, agencies have reduced some of these activities. State’s offices that are focused on the issues of climate change (State/OES) and migration (State/PRM) have participated in multilateral activities related to climate change as a driver of migration and funded adaptation and other activities related to the issue. State officials said that the agency does not, however, have any activities that specifically address migration due to climate change or environmental factors. State has participated in multilateral activities related to climate change and migration. With the shift in priorities related to climate change in fiscal year 2017, the United States has disengaged from some of these multilateral activities (see table 1). In addition to State’s participation in the multilateral activities described in table 2, State has provided funding for activities related to climate change and capacity building that address natural disasters. These activities may involve efforts potentially related to migration. For example, according to State: State provided about $2 million per year, between fiscal years 2014 and 2016, to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which analyzed the impacts of climate change on migration in its most recent assessment report. State/PRM provided about $4 million, between fiscal years 2014 through 2018, for IOM’s Migrants in Countries in Crisis Initiative, which provides guidelines to protect migrants in countries experiencing conflict or natural disasters. IOM provides training to countries on these guidelines. State/PRM officials said that this initiative is not specifically related to climate change and does not focus on specific types of disasters but does mention sudden-onset disasters. Officials also said that IOM tries to promote a climate change perspective in its trainings. State/OES provided about $78 million in adaptation funding from the Global Climate Change Initiative to eight projects during fiscal years 2014 through 2017. (See appendix III for a description of all eight projects.) State/OES officials said that these projects help countries prepare for the impacts of climate change, potentially reducing the pressure to migrate. However, to these officials’ knowledge, none of these projects directly supported activities related to migration. For example, State/OES provided a $4 million grant to the National Adaptation Plans Global Network. This network focuses on increasing the capacity of governments to identify and assess climate risks, integrate these risks in planning, develop a pipeline of projects to address these risks, identify and secure funding for projects, and track progress toward resilience targets. Adaptation activities occurred in over 35 countries. With the shift in priorities related to climate change in fiscal year 2017, State discontinued some of these efforts. For example, funding for the Global Climate Change Initiative was not included in the President’s budget request for fiscal year 2018. State/OES officials said that the agency does not plan to fund additional adaptation activities and has not requested additional funding for the activities. According to a State official, PRM had been in discussion with IOM to develop a project proposal that would have assisted the governments of Small Island Developing States in adapting their migration policies to account for challenges and opportunities associated with environmental degradation, ecosystem loss, climate change impacts, and natural disasters. State/PRM stopped further development of the proposal following the change in administrations. Additionally, according to a State official, the department made some efforts at the end of the previous administration to develop a formal position on the topic of climate change as a driver of migration. For example, State drafted an internal document to help clarify its role in responding to the humanitarian aspects of sudden-onset and slow-onset climate events. This initial work stopped under the current administration. USAID officials said that, with respect to the agency’s climate-related programming, its climate change adaptation programming was the most likely to include activities related to migration or displacement, although a broad swath of USAID development programming has the potential to build host country resilience. Officials stated that, to date, migration has not been a primary motivation for the agency’s climate-related or disaster assistance programming. However, officials said that, in a humanitarian crisis or under some economic conditions, development programming can reduce displacement or the pressure to migrate—such as by fostering greater resilience to drought or other adverse conditions—and that this is also true of climate-related programming. USAID also provides humanitarian assistance in response to natural disasters that displace people. Officials said that USAID recognizes the links between displacement and natural disasters, but that the agency does not have specific programs linking disaster assistance, migration, and climate change. USAID identified about 250 activities that received adaptation funding from the Global Climate Change Initiative during fiscal years 2014 through 2016. Our analysis of the descriptions of these activities determined that none directly mentioned any efforts specifically related to migration. Officials emphasized that the connection between climate change and migration tends to be indirect and shaped by other more immediate factors. USAID’s data on activities that received adaptation funding identified 38 beneficiary countries, as well as activities described generally as implemented at the regional or global level. For activities where USAID’s data identified a specific region, most activities were located in Africa followed by Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. Examples of the types of activities that received adaptation funding from the Global Climate Change Initiative during fiscal years 2014 through 2016 include: The Mali Climate Change Adaptation Activity, which aims to build resilience to current climate variability and increase resilience to longer-term climate change effects. This activity is also working to strengthen the capacity of Mali’s meteorological agency to provide improved climate information as well as to incorporate climate considerations into local-level planning. The total estimated cost is about $13 million over 5 years. The activity for Climate-Resilient Ecosystems and Livelihoods, which ended in September 2018, aimed to increase Bangladesh’s resilience to natural hazards by working with community-based organizations, government ministries, and technical agencies. This activity provided technical assistance to the Government of Bangladesh and local communities to improve ecosystem conservation and resilience capacity. The total estimated cost was about $33 million in funding over 6 years. The activity for Pastoralist Areas Resilience Improvement through Market Expansion, which aims to support pastoralists in Ethiopia via expansion of markets and long-term behavior change (see fig. 3). USAID officials cited this activity as an example of adaptation efforts that indirectly address the issue of climate change as a driver of migration. The activity has three interrelated objectives: increasing household incomes, enhancing resilience, and bolstering adaptive capacity to climate change among pastoral people in Ethiopia. An evaluation of the activity found that migration is a coping strategy for dealing with climate shocks, although participants said that drought is becoming more frequent, placing a severe strain on traditional coping mechanisms, such as migration and selling cattle, and that permanent migration is not a preferred strategy. The total estimated cost is about $60 million in funding over 6 years. With the shift in priorities related to climate change, funding for USAID’s climate change adaptation activities has decreased. Missions may continue to fund their adaptation activities with discretionary funds or other earmarked, sector funding, provided the activities further the funding source’s objective, according to USAID. For example, in some cases, missions are using Water sector funding to continue some of their adaptation work. USAID also said that among the agency’s goals are to increase the resilience of USAID partner countries to recurrent crises, including climate variability and change. In addition to USAID’s climate change adaptation programming, USAID/OFDA and USAID/FFP provide emergency humanitarian assistance to people affected by sudden-onset disasters—such as hurricanes and floods—and slow-onset and extended disasters, including droughts and conflicts. Some of this assistance helps people who have been displaced by disaster. USAID officials stated that although disasters cause mainly temporary displacement, the relationship among humanitarian assistance, climate change, and migration is very complex and depends on both climatic and non-climatic factors. USAID/OFDA responded to 267 disasters from fiscal year 2014 through June 2018, according to agency data. For example, USAID/OFDA responded to the effects of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti in October 2016, as seen in figure 4, including helping temporarily displaced people. DOD assists in the U.S. government response to overseas disasters, including helping people displaced by such disasters, regardless of the cause of the disaster. These efforts are not specific to climate change as a driver of migration. For example, officials from DOD’s geographic combatant commands said that, to the extent they address climate change, migration is not a focus of those efforts and they view migration as caused by security and economic issues. Between fiscal years 2014 and 2018, Congress has appropriated to DOD between $103 and $130 million per year for Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid. Officials said that the geographic combatant commands use most of this funding for steady state humanitarian assistance related to health, education, basic infrastructure, and disaster preparedness with a smaller amount set aside for immediate disaster assistance although that varies based on emergency requirements. DOD officials said that they have not seen any changes to this funding or associated activities with the change of administrations in fiscal year 2017. DOD officials we spoke with also emphasized that USAID/OFDA is the lead agency for the U.S. government’s response to disasters overseas. USAID/OFDA formally requested DOD support on about 10 percent of the foreign disaster assistance provided by USAID/OFDA, according to USAID data for fiscal year 2014 through June 2018 and DOD officials. DOD assistance is typically provided for the largest, most complex disasters, according to agency officials. According to a July 2015 assessment conducted by the geographic combatant commands, while their activities vary, each command works with partner nations to increase their abilities to reduce the risks and effects from environmental impacts and climate-related events, including severe weather and other hazards. For example, in the report, U.S. Southern Command stated that it had requested funding to pre-position assets for when a severe storm threatens Haiti to be able to respond immediately to a potential disaster. U.S. Southern Command officials said that they work with partner nations to encourage residents experiencing extreme weather to remain where they are because it is easier to provide help to people who stay in one place. Officials from U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Africa Command also said that the major factors driving migration in their regions are security and economic issues. State, USAID, and DOD have participated in interagency forums regarding climate change, which may have addressed its effects on migration. With changes to priorities regarding climate change in fiscal year 2017, these forums have been disbanded or are not meeting. The Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience. The Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, of which State, USAID, and DOD were members, was established to facilitate the integration of climate science in policies and planning of government agencies, including by promoting the development of climate change related information, data, and tools, among other things. Additionally, the council was to develop, recommend, and coordinate interagency efforts on priority federal government actions related to climate preparedness and resilience. According to State officials, the council began working with the National Security Council and other agencies to facilitate greater interagency cooperation on adaptation. In addition, a task force on the council was discussing the federal role in addressing displacement related to climate change. The council was disbanded when Executive Order 13783 revoked Executive Order 13653, which had established the council. The Working Group on Climate-Resilient International Development. The Working Group on Climate-Resilient International Development, of which State and USAID were members, was established by Executive Order 13677 and placed under the Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience. The working group’s mission includes developing guidelines for integrating considerations of climate-change risks and climate resilience into agency strategies, plans, programs, projects, investments, and related funding decisions, among other things. Additionally, the working group was tasked with facilitating the exchange of knowledge and lessons learned in assessing climate risks to agency strategies, among other things. USAID officials said that the working group had not discussed climate change as a driver of migration. While the working group has not been formally disbanded, it has not met since at least November 2017 according to USAID. The Climate and National Security Working Group. The Climate and National Security Working Group, of which State, USAID, and DOD were members, was established by the 2016 presidential memorandum. The chairs of the working group were to coordinate the development of a strategic approach to identify, assess, and share information on current and projected climate-related impacts on national security interests and to inform the development of national security doctrine, policies, and plans, among other things. According to the memorandum, the working group was to provide a venue for enhancing the understanding of the links between climate change- related impacts and national security interests and for discussing opportunities for climate mitigation and adaptation activities to address national security issues. This working group was disbanded when Executive Order 13783 revoked the 2016 presidential memorandum, which had established the working group. State, USAID, and DOD assessments and activities have not focused specifically on the nexus of climate change and migration. State did identify migration as a risk of climate change in at least one of its climate change risk assessments for the department’s country strategies. However, State now lacks clear guidance on its process for assessing climate change-related risks to its integrated country strategies. State’s current guidance for these country strategies no longer mentions a climate change risk assessment and does not provide missions with information about the climate risk screening tool that can be used to conduct such an assessment. As such, missions are less likely to examine climate change as a risk to their strategic objectives, or to do so in a consistent manner, and thus may not have the information they would need to identify migration as a risk of climate change. By clearly documenting and providing guidance on how to assess the risk of climate change, State would ensure that the department examines the potential risks of climate change on its foreign assistance activities. We are making the following recommendation to State: The Secretary of State should ensure that the Director of the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources provides missions with guidance that clearly documents the department’s process for climate change risk assessments for integrated country strategies. (Recommendation 1) We provided a draft of this product to State, USAID, and DOD for review and comment. State provided written comments, which we have reprinted in appendix IV. In its comments, State did not oppose the recommendation and noted that the agency will update its integrated country strategy guidance by June 30, 2019 to inform missions that they have the option to include an annex on climate resilience, as well as other topics. However, State also indicated that the agency will begin working with stakeholders to consider whether to recommend that the Secretary of State ask the President to rescind Executive Order 13677: Climate- Resilient International Development. USAID also provided written comments, which we have reprinted in appendix V. In its letter, USAID provided some additional information about its programs and its proposed transformation effort. USAID and DOD provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional requesters, Secretary of State, the Administrator of USAID, and the Secretary of Defense. In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov. If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact David Gootnick at (202) 512-3149 or gootnickd@gao.gov, or Brian J. Lepore at (202) 512-4523 or leporeb@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report are listed in appendix VI. This report (1) describes executive branch actions related to climate change and migration from fiscal years 2014 through 2018; (2) examines the extent to which the Department of State (State), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Department of Defense (DOD) have discussed the potential effects of climate change on migration in their plans and risk assessments; and (3) describes State, USAID, and DOD activities, if any, that are related to climate change and global migration. We chose fiscal years 2014 through 2018 as our time frame based on our review of recent executive orders related to climate change. We selected State, USAID, and DOD because the agencies’ missions of diplomacy, development, and defense provide the foundation for promoting and protecting U.S. interests abroad. To describe executive branch actions related to climate change and migration from fiscal years 2014 through 2018, we reviewed documents that reflect priorities of the previous and current administrations. Specifically, we reviewed budget requests and enacted appropriations between fiscal years 2014 through 2018 for funding priorities related to climate change and U.S. foreign assistance. In addition, we reviewed executive actions and executive branch strategies that applied to State, USAID, and DOD between fiscal years 2014 through 2018 for executive and national security priorities related to climate change. For example, we reviewed the current and previous national security strategies. strategies and seven regional bureau strategies. For USAID, we examined the five country and regional strategies that were required to include a climate risk assessment at the time of our review: Uganda, Tunisia, East Africa, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe. We also reviewed all nine USAID regional strategies. For both State and USAID, we reviewed the selected strategies by searching for information related to migration and climate change. To determine whether State clearly documents the department’s current climate risk assessment process for integrated country strategies, we compared State’s 2018 guidance for developing integrated country strategies with standards related to documentation in Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government and previous State guidance issued in 2016, which was created in response to Executive Order 13677’s requirements to assess climate change risks to strategies, among other things. to these issues. The agency then provided us with data for about 250 activities from its annual operational plans for fiscal years 2014 through 2016, the 3 years during the period we reviewed in which it received adaptation funding. USAID identified these activities based on whether the agency had tagged them in its plans as having an “adaptation key issue.” USAID excluded projects that had planned attributions to the adaptation key issue of less than $250,000 in a given fiscal year, as well as certain other activities such as those that focused on project support. We then conducted an automated review of the activity description fields provided by USAID for terms related to migration and other descriptive information such as locations of activities. Because no USAID adaptation