U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

36–439 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019

THE NEED FOR LEADERSHIP 

TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE AND 

PROTECT NATIONAL SECURITY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

OVERSIGHT AND REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

APRIL 9, 2019 

Serial No. 116–14 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform 

( 

Available on: http://www.govinfo.gov 

http://www.oversight.house.gov or 

http://www.docs.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI, Illinois 

JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland 

HARLEY ROUDA, California 

KATIE HILL, California 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

PETER WELCH, VERMONT

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

RO KHANNA, California 

JIMMY GOMEZ, California 

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York 

AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts 

RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Minority Member 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

JAMES COMER, Kentucky 

MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina 

CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana 

CHIP ROY, Texas 

CAROL D. MILLER, West Virginia 

MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee 

KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota 

W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida 

DAVID RAPALLO, Staff Director 

SUSANNE SACHSMAN GROOMS, Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

ELISA LANIER, Chief Clerk and Director of Operations 

RUSSELL ANELLO, Chief Oversight Counsel 

AMISH SHAH, Counsel 

JOSHUA ZUCKER, Assistant Clerk 

CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director 

CONTACT NUMBER: 202-225-5051 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on April 9, 2019 ................................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES

Mr. John F. Kerry, Former Secretary, U.S. Department of State 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 8 

Mr. Chuck Hagel, Former Secretary of Defense and Senator 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 11 

The written statements for witnesses are available at the U.S. House of Representatives Repository: https://docs.house.gov. 

INDEX OF DOCUMENTS

The documents entered into the record during this hearing are listed below, 

and are available at: https://docs.house.gov. 

* United Nations Report, submitted by Rouda; ref. page 4 

* AAAS Report, submitted by Rouda; ref. page 4 

* Letter to President Trump from 57 senior national security officials, submitted by Mr. Hagel; ref. page 13 

* Sea level rise modeling handbook from the United States Geological Survey, submitted by Massie; ref. page 25 

* The CO2 Deficit by Bonne Posma and Andrew Kenny, submitted by Massie; 

ref. page 29 

* Climate Change and the Syrian Civil war revisited, Elsevier, 

* How Climate Change is Fueling the U.S. the U.S. Border Crisis, The 

New Yorker, submitted by Ocasio-Cortez; ref. page 54 

* Trump’s New Climate Czar: Carbon Dioxide Has Been Treated Just Like 

‘Jews Under Hitler’ Vanity Fair, submitted by Wasserman Schultz; ref. 

page 58 

* Putting the ‘con’ in consensus; Not Only is there no 97 per cent consensus 

among climate scientists, many misunderstand core issues, Financial Post, 

submitted by Grothman; ref. page 61 

* Key Greenland glacier growing again after shrinking for years, NASA 

study shows, Associated Press 

* Greenland’s fastest-shrinking glacier growing again, UPI 

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THE NEED FOR LEADERSHIP 

TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE AND 

PROTECT NATIONAL SECURITY 

Tuesday, April 9, 2019 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in room 

2154, Rayburn Office Building, Hon. Elijah Cummings (chairman 

of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Lynch, 

Cooper, Connolly, Krishnamoorthi, Raskin, Rouda, Hill, 

Wasserman Schultz, Sarbanes, Speier, Kelly, DeSaulnier, Plaskett, 

Khanna, Gomez, Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Tlaib, Jordan, Amash, 

Gosar, Massie, Meadows, Hice, Grothman, Comer, Cloud, Gibbs, 

Higgins, Norman, Roy, Miller, Green, Armstrong, and Steube. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. 

[Presiding.] The committee will come to order. Without objection, 

the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any 

time. 

This full committee hearing is convening to review the need for 

leadership to combat climate change and protect national security. 

I now recognize myself for five minutes to give an opening statement. 

Today the committee is honored to have two distinguished witnesses, former Secretary John Kerry and former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. We welcome both of you. 

In addition to serving as key members of the Cabinet, both Secretary Kerry and Secretary Hagel served for many years in the 

U.S. Senate, and both served with great distinction. They also 

served in our armed forces, and they both served with distinction 

in combat. 

Secretary Kerry and Secretary Hagel, on behalf of the committee 

and on behalf of a grateful Nation, I thank you for your service. 

I also thank you for joining us today to discuss the threat that climate change poses to our country and our national security. 

Just a few weeks ago, record-breaking floods forced parts of 

Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska under as much as eight feet of 

water. Secretary Hagel, as you know very well, Offutt Air Force 

Base is home of the U.S. Strategic Command, and although they 

are used to floods, this year was nothing like they have ever seen 

before. 
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Last September, Hurricane Florence caused massive damage to 

Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. As a result, the Commandant of 

the Marine Corps, General Robert Neller, warned that, and I quote, 

‘‘One-third of the combat power of the Marine Corps is degraded 

and will continue to degrade.’’ One-third. 

For several decades our national security leaders, including the 

two distinguished men sitting at our witness table, have been 

warning that we need strong and decisive leadership to combat climate change and to plan for national security implications we are 

going to face. These warnings have come from Democratic administrations and Republican administrations. In fact, in the most recent National Climate Assessment issued under the Trump administration, 13 Federal agencies, more than 300 experts from around 

the country, warned, and I quote, ‘‘The Earth is now changing faster than at any point in the history of our modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities.’’ 

The assessment found that our response to this crisis so far has 

not been sufficient to avoid, and I quote, ‘‘substantial damages to 

the United States economy, environment, and human health and 

well-being over the coming decades.’’ 

In addition, earlier this year the President’s Director of National 

Security Dan Coats warned that climate change is [quote]‘‘likely to 

fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond.’’ 

Director Coats also warned that heat waves, droughts, and floods 

driven by climate change are, and I quote, ‘‘increasing the risk of 

social unrest, migration, and interstate tension in countries such as 

Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, and Jordan.’’ 

Unfortunately, instead of mobilizing efforts to fight climate 

change, President Trump has attacked the science, weakened environmental protections, and undermined United States leadership 

abroad. In fact, when his administration issued the National Climate Assessment last year, he stated, and I quote, ‘‘I do not believe 

it.’’ 

The title of today’s hearing, ‘‘The Need for Leadership to Combat 

Climate Change and Protect National Security,’’ is quite appropriate. I understand that there may be differences of opinion on 

how we should respond, but there should be no uncertainty about 

whether we should respond. If the President disagrees with the 

Paris Accord, that is his prerogative. But what he is proposing instead will not work. 

According to press reports, he is reportedly considering creating 

a White House panel to relitigate whether climate change is real. 

A panel like that would be a huge step backward for our Nation 

and indeed the world. The true measure of leadership is whether 

we leave the world better for our children and our grandchildren 

and those yet unborn than we found it. 

Each day that we fail to act on climate change, we are risking 

the health and the security of future generations. For these reasons, our committee is making climate change a top priority for 

this Congress. Today the committee is making a referral to our 

Subcommittee on the Environment, which is chaired by the distinguished gentleman from California, Representative Rouda, to 

launch a series of hearings that will take advantage of our commit-
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tee’s unique and broad jurisdiction over all Federal agencies as well 

as over the Executive Office of the President, to identify opportunities for advancing concrete solutions. 

So I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and now I yield 

to the distinguished ranking member, Mr. Jordan. Sorry. I yield to 

the distinguished gentleman, Mr. Rouda. 

Mr. ROUDA. Thank you, Chairman Cummings, and thank you for 

allowing me to give a statement and calling this very important 

meeting. I also want to thank Secretary Kerry and Secretary Hagel 

for testifying before our committee today and for your decades of 

public service. 

As chair of the Subcommittee on Environment, I appreciate the 

referral of Chairman Cummings to examine one of the most defining and imperative moral issues of our time. Climate change poses 

an enormous threat to our environment, our national security, our 

economy, and our long-term health. Climate change can no longer 

be thought of as something that may or may not impact us someday. 

The effects of climate change are already being felt today. Just 

ask the hurricane survivors in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. You can also ask my fellow Californians where two most recent wildfire seasons were the deadliest in the state’s history, taking the lives of more than 100 fellow Americans and costing approximately $24 billion in damages. 

I want to echo Chairman Cummings when I say that the debate 

that I hope we have here today is about what we should do to mitigate the effects of climate change over the next century, not whether climate change is actually occurring and whether human activity 

is the leading cause. The science on climate change is settled, and 

we are past the point where this is an issue of debate. 

A few years ago, the American Association for the Advancement 

of Science released a report showing that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that climate change is happening and that it is being 

caused by humans. I want to read one passage from the report because I want it to hit all of you the way it hit me when I read it. 

‘‘The science linking human activities to climate change is analogous to the science linking smoking to lung and cardiovascular diseases. Physicians, cardiovascular scientists, public health experts, 

and others all agree smoking causes cancer.’’ 

‘‘And this consensus among the health community has convinced 

most Americans that the health risks from smoking are real. A 

similar consensus now exists among climate scientists, a consensus 

that maintains that climate change is happening, and that human 

activity is the cause.’’ 

So let’s let that sink in. The consensus on whether climate 

change is real is equivalent to the consensus on whether smoking 

causes cancer. I would wager that every single person in this room 

and the overwhelming majority of Americans trust the science on 

smoking, as they should. So why are there people still contesting 

the science on climate change? 

As Chairman Cummings points out, the Trump administration’s 

own officials are ringing the alarm on the serious consequences of 

inaction on climate change. But it does not stop there. There have 

been other calls to action that cannot be ignored. 
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The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 

synthesized the work of thousands of scientists, including the top 

American scientists, into its Fifth Assessment Report. They concluded that the rate of sea level rise today is larger than at any 

point in 2,000 years. Oceans have also become 26 percent more 

acidic due to the influx of carbon dioxide into the water since the 

Industrial Revolution. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter into the official report record 

both a United Nations Report and the AAAS report right here. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The United Nations Report and the AAS information are at: 

docs.house.gov.] 

Mr. ROUDA. These facts are scary, and they should be. These are 

clear, pronounced, historical trends. Do we think this is just going 

to stop? No. It is only going to get worse, and working families, 

farmers, homeowners, everyone will continue to suffer. 

This afternoon, the Subcommittee on Environment, which I 

chair, will launch a series of hearings and investigations on climate 

change. Through this work I will hold out a standing invitation to 

all of my colleagues. Join us. Join us in devising practical, economical solutions to combat climate change. We know that it makes economic sense to incentivize the development and production of alternative energy sources; to heavily invest in electric vehicles, as General Motors has recently done; and make infrastructure more energy efficient to protect our air and water from pollution caused by 

carbon emissions. 

We may not all agree on the best policies to achieve these goals, 

but I look forward to these debates over the upcoming months and 

years because the best policies are forged through respecting the 

diversity of American interests, listening to farmers, auto workers, 

coal miners, rural and urban residents, children and young adults, 

lower-income people, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. 

But we do not have time to waste. The White House has chosen 

not to lead on this issue, so it is up to us in Congress to do so. We 

have a tough problem that needs solving, and we will rise to the 

challenge. We must say to the world: America will lead. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Now I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished ranking member, 

Mr. Jordan. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the chair. 

The first three months of the 116th Congress, the Democrats’ 

focus has been on one thing: attacking the President. Not addressing the emergency on the border, not addressing the $22 trillion 

debt or the opioid crisis, but a relentless pursuit and focus on the 

President. 

Think about last week. In one week’s time, the chairman of the 

Ways and Means Committee says, ‘‘I want the President’s tax returns’’ for purely political reasons. The chairman of the Judiciary 

Committee says to Mr. Mueller—or to the Attorney General, ‘‘Send 

us the Mueller report,’’ even though the Attorney General has said 

he is going to give it to us in a matter of days. Then, of course, 

this committee sends letters to the President’s accountant and his 
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bank seeking personal business records for the last 10 years, and 

they did that based solely on the testimony of Michael Cohen, who, 

oh, by the way, was also in the news last week. That is right, the 

first announced witness of this Congress, the first big hearing of 

this committee, a guy who is going to prison for lying to Congress, 

who came in front of this committee and lied to us seven times, and 

we did nothing about it. And because we did nothing about it, his 

lawyers send a letter to Democrats last week and say, ‘‘Shazam. 

Michael Cohen has found a new hard drive. Can you help keep him 

out of prison so he can come back in front of us and lie some 

more?’’ 

I mean, you cannot make this stuff up. This is truly unbelievable. I am not sure most Americans could name any legislative initiative of the Democrats this Congress, with the possible exception 

of one. Maybe they can name one: the Green New Deal. And my 

guess is a lot of Americans could name it because it is so radical. 

And if you do not believe me, just read about the Green New Deal 

in the launch document, the overview document from Thursday, 

February 7, at 8:30 a.m., the document that talks about the Green 

New Deal. 

Today’s hearing, Mr. Chairman, is titled, ‘‘Leadership to Combat 

Climate Change,’’ certainly a worthy objective. And I am not a scientist, do not pretend to be one. And while I respect each of our 

witnesses today and I appreciate their service to our great country, 

they are not scientists either. In fact, I do not know if there are 

any scientists on our committee. The closest thing, the closest one 

is the gentleman from Kentucky, Congressman Massie. He has got 

two engineering degrees from MIT, has over two dozen patents, 

successful business owner, probably the greenest guy in Congress, 

drives an electric car, powers his home and farm with solar panels 

and batteries. I hope we hear a lot from Mr. Massie. But I am not 

sure this hearing is about getting truth from people like Congressman Massie. I think it is about the Green New Deal and the regulations, the central government planning, and the politics that 

come with it. 

By the way, Mr. Chairman, the Green New Deal is not new. Not 

new at all. During the previous administration, the Obama Administration, they had the Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program. You all remember this? Millions and millions of taxpayer 

dollars went to 22 companies, average credit rating double B 

minus, almost all of them went belly up. Almost all of them went 

bankrupt with taxpayer money. You remember. Solyndra, Beacon 

Power, Abound Solar, Fisker Automotive—all of them got our constituents’ tax dollars. All of them went bankrupt. 

The Green New Deal is not new, but it is devastating. It would 

be devastating to people who live in Mrs. Miller’s district in West 

Virginia to Mr. Comer’s district in Kentucky, hardworking miners. 

It would be devastating for people in Mr. Higgins’ state, oil and gas 

workers, Mr. Armstrong’s state, North Dakota. And I think it 

would be devastating for middle-class families in all our districts 

all across this great country, driving up the cost of energy which, 

therefore, drives up the cost of all kinds of other goods and services. 
6 

You know what I also think is interesting, Mr. Chairman? The 

Green New Deal has 91 Democrat cosponsors in the House, 13 

Democrat cosponsors in the Senate. Seven Democratic Presidential 

candidates have endorsed it. But when it came time to vote on it, 

when they had a vote on it, zero—zero—people supported it. You 

would think if everything is going to go bad in 12 years, as people 

have been saying, somebody would have voted for it. No one voted 

for it. 

So I hope the focus today is actually on the issue that we are 

supposed to be talking about and not on politics and not on attacking the President like we have done for the first three months of 

this Congress. 

Mr. Chairman, I would yield to the gentleman from Kentucky, 

the ranking member of the Subcommittee, Mr. Comer. 

Mr. COMER. Thank you, Ranking Member Jordan. 

Today my Democratic counterparts on this committee will argue 

that climate change is an imminent threat to our national security, 

among other alarmist notions. Some members of this committee 

have said climate change is ‘‘our World War II.’’ They have said 

that, ‘‘The world is going to end in 12 years if we do not address 

climate change.’’ You get the picture. 

And what do they propose as their solution to combat this imminent threat? The Green New Deal. This outlandish proposal and all 

proposals that resemble it are an affront to the citizens and the 

economy of this Nation, particularly rural Americans. 

Coal mining is a way of life in many corners of rural America, 

including my district. After more than two centuries of commercial 

mining operations, Kentucky coal remains an important component 

of the Commonwealth’s economy and America’s energy portfolio. 

Kentucky was the fourth highest coal producer in the U.S. in 2016, 

mining 42.9 million tons of coal. In that same year, coal mines directly employed more than 6,600 Kentuckians, and mining directly 

contributed billions of dollars to Kentucky’s economy. Both the first 

and second largest coal-producing counties, Union and Ohio counties, are in my district. I am incredibly concerned about this or any 

proposal that aims to eliminate this entire way of life and an economic engine for my district and the Commonwealth of Kentucky 

as part of their answer to saving the planet. 

Alarmist proposals like the Green New Deal would devastate 

mining communities, driving out good-paying jobs, and ship coal 

production to countries like China that have much worse environmental regulations and standards, likely increasing global greenhouse gas emissions in the process. Coal is one of the most reliable 

energy sources in the U.S. and generates base power that prevents 

rolling blackouts when wind and solar fall short in extreme weather. Our coal miners have fought hard to keep their jobs despite excessive and burdensome regulations and have targeted their livelihood. It is far past time that Washington stop picking winners and 

losers and stop seeking to eliminate an entire way of life. 

And while I could speak volumes on how American farmers and 

cattlemen would also suffer from the Green New Deal, I will just 

briefly touch on it for time’s sake. 

Farmland covers 54 percent of the total acreage in Kentucky. 

With 2.2 million head of cattle, Kentucky is the leading cattle pro-
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ducer east of the Mississippi River. Despite all the progress we 

have made on the environmental front in recent decades, it is 

amazing that some policymakers seem to think targeting U.S. beef 

producers and consumers will make a huge impact on global emissions. U.S. beef producers now have one of the lowest carbon footprints compared to our global counterparts. Harming our agriculture sector in the pursuit of this irrational plan is ill-informed 

and misguided. 

The bottom line is touting the Green New Deal as a realistic plan 

for the future is short-sighted and reckless. Of course, we all want 

clean water and clean soil. I as a farmer know firsthand how important this is in producing food, feeding our citizens, and safeguarding the well-being of our land. But we must use caution when 

considering a climate change and environmental reform deal that 

is rooted in socialism. 

The Green New Deal paints a dark picture for rural America and 

takes our country in a direction far from the one we know. I urge 

this committee to truly consider the impact that radical climate 

change proposals have on rural America, particularly the mining 

and farming communities that feed, fuel, and clothe all of us. 

I yield back to the ranking member from Ohio. 

Mr. JORDAN. I yield to the gentlelady from West Virginia. 

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Ranking Member Jordan. 

My home state of West Virginia is abundant in natural resources. From the hills to the hollers, we are proud that the coal, 

the natural gas, and oil that our state has fueled the world and 

promotes a prosperous economy throughout the United States. 

However, during his administration, President Obama took drastic 

steps that decimated the coal industry. These extreme anti-coal 

policies shuttered mines, left coal workers without jobs, and collapsed the surrounding economies. The machine shops, the hardware stores, clothing and grocery stores as well as restaurants 

were all shuttered. The joblessness led to great hopelessness as 

well as people leaving our state. If you go to Charlotte, you will see 

a lot of proud West Virginians. My state is still trying to recover 

from the population losses to this day. 