activities specifically mentioned migration, for the purposes of this report we chose illustrative examples to provide context for the types of activities the agency has funded. DOD officials we met with did not identify any specific activities related to climate change as a driver of migration. DOD officials from the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict and the geographic combatant commands generally discussed DOD activities related to humanitarian assistance and disaster response as most relevant to our inquiry. Because DOD works in coordination with USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance on disaster assistance we also reviewed USAID data on its disaster response activities during this period. We determined that the USAID and State adaptation project data and USAID disaster assistance data were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of describing these efforts. State, USAID, and DOD to obtain information on whether changes in government priorities related to climate change affected their activities. We conducted this performance audit from October 2017 to January 2019 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. This appendix provides a review by region of observed and projected climate change effects, migration trends, and challenges in stability and security. Multiple sources we used for this overview make a connection between climate change and such events as rising sea levels, higher temperatures, and an increase in the number and severity of extreme weather events. The following regions are discussed: Asia, South America, the Arctic, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Oceania, and Central America and the Caribbean. We have provided an overview for each region and a focus on one country or territory in the region. international and regional organizations, including a variety of organizations within the United Nations, the World Bank, regional development banks, the European Union, and others. Third, we reviewed relevant public documents from U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Defense, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Fourth, we reviewed academic sources, research institutions, and documents from the relevant country’s national government. population. Economic conditions may be a factor for people deciding whether to migrate or stay in their country of origin. Remittances as Percent of GDP: The money international migrants transfer to recipients in their country of origin, expressed as a percentage of the origin country’s GDP. Sources agree that remittances support resilience in origin countries. Agriculture, Fishing, Forestry as Percent of GDP: A measure of the value added to an economy from the agricultural sector, which includes forestry, hunting, fishing, and the cultivation of crops and livestock, expressed as a percentage of the country’s GDP. Countries that depend on the agricultural sector may be vulnerable to the effects of climate change, according to the World Bank. Percent of Population in Cities: The population living in areas classified as urban according to criteria each country uses. Today, more than half of the global population lives in cities. Migration, in some cases due to climate change, is an important driver of urban growth, according to IOM. Cities are also expected to face increasing risks from rising sea levels, flooding, storms, and other climate change effects. Net Migration Rate: A measure of the number of people leaving a country compared to the number of people entering a country, expressed as a number per 1,000 people. The effects of climate change in Asia may impact migration and stability according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). In coastal areas, effects of climate change include rising sea levels, storm surges, and others. Receding glaciers in mountanous areas may also cause flooding, and monsoons in a warmer climate may be more severe. Heat extremes and more rainfall are a particular concern in Southeast Asia. Changes in precipitation and drought in Asia may exacerbate food security challenges, and contribute to people deciding to migrate. Increases in migration, partly stemming from the effects of climate change in surrounding rural areas, may put pressure on existing urban infrastructure. Rural migrants may settle in informal communities on the outskirts of cities, areas that have little resilience to natural disasters. Although the World Bank and others agree that climate change largely causes internal migration, some evidence shows that the impact of climate change contributes to cross-border migration in Asia. Large numbers of migrants, along with other destabilizing factors, may contribute to instability and conflict, according to the IPCC. The effects of climate change on livelihoods, for example, could increase migration, strain governance, and contribute to conflict as a result. Bangladesh is one example where decreased yields from agriculture and fisheries have contributed to migration to the country’s coastal cities, which face their own climate change challenges. Bangladesh’s high population density and geography make the country susceptible to the effects of climate change, according to the World Bank, and others. Bangladesh’s coasts and river banks are vulnerable to sudden-onset events such as tropical cyclones and flooding. Cyclone Aila in 2009, for example, caused widespread flooding in the southern coastal areas of Bangladesh and impacted millions of people. The storm washed away embankments that protected coastlines and caused severe damage to crops and livelihoods. Tropical Cyclone Mora in 2017 damaged thousands of homes and displaced an estimated 200,000 people. Increases in the number and intensity of tropical cyclones, which some predict will occur in a warmer climate, could have severe impacts on homes, livelihoods, and food security. Bangladesh also experiences many slow-onset climate change events, such as rising sea levels and increasingly severe droughts, which are projected to intensify with climate change. Bangladesh would lose an estimated 17.5 percent of its land if the sea level rose 1 meter, as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has reported. Projected changes in precipitation levels could cause drought and food insecurity in the northwest and salt-water intrusion could reduce crop yields in the southwest. Migration is a common adaptation strategy to climate change in Bangladesh, according to the ADB. For example, some farmers have adapted to salt water intrusion and destroyed crops by switching to salt- tolerant rice production or shrimp cultivation. Others have migrated, often to Bangladesh’s cities to find work less dependent on agriculture. Many new migrants to Bangladesh’s cities live in informal settlements that lack the resilience to withstand sudden-onset climate events. The capital city, Dhaka, is a common destination for migrants displaced by salt-water intrusion, flooding, and river erosion, according to IOM. Dhaka, like many coastal cities in South Asia, is located on a low-lying riverbank and faces increasing risks of extreme flooding. For example, past floods in Dhaka have destroyed homes and contaminated drinking water, creating significant health hazards. In some cases, individuals migrate to cities temporarily for work and return home after the agricultural off season ends. Bangladeshis also provide a significant number of labor migrants to the Gulf States and Malaysia. Remittances from international migrants represent 5.4 percent of the country’s GDP, and may help to support resilience to climate change, according to IOM, and others. These migration trends may intensify in the future. One study estimates 9.6 million people will migrate from 2011 to 2050 due to the effects of climate change. Challenges in Stability and Security Migration due to climate change is cited as a potential destabilizing factor in Bangladesh by ADB, and others. The low-income population in Bangladesh is dependent on agriculture, making the effects of climate change—including impacts on food security—a particular concern. By 2030, these effects on livelihoods and food security could increase the poverty rate in Bangladesh by 15 percent, as the IPCC has reported. Given the proximity of Bangladesh to India, some individuals may also choose to cross the border. Increased migration to India is a potential concern, according to some sources, as India may not have the resources to absorb large numbers of Bangladeshi migrants. The CNA Corporation, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change (Alexandria, VA: 2007); and Population Council, “Effects of Future Climate Change on Cross-Border Migration in North Africa and India,” Population and Development Review, Vol. 36, No. 2 (2010). The effects of climate change in South America vary by region, according to the the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and International Organization for Migration (IOM), as well as potentially impacting migration and stability. On the coast, risks include sea level rise, depletion of fisheries, and coral reef bleaching, according to IOM. Coastal cities with growing populations are particularly vulnerable. Melting glaciers in the Andean mountain region, and increased rainfall are expected to change the distribution of water resources, and impact food production as global demand for food is growing. Desertification and land degradation, complicated by the effects of climate change, are contributing to migration from rural areas to cities in South America, as IOM has reported. An estimated 77 percent of people living in high risk areas in South America are located in cities, according to IOM. IOM predicts that as these people feel the effects of sea level rise and water scarcity, they will migrate from the large coastal cities to smaller urban areas. While South America has experienced economic growth in the last decade, poverty rates remain high, and the effects of climate change, including possible migration, may exacerbate inequalities, putting further pressure on cities to meet the needs of their populations. Water security in particular is expected to disproportionaly impact low-income communities, according to the IPCC. For example, in Brazil, drought in the northeast may increase migration to southern cities that are facing rising sea levels and landslides, with consequences for food, water, and energy security. Observed and Projected Effects of Climate Change Brazil’s cities and rural regions may encounter a range of climate change effects, according to the IPCC and IOM. Rural areas, particularly in the northeast, could experience significant impacts from climate change partly due to poverty rates, and historical vulnerability to drought. Higher temperatures are expected to affect crop yields and household incomes, especially for low-income communities. In northeastern Brazil, temperatures are expected to increase and rainfall to decrease. The northeast could see a 22 percent reduction in precipitation by 2100, according to IPCC projections. Brazil’s coastal areas, including cities, are also vulnerable to rising sea levels, heavy precipitation, flooding, and landslides. The vast majority of Brazil’s population, about 86 percent, lives in cities, many in coastal areas, according to the United Nations Development Program. As their populations have grown, urban areas have extended out. This urban growth in Brazil’s megacities has caused further increases in temperature, rainfall, and landslides. For example, current levels of urbanization in the metropolitan area of Sao Paulo may already be responsible for the 2°C warming observed in the city over the last 50 years, as well as the rise in extreme rainfall, according to the IPCC. The metropolitan area is expected to extend its area 38 percent by 2030. Multiple studies of the effects of urbanization on Sao Paulo’s climate suggest higher temperatures affect convective rainfall, which occurs when warm air rises, condenses to form clouds, and produces extreme rain. Other concerns are the depletion of coral reefs and mangrove forests on Brazil’s coastlines, and decreases in biodiversity. Migration from drought in northeastern Brazil to cities has increased urban populations, putting more people at risk of displacement from flooding and landslides. Migration from the northeast is a historical trend in Brazil, as economic migrants have sought seasonal jobs in more productive agricultural regions, or moved permanently to southern cities. Projected declines in rainfall have led some to predict further increases in migration in northeastern Brazil, as the IPCC has reported. However, remittances from family members who leave Brazil’s northeast support resilience for those who remain and may help to reduce migration. Already environmental factors contribute to migration to cities, including to favelas, informal settlements often constructed in hilly areas and floodplains outside of Brazilian cities. A significant number of the favela residents in Rio de Janeiro are migrants from northeastern Brazil, according to IOM. These new migrants may be at risk of further displacement if heavy rainfall, flooding, and other climate change effects destroy their vulnerable homes. For example, heavy rainfall in April 2010 resulted in landslides across Rio de Janeiro, displacing an estimated 5,000 people, according to a report from the World Bank. Brazil is also a destination for migrants from other countries in the region. Migrants from Venezuela searching for jobs and improved food security have come in growing numbers in recent years, as have migrants from Haiti fleeing a series of natural disasters, as IOM has reported. Challenges in Stability and Security Although Brazil ranks 106th out of 178 countries on the Fragile States Index, the effects of climate change may contribute to challenges with water, food, and energy access according to the IPCC. Decreased rainfall could decrease agricultural productivity, with potential health impacts for poor populations. These conditions are of particular concern in northeastern Brazil, as extreme weather and low crop yields are associated with more violence, according to the IPCC. Brazil also receives about 70 percent of its electricity from hydroelectric power, according the United Nations Environment Programme, and recent droughts caused power cuts across many major cities. Although not linked to the effects of climate change, absorbing a growing number of migrants fleeing political and economic instability in Venezuela may impact the broader region, according to the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Intelligence Council. Neighboring countries, including Brazil, may struggle to absorb the influx of migrants. On average, 800 Venezuelans are crossing the border to Brazil every day in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, according to the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. The effects of climate change in the Arctic, including higher temperatures and melting ice, have contributed to shifts in migration across the Arctic, and may have security implications. Increasing temperatures may have a variety of impacts in the Arctic, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The effects of rising temperatures are disrupting livelihoods and food security, especially for indigenous communities, and opening up untapped natural resources to extraction. Both trends have impacted migration flows in the Arctic. Rising temperatures and melting ice have opened up previously inaccessible waterways in the Arctic, with implications for national security, according to the Department of Defense and others. Greenland, located in the Arctic and considered part of Kingdom of Denmark, exhibits many of these trends. Greenland is experiencing the effects of climate change, including glacial and ice melt, shifts in wildlife distribution, and newly available oil and mineral deposits, among others. The Greenland Ice Sheet covers approximately 80 percent of Greenland’s land mass. The ice sheet’s melting rate is slow, but uncertain. Increases in temperature greater than 1°C may result in the near loss of the entire ice sheet over a millennium and significant sea level rise, according to the IPCC. In the short term, predicting the ice sheet’s melting rate is a challenge as predictions vary in the scientific community. Accurate predictions would support mitigation and adaptation efforts in vulnerable areas. Rising temperatures and shrinking ice cover have shifted the distribution and migration patterns of marine mammals and fish, and impacted food security according to the IPCC and the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum for Arctic states. For example, the economy in Paamiut, Greenland, depended primarily on cod fisheries until changing climate conditions caused cod to disappear, and the town was slow to adapt to newly available shrimp. Similarly, fisheries in Disko Bay, Greenland, have struggled to adapt to new conditions. Rising temperatures and the resulting reduction in ice cover have required a shift to fishing from boats in open water instead of hunting and fishing over ice cover. Lastly, warming and ice melt may make significant oil and mineral deposits accessible for extraction in the future. The potential expansion of extraction industries makes environmental sustainability another possible concern. For example, an estimated 31 billion barrels of oil and gas may exist off the coast of Northeast Greenland, according to the Kingdom of Denmark’s 2011-2020 Arctic Strategy. The strategy stresses the importance of assessing and reducing risks to the environment resulting from the exploration and extraction of oil and gas. The effects of climate change are predicted to contribute to internal and external migration in Greenland. For example, young people are increasingly leaving indigenous communities in rural areas for cities in Greenland in search of work, as traditional livelihoods become unsustainable. Greenland is home to a majority indigenous population, primarily Inuit, whose traditional hunting and fishing practices require travel across ice. In the past, people adapted to seasonal changes to support livelihoods by migrating, and the practice was embedded into indigenous social structures. With reduced ice cover, however, migrating to hunt, fish, and maintain connections to community is more dangerous or restricted. Government policies promoting centralized services, such as health care and education, have also played a role in the shift away from migration as a way of life. As a result, indigenous livelihoods are more difficult to maintain, and young people often migrate to towns and cities in Greenland, or to Denmark, for education. At the same time, warmer temperatures have made mineral extraction feasible. As the extraction industry grows, new jobs may draw migrants from outside the Arctic region. In 2011 companies spent $100 million on the exploration of minerals in the Artic, and the estimated number of new mines is expected to require more workers than now live in the region.17 79Currently, more people leave than migrate to Greenland. The local Inuit population in Uummannaq, Greenland relies heavily on ice coverage for fishing and travel by traditional dog-sled. Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement, A Complex Constellation: Displacement, Climate Change and Arctic Peoples (January 30, 2013). Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement. The effects of climate change on Sub-Saharan Africa vary depending on the region and have impacts on migration and security, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Coastal areas, for example, in West and East Africa are at risk from sea level rise that could affect major cities. Drought and the risk of desertification in the Sahel is cited as a concern, as is increased rainfall in parts of Central Africa accompanied by lower agricultural yields. As desertification threatens the livelihoods of farmers and herders, and drought makes fishing more challenging, rural dwellers may be more likely to migrate to cities, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Urbanization and population growth across Sub-Saharan Africa is already making densely populated cities vulnerable to flooding, storms, and erosion, increasing the number of people at risk of displacement by sudden-onset disasters. Climate change effects and changing migration flows across Sub-Saharan Africa may impact access to natural resources and contribute to existing tensions and conflicts, according to UNEP and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In Nigeria, the effects of climate change may effect a variety of livelihoods and increase migration south, while also exacerbating existing conflicts. The effects of climate change on Nigeria may impact the country’s agriculture and economy, according to the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Higher temperatures and decreased rainfall have contributed to drought in northern Nigeria. Desertification is also a concern. Some regions in northern Nigeria have less than 10 inches of rain a year, an amount that has decreased by 25 percent since the 1980’s, according to USIP. In other areas across Nigeria flooding has resulted in major crop losses, according to UNEP. Rising sea level, water inundation, and erosion are concerns in Nigeria’s coastal areas. Rising sea level is predicted to pose medium to very high risks to Africa’s coastal areas by 2100, according to the IPCC. Future sea level rise could result in the inundation of over 70 percent of the Nigerian coast. A rise of 0.2 meters in sea level could risk billions of dollars in assets, including oil wells near the coast. Even without a rapid rise in sea level, Nigeria’s coastal areas could experience erosion and significant land loss by 2100, as the IPCC has reported. The effects of climate change on livelihoods in northern Nigeria may contribute to migration to the south according to UNEP, while conflict in the north drives separate migration trends. As the effects of climate change make farming and fishing more challenging elsewhere in Nigeria, migration to southern coastal cities may increase. Traditionally, farmers, herders, and fishery workers migrated for temporary employment during the off season, including migration to Nigeria’s cities to work in the oil industry. Permanent migration south as well as to cities may become more common if land suitable for farming decreases. As fish habitats like Lake Chad dry up, fishery workers may also migrate. Larger urban populations on the coast will put more people at risk of sea level rise, water inundation, and erosion, according to the IPCC. A rise in sea level of 1 meter could put over 3 million people at risk of displacement as the IPCC has reported. Herders have also moved further south due to increased drought in northern Nigeria, as UNEP and USIP have reported. A 2010 survey of herdsmen in Nigeria, for example, found that nearly one-third of them had migrated southeast as a result of changes in the natural environment, according to the UNEP. The ongoing conflict with Boko Haram, while not caused by climate change, has further resulted in millions of displaced people across the Lake Chad region, including many Nigerians who have fled to Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. Nigerian refugees at the Minawao camp in Cameroon. Challenges in Stability and Security The effects of climate change, migration, and conflict are interconnected in Nigeria, as USIP has reported. The country is ranked 14th of 178 countries on the Fragile States Index. Events in northwest Africa, including Boko Haram’s attacks in Nigeria, have underscored concerns about the region’s vulnerability to the spread of violent extremism. The effects of climate change may exacerbate these concerns, according to USIP. Nigerians fleeing attacks from Boko Haram in the north have gone to communities in neighboring Chad, Cameroon, and Niger that are already experiencing food shortages due in part to climate change. These neighboring countries as a result have fewer resources to support both their own residents and the newer refugees. Non-state actors may also take advantage of government inaction on the effects of climate change. Boko Haram, for example, has justified its acts of violence by pointing to government failures, according to the USIP. Separately, increased drought in the north may aggravate historic tensions over land and water use between farmers in the south and herders migrating from the north, according to UNEP. Nigeria’s oil fields on the coast, which represent a significant part of the economy, are also at risk from sea level rise. Potential losses in oil revenue could impact Nigeria’s ability to respond to humanitarian crises and conflict at home. Increased violence within its borders could also affect Nigeria’s ability to support regional peacekeeping missions, such as the United Nations Mission in Liberia from 2003 to 2018, where Nigerian troops worked to restore security after a civil war. The effects of climate change in the Middle East and North Africa, including on its desert regions, may impact water access and compound migration and stability challenges, according to the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). Over 60 percent of the population already experiences high or very high water stress, according to the World Bank. Coupled with unsustainable water use, climate change may further exacerbate challenges with water security. The region continues to experience rising temperatures and declining annual rainfall, trends that contribute to the severity and length of drought, land degradation, and desertification. Decreased water security affects the livelihood and quality of life of farmers in the region, contributing to an increase in their migration to the cities and more urbanization, according to the World Bank. In contrast, many people are expected to migrate away from coastal cities as a result of sea level rise, according to UNEP. These potential migrations would be taking place in a region that already hosts large numbers of migrants such as those displaced by conflict and violence, including 18 percent of the world’s refugees, according to the International Organization for Migration. Challenges in water security may put greater pressure on unstable governments in the region, by intensifying existing tensions and conflicts between populations and their governments as well as between countries that share sources of water. The conflict in Syria illustrates the complex nature of climate change, migration, and conflict in the region, and the challenges to accurately assessing the links among the three, as noted in a technical paper commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Rising temperatures and declining rainfall have contributed to recent droughts in Syria, a trend that may continue. The country underwent an extended drought from about 2006 until 2011. During the drought an estimated 60 percent of Syria experienced severe crop failure, and accompanying impacts on food security. Some studies have linked the length and severity of the drought in Syria to climate change, as USAID has reported. Others, however, have pointed to government land and water use policies, combined with the effects of climate change, as responsible for the severity of the drought. Agricultural policies, for example, encouraged farmers to grow water intensive crops like wheat, and supported inefficient irrigation practices, policies which further depleted ground water and made the region more vulnerable to decreases in rainfall linked to climate change. Across the Middle East, the rising temperatures and declining rainfalls of recent decades may worsen, according to the World Bank. If these trends continue, countries in the Middle East, including Syria, could continue to experience periods of severe drought and reduced crop yields. Migration Trends The ongoing conflict in Syria, in which migration due to climate change may have been a contributing factor, has caused large-scale migration to neighboring countries in the Middle East and to Europe. Leading up to the civil war, prolonged drought, among other factors, had increased migration to Syrian cities. Because of the drought, in 2009, over 800,000 Syrians lost their livelihoods in the agricultural sector, while nearly 1 million experienced food insecurity. In 2010, an estimated 200,000 people migrated from farms in rural areas to cities, according to a UN report. The conflict in Syria, which began in 2011, has further displaced large numbers of people within the country and across the Middle East, as we have previously reported.At the beginning of the conflict, Syrians, as well as Iraqi and Palestinian refugees who had been residing in Syria, fled mainly to Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. As the conflict persisted, refugees fled in larger numbers to Turkey, with the UNHCR reporting that nearly 1 million Syrians sought protection in that country in 2015. Starting that year, a growing number of Syrians risked dangerous sea voyages to reach countries in Europe, such as Greece, Germany, and Sweden. As of June 2017, more than 5 million registered Syrian refugees were living in neighboring countries, including more than 3 million in Turkey, and more than 1 million in Lebanon. Challenges in Stability and Security Sources agree that the Syrian conflict is a significant security challenge that has resulted in large scale migration across the Middle East and to Europe. Yet the link between prolonged drought, rural to urban migration, and the current conflict in Syria is uncertain. Some academic sources argue that the increased strain on urban infrastructure and resources due to the rural to urban migration played a role in Syria’s growing instability. Others highlight the complex nature of the Syrian conflict, pointing to broader political factors that exacerbated resource scarcity and inequality. For example, as the drought intensified, the Syrian government downplayed the severity of the humanitarian crisis, as described in research cited in a technical report commissioned by USAID.result, appeals to the international community for emergency aid received minimal support. Combined with existing sectarian divisions, ongoing revolutions across the Middle East, and other factors, the government’s response to the drought may have contributed to the current conflict. Migration and displacement are a concern in the region, according to the Department of Defense and others. The U.S. government has provided significant humanitarian assistance for Syrian refugees in the Middle East, including in Lebanon and Jordan, as we have previously reported.However, a technical report commissioned by USAID has cautioned that the ongoing conflict in Syria makes it difficult to conduct research and draw conclusions related to climate, migration and conflict. As a The effects of climate change on Oceania, particularly rising seas, may significantly impact coastal populations and increase migration in the future, as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have reported. Rising temperatures and declining rainfall may also contribute to lower yields from fisheries and agriculture, and a significant decrease in coral reef cover. Extreme weather events, including higher temperatures, wind, and rainfall, have already increased in number and intensity across the region. In the majority of Pacific island nations, of those who migrate, more people leave than come, according to the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Observatory on Migration. The majority of migration in the region is economically driven. In the future, climate change may further impact these migration patterns across the region, according to the IPCC. Climate change has already exacerbated challenges that aid-dependent nations in the region face, restricting livelihoods and resources and contributing to pressures to migrate. The costs of climate change, including a decline in crop yields, a rise in energy demands, and a loss of coastal land, are predicted to be significant. The ADB estimates these costs will reach 12.7 percent of the Pacific regions’ GDP by 2100. Increased migration may also impact political stability and play a role in geopolitical rivalries within the region, according to the IPCC. The effects of climate change, especially rising sea levels, may result in forced migration from the Republic of the Marshall Islands (the Marshall Islands) and have additional impacts on the U.S. defense infrastructure on the islands. Observed and Projected Effects of Climate Change Rising sea levels are a grave threat to the Marshall Islands.The country consists of islands, low-lying atolls—coral caps sitting on top of submerged volcanoes—making it particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels. On average, the Marshall Islands are 2 meters above sea level. In Majuro, the country’s most populous atoll, observed rates of sea level rise are already twice as fast as the global average. Population centers experience significant flooding, with damage to roads, houses, and infrastructure, especially during La Niña years, which are significantly wetter and more prone to extreme rainfall. Flooding is expected to worsen with rising sea levels, with consequences for the availabity of drinking water. On Roi-Namur island, for example, a 0.4 meter rise in sea level combined with wave-driven flooding is predicted to make groundwater undrinkable year round as early as 2055. This salt water inundation may contaminate already limited groundwater across the Marshall Islands. Lastly, during the 1940s and 1950s, the Marshall Islands was the site of 67 U.S. nuclear weapons tests on or near Bikini and Enewetak Atolls. Projected increases in frequency of flooding may negatively impact efforts to contain radioactive material stored on Runit Island. A number of factors have increased migration from the Marshall Islands, including to the United States. In 1986, the United States entered into a compact of free association with the country that allowed its citizens to migrate to the United States, as we have previously reported. As a result, more than 20,000 Marshallese now live in the United States.People are more likely to migrate abroad as the effects of climate change on the Marshall Islands—including rising sea levels—increasingly impact livelihoods.The threat of mass displacement and forced migration is also a concern, as the International Organization for Migration has reported. However, Marshallese culture has a strong connection to the land, which means that many view migration as a last resort. For people still living in the Marshall Islands, they face overpopulation in urban centers and displacement by sudden-onset disasters like cyclones and flooding. Factors influencing people deciding to move abroad include displacement, lack of economic opportunity—sometimes exacerbated by climate change—and limited access to health care. Climate change is likely to increase risks to public health in the country.Increased rainfall, for instance, may expand mosquito breeding grounds, raising the risk of diseases like dengue fever. The country’s limited health care system may further contribute to migration from the islands. Challenges in Stability and Security In the future, the Marshall Islands may become uninhabitable. This prospect threatens the existence of the Marshall Islands as a sovereign state, as well as the United States defense facilities located on the islands. The total loss of land could result in the Marshall Islands being uninhabitable, which raises problems of migration, resettlement, cultural survival, and sovereignty. Relocation of the population of the Marshall Islands, and of other Pacific Island nations at risk of rising seas, could cause significant geopolitical challenges.The Marshall Islands are also of strategic importance for the United States. Under the Compact of Free Association, the United States has permission to use several islands— including Kwajalein Atoll, the location of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Range—until 2066. The country’s proximity to the equator makes the Marshall Islands ideal for missile defense and space work. Yet the island’s defense infrastructure and operations are at significant risk due to rising sea levels, flooding, and diminishing supplies of potable water. As the Department of Defense has noted, climate change will have serious implications for the department’s ability to maintain its infrastructure and ensure military readiness in the future. DOD, 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap (Alexandria, VA: June 2014). The effects of climate change on Central America and the Caribbean may increase migration and exacerbate poverty rates, as the National Intelligence Council has reported. The climate in Central America and the Caribbean is predicted to be warmer and dryer. The Caribbean’s extensive coastlines and low-lying areas are vulnerable to sea level rise and an increase in sudden-onset disasters, including hurricanes and storm surges. Drought is a particular concern in Central America, where declines in rainfall have reduced crop yields and threatened livelihoods in recent years. Some evidence shows that drought in parts of Central America has contributed to migration north, including to the United States. Population growth, especially in coastal cities, has increased the number of people at risk during hurricane season, and the number and intensity of hurricanes have grown in recent years. Some attribute the increase in intensity to higher sea surface temperatures caused by climate change. However, there remains debate about long term hurricane trends. Recent hurricanes have caused displacement, and significant losses and damages—including to infrastructure—across the region. The depletion of coral reefs and mangrove trees, natural barriers to coastal erosion and flooding, has exacerbated vulnerability to storms in coastal areas. Climate change is likely to have negative impacts on tourism in the Caribbean, where the industry is an important part of the economy, according to Inter-American Development Bank. Climate change impacts on the economy may make it increasingly difficult for governments to reduce poverty and move towards environmental sustainability. Haiti’s geography, location, and high poverty rates make the country especially vulnerable. Haiti is highly vulnerable to climate change effects, partly due to its long coastline.Hurricanes routinely make landfall in the country, and increases in rainfall and wind speeds associated with hurricanes are likely. Severe hurricanes, including Hurricane Matthew in September 2016, have hit Haiti in recent years. Hurricane Matthew was the first category 4 storm in Haiti since 1964. Damage from severe flooding and severe winds during the hurricane affected over 2 million people and created significant food security and public health challenges. Significant deforestation has further exacerbated Haiti’s vulnerability to hurricanes, as trees previously provided a natural barrier to the erosion that strong winds and more rainfall can cause. Rising temperature and highly variable rainfall have led to extreme drought and flash flooding, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).32 2 These trends decrease crop yields, affecting the livelihoods of farmers, and threaten water access. Projected increase in temperature and decreases in rainfall are likely to intensify drought in Haiti’s interior. USAID, Haiti: Environment and Climate Change Fact Sheet (January 2016). Migration Trends Slow-onset climate events, such as drought, and rising sea levels, and sudden-onset events, including earthquakes, affect Haiti, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Haiti is also particularly exposed to extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, which can lead to displacement. In January 2010, a catastrophic earthquake in Haiti killed an estimated 230,000 people and left close to 1.5 million people homeless. According to IOM, the recurrence of environmental disruptions increases risks and vulnerabilities. When Hurricane Sandy struck Haiti in October 2012, the country had still not recovered from the 2010 earthquake. The worsening of climate change effects around the world, particularly in low-income countries, may increase the number of people wanting to immigrate to the United States, where approximately 700,000 Haitians live today.Remittances from family members living outside Haiti make up a significant portion of the economy, at 24.7 percent of GDP. The majority of these remittances come from the United States, as we have previously reported.34 4Remittances may support resilience to climate change effects as migrants send money home for disaster recovery and adaptation. Challenges in Stability and Security Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, has experienced political instability for most of its history, and ranks 12th of 178 on the Fragile States Index. The government has a low capacity to respond to additional challenges like those related to climate change, according to USAID. The Ministry of Environment, for example, is a relatively new organization within the Haitian government, and local and regional governments have a limited ability to enforce environmental laws and regulations. The United States has provided substantial aid to Haiti, both in disaster response and broader development projects. Official development assistance for Haiti in 2015, for instance, totaled slightly more than $1 billion. According to a January 2018 UN report, 2.8 million people were still in need of humanitarian