These policies implemented by the Obama Administration led to 

hopelessness and despair and helped to give rise to the opioid crisis. But our West Virginians are proven to be resilient. President 

Trump has given our energy economy the tools it needs to get back 

on track. That is why I worry about proposals from my colleagues 

across the aisle. We all live on this Earth, and we all breathe the 

same air. But my colleagues from the other part of the country will 

never be able to understand what the energy industry means to my 

state. 

Legislation like the Green New Deal is a one-size-fits-all approach that poses an imminent threat to the economy of my state, 

jobs of my constituents, and the heartbeat of West Virginia. This 

proposal is short-sighted and is lacking in common sense. Simply 

stated, it has rebranded the war on coal, oil, and gas, and it is a 

blueprint for disaster. 

I yield back my time. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 
8 

Now I want to welcome our former Senate colleagues, the Honorable John Kerry and the Honorable Chuck Hagel, who both began 

their service to our country in the military and continued their 

service as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, respectively. 

I will begin by swearing you in. Would you stand, please, and 

raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm that the testimony 

you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth, so help you God? 

Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. I want to thank you very much. The microphones are very 

sensitive, so please speak into them directly. We really want to 

hear what you have to say. Without objection, your written statement will be made a part of the record. 

With that, Secretary Kerry, you are now recognized to give an 

oral presentation of your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN KERRY, FORMER SECRETARY, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. KERRY. Well, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, thank 

you very much. Mr. Ranking Member Jordan, thank you very 

much. It is a privilege to be here. Opening Day in Boston, we are 

not doing so well, so maybe it is Okay to be here. 

In keeping with the telling of the truth, I had forgotten what fun 

politics is in Washington. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. KERRY. Mr. Chairman, thank you not only for your leadership on climate change, but even more thank you for your stewardship of a committee which, at its best, demands accountability of 

those in positions of power on behalf of the American people. 

Chairman Cummings, Ranking Member Jordan, and all the 

members of the committee, thank you for inviting me and my good 

friend, Secretary Hagel, Chuck. He and I have done a lot of things 

together, and I think we have proved that we used to be able to 

do that here in Washington. It would be great if we could get back 

to bipartisan effort on these kinds of issues. We are delighted that 

you saw fit to invite back not one but two recovering Senators. 

I think most on this committee would agree that there is a long 

list of issues where, despite the advice and warning of experts, 

Washington remains gridlocked. But at least on most of those 

issues, no one can credibly deny the magnitude of the challenge, let 

alone the existence of the problem. 

Regrettably, the same cannot be said about climate change. 

Think about it. During World War II, America would never have 

tolerated leadership that denied Hitler’s aggression. During the 

cold war, no one in public life would have been taken seriously if 

they did not offer a policy to counter the Soviets. And after 9/11, 

it would have been disqualifying to deny that al Qaeda knocked 

down the Twin Towers. 

Facts are facts. But here we are in 2019 where too many in positions of responsibility still call climate change a ‘‘hoax’’ and advocate policies that will only make the reality of climate change 

worse. 

The science has proven that we do not have time to waste debating alternative facts, only to be forced then to invest years trying 
9 

to reestablish trust in the real ones. We are here for our country. 

We are not here for our parties. 

Just the other month, we learned that the White House is planning to convene a task force, apparently working behind closed 

doors—not sure why—to determine ‘‘whether climate change is a 

national security threat.’’ My friends, we already know what the 

outcome will be. It is a council of doubters and deniers from what 

has been leaked from the White House, convened to undo a 26- 

year-old factual consensus, Republican and Democrat, liberal and 

conservative, that climate change is a national security threat multiplier. 

In fact, I am afraid this effort may be a scheme to pretend that 

there are two sides to an issue already long since settled. In examining the facts regarding this issue, you do not have to accept my 

and Secretary Hagel’s word for it. The designation of climate 

change as a security issue was not settled by President Obama’s 

NSC, my state Department, or Secretary Hagel’s Pentagon. No. It 

was settled 28 years before that by a Republican President and a 

team that included Jim Baker, Dick Cheney, Brent Scowcroft, Colin 

Powell, and Bob Gates. 

In 1991, the Bush Administration assessed in its National Security Strategy that threats like climate change, which ‘‘respect no 

international boundaries,’’ were already contributing to political 

conflict. Each of his successors included climate change in their national security strategies. Even after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 

President George W. Bush’s administration made room in the 2002 

National Security Strategy to warn of ‘‘dangerous human interference with global climate.’’ 

There is not a scintilla of accepted science or bipartisan military 

expert analysis that four consecutive administrations were wrong. 

There is no event and certainly no scientifically based event or suggestion that the proposition ought to be reexamined. The factual 

basis of climate change’s threat originated not with politicians but 

with the national security community, including the intelligence 

community. 

Eleven retired military leaders constituting the Military Advisory 

Board at CNA, a naval think tank in Arlington, described climate 

change in 2007 ‘‘a threat multiplier for instability.’’ Seven years 

later, 16 retired flag officers representing all branches of the military implored Americans to understand the severity of ‘‘a salient 

national security concern because time and tide wait for no one.’’ 

Instead of convening a kangaroo court, the President might want 

to talk with the educated adults he once trusted enough to fill his 

top national security positions. Director of National Intelligence 

Daniel Coats has reported that climate change would increase the 

risk of social unrest, migration, interstate tension in countries such 

as Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, and Jordan. Then-Defense Secretary Jim 

Mattis told the Armed Services Committee this last year, ‘‘Climate 

change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops 

are operating today.’’ These officials were not making back-of-theenvelope projections about a distant, dystopic future. 

Climate change is already impacting national security. The 

American Security Project, ASP, is an organization of security experts, including retired admirals and generals, flag officers, who 
10 

spent their careers in service not to a President or a party but the 

country above all else. It also includes former United States Senators, both Democrat and Republican, Governors, other public officials. The experts at ASP note that climate change is what we call 

‘‘a ring road issue,’’ meaning that climate change affects all the 

other threats. It will change disease vectors. It will drive migration. 

And these changes in turn could affect state stability and harm 

global security as a consequence of that. 

Lieutenant General Castellaw and Brigadier General Adams of 

the American Security Project know the ground truth. They write, 

‘‘Even as our comrades on active duty in the U.S. military forces 

plan for the impact of the rise in sea levels in places like Bangladesh, the retreat of ice in the Arctic, and extreme storms in 

places like the Philippines, Members of Congress and others continue to deny the obvious.’’ 

The truth is that climate change is real and poses significant 

challenges for our Nation’s security. As Secretary of State, I visited 

Naval Station Norfolk. It is the biggest naval installation in the 

world, and the land that houses it is literally sinking. In fact, sea 

levels on the east coast are rising twice as fast as the global average thanks to uneven ocean temperatures and geology. 

The admiral in charge of the fleet and the base commander, Mr. 

Chairman, made clear what further sea level rise could mean for 

Norfolk or for the U.S. Navy fleet, 20 percent of which is homeported nearby. Willful denial will not change the fact that our military readiness will be degraded when the permafrost our Alaskan 

bases are built on begins to thaw out. 

And it does not end with military impacts. Climate change did 

not lead to the rise of the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria, 

but the country’s severe drought and the government’s inability to 

cope with it exacerbated the volatility that militants then exploited 

to seize villages, butcher teachers, and kidnap hundreds of innocent girls. 

Climate change did not cause the tragedy of the war in Syria. A 

prolonged historic drought, however, killed off such a vast proportion of the livestock of Syria that more than a million people were 

forced to migrate to Damascus and its environs, contributing greatly to the violence in that country. 

The prospect of a more arid climate throughout the Middle East 

and parts of Asia will increasingly strain the most essential resource of all: water. We have already seen tension rise around the 

basins of the Nile, Central Asia’s Indus River, and the Mekong in 

Southeast Asia. Areas facing unrest, instability, and weak governance are breeding grounds for violent extremism. Climate change 

will only exacerbate migration in places already enduring economic, political, and social stress. If people think the migration on 

Europe today is a challenge to the politics of Europe, wait until you 

have much of the Middle East and Northern Africa knocking on 

Europe’s door because of the inability to grow food and live day to 

day in 120-degree heat. 

Mr. Chairman, the only people cheering the President’s apparent 

attempt to erase climate change from U.S. national considerations 

live in Beijing and in Moscow. China and Russia have for years 

been mapping the resource competition, military implications, and 
11 

geostrategic challenges that climate change will present in an everchanging, climate-impacted Arctic. What a gift to them if we stop 

making our own assessments because we have our heads buried in 

the sand while their eyes are on the tundra. 

Now, I know legislating on climate change is not easy. I was 

charged with the responsibility in the Senate when we were in the 

majority of leading the last serious bipartisan effort with Lindsey 

Graham and Joe Lieberman when we tried to pass legislation. I 

lived the difficulties. But I know we will never get there at all if 

we do not listen to our generals and admirals, our scientists and 

our intelligence community. We can spend the next two years debating whether two plus two equals five. But it would mean someday a young American in uniform is going to be called on to go to 

harm’s way because truth lost out to talking heads and alternative 

facts. 

So let us debate how to address the climate national security 

threat, not whether it is real. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Secretary Hagel. 

STATEMENT OF HON. CHUCK HAGEL, FORMER SECRETARY OF 

DEFENSE AND SENATOR 

Mr. HAGEL. Chairman Cummings, Ranking Member Jordan, 

members of this committee, thank you for inviting Secretary Kerry 

and me to testify today about the threats posed by climate change 

to our national security. 