assistance. GAO, Remittances To Fragile Countries: Treasury Should Assess Risks from Shifts to Non-Banking Channels, GAO-18-313 (Washington, D.C., March 8, 2018). The Department of State’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (State/OES) provided about $78 million in adaptation funding from the Global Climate Change Initiative for eight projects for fiscal years 2014 through 2017 (see table 2). The Global Climate Change Initiative was established in 2010 to promote resilient, low- emission development, and integrate climate change considerations into U.S. foreign assistance and was divided into three main programmatic initiatives: (1) Adaptation assistance, (2) Clean Energy assistance, and (3) Sustainable Landscapes assistance. The primary purpose of these contributions to the LDCF was to address the adaptation needs of the least developed countries, which are especially vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. The LDCF financed the preparation and implementation of National Adaptation Programs of Action, which identify a country’s priorities for adaptation actions. Initial grant to the National Adaptation Plans Global Network. The network is focused on increasing the capacity of national and subnational governments to identify and assess climate risks, integrate these risk considerations in sector planning, develop a pipeline of projects to address risks, identify and secure funding for projects, and track progress toward resilience targets. Colombia, East Caribbean (Guyana, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), Ethiopia, Peru, South Africa, Uganda, West Africa (Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Togo) and, under current consideration, East Caribbean (Dominica, Suriname), and Pacific (Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu) The cost amendment intensified the technical support on National Adaptation Plans to select countries dependent upon specific country adaption needs. In addition, the cost amendment continued the learning and progress from the initial grant. Implemented through the Department of Treasury, this funding supported a Treasury grant to the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment and Financing Initiative Multi Donor Trust Fund at the World Bank. This activity established the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Foundation and the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Company, among other things. The goal of PIER is to increase private sector investment in resilience to climate change in eight developing countries. The first phase of the project will assess and identify opportunities for private investment in resilience, as well as build public and private capacity for climate risk assessment in all the countries. In the second phase, public and private sector partners will develop and pilot climate risk-reduction investment models in four of the countries. The third phase will publicize the piloted investment models and lessons learned among the eight countries. Implemented through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this activity aims to implement a capacity-building partnership with India to promote effective climate resilient decision making at national, state, and local levels. In addition to the contacts named above, the following individuals made key contributions to this report: Miriam Carroll Fenton (Assistant Director), Kristy Williams (Assistant Director), Rachel Girshick (Analyst-in-Charge), Nancy Santucci, Miranda Cohen, Aldo Salerno, Neil Doherty, and Judith Williams. Alexander Welsh, Justin Fisher, and Joseph Thompson provided technical and other support. Climate Change Adaptation: DOD Needs to Better Incorporate Adaptation into Planning and Collaboration at Overseas Installations. GAO-18-206. Washington, D.C.: November 13, 2017. Compacts Of Free Association: Actions Needed to Prepare for The Transition of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands to Trust Fund Income. GAO-18-415. Washington, D.C.: May 17, 2018. Remittances to Fragile Countries: Treasury Should Assess Risks from Shifts to Non-Banking Channels. GAO-18-313. Washington, D.C.: March 8, 2018. Syrian Refugees: U.S. Agencies Conduct Financial Oversight Activities for Humanitarian Assistance but Should Strengthen Monitoring. GAO-18-58. Washington, D.C.: October 31, 2017. International Food Assistance: Agencies Should Ensure Timely Documentation of Required Market Analyses and Assess Local Markets for Program Effects. GAO-17-640. Washington, D.C.: July 13, 2017. High-Risk Series: Progress on Many High-Risk Areas, While Substantial Efforts Needed on Others. GAO-17-317. Washington, D.C.: February 15, 2017. Federal Disaster Assistance: Federal Departments and Agencies Obligated at Least $277.6 Billion during Fiscal Years 2005 through 2014. GAO-16-797. Washington, D.C.: September 22, 2016. Coast Guard: Arctic Strategy Is Underway, but Agency Could Better Assess How Its Actions Mitigate Known Arctic Capability Gaps. GAO-16-453. Washington, D.C.: July 12, 2016. Climate Information: A National System Could Help Federal, State, Local, and Private Sector Decision Makers Use Climate Information. GAO-16-37. Washington, D.C.: November 23, 2015. Hurricane Sandy: An Investment Strategy Could Help the Federal Government Enhance National Resilience for Future Disasters. GAO-15-515. Washington, D.C.: July 30, 2015. High-Risk Series: An Update. GAO-15-290. Washington, D.C.: February 11, 2015. Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government. GAO-14-704G. Washington, D.C.: September 10, 2014. Combating Terrorism: U.S. Efforts in Northwest Africa Would Be Strengthened by Enhanced Program Management. GAO-14-518. Washington, D.C.: June 24, 2014. Climate Change Adaptation: DOD Can Improve Infrastructure Planning and Processes to Better Account for Potential Impacts. GAO-14-446. Washington, D.C.: May 30, 2014. Extreme Weather Events: Limiting Federal Fiscal Exposure and Increasing the Nation’s Resilience. GAO-14-364T. Washington, D.C.: February 12, 2014. Climate Change: State Should Further Improve Its Reporting on Financial Support to Developing Countries to Meet Future Requirements and Guidelines. GAO-13-829. Washington, D.C.: September 19, 2013. High-Risk Series: An Update. GAO-13-283. Washington, D.C.: February 14, 2013. International Climate Change Assessments: Federal Agencies Should Improve Reporting and Oversight of U.S. Funding. GAO-12-43. Washington, D.C.: November 17, 2011. Climate Change Adaptation: Federal Efforts to Provide Information Could Help Government Decision Making. GAO-12-238T. Washington, D.C.: November 16, 2011. Foreign Relation: Kwajalein Atoll Is the Key U.S. Defense Interest in Two Micronesian Nations, GAO-02-119. Washington D.C.: January 22, 2002.

 

 Report 2:
The issue of executive discretion has been at the center of constitutional debates in liberal democracies throughout the twentieth century. How to balance a commitment to the rule of law with the exigencies of modern political and economic crises has engaged legislators and scholars in the United States and around the world. The United States Constitution is silent on questions of emergency power. As such, over the past two centuries, Congress and the President have answered those questions in varied and often ad hoc ways. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the answer was often for the President to act without congressional approval in a time of crisis, knowingly risking impeachment and personal civil liability. Congress claimed primacy over emergency action and would decide subsequently to either ratify the President's actions or indemnify the President for any civil liability. By the twentieth century, a new pattern had begun to emerge. Instead of retroactively judging an executive's extraordinary actions in a time of emergency, Congress created statutory bases permitting the President to declare a state of emergency and make use of extraordinary delegated powers. The expanding delegation of emergency powers to the executive and the increase of governing via emergency power by the executive has been a common trajectory among twentieth-century liberal democracies. As innovation has quickened the pace of social change and global crises, some legislatures have felt compelled to delegate to the executive, who traditional political theorists assumed could operate with greater "dispatch" than deliberate, future-oriented legislatures. Whether such actions subvert the rule of law or are a standard feature of healthy modern constitutional orders has been a subject of extensive debate. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) is one such example of a twentieth-century delegation of emergency authority. One of 123 emergency statutes under the umbrella of the National Emergencies Act (NEA), IEEPA grants the President extensive power to regulate a variety of economic transactions during a state of emergency. Congress enacted IEEPA in 1977 to rein in the expansive emergency economic powers that it had been delegated to the President under the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA). Nevertheless, some scholars argue that judicial and legislative actions subsequent to IEEPA's enactment have made it, like TWEA, a source of expansive and unchecked executive authority in the economic realm. Others, however, argue that Presidents often use IEEPA to implement the will of Congress either as directed by law or as encouraged by congressional activity. Until recently, there has been little congressional discussion of modifying either IEEPA or its umbrella statute, the NEA. Recent presidential actions, however, have drawn attention to presidential emergency powers under the NEA of which IEEPA is the most frequently used. Should Congress consider changing IEEPA, there are two issues that Congress may wish to address. The first pertains to how Congress has delegated its authority under IEEPA and its umbrella statute, the NEA. The second pertains to choices made in the Export Control Reform Act of 2018. The First World War (1914-1918) saw an unprecedented degree of economic mobilization. The executive departments of European governments began to regulate their economies with or without the support of their legislatures. The United States, in contrast, was in a privileged position relative to its allies in Europe. Separated by an ocean from Germany and Austria-Hungary, the United States was never under substantial threat of invasion. Rather than relying on the inherent powers of the presidency, or acting unconstitutionally and waiting for congressional ratification, President Wilson sought explicit pre-authorization for expansive new powers to meet the global crisis. Between 1916 and the end of 1917, Congress passed 22 statutes empowering the President to take control of private property for public use during the war. These statutes gave the President broad authority to control railroads, shipyards, cars, telegraph and telephone systems, water systems, and many other sectors of the American economy. TWEA was one of those 22 statutes. It granted to the executive an extraordinary degree of control over international trade, investment, migration, and communications between the United States and its enemies. TWEA defined "enemy" broadly and included "any individual, partnership, or other body of individuals [including corporations], of any nationality, resident within the territory ... of any nation with which the United States is at war, or resident outside of the United States and doing business within such a territory ...." The first four sections of the act granted the President extensive powers to limit trading or communication with, or transporting enemies (or their allies) of the United States. These sections also empowered the President to censor foreign communications and place extensive restrictions on enemy insurance or reinsurance companies. It was Section 5(b) of TWEA, however, that would form one of the central bases of presidential emergency economic power in the twentieth century. Section 5(b), as originally enacted, states: That the President may investigate, regulate, or prohibit, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, by means of licenses or otherwise, any transactions in foreign exchange, export or earmarkings of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency, transfers of credit in any form (other than credits relating solely to transactions to be executed wholly within the United States), and transfers of evidences of indebtedness or of the ownership of property between the United States and any foreign country, whether enemy, ally of enemy or otherwise, or between residents of one or more foreign countries, by any person within the United States; and he may require any such person engaged in any such transaction to furnish, under oath, complete information relative thereto, including the production of any books of account, contracts, letters or other papers, in connection therewith in the custody or control of such person, either before or after such transaction is completed. The statute gave the President exceptional control over private international economic transactions in times of war. While Congress terminated many of the war powers in 1921, TWEA was specifically exempted because the U.S. Government had yet to dispose of a large amount of alien property in its custody. The Great Depression, a massive global economic downturn that began in 1929, presented a challenge to liberal democracies in Europe and the Americas. To deal with the complexities presented by the crisis, nearly all such democracies began delegating discretionary authority to their executives to a degree that had only previously been done in times of war. The U.S. Congress responded, in part, by dramatically expanding the scope of TWEA, delegating to the President the power to declare states of emergency in peacetime and assume expansive domestic economic powers. Such a delegation was made possible by analogizing economic crises to war. In public speeches about the crisis, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asserted that the Depression was to be "attacked," "fought against," "mobilized for," and "combatted" by "great arm[ies] of people." The economic mobilization of the First World War had blurred the lines between the executive's military and economic powers. As the Depression was likened to "armed strife" and declared to be "an emergency more serious than war" by a Justice of the Supreme Court, it became routine to use emergency economic legislation enacted in wartime as the basis for extraordinary economic authority in peacetime. As the Depression entered its third year, the newly-elected President Roosevelt sought from Congress "broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe." In his first act as President, Roosevelt proclaimed a bank holiday, suspending all transactions at all banking institutions located in the United States and its territories for four days. In his proclamation, Roosevelt claimed to have authority to declare the holiday under Section 5(b) of TWEA. However, because the United States was not in a state of war and the suspended transactions were primarily domestic, the President's authority to issue such an order was dubious. Despite the tenuous legality, Congress ratified Roosevelt's actions by passing the Emergency Banking Relief Act three days after his proclamation. The act amended Section 5(b) of TWEA to read: During time of war or during any other period of national emergency declared by the President , the President may, through any agency that he may designate, or otherwise, investigate, regulate, or prohibit.... This amendment gave the President the authority to declare that a national emergency existed and assume extensive controls over the national economy previously only available in times of war. By 1934, Roosevelt had used these extensive new powers to regulate "Every transaction in foreign exchange, transfer of credit between any banking institution within the United States and any banking institution outside of the United States." With America's entry into the Second World War in 1941, Congress again amended TWEA to grant the President extensive powers over the disposition of private property, adding the so-called "vesting" power, which authorized the permanent seizure of property. Now in its most expansive form, TWEA authorized the President to declare a national emergency and, in so doing, to regulate foreign exchange, domestic banking, possession of precious metals, and property in which any foreign country or foreign national had an interest. The Second World War ended in 1945. Following the conflict, the allied powers constructed institutions and signed agreements designed to keep the peace and to liberalize world trade. However, the United States did not immediately resume a peacetime posture with respect to emergency powers. Instead, the onset of the Cold War rationalized the continued use of TWEA and other emergency powers outside the context of a declared war. Over the next several decades, Presidents declared four national emergencies under Section 5(b) of TWEA and assumed expansive authority over economic transactions in the postwar period. During the Cold War, economic sanctions became an increasingly popular foreign policy and national security tool, and TWEA was a prominent source of presidential authority to use the tool. In 1950, President Harry S. Truman declared a national emergency, citing TWEA, to impose economic sanctions on North Korea and China. Subsequent Presidents referenced that national emergency as authority for imposing sanctions on Vietnam, Cuba, and Cambodia. Truman likewise used Section 5(b) of TWEA to maintain regulations on foreign exchange, transfers of credit, and the export of coin and currency that had been in place since the early 1930s. Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford invoked TWEA to continue export controls established under the Export Administration Act when the act expired. TWEA was also a prominent instrument of postwar presidential monetary policy. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy used TWEA and the national emergency declared by President Roosevelt in 1933 to maintain and modify regulations controlling the hoarding and export of gold. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson explicitly used Truman's 1950 declaration of emergency under Section 5(b) of TWEA to limit direct foreign investment by U.S. companies in an effort to strengthen the balance of payments position of the United States after the devaluation of the pound sterling by the United Kingdom. In 1971, after President Nixon ended the convertibility of the U.S. dollar to gold, effectively ending the postwar monetary order, he made use of Section 5(b) of TWEA to declare a state of emergency and place a 10% ad valorem supplemental duty on all dutiable goods entering the United States. The reliance by the executive on the powers granted by Section 5(b) of TWEA meant that postwar sanctions regimes and significant parts of U.S. international monetary policy relied on continued states of emergency for their operation. By the mid-1970s, in the wake of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, revelations of domestic spying, assassinations of foreign political leaders, the Watergate break-in, and other related abuses of power, Congress increasingly focused on checking the executive branch. The Senate formed a bipartisan special committee chaired by Senators Frank Church and Charles Mathias to reevaluate the expansive delegations of emergency authority to the President. The special committee issued a report surveying the President's emergency powers in which it asserted that the United States had technically "been in a state of national emergency since March 9, 1933" and that there were four distinct declarations of national emergency in effect. The report also noted that the United States had "on the books at least 470 significant emergency statutes without time limitations delegating to the Executive extensive discretionary powers, ordinarily exercised by the Legislature, which affect the lives of American citizens in a host of all-encompassing ways." In the course of its investigations, Senator Mathias, committee co-chair, noted, "A majority of the people of the United States have lived all of their lives under emergency government." Senator Church, the other co-chair, said the central question before the committee was "whether it [was] possible for a democratic government such as ours to exist under its present Constitution and system of three separate branches equal in power under a continued state of emergency." Among the more controversial statutes highlighted by the committee was TWEA. In 1977, during the House markup of a bill revising TWEA, Representative Jonathan Bingham, Chairperson of the House International Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Economic Policy, described TWEA as conferring "on the President what could have been dictatorial powers that he could have used without any restraint by Congress." According to the Department of Justice, TWEA granted the President four major groups of powers in a time of war or other national emergency: (a) Regulatory powers with respect to foreign exchange, banking transfers, coin, bullion, currency, and securities; (b) Regulatory powers with respect to "any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest"; (c) The power to vest "any property or interest of any foreign country or national thereof"; and (d) The powers to hold, use, administer, liquidate, sell, or otherwise deal with "such interest or property" in the interest of and for the benefit of the United States. The House report on the reform legislation called TWEA "essentially an unlimited grant of authority for the President to exercise, at his discretion, broad powers in both the domestic and international economic arena, without congressional review." The criticisms of TWEA centered on the following: (a) It required no consultation or reports to Congress with regard to the use of powers or the declaration of a national emergency. (b) It set no time limits on a state of emergency, no mechanism for congressional review, and no way for Congress to terminate it. (c) It stated no limits on the scope of TWEA's economic powers and the circumstances under which such authority could be used. (d) The actions taken under the authority of TWEA were rarely related to the circumstances in which the national emergency was declared. In testimony before the House Committee on International Relations, Professor Harold G. Maier summed up the development and the main criticisms of TWEA: Section 5(b)'s effect is no longer confined to "emergency situations" in the sense of existing imminent danger. The continuing retroactive approval, either explicit or implicit, by Congress of broad executive interpretations of the scope of powers which it confers has converted the section into a general grant of legislative authority to the President…" Congress's reforms to emergency powers under TWEA came in two acts. First, Congress enacted the National Emergencies Act (NEA) in 1976. The NEA provided for the termination of all existing emergencies in 1978, except those making use of Section 5(b) of TWEA, and placed new restrictions on the manner of declaring and the duration of new states of emergency, including: Requiring the President to immediately transmit to Congress of the declaration of national emergency. Requiring a biannual review whereby "each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a concurrent [now joint, see below] resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated." Authorizing Congress to terminate the national emergency through a privileged concurrent [now joint] resolution. Second, Congress tackled the thornier question of TWEA. Because the authorities granted by TWEA were heavily entwined with postwar international monetary policy and the use of sanctions in U.S. foreign policy, unwinding it was a difficult undertaking. The exclusion of Section 5(b) reflected congressional interest in preserving existing regulations regarding foreign assets, foreign funds, and exports of strategic goods. Similarly, establishing a means to continue existing uses of TWEA reflected congressional interest in "improving future use rather than remedying past abuses." The subcommittee charged with reforming TWEA spent more than a year preparing reports, including the first complete legislative history of TWEA, a tome that ran nearly 700 pages. In the resulting legislation, Congress did three things. First, Congress amended TWEA so that it was, as originally intended, only applicable "during a time of war." Second, Congress expanded the Export Administration Act to include powers that previously were authorized by reference to Section 5(b) of TWEA. Finally, Congress wrote the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to confer "upon the President a new set of authorities for use in time of national emergency which are both more limited in scope than those of section 5(b) and subject to procedural limitations, including those of the [NEA]." The Report of the House Committee on International Relations summed up the nature of an "emergency" in their "new approach" to international emergency economic powers: [G]iven the breadth of the authorities, and their availability at the President's discretion upon a declaration of a national emergency, their exercise should be subject to various substantive restrictions. The main one stems from a recognition that emergencies are by their nature rare and brief, and are not to be equated with normal ongoing problems. A national emergency should be declared and emergency authorities employed only with respect to a specific set of circumstances which constitute a real emergency, and for no other purpose. The emergency should be terminated in a timely manner when the factual state of emergency is over and not continued in effect for use in other circumstances. A state of national emergency should not be a normal state of affairs. IEEPA, as currently amended, empowers the president to: (A) investigate, regulate, or prohibit: (i) any transactions in foreign exchange, (ii) transfers of credit or payments between, by, through, or to any banking institution, to the extent that such transfers or payments involve any interest of any foreign country or national thereof, (iii) the importing or exporting of currencies or securities; and (B) investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. (C) when the United States is engaged in armed hostilities or has been attacked by a foreign country or foreign nationals, confiscate any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, of any foreign person, foreign organization, or foreign country that he determines has planned, authorized, aided, or engaged in such hostilities or attacks against the United States; and all right, title, and interest in any property so confiscated shall vest, when, as, and upon the terms directed by the President, in such agency or person as the President may designate from time to time, and upon such terms and conditions as the President may prescribe, such interest or property shall be held, used, administered, liquidated, sold, or otherwise dealt with in the interest of and for the benefit of the United States, and such designated agency or person may perform any and all acts incident to the accomplishment or furtherance of these purposes. These powers may be exercised "to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States, if the President declares a national emergency with respect to such threat." Presidents may invoke IEEPA under the procedures set forth in the NEA. When declaring a national emergency, the NEA requires that the President "immediately" transmit the proclamation declaring the emergency to Congress and publish it in the Federal Register . The President must also specify the provisions of law that he or she intends to use. In addition to the requirements of the NEA, IEEPA provides several further restrictions. Preliminarily, IEEPA requires that the President consult with Congress "in every possible instance" before exercising any of the authorities granted under IEEPA. Once the President declares a national emergency invoking IEEPA, he or she must immediately transmit a report to Congress specifying: (1) the circumstances which necessitate such exercise of authority; (2) why the President believes those circumstances constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States; (3) the authorities to be exercised and the actions to be taken in the exercise of those authorities to deal with those circumstances; (4) why the President believes such actions are necessary to deal with those circumstances; and (5) any foreign countries with respect to which such actions are to be taken and why such actions are to be taken with respect to those countries. The President subsequently is to report on the actions taken under the IEEPA at least once in every succeeding six-month interval that the authorities are exercised. As per the NEA, the emergency may be terminated by the President, by a privileged joint resolution of Congress, or automatically if the President does not publish in the Federal Register and transmit to Congress a notice stating that such emergency is to continue in effect after such anniversary. Congress has amended IEEPA eight times ( Table 1 ). Five of the eight amendments have altered civil and criminal penalties for violations of orders issued under the statute. Other amendments excluded certain informational materials and expanded IEEPA's scope following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Congress also amended the NEA in response to a ruling by the Supreme Court to require a joint rather than a concurrent resolution to terminate a national emergency. As originally enacted, IEEPA protected the rights of U.S. persons to participate in the exchange of "any postal, telegraphic, telephonic, or other personal communication, which does not involve a transfer of anything of value" with a foreign person otherwise subject to sanctions. Amendments in 1988 and 1994 updated this list of protected rights to include the exchange of published information in a variety of formats. The act currently protects the exchange of "information or informational materials, including but not limited to, publications, films, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact disks, CD ROMs, artworks, and news wire feeds," provided such exchange is not otherwise controlled for national security or foreign policy reasons related to weapons proliferation or international terrorism. Unlike the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA), IEEPA did not allow the President to vest assets as originally acted. In 2001, at the request of George W. Bush Administration, Congress amended IEEPA as part of the USA PATRIOT Act to return to the President the authority to vest frozen assets, but only under certain circumstances: ... the President may ... when the United States is engaged in armed hostilities or has been attacked by a foreign country or foreign nationals, confiscate any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, of any foreign person, foreign organization, or foreign country that [the President] determines has planned, authorized, aided, or engaged in such hostilities or attacks against the United States; and all right, title, and interest in any property so confiscated shall vest, when, as, and upon the terms directed by the President, in such agency or person as the President may designate from time to time, and upon such terms and conditions as the President may prescribe, such interest or property shall be held, used, administered, liquidated, sold, or otherwise dealt with in the interest of and for the benefit of the United States, and such designated agency or person may perform any and all acts incident to the accomplishment or furtherance of these purposes. Speaking about the efforts of intelligence and law enforcement agencies to identify and disrupt the flow of terrorist finances, Attorney General John Ashcroft told Congress: At present the President's powers are limited to freezing assets and blocking transactions with terrorist organizations. We need the capacity for more than a freeze. We must be able to seize. Doing business with terrorist organization must be a losing proposition. Terrorist financiers must pay a price for their support of terrorism, which kills innocent Americans. Consistent with the President's [issuance of E.O. 13224 ] and his statements [of September 24, 2001], our proposal gives law enforcement the ability to seize the terrorists' assets. Further, criminal liability is imposed on those who knowingly engage in financial transactions, money-laundering involving the proceeds of terrorist acts. The House Judiciary Committee report explaining the amendments described its purpose as follows: Section 203 of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. § 1702) grants to the President the power to exercise certain authorities relating to commerce with foreign nations upon his determination that there exists an unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States. Under this authority, the President may, among other things, freeze certain foreign assets within the jurisdiction of the United States. A separate law, the Trading With the Enemy Act, authorizes the President to take title to enemy assets when Congress has declared war. Section 159 of this bill amends section 203 of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to provide the President with authority similar to what he currently has under the Trading With the Enemy Act in circumstances where there has been an armed attack on the United States, or where Congress has enacted a law authorizing the President to use armed force against a foreign country, foreign organization, or foreign national. The proceeds of any foreign assets to which the President takes title under this authority must be placed in a segregated account can only be used in accordance with a statute authorizing the expenditure of such proceeds. Section 159 also makes a number of clarifying and technical changes to section 203 of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, most of which will not change the way that provision currently is implemented. The government has apparently never employed the vesting power to seize Al Qaeda assets within the United States. Instead, the government has sought to confiscate them through forfeiture procedures. The first, and to date, apparently only, use of this power under IEEPA occurred on March 20, 2003. On that date, in Executive Order 13290, President George W. Bush ordered the blocked "property of the Government of Iraq and its agencies, instrumentalities, or controlled entities" to be vested "in the Department of the Treasury.... [to] be used to assist the Iraqi people and to assist in the reconstruction of Iraq." However, the President's order excluded from confiscation Iraq's diplomatic and consular property, as well as assets that had, prior to March 20, 2003, been ordered attached in satisfaction of judgments against Iraq rendered pursuant to the terrorist suit provision of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and § 201 of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (which reportedly totaled about $300 million) . A subsequent executive order blocked the property of former Iraqi officials and their families, vesting title of such blocked funds in the Department of the Treasury for transfer to the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) to be "used to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, for the economic reconstruction and repair of Iraq's infrastructure, for the continued disarmament of Iraq, for the cost of Iraqi civilian administration, and for other purposes benefitting of the Iraqi people." The DFI was established by UN Security Council Resolution 1483, which required member states to freeze all assets of the former Iraqi government and of Saddam Hussein, senior officials of his regime and their family members, and transfer such assets to the DFI, which was then administered by the United States. Most of the vested assets were used by the Coalition Provision Authority (CPA) for reconstruction projects and ministry operations. The USA PATRIOT Act made three other amendments to Section 203 of IEEPA. After the power to investigate, it added the power to block assets during the pendency of an investigation. It clarified that the type of interest in property subject to IEEPA is an "interest by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States." It also added subsection (c), which provides: In any judicial review of a determination made under this section, if the determination was based on classified information (as defined in section 1(a) of the Classified Information Procedures Act) such information may be submitted to the reviewing court ex parte and in camera. This subsection does not confer or imply any right to judicial review. As described in the House Judiciary Committee report, these provisions were meant to clarify and codify existing practices. Like TWEA prior to its amendment in 1977, the President and Congress together have often turned to IEEPA to impose economic sanctions in furtherance of U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives. While initially enacted to rein in presidential emergency authority, presidential emergency use of IEEPA has expanded in scale, scope, and frequency since the statute's enactment. The House report on IEEPA stated, "emergencies are by their nature rare and brief, and are not to be equated with normal, ongoing problems." National emergencies invoking IEEPA, however, have increased in frequency and length since its enactment. Since 1977, Presidents have invoked IEEPA in 54 declarations of national emergency. On average, these emergencies last nearly a decade. Most emergencies have been geographically specific, targeting a specific country or government. However, since 1990, Presidents have declared non-geographically-specific emergencies in response to issues like weapons proliferation, global terrorism, and malicious cyber-enabled activities. The erosion of geographic limitations has been accompanied by an expansion in the nature of the targets of sanctions issued under IEEPA authority. Originally, IEEPA was used to target foreign governments; however, Presidents have increasingly targeted groups and individuals. While Presidents usually make use of IEEPA as an emergency power, Congress has also directed the use of IEEPA or expressed its approval of presidential emergency use in several statutes. IEEPA is the most frequently cited emergency authority when the President invokes NEA authorities to declare a national emergency. ( Figure 1 ). Rather than referencing the same set of emergencies, as had been the case with TWEA, IEEPA has required the President to declare a national emergency for each independent use. As a result, the number of national emergencies declared under the terms of the NEA has proliferated over the past four decades. Presidents declared only four national emergencies under the auspices of TWEA in the four decades prior to IEEPA's enactment. In contrast, Presidents have invoked IEEPA in 54 of the 61 declarations of national emergency issued under the National Emergen cies Act. As of March 1, 2019, there were 32 ongoing national emergencies; all but three involved IEEPA. Each year since 1990, Presidents have issued roughly 4.5 executive orders citing IEEPA and declared 1.5 new national emergencies citing IEEPA. ( Figure 2 ). On average, emergencies invoking IEEPA last nearly a decade. The longest emergency was also the first. President Jimmy Carter, in response to the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979, declared the first national emergency under the provisions of the National Emergencies Act and invoked IEEPA. Six successive Presidents have renewed that emergency annually for nearly forty years. As of March 1, 2019, that emergency is still in effect, largely to provide a legal basis for resolving matters of ownership of the Shah's disputed assets. That initial emergency aside, the length of emergencies invoking IEEPA has increased each decade. The average length of an emergency invoking IEEPA declared in the 1980s was four years. That average extended to 10 years for emergencies declared in the 1990s and 11 years for emergencies declared in the 2000s ( Figure 3 ). As such, the number of ongoing national emergencies has grown nearly continuously since the enactment of IEEPA and the NEA ( Figure 4 ). Between January 1, 1979, and January 1, 2019, there were on average 14 ongoing national emergencies each year, 13 of which invoked IEEPA. In most cases, the declared emergencies citing IEEPA have been geographically specific ( Figure 5 ). For example, in the first use of IEEPA, President Jimmy Carter issued an executive order that both declared a national emergency with respect to the "situation in Iran" and "blocked all property and interests in property of the Government of Iran [...]