I am proud to be sitting next to my friend and former Senate and 

Cabinet colleague, John Kerry. He has been a long-time leader on 

this issue and understands it very well. John and I have shared 

many conversations about climate change over many years. We are 

both founding members of the American Security Project, an organization that has led research into the national security implications of climate change. 

In my public career, both in the Senate, at the Department of 

Defense, and as co-chairing the President’s Intelligence Advisory 

Board, preparing for climate change was an important part of my 

work. In 1997, the Senate passed the Byrd-Hagel resolution which 

laid out the conditions for Senate support for an international 

agreement on carbon emissions. The Senator Byrd referred to in 

the Byrd-Hagel resolution was Senator Robert Byrd, the late Senator Robert Byrd, of coal-producing West Virginia, who took this 

issue very seriously. Later that year, I led the Senate delegation 

to the protocol negotiations in Kyoto where Secretary Kerry was 

also a member of the delegation. 

In 2007, I led the effort to require a national intelligence assessment of security impacts of climate change. As Secretary of Defense, I issued the Department’s first Arctic Strategy in 2013 highlighting how the military would respond to melting ice and other 

challenges, as well as the Department’s first climate adaptation 

road map detailing how to prepare for climate change. 

I supported the 2015 Paris Peace Climate Agreement that Secretary Kerry negotiated because it met the requirements of the 
12 

Byrd-Hagel resolution, ensuring that all nations—all nations—take 

measurable, reportable, and verifiable steps to reduce emissions. 

While climate science readily and rapidly advanced over my decades in public service, my priorities remained the same: Any actions to address climate change must protect America’s economy, 

our environment, and our national security. My views were always 

informed by science. 

As scientists reduced uncertainty about climate change over the 

last two decades, it became clear, very clear, that the U.S. must 

implement policies to address the challenge, prepare, because climate change is threatening our economy, our environment, and our 

national security. 

Dating back to the George H.W. Bush Administration in 1992, as 

Secretary Kerry has noted and Chairman Cummings has noted, intelligence and national security professionals were telling us that 

climate change posed a direct threat to U.S. national security. This 

is 1992. This work has been informed by U.S. scientists telling us 

that a melting Arctic, more frequent droughts and floods, and extreme weather are all examples of the changing climate in the 

United States and the world. 

Changing weather patterns threaten our national security 

through its impacts on military infrastructure, readiness, disaster 

response, and the economy. We now do not need to wait for more 

sophisticated climate models to project the security consequences of 

climate change. We know what they are. The impacts of climate 

change are clearly evident today. 

As members of this committee know so well, this past year’s extreme weather has seriously affected our military readiness. In 

September, Hurricane Florence decimated Camp Lejeune and 

caused damage to Fort Bragg and military installations across 

North Carolina, as Congressman Meadows knows so well. 

A few weeks later, Hurricane Michael leveled Tyndall Air Force 

Base in Florida’s Panhandle, causing damage to 17 expensive F– 

22s and major structural damage throughout that base. Last 

month, floods in my home state of Nebraska, as Chairman Cummings noted, severely damaged the runway and infrastructure at 

Offutt Air Force Base, home of U.S. Strategic Command. As a Nebraskan, spring floods are no surprise. However, these floods were 

the most extreme ever—extreme, more extreme than anything we 

have seen. We saw record-setting flooding along the Missouri, 

Platte, and Elkhorn rivers and across the Midwest. Estimates of 

the cost of these disasters to the military are significant. The Marines have requested $3.6 billion to rebuild North Carolina while 

the Air Force has requested an initial $5 billion for Tyndall and 

Offutt. 

While the bases may rebuild over time and with money, the loss 

of training and readiness cannot be recovered. In a February letter 

to the Secretary of the Navy, General Neller, Commandant of the 

U.S. Marine Corps, wrote that because of the damage from the 

storms, the combat readiness of Marine Expeditionary Force, ‘‘Onethird of the entire combat power of the Marine Corps has been degraded and will continue to degrade.’’ That is a powerful statement 

coming from the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. 
13 

I will close by addressing the proposal, as we know—a proposal 

that may be forthcoming from the White House to question the 

science behind the national security estimate on climate change. 

We still do not know the details of what the proposal before the 

National Security Council would do. I noticed this morning in the 

Washington Post there was a significant story about that issue. 

Press reports have indicated that National Security Adviser Bolton 

wants to create a panel that would reexamine whether climate 

change is needed and a threat to national security—that climate 

change is indeed a threat to national security. 

If this panel were created in good faith, transparent, open, under 

the legal requirements of a Federal Advisory Committee, I am confident that the weight of scientific evidence and present-day realities would confirm what I and other national security leaders have 

found: Climate change is a real and present threat to our national 

security, which most likely will get worse. 

There needs to be a dedicated effort to address this threat, and, 

Mr. Chairman and Mr. Jordan, I appreciate very much you bringing this committee together on this subject because it is only 

through the committee work in the Congress where we forge a bipartisan consensus to move forward and prepare for what we know 

is impending and is real. 

This year, the Pentagon delivered a congressionally mandated report on the vulnerable of our military installations. The report 

found that 67 percent of the installations assessed currently face 

threats from flooding. Sixty-seven percent. Fifty-four percent currently face threats from drought, and 46 percent face threats from 

wildfires. Those percentages jump higher when future 

vulnerabilities—not just current but future vulnerabilities are 

taken into consideration. 

Unfortunately, this administration failed to comply with congressional requirements. The report left out the Marine Corps entirely 

and ignored the requirement to provide an overview of action necessary to ensure resiliency. It did not include any cost estimates. 

While the initial report remains a valuable first step, the failure 

to complete the assessment and provide future mitigation plans 

will severely inhibit future readiness. 

I signed a letter along with Secretary Kerry and 56 other senior 

national security officials asking that the President not dispute and 

undermine military and intelligent judgments on climate change, 

and I ask that a copy of that letter be included in the record. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. HAGEL. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Jordan, and this committee, 

again, I thank you for this opportunity and for your attention to 

this serious matter, and I look forward to your questions. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much to both of you, and 

thank you for recognizing the pain and turning it into a passion to 

do your purpose. And I think that when we are dancing with the 

angels, future generations will benefit from your work. 

Secretary Kerry and Secretary Hagel, in February, there were a 

number of press reports regarding a White House memo showing 

that the President may be seeking to create a committee within the 

NSC to challenge previous Government reports on the dangers of 

climate change. 
14 

The memo specifically challenges the finding that climate change 

is a national security threat. 

Last month the two of you led a group of 58 senior national security professionals in writing to President Trump about this committee. You wrote, and I quote, ‘‘We are deeply concerned by reports that the National Security Council officials are considering 

forming a committee to dispute and undermine military and intelligence judgments on the threat posed by climate change,’’ end of 

quote. 

You went on to write that this committee, quote, ‘‘will weaken 

our ability to respond to real threats, putting American lives at 

risk,’’ end of quote. 

Secretary Hagel, what concerns you most about the proposed 

White House panel? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, the first concern I have with what I have heard 

that the White House may come up with in their effort to review 

the science and the seriousness of climate change on national security is and I think was addressed very forcefully last week before 

the Senate Armed Services Committee by four of our leading generals, beginning with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

Each laid out pretty clearly, if you go back and look at that record, 

the concern they had about not addressing this issue of climate 

change seriously and the impact it is having and will continue to 

have, especially on our readiness. I mentioned it in my comments 

that the readiness portion, as the Commandant of the Marine 

Corps laid out, gets lost in this. 

We have, this country has, the only country in the world that has 

responsibilities around the world for our own interests, not the interests of NATO allies but for our interest. We are in NATO, for 

example, because it is clearly in our interest to be in NATO, not 

Germany or England; they are our allies. But we had better pay 

attention to what our scientists, our intelligence people, our military leaders are saying how serious this is and the impact it is 

going to have, it is having, on our readiness and our capabilities 

and our national security. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Secretary Kerry, how could a panel undermining scientific and intelligence assessments put American lives 

at risk? Secretary Kerry? 

Mr. KERRY. Well, there are many ways. First of all, let me try 

to be clear, if I can. I hope we can kind of try to depoliticize this, 

and I ask our colleagues here to stop and think about what is going 

on. 

Lives are already being lost in America. We are losing lives 

today. People are being killed in mudslides. People are being killed 

in fires. People are being killed in floods. I mean, you have a host 

of dangers already being lived out by average Americans. There is 

a guy from Nebraska in the most recent floods, a farmer who said, 

quote, ‘‘It is probably over for us,’’ said a farmer from Nebraska 

whose farm was destroyed by the floods, financially. How do you 

recover from something like this? That is an average person in 

America who is already suffering from this. 

Now, in terms of military security and larger security, every prediction that scientists made—I began this in 1988, when Jim Hanson testified to us in the Senate. Al Gore, Tim Wirth, Frank Lau-
15 

tenberg, John Warner of Virginia, Mack Mathias of Maryland, a 

host of people came together and we all agreed that we ought to 

listen to these guys. The science is telling us it is happening. 

In 1992 we went down to Rio, to the summit in Rio, the global 

summit. George H.W. Bush, Republican, sent Bill Reilly, the EPA 

director, down there to help negotiate an agreement, and we came 

up with an agreement. It was voluntary. It did not work, but there 

was a consensus, and all of the predictions in the science that each 

year have been revised, 97 percent of the world’s scientists agreeing, they have come together and said this is happening, it is happening now, it is happening faster and it is happening bigger than 

we predicted it would. So we are all forced to stop. 

Now, in terms of the military piece of this, we have already seen 

what happens with the war in Syria, the pressures that Turkey 

was able to use by just turning the dial and upping the number 

of migrants that would move into Europe and the disturbance that 

created to the politics of France, of Britain, of Italy, of Eastern Europe. It has had a profound negative impact. 

Imagine what happens as climate change gets worse and you 

have millions of people that have to move because they cannot eat, 

they cannot drink. The instability that is created will be manna 

from heaven for extremists who are already exploiting the impoverished. There are 2 billion young people between the ages of 15 and 

25. There are 1.8 billion children 15 years old or younger living in 

most of those areas. Four hundred million of them will never go to 

school. 

Mr. Chairman, that becomes a concern of our military that has 

people posted around the world in these locations fighting terrorism, trying to protect the United States of America. The best 

protection is to take away the causes of these things before they 

happen. Do not allow them just to buildup and then inundate us. 

So, you know, the reason there is such concern about this report, 

this analysis, is I have a copy of the executive order, and the executive order itself says that Climate Science Special Report claims to 

authoritatively link climate change to the emission agreement— 

‘‘claims.’’ No, it does not claim. It overwhelmingly proves the connection. 

So if this executive order is coming in with the notion that it is 

going to put a guy named William Happer, who is not a climate 

scientist, who has likened, compared climate science to Nazi propaganda, he is behind putting this together, and it is being done in 

secret, we have a concern that all of the consensus built up over 

20 years with respect to military concerns, security concerns, is 

now going to attempt to be eroded by a president who has said climate change is a hoax caused by the Chinese for the purpose of 

economic competitive advantage and who has said ‘‘I believe in 

clean air, immaculate air, but I do not believe in climate change.’’ 

So I do not trust a secret group being put together that is already challenging in the executive order the legitimacy of science 

that is beyond anybody’s doubt whatsoever. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, a study from 2016 replicated the basic 

assumptions of the three percent of alternative science with respect 

to climate. In every single case, they found that the assumptions 

and the basic analysis had an error in the methodology and the 
16 

analysis, and when corrected appropriately to reflect the 97 percent 

consensus about the science, they wound up finding the same consequences of climate change. 

So this is a dangerous moment for us, Mr. Chairman, because we spent $265 billion cleaning up after three storms two years ago. 

Harvey dumped more water on Houston in five days than goes over 

Niagara Falls in an entire year, a once in 50,000-year storm now 

happening more frequently. In Irma, you had the first sustained 

winds in a hurricane measured at over 185 miles an hour for a full 

24 hours. That has never happened before. And the reason you 

have greater intensity in these storms is the ocean is now warming 

40 percent faster than ever before. 

The glacier of Greenland is melting four times faster than it was 

10 years ago. Eighty-six million metric tons of ice fall off every day, 

floats out to sea to melt. That 85 million metric tons a day is equal 

to the entire water demand of greater New York, New Jersey, and 

Connecticut for an entire year. 

We are living with insanity. We are on a kind of merry-go-round 

with acceptance of non-science that is preventing us from doing 

what every other nation in the world is currently trying to do. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Miller. 

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Over the last two centuries we have seen a massive boom in the 

world’s economic output. For comparison, according to CapX, in 

1820 over 90 percent of the world’s population lived on less than 

$2 a day; and in 2015, less than 10 percent of the people lived on 

less than $1.90 a day. 

This boom is not just because of microchips and the Internet. It 

is, in part, because people have access to energy. From powering 

homes, schools, and workplaces, access to affordable energy helps 

lift a society out of poverty and put it on a path to prosperity. Quality of life directly correlates with access to affordable energy. That 

is why, when I hear my colleagues talk about our energy industry, 

they must recognize that dismantling coal, oil, and natural gas 

would not just destroy these jobs and families, it would make our 

energy less affordable and set our progress back. 

As a mother and grandmother, I can understand the importance 

of ensuring that our world is a better place for our future generations. This means taking care of our environment. Most importantly, it means taking care of our economy. 

Secretary Hagel, in 2017 the United States led the world in the 

reduction of climate emissions, according to the American Enterprise Institute. The United States has made great strides in ensuring we are cleanly utilizing our energy resources. However, other 

countries in the world are not making equivalent strides and are 

seemingly canceling out our efforts. Many of the greatest culprits 

are signatories to multilateral agreements, as well. 

How is change possible without the help of other nations? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, it is not. That is why Senator Byrd and I wrote 

the resolution in 1997 the way we did. There were two parts to 

that resolution. The U.S. Senate would not confirm any treaty on 

climate change unless it included all nations of the world, different 

percentages, but it must include all nations. 
17 

So we have to work continuously. The Paris Accords were a good 

example of how you do that. You cannot force other countries to do 

things that they may not want to do, but you can encourage them, 

you can incentivize them with technology. 

I brought a New York Times front page business section that I 

think is relevant to this issue, the business section of the New York 

Times yesterday. You may have seen it, a front page story, big 

story: ‘‘Big Oil Bets on Removal of Carbon Emissions.’’ 

Chevron and a number of the big oil companies are investing, 

and they are not the only ones, and this is not the only example, 

here in the United States and worldwide, in how we reduce our 

carbon emissions. It is very clear that carbon emissions hurt the 

environment. It is very clear something is happening in the climate. You just heard Secretary Kerry and I talk about some of 

those specifically in the national security arena. 

Mrs. MILLER. I did hear you—— 

Mr. HAGEL. But let me add one other thing. Climate is not limited, as you know, just to the United States. 

Mrs. MILLER. Correct. 

Mr. HAGEL. Climate is worldwide. There is another face that we 

have not even talked about this morning yet. It is pandemic health 

problems, and—— 

Mrs. MILLER. Well, I am more interested in talking to you about 

how the other countries are not complying with—— 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, like I said, we have to incentivize them, we 

have to work with them, we have to encourage them. That is why 

allies are important. That is why we built the world order after 

World War II, so that the countries would not go it alone. 

Mrs. MILLER. But they are not. 

Another question—— 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, that is not true. That is not true. China actually is investing in a lot of carbon emission technologies. In fact, 

they are trying to fill the vacuum that the United States is leaving 

behind in this area with other countries in carbon emissions technology. They are actually doing pretty well with it. 

Mrs. MILLER. I have another question for you as well, sir. 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Mrs. MILLER. Access to affordable energy is arguably the foundation of human progress over the last century and a half, where we 

have lifted more people out of poverty, fed a growing global population, and created more prosperity for humanity than at any other 

point in history. Our energy industry is here to stay. 

What steps can we take to ensure we preserve and protect our 

environment while also maintaining critical employment, growth, 

and affordability within our economy and energy sector? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, it is what we are talking about, what we have 

been doing the last 30 years. The balance of a strong economy, cutting-edge technologies, but protecting your environment at the 

same time, protecting your national security interests, protecting 

your interests around the world. It is not just one dominant dynamic of that. It is a world that balances them all. A strong economy is, of course, the core of that. 

Mrs. MILLER. Absolutely. 
18 

Mr. HAGEL. But you talk about your children and your grandchildren, if we do not protect our environment, your grandchildren 

have got a pretty tough go here in 20, 30, 40, 50 years, what we 

leave behind. You just look around at what has happened in 12 

months in this country, around the world. I mean, it is not just 

here, it is around the world. 

So we have to be smart, prepared, come together with bipartisan 

solutions, not fight each other on it but come together seriously and 

recognize we have an issue. It is the biggest responsibility any 

leader has, to leave the place better than they found it, and I do 

not think we are doing it right now. 

Mrs. MILLER. Absolutely. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. The gentlewoman’s time has expired. 

Mr. KERRY. Could I just add one thing that is important? 

Chairman CUMMINGS. One answer to the question. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, I think it is important to the discussion here, 

if I can, just quickly, because I have been down in the mines in 

West Virginia. I have enormous respect. I understand completely 

what Congresswoman Miller is struggling with in terms of the 

folks she represents and the jobs they need. 

We all want an economy that is going to grow. You are absolutely correct that poverty has come down. When I went to college, 

severe poverty was over 50 percent. Now it is below 10 percent. 

People have been brought in out of poverty. 

The problem is—and it is a problem for all of us on the planet— 

that we have been doing this in a way that is simply not sustainable. There is no country in the world living sustainably today, and 

our grandchildren, our kids are all going to face this challenge as 

we go forward. Oil and gas are going to continue to be used for 

whatever number of years to come. That we knew as we were 

working on the legislation we worked on in the Senate. 

But the truth is, Congresswoman, solar today is cheaper than 

coal. It is. And the marketplace has made its decision. In America, 

it is not the Congress who has decided that coal plants are closing. 

It is the market. There is not an American bank that will finance 

a new coal-fired power plant in America. 

It is also not happening in many other parts of the world. People 

are transitioning to use gas as the bridge fuel for the base load of 

their power sector, but they are building incredible amounts—in 

fact, China, investments in renewables was the largest it has ever 

been about two years ago, and China accounted for 45 percent of 

all solar photovoltaic investment, and Europe is leading in offshore 

wind. 

I want America to lead in those things. I want your people in 

West Virginia to be the ones who are building those turbines and 

selling those blades. Why is that not happening? Because we are 

not in the game. And that is what I think is so frustrating for 

many of us. 