." Five months later, President Carter issued a second order dramatically expanding the scope of the first EO and effectively blocked the transfer of all goods, money, or credit destined for Iran by anyone subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. A further order expanded the coverage to block imports to the United States from Iran. Together, these orders touched upon virtually all economic contacts between any place or legal person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and the territory and government of Iran. Many of the executive orders invoking IEEPA have followed this pattern of limiting the scope to a specific territory, government, or its nationals. Executive Order 12513, for example, prohibited "imports into the United States of goods and services of Nicaraguan origin" and "exports from the United States of goods to or destined for Nicaragua." The order likewise prohibited Nicaraguan air carriers and vessels of Nicaraguan registry from entering U.S. ports. Executive Order 12532 prohibited various transactions with the "Government of South Africa or to entities owned or controlled by that Government." While the majority (38) of national emergencies invoking IEEPA have been geographically specific, ten have lacked explicit geographic limitations. President George H.W. Bush declared the first geographically nonspecific emergency in response to the threat posed by the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons. Similarly, President George W. Bush declared a national emergency in response to the threat posed by "persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism." President Barack Obama declared emergencies to respond to the threats of "transnational criminal organizations" and "persons engaging in malicious cyber-enabled activities." Without explicit geographic limitations, these orders have included provisions that are global in scope. These geographically nonspecific emergencies have increased in frequency over the past 40 years—three of the ten have been declared since 2015. In addition to the erosion of geographic limitations, the stated motivations for declaring national emergencies have expanded in scope as well. Initially, stated rationales for declarations of national emergency citing IEEPA were short and often referenced either a specific geography or the specific actions of a government. Presidents found that circumstances like "the situation in Iran," or the "policies and actions of the Government of Nicaragua," constituted "unusual and extraordinary threat[s] to the national security and foreign policy of the United States" and would therefore declare a national emergency. The stated rationales have, however, expanded over time in both the length and subject matter. Presidents have increasingly declared national emergencies, in part, to respond to human and civil rights abuses, slavery, denial of religious freedom, political repression, public corruption, and the undermining of democratic processes. While the first reference to human rights violations as a rationale for a declaration of national emergency came in 1985, most of such references have come in the past twenty years. Table A-2 . Presidents have also expanded the nature of the targets of IEEPA sanctions. Originally, the targets of sanctions issued under IEEPA were foreign governments. The first use of IEEPA targeted "Iranian Government Property." Use of IEEPA quickly expanded to target geographically defined regions. Nevertheless, Presidents have also increasingly targeted groups, such as political parties or terrorist organizations, and individuals, such as supporters of terrorism or suspected narcotics traffickers. The first instances of orders directed at groups or persons were limited to foreign groups or persons. For example, in Executive Order 12978, President Bill Clinton targeted specific "foreign persons" and "persons determined [...] to be owned or controlled by, or to act for or on behalf of" such foreign persons. An excerpt is included below: Except to the extent provided in section 203(b) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)) and in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the effective date, I hereby order blocked all property and interests in property that are or hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, of: (a) the foreign persons listed in the Annex to this order; (b)  foreign persons determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of State: (i) to play a significant role in international narcotics trafficking centered in Colombia; or (ii) materially to assist in, or provide financial or technological support for or goods or services in support of, the narcotics trafficking activities of persons designated in or pursuant to this order; and (c) persons determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of State, to be owned or controlled by, or to act for or on behalf of, persons designated in or pursuant to this order. However, in 2001, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13219 to target "persons who threaten international stabilization efforts in the Western Balkans." While the order was similar to that of Executive Order 12978, it removed the qualifier "foreign." As such, persons in the United States, including U.S. citizens, could be targets of the order. The following is an excerpt of the order: Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and (4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (title IX, P.L. 106-387 ), and in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may hereafter be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the effective date, all property and interests in property of: (i)  the persons listed in the Annex to this order; and (ii)  persons designated by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, because they are found: (A) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, acts of violence... Several subsequent invocations of IEEPA have similarly not been limited to foreign targets. In sum, presidential emergency use of IEEPA was directed at foreign states initially, with targets that were delimited by geography or nationality. Since the 1990s, however, Presidents have expanded the scope of their declarations to include individual persons, regardless of nationality or geographic location, who are engaged in specific activities. While IEEPA is often categorized as an emergency statute, Congress has used IEEPA outside of the context of national emergencies. When Congress legislates sanctions, it often authorizes or directs the President to use IEEPA authorities to impose those sanctions. In the Nicaragua Human Rights and Anticorruption Act of 2018, the most recent example, Congress directed the President to exercise "all powers granted to the President [by IEEPA] to the extent necessary to block and prohibit [certain transactions]." Penalties for violations by a person of a measure imposed by the President under the Act would be, likewise, determined by reference to IEEPA. The trend has been long-term. Congress first directed the President to make use of IEEPA authorities in 1986 as part of an effort to assist Haiti in the recovery of assets illegally diverted by its former government. That statute provided: The President shall exercise the authorities granted by section 203 of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act [50 USC 1702] to assist the Government of Haiti in its efforts to recover, through legal proceedings, assets which the Government of Haiti alleges were stolen by former president-for-life Jean Claude Duvalier and other individuals associated with the Duvalier regime. This subsection shall be deemed to satisfy the requirements of section 202 of that Act. [50 USC 1701] In directing the President to use IEEPA, Congress waived the requirement that he declare a national emergency (and none was declared). Subsequent legislation has followed this general pattern, with slight variations in language and specificity. The following is an example of current legislative language that has appeared in several recent statutes: (a) IN GENERAL.—The President shall impose the sanctions described in subsection (b) with respect to— ... (b) SANCTIONS DESCRIBED.— (1) IN GENERAL.—The sanctions described in this subsection are the following: (A) ASSET BLOCKING.—The exercise of all powers granted to the President by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) to the extent necessary to block and prohibit all transactions in all property and interests in property of a person determined by the President to be subject to subsection (a) if such property and interests in property are in the United States, come within the United States, or are or come within the possession or control of a United States person. ... (2) PENALTIES.—A person that violates, attempts to violate, conspires to violate, or causes a violation of paragraph (1)(A) or any regulation, license, or order issued to carry out paragraph (1)(A) shall be subject to the penalties set forth in subsections (b) and (c) of section 206 of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1705) to the same extent as a person that commits an unlawful act described in subsection (a) of that section. Congress has also expressed, retroactively, its approval of unilateral presidential invocations of IEEPA in the context of a national emergency. In the Countering Iran's Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017, for example, Congress declared, "It is the sense of Congress that the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of State should continue to implement Executive Order No. 13382." Presidents, however, have also used IEEPA to preempt or modify parallel congressional activity. On September 9, 1985, President Reagan, finding "that the policies and actions of the Government of South Africa constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy and economy of the United States," declared a national emergency and limited transactions with South Africa. The President declared the emergency despite the fact that legislation limiting transactions with South Africa was quickly making its way through Congress. In remarks about the declaration, President Reagan stated that he had been opposed to the bill contemplated by Congress because unspecified provisions "would have harmed the very people [the U.S. was] trying to help." Nevertheless, members of the press at the time (and at least one scholar since) noted that the limitations imposed by the Executive Order and the provisions in legislation then winding its way through Congress were "substantially similar." In general, IEEPA has served as an integral part of the postwar international sanctions regime. The President, either through a declaration of emergency or via statutory direction, has used IEEPA to limit economic transactions in support of administrative and congressional national security and foreign policy goals. Much of the action taken pursuant to IEEPA has involved blocking transactions and freezing assets. Once the President declares that a national emergency exists, he may use the authority in Section 203 of IEEPA (Grants of Authorities; 50 U.S.C. § 1702) to investigate, regulate, or prohibit foreign exchange transactions, transfers of credit, transfers of securities, payments, and may take specified actions relating to property in which a foreign country or person has interest—freezing assets, blocking property and interests in property, prohibiting U.S. persons from entering into transactions related to frozen assets and blocked property, and in some instances denying entry into the United States. Pursuant to Section 203, Presidents have prohibited transactions with and blocked property of those designated as engaging in malicious cyber-enabled activities, including "interfering with or undermining election processes or institutions" [Executive Order 13694 of April 1, 2015, as amended; 50 U.S.C. § 1701 note. See also Executive Order 13848 of September 12, 2018; 83 F.R. 46843.]; prohibited transactions with and blocked property of those designated as illicit narcotics traffickers including foreign drug kingpins; prohibited transactions with and blocked property of those designated as engaging in human rights abuses or significant corruption; prohibited transactions related to illicit trade in rough diamonds; prohibited transactions with and blocked property of those designated as Transnational Criminal Organizations; prohibited transactions with "those who disrupt the Middle East peace process;" prohibited transactions related to overflights with certain nations; instituted and maintained maritime restrictions; prohibited transactions related to weapons of mass destruction, in coordination with export controls authorized by the Arms Export Control Act and the Export Administration Act of 1979, and in furtherance of efforts to deter the weapons programs of specific countries (i.e., Iran, North Korea); prohibited transactions those designated as "persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism;" maintained the dual-use export control system at times when its then-underlying authority, the Export Administration Act authority had lapsed; blocked property of and transactions with those designated as engaged in cyber activities that compromise critical infrastructures including election processes or the private sector's trade secrets; blocked property of and prohibited transactions with those designated as responsible for serious human rights abuse or engaged in corruption; blocked certain property of and transactions with foreign nationals of specific countries those designated as engaged in activities that constitute an extraordinary threat. No President has used IEEPA to place tariffs on imported products from a specific country or on products imported to the United States in general. However, IEEPA's similarity to TWEA, coupled with its relatively frequent use to ban imports and exports, suggests that such an action could happen. In addition, no President has used IEEPA to enact a policy that was primarily domestic in effect. Some scholars argue, however, that the interconnectedness of the global economy means it would probably be permissible to use IEEPA to take an action that was primarily domestic in effect. The ultimate disposition of assets frozen under IEEPA may serve as an important part of the leverage economic sanctions provide to influence the behavior of foreign actors. The President and Congress have each at times determined the fate of blocked assets to further foreign policy goals. Presidents have used frozen assets as a bargaining tool during foreign policy crises and to bring a resolution to such crises, at times by unfreezing the assets, returning them to the sanctioned entity or channeling them to a follow-on government. The following are some examples of how Presidents have made use of blocked assets to resolve foreign policy issues. President Carter invoked authority under IEEPA to impose trade sanctions against Iran, freezing Iranian assets in the United States, in response to the hostage crisis in 1979. On January 19, 1981, the United States and Iran entered into a series of executive agreements brokered by Algeria under which the hostages were freed, a portion of the blocked assets ($5.1 billion) was used to repay outstanding U.S. bank loans to Iran, another part ($2.8 billion) was returned directly to Iran, another $1 billion was transferred into a security account in the Hague to pay other U.S. claims against Iran as arbitrated by the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal (IUSCT), and an additional $2 billion remained blocked pending further agreement with Iran or decision of the Tribunal. The United States also undertook to freeze the assets of the former Shah's estate along with those of the Shah's close relatives pending litigation in U.S. courts to ascertain Iran's right to their return. Iran's litigation was unsuccessful, and none of the contested assets were returned to Iran. Presidents have also been able to channel frozen assets to opposition governments in cases where the United States continued to recognize a previous government that had been removed by coup d'état or otherwise replaced as the legitimate government of a country. For example, after Panamanian President Eric Arturo Delvalle tried to dismiss de facto military ruler General Manuel Noriega from his post as head of the Panamanian Defense Forces, which resulted in Delvalle's own dismissal by the Panamanian Legislative Assembly, President Reagan recognized Delvalle as the legitimate head of government and instituted economic sanctions against the Noriega regime. The Department of State advised U.S. banks not to disburse funds to the Noriega regime, and Delvalle was able to obtain court orders permitting him access to the funds. President Reagan issued Executive Order 12635, which blocked all property and interests in payments of the government of Panama, and the Department of the Treasury issued regulations requiring companies who owed money to Panama to pay those funds into an escrow account established at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which also held payments owed by the United States for the operation of the Panama Canal Commission. Some of the funds in the escrow account were used to pay the operating expenses of the Delvalle government. After the U.S. invasion of Panama, President George H.W. Bush lifted economic sanctions and used some of the frozen funds to repay debts owed by Panama to foreign creditors, with remaining funds returned to the successor government. In a similar more recent case, the Trump Administration's recognition of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's interim president permitted Guaidó access to Venezuelan government assets held at the United States Federal Reserve and other insured United States financial institutions. President Barrack Obama initially froze Venezuelan government assets in 2015, pursuant to IEEPA and the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014. After official recognition of Guaidó, the Trump Administration imposed new sanctions under IEEPA to freeze the assets of the main Venezuelan state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa), which could both significantly reduce funds available to the regime of Nicolas Maduro and channel them to Guaidó. There is also precedent for using frozen foreign assets for purposes authorized by the U.N. Security Council. After the first war with Iraq, President George H.W. Bush ordered the transfer of frozen Iraqi assets derived from the sale of Iraqi petroleum held by U.S. banks to be transferred to a holding account in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to fulfill "the rights and obligations of the United States under U.N. Security Council Resolution No. 778." The President cited a section of the United Nations Participation Act (UNPA), as well as IEEPA, as authority to take the action. The transferred funds were used to provide humanitarian relief and to finance the United Nations Compensation Commission, which was established to adjudicate claims against Iraq arising from the invasion. Other Iraqi assets remained frozen and accumulated interest until they were vested in 2003 (see below). In some cases, the United States has ended sanctions and returned frozen assets to successor governments. In the case of the former Yugoslavia, for example, in 2003, $237.6 million in frozen funds belonging to the Central Bank of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were transferred to the central banks of the successor states. In the case of Afghanistan, $217 million in frozen funds belonging to the Taliban were released to the Afghan Interim Authority in January 2002. The executive branch has traditionally resisted congressional efforts to vest foreign assets to pay U.S. claimants without first obtaining a settlement agreement with the country in question. Congress has overcome such resistance in the case of foreign governments that have been designated as "State Supporters of Terrorism." U.S. nationals who are victims of state-supported terrorism involving designated states have been able to sue those countries for damages under an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) since 1996. To facilitate the payment of judgments under the exception, Congress passed Section 117 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 1999, which further amended the FSIA by allowing attachment and execution against state property with respect to which financial transactions are prohibited or regulated under Section 5(b) TWEA, Section 620(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act (authorizing the trade embargo against Cuba), or Sections 202 and 203 of IEEPA, or any orders, licenses or other authority issued under these statutes. Because of the Clinton Administration's continuing objections, however, Section 117 also gave the President authority to "waive the requirements of this section in the interest of national security," an authority President Clinton promptly exercised in signing the statute into law. The Section 117 waiver authority protecting blocked foreign government assets from attachment to satisfy terrorism judgments has continued in effect ever since, prompting Congress to take other actions to make frozen assets available to judgment holders. Congress enacted §2002 