The greatest marketplace the world has ever seen is the energy 

market, 4 to 5 billion users. It is going up to 9 billion users in the 

next 30 years. And if the United States does not get into that market in a whole way, we are going to cede it to these other countries 

that are currently replacing us. There are jobs there, plenty of jobs. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mrs. Maloney? 
19 

Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Chairman, what we need is strong leadership to combat the crisis of climate change, and I thank both of our 

panelists for pointing that out and for pointing out that this is an 

American challenge, it is a bipartisan challenge. If there was anything that we should be agreeing on, it is to work together to combat this. 

But what we have instead is a White House which is considering 

a new panel to deny that climate change really exists. 

So what we need is reality. We need efforts to attack climate 

change, not politicize it. As Secretary Kerry pointed out in his testimony, the Administration’s own leaders, their own generals, their 

own scientists, know the risks from climate change are real and 

that our efforts to address it are terribly inadequate. 

So, as you said in your testimony, Secretary Kerry, facts are 

facts, and the facts are real. It is here. 

My question to both of you, starting with Secretary Kerry, is 

what do we need to do to get ready? Climate change is here; everyone knows it. People may want to deny it, but it is here. How do 

we work together to protect our people, protect our planet? 

Mr. KERRY. Congresswoman Maloney, I think that the key is to 

come together in a bipartisan way to move forward. I think we got 

up to about 55 votes in the Senate at one point, until certain industry folks started to attack one of the senators on the other side of 

the aisle, by the way, our colleague, Lindsay Graham. So we have 

to get away from that by coming together around a plan that will 

unite Americans, which will create jobs, which will phase in at an 

appropriate rate. But there are several things that we can do. 

One of the most important things we could do—Congressman 

Jordan, Mr. Ranking Member, you were referring earlier to the 

companies that failed. It is true, some companies failed that were 

invested in. But what is going to win this battle is something called 

mission innovation, which China has signed up to, India has signed 

up to, 23 nations plus the EU. So there are 27, still 28 today, depending on what Britain does, but 27 other countries. 

All of them are contributing now to consortia efforts to push the 

technology curve, because in the end it is probably going to be battery storage or increased mileage at a cheaper rate, hydrogen as a 

fuel that can be taken up to scale. We should be pushing the curve 

of discovery. That is in the American DNA. If we did that, there 

is also a Republican proposal. 

Former Secretary Jim Baker, former Secretary George Schultz, 

who was also Secretary of the Treasury, both believe that America 

needs to have carbon pricing, and they have suggested a methodology by which we could price carbon, which would let the marketplace begin to decide where the winners and losers are. That is a 

good old-fashioned laissez faire economic way of making decisions. 

We could do that, I believe, in a joint way. We need to include, 

I think—some people disagree with this, but maybe fourth-generation modular nuclear is going to be a component of the overall mix. 

Let communities decide for themselves whether that is the way to 

go. 

But I think if we could come together around a few basic steps 

like this, there are huge gains to be made in reducing emissions 

through efficiencies, buildings, how we are managing our industry, 
20 

all of our transportation. Every one of these sectors is ripe for us 

to be able to make progress without hurting our economy; in fact, 

helping our economy by creating millions of jobs. 

If we did infrastructure around this, a new grid for America, a 

smart grid, you would have, for every billion dollars of infrastructure investment, 27,000 to 35,000 jobs created. That is what we 

ought to be doing. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Secretary Hagel. 

Mr. HAGEL. Thank you. Secretary Kerry laid it out pretty clearly. 

I would just summarize. I think you have about five components 

to this, and Secretary Kerry really listed them. 

But first is U.S. political leadership, political leadership here in 

the United States, in the Congress, in the White House, working 

together on forming policy. 

Market is the second piece of that. The marketplace will always 

win, just as John has noted regarding coal. It is just not efficient 

anymore, or it is not the cheapest form of energy anymore. It is the 

marketplace. Focus on the marketplace. Open the marketplace up. 

Technology. Technology always drives everything. Focus on the 

technology. It is out there. It is happening. 

As was noted in this business piece in the New York Times, allies and alliances. We have to work with all of our partners and 

people all over the world because this is a global issue. 

Those are the components, to answer your question. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Comer. 

Mr. COMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Kerry, Secretary Hagel, welcome back to Washington. 

Thank you for your service in Congress and the administration, 

and especially in Vietnam. 

I want to focus my time on the Green New Deal and how it will 

affect the agriculture industry. I am a farmer and former Kentucky 

Commissioner of Agriculture. The agriculture industry is the lifeblood of rural communities that I represent and that, honestly, the 

Green New Deal stands to decimate those rural communities. 

The U.S. agriculture industry supports more than 21 million 

jobs. That is 11 percent of all the jobs in the United States, and 

that is according to the American Farm Bureau. 

Land is needed for the Green New Deal. Land is needed to build 

tracks for the high-speed rail, to build solar plants, solar panels, 

windmills, and the proposal calls for the government to seize this 

land, this farmland. 

The elimination of farmland in order to build these projects will 

not only cost U.S. jobs but also put our food supply in jeopardy, not 

to mention that it is not fair to hard-working family farmers. 

Authors of the Green New Deal plan to pay for the bill, and I 

quote, ‘‘the same way we paid for the New Deal, the 2008 bank 

bailout, all our current wars, by the Federal Reserve extending 

credit, by creating new public banks that extend credit, by the government taking an equity stake in projects,’’ end quote. 

Secretary Kerry, my question to you is, printing a lot of new 

money and opening a whole bunch of new public banks is a real 

way to pay for this Green New Deal project proposal? 

Mr. KERRY. Well, let me begin by saying, Congressman, there are 

a lot of different proposals about how to proceed. I do not know 
21 

that any of them are coming from your party or your side of the 

aisle. Do you have a plan to deal with climate change? I think you 

said you are not sure of the science. 

But my focus is on how we are going to move forward. We all 

have some differences with one piece of legislation or another. But 

in proposing what she has proposed, together with Senator Markey, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has, in fact, offered more leadership in one day or in one week than President Trump has in his 

lifetime on this subject. 

So we are talking about it, and my question is where is your proposal? Did you have any hearings on it in the last few years? Mostly on Benghazi, if I recall, when I was up here. 

So I think what we ought to do is stop the politics and get down 

to really serving the people of West Virginia and the people of Kentucky. 

Mr. COMER. And that is what we are doing here today, and we 

are glad you are here to talk about it. But my next question—— 

Mr. KERRY. Well, you asked me about the focus—— 

Mr. COMER [continuing]. revolves around how to pay for it. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, there are all kinds of ways. I mean, look at 

what Secretary Schultz and Secretary Baker, both Republicans, as 

practiced in American politics as any two people alive today, and 

they believe deeply—Professor Schultz, George Schultz is at Stanford at the Hoover Institute, and he says we have to price carbon, 

and that will let the market move. 

I do not know why your party—I think it is an American Enterprise Institute concept that first came about. But at any rate, let’s 

debate it, let’s put it on the floor, let’s really discuss it. Even better—— 

Mr. COMER. And let me add, to the Senate’s credit—I do not brag 

on the Senate very often—they did put the vote on the floor, and 

as Ranking Member Jordan mentioned, not a single Democrat 

voted for the bill, not a single one. 

Mr. KERRY. Congressman, you know as well as I do—that is why 

I said I am reminded today about the fun I am missing. I mean, 

come on, we have all seen those votes. We all know what those are. 

That is a political vote, and people chose to vote present because 

it was a meaningless vote. In effect, it was politics. 

I think what is really important is if the committee came together and said, hey folks, let’s kill the politics for the next two 

months and come up with a piece of legislation that puts infrastructure—— 

Mr. COMER. My time is running out here. But you talk about theater—— 

Mr. KERRY. Well, America’s time is running out. 

Mr. COMER [continuing]. and we were just talking about it, your 

party knows there is no way to pay for this, for one. 

Mr. KERRY. That is not true. There are any number of ways to 

pay for it. 

Mr. COMER. Well, how do we pay for it? 

Mr. KERRY. There are so many different ways to pay for it. If we 

sat down—I served on the super-committee, and I formed an alliance with former Congressman David Camp and with Fred Upton, 

and we had a way of putting together a proposal that we thought 
22 

was terrific which would have helped solve the entitlement problem 

for the long term—— 

Mr. COMER. Like how? 

Mr. KERRY. Well, I will tell you what happened: Politics got in 

the way. The chairman would not even let two of his own members, 

Republican Party, put it up or take it seriously, and we never got 

to the issue of tax reform, which we thought was the tradeoff. So 

we had a grand bargain potential of solving entitlements for the 

long term, having tax reform and expediting it, and we never could 

get there because of the politics of it. 

So I have to tell you, this is prisoner of not sitting down to find 

a creative way to deal with this. We have a looming deficit issue, 

a lot of challenges coming at us. We are going to have to find some 

kind of revenue to deal with the priorities of our country because 

we are not rebuilding America today. We are not putting money 

into infrastructure, and there are any number of ways to fund that. 

Mr. COMER. And it is estimated to cost between $51 trillion and 

$92 trillion—— 

Chairman CUMMINGS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Rouda? 

Mr. ROUDA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am utterly disappointed. I was hoping this would be a bipartisan discussion about climate change, and what I am hearing from 

the other side is, no, we do not believe in climate change; or, no, 

we do not believe it is a national security threat; no, we do not 

need to do anything about it; no, let other countries do something 

about it; or, no, we should not do anything because other countries 

are not doing anything about it. 

It is time to step up and not be the Party of No or Members of 

Congress that simply say no. We have to be looking for solutions 

that impact every generation, our children, our grandchildren, and 

future generations. It is time to step up. 

Let’s talk about national threat. You would think from the other 

side that we do not have a national threat when it comes to climate 

change. 

Secretary Hagel, it is known quite well that the Department of 

Defense has been making preparations for installations across the 

world for our military installations to address climate change; is 

that correct? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Mr. ROUDA. And that is not because they do not think this is a 

non-factor. It is one of the number-one threats to our national security, as identified by the Department of Defense; correct? 

Mr. HAGEL. Correct. 

Mr. ROUDA. In fact, there are some estimates that there will be 

approximately 200 million climate change refugees by the year 

2050. I will point out that that is 31 years from now. Is that an 

assessment that is consistent with some of the modeling you have 

seen from the Department of Defense and other agencies? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, I have not been there for a couple of years, but 

it sounds reasonable, and it sounds like the numbers, when I was 

Secretary of Defense, that we were looking at as we were projecting 

out. 
23 

As you know, the Defense Department works off projections into 

the future, whether it is buying new platforms, new planes, whatever, almost in 10-year projections. So this threat of climate change 

is one that the Pentagon has always seen as a future threat but 

also real right now. 

Mr. ROUDA. And the reason is because as we raise the ambient 

temperature in the earth’s atmosphere, where we have built our 

homes, our farms, and our cities are going to be in the wrong place 

because we are changing the weather patterns; right? 

Mr. HAGEL. That is right. 

Mr. ROUDA. So this is an infrastructure issue well beyond the 

widening of the local highways. This is a massive issue of 200 million climate change refugees, the greatest migration of humankind 

since World War II; correct? 

Mr. HAGEL. Correct. John pointed out, if you recall, I think, in 

his opening statement that he had visited, while he was Secretary 

of State, Norfolk, where the Atlantic fleet is. That is our largest 

fleet. And that is a very good example of the vulnerability that we 

have there. That is a huge asset for our national security, and they 

are projecting now to have to reassemble, restructure, replace, and 

probably remove some areas before the climate change dynamic—— 

Mr. ROUDA. So we can put to rest the debate as to whether this 

is a national security threat. Climate change is a national security 

threat. 

Mr. HAGEL. Clearly. It clearly is. 

Mr. ROUDA. So let’s turn to the economics of it, because I completely disagree with the Ranking Member of the Environmental 

Subcommittee that we cannot address this through economic 

means or what it is going to cost. That is exactly how the energy 

companies exist today, through economic incentives. And while I 

agree with the Ranking Member that there have been times when 

we have made investments in clean energies that have not come 

to fruition, the reality is that for every $80 we spend supporting 

fossil fuels, we spend $1 on renewable fuels. 

Secretary Kerry, do you believe that if we had economic parity 

under the tax code for renewables versus fossil fuels that you 

would see a greater utilization of fossil fuels? 

Mr. KERRY. Clearly, we do not. We have a balance, in fact, 

against them. 

Mr. ROUDA. Exactly, which is why you talked about carbon dividend, and also ideas of cap and trade, which would provide the appropriate economic incentives so that energy companies could be 

leading us even faster than they are now in adopting renewable energies; right? 

Mr. KERRY. Correct. 

Mr. ROUDA. So when we look at renewable energies today, representing two-thirds of all new energy coming from renewables, 

and we have only seen two-tenths of 1 percent from coal, it is clear 

that we have an opportunity through appropriate economic incentives to have the change in behavior we want to see in addressing 

climate change. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, I might mention, Congresswoman Miller is not 

here right now, but I would just point out that for West Virginia 
24 

and other coal-producing places, the reason the United States did 

well bringing emissions down two years ago, in 2017, we had 75 

percent of the new electricity that came online in the United States 

came from solar, 75 percent. Do you know what coal was? 0.2 percent. 

So the market is making the decision right now, and coal has 

never, in fact, included the genuine costs because it does not factor 

in black lung, it does not factor in particulates in the air and the 

cost—the largest cost of children’s hospitalization in America in the 

summer is asthma, is environmentally induced asthma. We spend 

$55 billion a year on that. 

So when you start putting in the real costs, there is such a differential in choice here, and that is what we ought to be putting 

to the American people. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Amash? 

Mr. AMASH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I will yield to the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Massie. 

Mr. MASSIE. Thank you, Mr. Amash. 

Mr. Chairman, there is not a single climate denier in this room. 

The climate was different yesterday, it was different 10,000 years 

ago, and it is going to be different 10,000 years from now, whether 

there is a human on this planet or a domesticated animal. There 

is not a climate denier in this room. 

But I think there are some photosynthesis deniers. I think there 

are some natural climate deniers. I noticed in Secretary Kerry’s 

testimony here—it is three pages, single spaced—it does not even 

mention the words ‘‘anthropogenic’’ or ‘‘manmade.’’ I think it is an 

attempt to conflate manmade climate change with climate change, 

the natural climate change that is occurring. 

Let me read the sentence here from your testimony, Mr. Kerry. 

‘‘In fact, sea levels on the East Coast are rising twice as fast as the 

global average’’—wow, how does that happen?—‘‘thanks to uneven 

ocean temperatures and geology.’’ Well, what are we going to do to 

stop geology? Can you explain how that works, Secretary Kerry? 

How does the average global sea level differ from the sea level on 

the East Coast? 

Mr. KERRY. The temperature of the water itself and the geology 

of the water, that it is able to be higher in one place and lower in 

another, and those are anomalies. 

But on the climate change denier thing—— 

Mr. MASSIE. Let me go to this next. You said that it is sinking. 

You said it is sinking in the sentence before that, that the land is 

sinking. You cannot change that. That is geological. That is on a 

geological time scale. 

What is the rate of sea level change? Let’s go with global average. What is the rate of sea level change? Short answer, please. 

Use any units you prefer. 

Mr. KERRY. It is in centimeters, presented in centimeters on an 

annual basis. 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay, that is close. That is close. 

Mr. KERRY. Wait. But they are predicting—whoa, whoa, whoa. 

But you have to—— 

Mr. MASSIE. It is millimeters. Let’s set the record straight. 
25 

Mr. KERRY. Congressman, if you do not want the genuine truth 

here, I swore to tell the truth, so let’s listen to the truth. 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay, go for it. 

Mr. KERRY. The truth is that what is happening is there is anthropogenic major contribution, which all of the 97 percent of the 

scientists have agreed on mankind is contributing to and making 

the increase. 

Mr. MASSIE. There are 100 different models, and they all disagree. Which one—— 

Mr. KERRY. No. There are different models, that is correct, and 

sometimes there are differences in the 97 percent about what 

model is more correct or less correct. But they do not disagree on 

the fundamental contribution of human beings to what is happening today. And the fact is that no one can predict with absolute 

certainty what the rate of the melt-off of the Greenland ice sheet 

will be. If the Greenland ice sheet melts completely, which is entirely possible now—there are scientists who assert—there is an 

entire river. I have been up on that glacier. I looked down through 

a hole 100 feet deep. You see an entire river rushing unbelievably 

fast underneath it. People are afraid that that river is going to act 

like a slide and take a whole portion of that ice sheet one day. We 

lost a portion of the West Antarctic ice sheet just in the last years 

the size of the state of Rhode Island, and another one is about to 

break off. It is going to melt. 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay. This is the House, not the Senate. We get five 

minutes, so you cannot filibuster. 

Mr. KERRY. But, Congressman, the one thing you need to understand is—— 

Mr. MASSIE. Let me finish and set the record straight. You said 

it was in centimeters per year. It is millimeters per year, the highest claims that I have seen. It may be three, four, five millimeters 

per year. Are you aware of what the sea level change has been in 

the last 15,000 years, the average, in millimeters per year? 

Mr. KERRY. No, not the average. 

Mr. MASSIE. It is about seven millimeters a year. It was 100 meters lower 15,000 years ago. 

Mr. KERRY. But we did not have 7 billion people on the planet 

back then. 

Mr. MASSIE. I ask unanimous consent—— 

Chairman CUMMINGS. You want to put it in, go ahead. 

Mr. MASSIE [continuing]. to submit for the record the Sea-Level 

Rise Modeling Handbook from the USGS. 

[The Sea Level Rise Modeling Handbook referred to is available 

at: docs.house.gov.] 

Mr. MASSIE. Also, I want to ask you about CO2 as well, because—— 

Mr. KERRY. Do you want an answer to it? Because I would like 

to answer the one we were just talking about. 

Mr. MASSIE. I have 45 seconds, but I think I might get some 

more time later. 

I want to ask you, since we were talking about anthropogenic, 

what has been the anthropogenic effect on the climate? How has 
26 

that affected crop yields in the United States over the last 50 years 

per acre? 

Mr. KERRY. How has that affected what? 

Mr. MASSIE. How as it affected our crop yields in the United 

States? You spent two of your three pages talking about the Middle 

East and all over the globe. I want to know how has increased CO2 

levels affected crop yields in the United States over the last 50 

years. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, you have different crops affected by different 

things. You have had GMO, as you know. You have had an incredible amount of fertilizer advancement, chemical advancement. As a 

result of much of that, we have runoff into the Gulf of Mexico 

through the Missouri, down to the Mississippi, the Ohio River, et 

cetera, which has now created a dead zone so massive that you 

have nothing that lives there because of the nitrate overload. So, 

yes, we have better crop yield, but we have other downstream problems. 