of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (VTVPA) to mandate the payment from frozen Cuban assets of compensatory damages awarded against Cuba under the FSIA terrorism exception on or prior to July 20, 2000. The Department of the Treasury subsequently vested $96.7 million in funds generated from long-distance telephone services between the United States and Cuba in order to compensate claimants in Alejandre v. Republic of Cuba , the lawsuit based on the1996 downing of two unarmed U.S. civilian airplanes by the Cuban air force. Another payment of more than $7 million was made using vested Cuban assets to a Florida woman who had won a lawsuit against Cuba based on her marriage to a Cuban spy. As unpaid judgments against designated state sponsors of terrorism continued to mount, Congress enacted the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA). Section 201 of TRIA overrode long-standing objections by the executive branch to make the frozen assets of terrorist states available to satisfy judgments for compensatory damages against such states (and organizations and persons) as follows: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, and except as provided in subsection (b), in every case in which a person has obtained a judgment against a terrorist party on a claim based upon an act of terrorism, or for which a terrorist party is not immune under section 1605(a)(7) of title 28, United States Code, the blocked assets of that terrorist party (including the blocked assets of any agency or instrumentality of that terrorist party) shall be subject to execution or attachment in aid of execution in order to satisfy such judgment to the extent of any compensatory damages for which such terrorist party has been adjudged liable. Subsection (b) of Section 201 provided waiver authority "in the national security interest," but only with respect to frozen foreign government "property subject to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations or the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations." When Congress amended the FSIA in 2008 to revamp the terrorism exception, it provided that judgments entered under the new exception could be satisfied out of the property of a foreign state notwithstanding the fact that the property in question is regulated by the United States government pursuant to TWEA or IEEPA. Congress has also directed that the proceeds from certain sanctions violations be paid into a fund for providing compensation to the former hostages of Iran and terrorist state judgment creditors. To fund the program, Congress designated that certain real property and bank accounts owned by Iran and forfeited to the United States could go into the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund, along with the sum of $1,025,000,000, representing the amount paid to the United States pursuant to the June 27, 2014, plea agreement and settlement between the United States and BNP Paribas for sanctions violations. The fund is replenished through criminal penalties and forfeitures for violations of IEEPA or TWEA-based regulations, or any related civil or criminal conspiracy, scheme, or other federal offense related to doing business or acting on behalf of a state sponsor of terrorism. Half of all civil penalties and forfeitures relating to the same offenses are also deposited into the fund. A number of lawsuits seeking to overturn actions taken pursuant to IEEPA have made their way through the judicial system, including challenges to the breadth of congressionally delegated authority and assertions of violations of constitutional rights. As demonstrated below, most of these challenges have failed. The few challenges that succeeded did not seriously undermine the overarching statutory scheme for sanctions. The breadth of presidential power under IEEPA is illustrated by the Supreme Court's 1981 opinion in Dames & Moore v. Regan . In Dames & Moore , petitioners had challenged President Carter's executive order establishing regulations to further compliance with the terms of the Algiers Accords, which the President had entered into to end the hostage crisis with Iran. Under these agreements, the United States was obligated (1) to terminate all legal proceedings in U.S. courts involving claims of U.S. nationals against Iran, (2) to nullify all attachments and judgments, and (3) to resolve outstanding claims exclusively through binding arbitration in the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal (IUSCT). The President, through executive orders, revoked all licenses that permitted the exercise of "any right, power, or privilege" with regard to Iranian funds, nullified all non-Iranian interests in assets acquired after a previous blocking order, and required banks holding Iranian assets to transfer them to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to be held or transferred as directed by the Secretary of the Treasury. Dames and Moore had sued Iran for breach of contract to recover compensation for work performed. The district court had entered summary judgment in favor of Dames and Moore and issued an order attaching certain Iranian assets for satisfaction of any judgment that might result, but stayed the case pending appeal. The executive orders and regulations implementing the Algiers Accords resulted in the nullification of this prejudgment attachment and the dismissal of the case against Iran, directing that it be filed at the IUSCT. In response, Dames and Moore sued the government. The plaintiffs claimed that the President and the Secretary of the Treasury exceeded their statutory and constitutional powers to the extent they adversely affected Dames and Moore's judgment against Iran, the execution of that judgment, the prejudgment attachments, and the plaintiff's ability to continue to litigate against the Iranian banks. The government defended its actions, relying largely on IEEPA, which provided explicit support for most of the measures taken—nullification of the prejudgment attachment and transfer of the property to Iran—but could not be read to authorize actions affecting the suspension of claims in U.S. courts. Justice Rehnquist wrote for the majority: Although we have declined to conclude that the IEEPA…directly authorizes the President's suspension of claims for the reasons noted, we cannot ignore the general tenor of Congress' legislation in this area in trying to determine whether the President is acting alone or at least with the acceptance of Congress. As we have noted, Congress cannot anticipate and legislate with regard to every possible action the President may find it necessary to take or every possible situation in which he might act. Such failure of Congress specifically to delegate authority does not, "especially . . . in the areas of foreign policy and national security," imply "congressional disapproval" of action taken by the Executive. On the contrary, the enactment of legislation closely related to the question of the President's authority in a particular case which evinces legislative intent to accord the President broad discretion may be considered to "invite" "measures on independent presidential responsibility." At least this is so where there is no contrary indication of legislative intent and when, as here, there is a history of congressional acquiescence in conduct of the sort engaged in by the President. The Court remarked that Congress's implicit approval of the long-standing presidential practice of settling international claims by executive agreement was critical to its holding that the challenged actions were not in conflict with acts of Congress. For support, the Court cited to Justice Frankfurter's concurrence in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer stating that "a systematic, unbroken, executive practice, long pursued to the knowledge of the Congress and never before questioned … may be treated as a gloss on 'Executive Power' vested in the President by § 1 of Art. II." Consequently, it may be argued that Congress's exclusion of certain express powers in IEEPA do not necessarily preclude the President from exercising them, at least where a court finds sufficient precedent exists. Lower courts have examined IEEPA under a number of other constitutional doctrines. Courts have reviewed whether Congress violated the non-delegation principle of separation of powers by delegating too much power to the President to legislate, in particular by creating new crimes. These challenges have generally failed. As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit explained while evaluating IEEPA, delegations of congressional authority are constitutional so long as Congress provides through a legislative act an "intelligible principle" governing the exercise of the delegated authority. Even if the standards are higher for delegations of authority to define criminal offenses, the court held, IEEPA provides sufficient guidance. The court stated: The IEEPA "meaningfully constrains the [President's] discretion," by requiring that "[t]he authorities granted to the President ... may only be exercised to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared." And the authorities delegated are defined and limited. The Second Circuit found it significant that "IEEPA relates to foreign affairs—an area in which the President has greater discretion," bolstering its view that IEEPA does not violate the non-delegation doctrine. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit considered whether Section 207(b) of IEEPA is an unconstitutional legislative veto. That provision states: The authorities described in subsection (a)(1) may not continue to be exercised under this section if the national emergency is terminated by the Congress by concurrent resolution pursuant to section 202 of the National Emergencies Act [50 U.S.C. § 1622] and if the Congress specifies in such concurrent resolution that such authorities may not continue to be exercised under this section. In U.S. v. Romero-Fernandez , two defendants convicted of violating the terms of an executive order issued under IEEPA argued on appeal that IEEPA was unconstitutional, in part, because of the above provision. The Eleventh Circuit accepted that the provision was an unconstitutional legislative veto (as conceded by the government) based on INS v. Chadha , in which the Supreme Court held that Congress cannot void the exercise of power by the executive branch through concurrent resolution, but can act only through bicameral passage followed by presentment of the law to the President. The Eleventh Circuit nevertheless upheld the defendants' convictions for violations of IEEPA regulations, holding that the legislative veto provision was severable from the rest of the statute. Courts have also addressed whether certain actions taken pursuant to IEEPA have effected an uncompensated taking of property rights in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause prohibits "private property [from being] taken for public use, without just compensation." The Fifth Amendment's prohibitions apply as well to regulatory takings, in which the government does not physically take property but instead imposes restrictions on the right of enjoyment that decreases the value of the property or right therein. The Supreme Court has held that the nullification of prejudgment attachments pursuant to regulations issued under IEEPA was not an uncompensated taking, suggesting that the reason for this position was the contingent nature of the licenses that had authorized the attachments. The Court also suggested that the broader purpose of the statute supported the view that there was no uncompensated taking: This Court has previously recognized that the congressional purpose in authorizing blocking orders is "to put control of foreign assets in the hands of the President...." Such orders permit the President to maintain the foreign assets at his disposal for use in negotiating the resolution of a declared national emergency. The frozen assets serve as a "bargaining chip" to be used by the President when dealing with a hostile country. Accordingly, it is difficult to accept petitioner's argument because the practical effect of it is to allow individual claimants throughout the country to minimize or wholly eliminate this "bargaining chip" through attachments, garnishments, or similar encumbrances on property. Neither the purpose the statute was enacted to serve nor its plain language supports such a result. Similarly, a lower court held that the extinguishment of contractual rights due to sanctions enacted pursuant to IEEPA does not amount to a regulatory taking requiring compensation under the Fifth Amendment. Even though the plaintiff suffered "obvious economic loss" due to the sanctions regulations, that factor alone was not enough to sustain plaintiff's claim of a compensable taking. The court quoted long-standing Supreme Court precedent to support its finding: A new tariff, an embargo, a draft, or a war may inevitably bring upon individuals great losses; may, indeed, render valuable property almost valueless. They may destroy the worth of contracts. But whoever supposed that, because of this, a tariff could not be changed, or a non-intercourse act, or an embargo be enacted, or a war be declared? .... [W]as it ever imagined this was taking private property without compensation or without due process of law? Accordingly, it seems unlikely that entities whose business interests are harmed by the imposition of sanctions pursuant to IEEPA will be entitled to compensation from the government for their losses. Persons whose assets have been directly blocked by the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) pursuant to IEEPA have likewise found little success challenging the loss of the use of their assets as uncompensated takings. Many courts have recognized that a temporary blocking of assets does not constitute a taking because it is a temporary action that does not vest title in the United States. This conclusion is apparently so even if the blocking of assets necessitates the closing altogether of a business enterprise. In some circumstances, however, a court may analyze at least the initial blocking of assets under a Fourth Amendment standard for seizure. One court found a blocking to be unreasonable under a Fourth Amendment standard where there was no reason that OFAC could not have first obtained a judicial warrant. Some persons whose assets have been blocked have asserted that their right to due process has been violated. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. Where one company protested that the blocking of its assets without a pre-deprivation hearing violated its right to due process, a district court found that a temporary deprivation of property does not necessarily give rise to a right to notice and an opportunity to be heard. A second district court stated that the exigencies of national security and foreign policy considerations that are implicated in IEEPA cases have meant that OFAC historically has not provided pre-deprivation notice in sanctions programs. A third district court stated that OFAC's failure to provide a charitable foundation with notice or a hearing prior to its designation as a terrorist organization and blocking of its assets did not violate its right to procedural due process, because the OFAC designation and blocking order serve the important governmental interest of combating terrorism by curtailing the flow of terrorist financing. That same court also held that prompt action by the government was necessary to protect against the transfer of assets subject to the blocking order. In Al Haramain Islamic Foundation v. U.S. Department of Treasury , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit considered whether OFAC's use of classified information without any disclosure of its content in its decision to freeze the assets of a charitable organization, and its failure to provide adequate notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond, violated the organization's right to procedural due process. The court applied the balancing test set forth by the Supreme Court in its landmark administrative law case Mathews v. Eldridge to resolve these questions. Under the Eldridge test, to determine if an individual has received constitutional due process, courts must weigh: (1) [the person's or entity's] private property interest, (2) the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, as well as the value of additional safeguards, and (3) the Government's interest in maintaining its procedures, including the burdens of additional procedural requirements." While weighing the interests and risks at issue in Al Haramain , the Ninth Circuit found the organization's property interest to be significant: By design, a designation by OFAC completely shutters all domestic operations of an entity. All assets are frozen. No person or organization may conduct any business whatsoever with the entity, other than a very narrow category of actions such as legal defense. Civil penalties attach even for unwitting violations. Criminal penalties, including up to 20 years' imprisonment, attach for willful violations. For domestic organizations such as AHIF–Oregon, a designation means that it conducts no business at all. The designation is indefinite. Although an entity can seek administrative reconsideration and limited judicial relief, those remedies take considerable time, as evidenced by OFAC's long administrative delay in this case and the ordinary delays inherent in our judicial system. In sum, designation is not a mere inconvenience or burden on certain property interests; designation indefinitely renders a domestic organization financially defunct. Nevertheless, the court found "the government's interest in national security [could not] be understated." In evaluating the government's interest in maintaining its procedures, the Ninth Circuit explained that the Constitution requires that the government "take reasonable measures to ensure basic fairness to the private party and that the government follow procedures reasonably designed to protect against erroneous deprivation of the private party's interests." While the Ninth Circuit had previously held that the use of undisclosed information in a case involving the exclusion of certain longtime resident aliens should be considered presumptively unconstitutional, the court found that the presumption had been overcome in this case. The Ninth Circuit noted that all federal courts that have considered the argument that OFAC may not use undisclosed classified information in making its determinations have rejected it. Although the court found that OFAC's failure to provide even an unclassified summary of the information at issue was a violation of the organization's due process rights, the court deemed the error harmless because it would not likely have affected the outcome of the case. In the same case, the Ninth Circuit also considered the organization's argument that it had been denied adequate notice and an opportunity to be heard. Specifically, the organization asserted that OFAC had refused to disclose its reasons for investigating and designating the organization, leaving it unable to respond adequately to OFAC's unknown suspicions. Because OFAC had provided the organization with only one document to support its designation over the four-year period between the freezing of its assets and the redesignation of the organization as a specially designated global terrorist (SDGT), the court agreed that the organization had been deprived of due process rights. However, the court found that this error too was harmless. Some courts have considered whether asset blocking or penalties imposed pursuant to regulations promulgated under IEEPA have violated the subjects' First Amendment rights to free association, free speech, or religion. Challenges on these grounds have typically failed. Courts have held that there is no First Amendment right to support terrorists. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit distinguished advocacy from financial support and held that the blocking of assets affected only the ability to provide financial support, but did not implicate the organization's freedom of association. Similarly, a district court interpreted relevant case law to hold that government actions prohibiting charitable contributions are subject to intermediate scrutiny rather than strict scrutiny, a higher standard that applies to political contributions. With respect to a free speech challenge brought by a charitable organization whose assets were temporarily blocked during the pendency of an investigation, a district court explained that "when 'speech' and 'nonspeech' elements are combined in the same course of conduct, a sufficiently important government interest in regulating the nonspeech element can justify incidental limitations on First Amendment freedoms." Accordingly, the district court applied the following test to determine whether the designations and blocking actions were lawful. Citing the Supreme Court's opinion in United States v. O'Brien , the court stated that a government regulation is sufficiently justified if: it is within the constitutional power of the government; it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest. The court found the government's actions to fall within the bounds of this test: First, the President clearly had the power to issue the Executive Order. Second, the Executive Order promotes an important and substantial government interest—that of preventing terrorist attacks. Third, the government's action is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; it prohibits the provision of financial and other support to terrorists. Fourth, the incidental restrictions on First Amendment freedoms are no greater than necessary. However, with respect to an organization that was not itself designated as an SDGT but wished to conduct coordinated advocacy with another organization that was so designated, one appellate court found that an OFAC regulation barring such coordinated advocacy based on its content was subject to strict scrutiny. Accordingly, the court rejected the government's reliance on the Supreme Court's decision in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project to find that the regulation impermissibly implicated the organization's right to free speech. Accordingly, there may be some circumstances where the First Amendment protects speech coordinated with (but not on behalf of) an organization designated as an SDGT. Until the recent enactment of the Export Control Reform Act of 2018, export of dual use goods and services was regulated pursuant to the authority of the Export Administration Act (EAA), which was subject to periodic expiry and reauthorization. President Reagan was the first President to use IEEPA as a vehicle for continuing the enforcement of the EAA's export controls. After Congress did not extend the expired EAA, President Reagan issued Executive Order 12444 in 1983, finding that "unrestricted access of foreign parties to United States commercial goods, technology, and technical data and the existence of certain boycott practices of foreign nations constitute, in light of the expiration of the Export Administration Act of 1979, an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security." Although the EAA had been reauthorized for short periods since its initial expiration in 1983, every subsequent President utilized the authorities granted under IEEPA to maintain the existing system of export controls during periods of lapse. Figure 1 . In the latest iteration, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13222 in 2001, finding the existence of a national emergency with respect to the expiration of the EAA and directing—pursuant to the authorities allocated under IEEPA—that "the provisions for administration of the [EAA] shall be carried out under this order so as to continue in full force and effect…the export control system heretofore maintained." Presidents Obama and Trump annually extended the 2001 executive order. Courts have generally treated this arrangement as authorized by Congress, although certain provisions of the EAA in effect under IEEPA have led to challenges. The determining factor appears to be whether IEEPA itself provides the President the authority to carry out the challenged action. In one case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a conviction for an attempt to violate the regulations even though the EAA had expired and did not expressly criminalize such attempts. The circuit court rejected the defendants' argument that the President had exceeded his delegated authority under the EEA by "enlarging" the crimes punishable under the regulations. Nevertheless, a district court held that the conspiracy provisions of the EAA regulations were rendered inoperative by the lapse of the EAA and "could not be repromulgated by executive order under the general powers that IEEPA vests in the President." The district court found that, even if Congress intended to preserve the operation of the EAA through IEEPA, that intent was limited by the scope of the statutes' substantive coverage at the time of IEEPA's enactment, when no conspiracy provision existed in either statute. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the application of the EAA as a statute permitting the government to withhold information under exemption 3 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which exempts from disclosure information exempted from disclosure by statute, even though the EAA had expired. Referring to legislative history it interpreted as congressional approval of the use of IEEPA to continue the EAA provisions during periods of lapse, the court stated: Although the legislative history does not refer to the EAA's confidentiality provision, it does evince Congress's intent to authorize the President to preserve the operation of the export regulations promulgated under the EAA. Moreover, it is significant for purposes of determining legislative intent that Congress acted with the knowledge that the EAA's export regulations had long provided for confidentiality and that the President's ongoing practice of extending the EAA by executive order had always included these confidentiality protections. The D.C. Circuit distinguished this holding in a later case involving appellate jurisdiction over a decision by the Department of Commerce to apply sanctions for a company's violation of the EAA regulations. Pursuant to the regulations and under the direction of the Commerce Department, the company sought judicial review directly in the D.C. Circuit. The D.C. Circuit, however, concluded that it lacked jurisdiction: This court would have jurisdiction pursuant to the President's order only if the President has the authority to confer jurisdiction—an authority that, if it exists, must derive from either the Executive's inherent power under the Constitution or a permissible delegation of power from Congress. The former is unavailing, as the Constitution vests the power to confer jurisdiction in Congress alone. Whether the executive order can provide the basis of our jurisdiction, then, turns on whether the President can confer jurisdiction on this court under the auspices of IEEPA…..We conclude that the President lacks that power. Nothing in the text of IEEPA delegates to the President the authority to grant jurisdiction to any federal court. Consequently, the appeal of the agency decision was determined to belong in the district court according to the default rule under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Congress may wish to address a number of issues with respect to IEEPA; two are addressed here. The first pertains to how Congress has delegated its authority under IEEPA and its umbrella statute, the NEA. The second pertains to choices made in the Export Control Reform Act of 2018. Although the stated aim of the drafters of the NEA and IEEPA was to restrain the use of emergency powers, the use of such powers has expanded by several measures. Presidents declare national emergencies and renew them for years or even decades. The limitation of IEEPA to transactions involving some foreign interest was intended to limit IEEPA's domestic application. However, globalization has eroded that limit, as few transactions today do not involve some foreign interest. Many of the other criticisms of TWEA that IEEPA was supposed to address—consultation, time limits, congressional review, scope of power, and logical relationship to the emergency declared—are criticisms that scholars levy against IEEPA today. In general, three common criticisms are levied by scholars with respect to the structure of the NEA and IEEPA that may be of interest to Congress. First, the NEA and IEEPA do not define the phrases "national emergency" and "unusual and extraordinary threat" and Presidents have interpreted these terms broadly. Second, the scope of presidential authority under IEEPA has become less constrained in a highly globalized era. Third, owing to rulings by the Supreme Court and amendments to the NEA, Congress would likely have to have a two-thirds majority rather than a simple majority to terminate a national emergency. Despite these criticisms, Congress has not acted to terminate or otherwise express displeasure with an emergency declaration invoking IEEPA. This absence of any explicit statement of disapproval, coupled with explicit statements of approval in some instances, may indicate congressional approval of presidential use of IEEPA thus far. Arguably, then, IEEPA could be seen as an effective tool for carrying out the will of Congress. Neither the NEA nor IEEPA define what constitutes a "national emergency." IEEPA conditions its invocation in a declaration on its necessity for dealing with an "unusual and extraordinary threat … to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States." In the markup of IEEPA in the House, Fred Bergsten, then-Assistant Secretary for International Affairs in the Department of the Treasury, praised the requirement that a national emergency for the purposes of IEEPA be "based on an unusual and extraordinary threat" because such language "emphasizes that such powers should be available only in true emergencies." Because "unusual" and "extraordinary" are also undefined, the usual and ordinary invocation of the statute seems to conflict with those statutory conditions. If Congress wanted to refine the meaning of "national emergency" or "unusual and extraordinary threat," it could do so through statute. Additionally, Congress could consider requiring some sort of factual finding by a court prior to, or shortly after, the exercise of any authority, such as under the First Militia Act of 1792 or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. However, Congress may consider that the ambiguity in the existing statute provides the executive with the flexibility necessary to address national emergencies with the requisite dispatch. While IEEPA nominally applies only to foreign transactions, the breadth of the phrase, "any interest of any foreign country or a national thereof" has left a great deal of room for executive discretion. The interconnectedness of the modern global economy has left few major transactions in which a foreign interest is not involved. As a result, at least one scholar has concluded, "the exemption of purely domestic transactions from the President's transaction controls seems to be a limitation without substance." Presidents have used IEEPA since the 1980s to control exports by maintaining the dual-use export control system, enshrined in the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) in times when its underlying authorization, the Export Administration Act (EAA), periodically expired. During those times when Congress did not reauthorize the EAA, Presidents have declared emergencies to maintain the dual-use export control system. The current emergency has been ongoing since 2001. While Presidents have used IEEPA to implement trade restrictions against adversaries, it has not been used as a general way to impose tariffs. However, as noted above, President Nixon used TWEA to impose a 10% ad valorem tariff on goods entering the United States to avoid a balance of payments crisis after he ended the convertibility of the U.S. dollar to gold. Although the use of TWEA in this instance was criticized at the time, it does not appear that the subsequent reforms resulting in the enactment of IEEPA would prevent the President from imposing tariffs or other restrictions on trade. However, the availability of diverse other authorities for addressing trade, including for national security purposes, makes the use of IEEPA for this purpose unlikely. The scope of powers over individual targets is also extensive. Under IEEPA, the President has the power to prohibit all financial transactions with individuals designated by Executive Order. Such power allows the President to block all the assets of a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. Such uses of IEEPA may reflect the will of Congress or they may represent a grant of authority that may have gone beyond what Congress originally intended. The heart of the curtailment of presidential power by the NEA and IEEPA was the provision that Congress could terminate a state of emergency declared pursuant to the NEA with a concurrent resolution. When the "legislative veto" was struck down by the Supreme Court (see above), it left Congress with a steeper climb—presumably requiring passage of a veto-proof joint resolution—to terminate a national emergency declared under the NEA. Two such resolutions have ever been introduced and neither declarations of emergency involved IEEPA. The lack of congressional action here could be the result of the necessity of obtaining a veto-proof majority or it could be that the use of IEEPA has so far reflected the will of Congress. If Congress wanted to assert more authority over the use of IEEPA, it could amend the NEA or IEEPA to include a "sunset provision," terminating any national emergency after a certain number of days. At least one scholar has recommended such an amendment. Alternatively, Congress could amend IEEPA to provide for a review mechanism that would give Congress an active role. In the Senate during the 115 th Congress, for example, Senator Mike Lee introduced the Global Trade Accountability Act of 2017 required the President to report to Congress on any proposed trade action (including the use of IEEPA), including a description of the proposal together with a list of items to be affected, an economic impact study of the proposal including potential retaliation. Congress, using expedited procedures, would need to approve the President's action through a joint resolution within a 60-day period. The legislation would have provided for a temporary one-time unilateral trade action for a 90-day period. Similarly, in the 116 th Congress, Senator Lee introduced S. 764 , a bill to provide for congressional approval of national emergency declarations, and for other purposes, which would amend the NEA to require an act of Congress within 30 days to allow a national emergency to continue. Another approach would establish a means for Congress to pass a resolution of disapproval if IEEPA authorities are invoked. An example of this approach is the Trade Authority Protection Act (H.R. 5760). After the submission of similar reporting requirement to S. 177 (above), Congress could, under Congressional Review Act (CRA)-style procedures, pass a joint resolution of disapproval. Congress does have the authority to pass a joint resolution under IEEPA, as noted above, but the use of CRA procedures would allow for certain expedited consideration. Alternatively, Congress could use any of these mechanisms to amend the current disapproval resolution process in IEEPA or the NEA itself. In testimony before the House Committee on International Relations in 1977, Professor Harold G. Maier summed up the main criticisms of TWEA: Section 5(b)'s effect is no longer confined to "emergency situations" in the sense of existing imminent danger. The continuing retroactive approval, either explicit or implicit, by Congress of broad executive interpretations of the scope of powers which it confers has converted the section into a general grant of legislative authority to the President…" Like TWEA before it, IEEPA sits at the center of the modern U.S. sanction regime. Like TWEA before it, Congress has often approved explicitly of the President's use of IEEPA. In several circumstances, Congress has directed the President to impose a variety of sanctions under IEEPA and waived the requirement of an emergency declaration. Even when Congress has not given explicit approval, no Member of Congress has ever introduced a resolution to terminate a national emergency citing IEEPA. The NEA requires that both houses of Congress meet every six months to consider a vote on a joint resolution on terminating an emergency. Neither house has ever met to do so. In response to concerns over the scale and scope of the emergency economic powers granted by IEEPA, supporters of the status quo would argue that Congress has implicitly and explicitly expressed approval of the statute and its use. In 2018, Congress passed the Export Control Reform Act (ECRA). The legislation repealed the expired Export Administration Act of 1979, the regulations of which had been continued by reference to IEEPA since 2001. The ECRA became the new statutory authority for Export Administration Regulations. Nevertheless, several export controls addressed in the Export Administration Act of 1979 were not updated in the Export Control Reform Act of 2018; instead, Congress chose to require the President to continue to use IEEPA to continue to implement the three sections of the Export Administration Act of 1979 that were not repealed. Going forward, Congress may wish to revisit these provisions, which all relate to deterring the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Appendix A. NEA and IEEPA Use

Question: Write a one-page summary of the report 1.

Answer: The effects of climate change, combined with other factors, may alter human migration trends across the globe, according to the International Organization for Migration. For example, climate change can increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, causing populations to move from an area. Climate change can also intensify slow-onset disasters, such as drought, crop failure, or sea level rise, potentially altering longer-term migration trends. GAO was asked to review how U.S. agencies address climate change as a potential driver of global migration. For State, USAID, and DOD, this report (1) describes executive branch actions related to climate change and migration from fiscal years 2014 through 2018; (2) examines the extent to which the agencies discussed the potential effects of climate change on migration in their plans and risk assessments; and (3) describes agency activities on the issue. GAO analyzed documents on administration priorities; reviewed agency plans, risk assessments, and documentation of agency activities; and interviewed agency officials. From fiscal years 2014 through 2018, a variety of executive branch actions related to climate change—such as executive orders and strategies—affected the Department of State (State), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Department of Defense (DOD), including their activities that could potentially address the nexus of climate change and migration. For example, a fiscal year 2016 presidential memorandum—rescinded in 2017—required agencies to develop implementation plans to identify the potential impact of climate change on human mobility, among other things. In general, however, climate change as a driver of migration was not a focus of the executive branch actions. For example, a fiscal year 2014 executive order—also rescinded in 2017—requiring agencies to prepare for the impacts of climate change did not highlight migration as a particular concern. State, USAID, and DOD have discussed the potential effects of climate change on migration in agency plans and risk assessments. For example, State and USAID required climate change risk assessments when developing country and regional strategies, and a few of the strategies reviewed by GAO identified the nexus of climate change and migration as a risk. However, State changed its approach in 2017, no longer providing missions with guidance on whether and how to include climate change risks in their integrated country strategies. In doing so, State did not include in its 2018 guidance to the missions any information on how to include climate change risks, should the missions choose to do so. Without clear guidance, State may miss opportunities to identify and address issues related to climate change as a potential driver of migration. The three agencies have been involved in climate change related activities but none were specifically focused on the nexus with global migration. For example, USAID officials said that the agency's adaptation efforts, such as its Pastoralist Areas Resilience Improvement through Market Expansion project in Ethiopia, were the most likely to include activities, such as enhancing resilience, that can indirectly address the issue of climate change as a driver of migration. GAO recommends that State provide missions with guidance that clearly documents its process for climate change risk assessments for country strategies. In commenting on a draft of this report, State indicated that it would update its integrated country strategy guidance and will specifically note that missions have the option to provide additional information on climate resilience and related topics.