Mr. MASSIE. Would you—— 

Mr. KERRY. Let me just finish. The fact is that we are increasingly witnessing impact on crops. We have migration of forests. We 

have migration of different fauna that grow or do not grow in different places. We have insects that now stay alive, like the pinebeetle that is destroying millions of acres of trees—Montana, Wyoming, Canada. You are losing trees because they do not die now because it does not get as cold as it used to in the cycle. 

So there is all kinds of impact on crops yet to be determined. We 

do not have all the answers, but we are seeing negative impact 

even as we have grown our ability to be able to produce food. 

Mr. MASSIE. For the record, it is a positive impact on plant 

growth when you get higher CO2 levels. 

Mr. KERRY. Yes, but here is the problem. Mr. Chairman—— 

Chairman CUMMINGS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Connolly? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I will say it is always troubling when politicians interpose themselves for science and for empirical-based policymaking when we do 

not like the conclusions we come up with on our own. I am not sure 

we are the best people in the world to do that. In fact, I am sure 

we are not. 

Secretary Kerry, you were interrupted. I think you wanted to 

talk about what would be the consequences of global sea level rise 

if the entire ice sheet on Greenland were to melt. What would be 

that impact, sir? 

Mr. KERRY. Thank you, Congressman. 

Look, let’s be factual here and clear, because I want to cover both 

sides appropriately. CO2 has a positive impact on certain plants, 

of course. Plants thrive on CO2. But what good does it do to have 

the plants thriving on CO2 if they are being destroyed in a 

mudslide or a fire, a forest fire or a flood? There are balances. 

There are counter-balances to the other side of the amount of CO2 

we produce. 

Ninety-seven percent, or I think most scientists agree that CO2 

is now being added at a rate that is having a profound impact on 

climate change. It is the fundamental cause, not the only cause. 
27 

There are other greenhouse gases. It is the principal cause, and it 

is the most long-lasting. 

So if the Greenland ice sheet were to melt in its entirety, you 

could have several feet of sea level rise, not millimeters. So you can 

mock the millimeters today, but if you ignore the cycle of what is 

happening and what that predicts is going to happen, you are putting Americans in danger, property trillions of dollars of damage. 

It is estimated that if we have the 0.5 degrees of increased temperature over the course of the next 12 years, it will cost all of us 

about $54 trillion. If we go up to the two degrees Centigrade, the 

cost is estimated to be $69 trillion. These are analyses that are 

available to people to make their judgments—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And you were Secretary of State, Secretary 

Kerry, and you saw the IPCC report, which represented a global 

consensus about the threat from global warming. Were you convinced in reading that report and presumably the kind of intelligence you had available to you during your tenure? 

Mr. KERRY. Congressman, I was convinced prior to reading the 

report because we started the hearings in 1988, and before the report came out there were many of us who were already working on 

this. But, yes, the report confirmed it, and there is ample peer-reviewed science, literally thousands of reports that have been done 

which have peer reviewed the judgments, the assumptions, the 

analysis, and that is why you have 97 percent agreement at this 

point in time, and more than 195 countries all working in concert 

to try to live by the Paris goals and hopefully surpass the Paris 

goals. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary Hagel, you were Secretary of Defense. Was climate 

change just some kind of abstract, theoretical decision at the Pentagon? 

Mr. HAGEL. Congressman, it was not. Again, I go back to what 

John Kerry has noted, and Chairman Cummings, to the George 

H.W. Bush Administration. That administration really laid out in 

1991 and 1992 the threats of climate change, especially for national 

security. 

I might point out for those of you who do not recall, Dick Cheney 

was the Secretary of Defense during that time, and he enthusiastically embraced that, what their intelligence people had laid out. So 

you could maybe go back even before 1992 with the Pentagon, but 

certainly in 1992 and forward, the Pentagon has looked at potential 

of climate change as a threat to our national security. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And I believe, Mr. Secretary, if I can squeeze this 

in, there was a study of 80-something military installations of ours 

around the world, and 70-something of them were determined to be 

under threat, in part because of global climate change. 

Mr. HAGEL. That is correct. I noted that in my opening statement. It was an assessment done at the direction of Congress, and 

it was released I think earlier this year. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So that is contemporaneous documentation? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank both Secretaries for being here today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 
28 

Mr. Massie? 

Mr. MASSIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Kerry, I want to read part of your statement back to 

you: ‘‘Instead of convening a kangaroo court, the President might 

want to talk with the educated adults he once trusted to fill his top 

national security positions.’’ It sounds like you are questioning the 

credentials of the President’s advisers currently. But I do not think 

we should question your credentials today. Isn’t it true you have 

a science degree from Yale? What is that? 

Mr. KERRY. Bachelor of Arts degree. 

Mr. MASSIE. Is it a political science degree? 

Mr. KERRY. Yes, political science. 

Mr. MASSIE. So how do you get a—— 

Mr. KERRY. To my regret. 

Mr. MASSIE [continuing]. Bachelor of Arts in a science? 

Mr. KERRY. Well, it is liberal arts education and degree. It is a 

Bachelor. 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay, so it is not really science. So I think it is 

somewhat appropriate that somebody with a pseudoscience degree 

is here pushing pseudoscience in front of our committee today. 

I want to ask you—— 

Mr. KERRY. Are you serious? I mean, this is really seriously happening here? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MASSIE. You know what? It is serious, you are calling the 

President’s Cabinet a ‘‘kangaroo court.’’ Is that serious? 

Mr. KERRY. I am not calling his Cabinet a ‘‘kangaroo court.’’ I am 

calling this committee that he is putting together a ‘‘kangaroo committee.’’ 

Mr. MASSIE. Are you saying that he does not have educated 

adults there now? 

Mr. KERRY. I do not know who it has yet because it is secret. 

Mr. MASSIE. Well, you said it in your testimony. 

Mr. KERRY. Why would he have to have a secret analysis of climate change? 

Mr. MASSIE. Let’s get back to the—— 

Mr. KERRY. Why does the President need to keep it secret? 

Mr. MASSIE [continuing]. science of it. Let’s get back to the 

science of it. 

Mr. KERRY. But it is not science. You are not quoting science. 

Mr. MASSIE. Well, you are the science expert. You got the political science degree. 

Look, let me ask you this: What is the consensus on parts per 

million of CO2 in the atmosphere? 

Mr. KERRY. About 4–0–6, 406 today. 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay, 406. Are you aware—— 

Mr. KERRY. Three-hundred-fifty being the level that scientists 

have said is dangerous. 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay. Are you aware—350 is dangerous, wow. Are 

you aware that since mammals have walked the planet, the average has been over 1,000 parts per million? 

Mr. KERRY. Yes, but we were not walking the planet. Let me just 

share with you that we now know that definitively at no point during at least the past 800,000 years has atmosphere CO2 been as 
29 

high as it is today. When I was in the South Pole—I was not on 

the South Pole. When I was in McMurdo, we could not get to the 

South Pole because of the weather, but I was given a vial of air 

which said on it, ‘‘Cleanest air in the world.’’ It was 401.6 parts per 

million. That is 50 parts per million already over what scientists 

say is acceptable. 

Mr. MASSIE. The reason you chose 800,000 years ago is because 

for 200 million years before that, it was greater than it is today, 

and I am going to submit for the record—— 

Mr. KERRY. Yes, but there were not human beings—I mean, that 

was a different world, folks. We did not have 7 billion people yet. 

Mr. MASSIE. Well, so how did it get to 2,000 parts per million if 

we humans were not here? 

Mr. KERRY. Because there were all kinds of geologic events happening on Earth which spewed up—— 

Mr. MASSIE. Did geology stop when we got on the planet? 

Mr. KERRY. Mr. Chairman, I—this I just not a serious conversation. 

Mr. MASSIE. Your testimony is not serious. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MASSIE. I agree. When you cannot answer the question, that 

is the best answer you got—— 

Mr. KERRY. I did answer. 

Mr. MASSIE. I submit for the record an article called ‘‘The CO2 

Deficit.’’ 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. MASSIE. Thank you. 

[The article, ′′The CO2 Deficit′′, is available at: docs.house.gov.] 

Mr. MASSIE. Secretary Kerry, you avoided my colleague’s question about how do you pay for it, but I want to ask: What is your 

solution to comply with the Paris Accord requirements? Like what 

would you do? 

Mr. KERRY. I beg to differ with you. I did not avoid the question. 

I said there are many ways to pay for it—— 

Mr. MASSIE. He just asked for one. 

Mr. KERRY. I did. I talked about the carbon pricing is one way 

to pay for change. There are all kinds of other things we could do. 

One would be to not give a trillion dollars worth of tax benefits to 

the top 1 percent of Americans. I am one of them. I did not deserve 

to get that tax cut—nobody did in this country—at the expense of 

average folks who cannot make ends meet. So that would be a fair 

way to start. 

Mr. MASSIE. You do not want to politicize this, but you just 

played the one-percent card. 

Mr. KERRY. No, I actually played a moral judgment about what 

is appropriate in building a civil society. That is what I did. 

Mr. MASSIE. What my colleague Mr. Comer from Kentucky 

knows is—— 

Mr. KERRY. That is a—— 

Mr. MASSIE [continuing]. that this will fall on the poorest of the 

poor. It is regressive—— 

Mr. KERRY. No, you are wrong. You are absolutely—— 
30 

Mr. MASSIE [continuing]. when you base the price of energy in 

Kentucky or Massachusetts or Pennsylvania or France or wherever—— 

Mr. KERRY. Congressman, that is absolutely—— 

Mr. MASSIE [continuing]. whichever house you are staying in. 

Mr. KERRY. That is absolutely incorrect that it would fall on the 

poorest people because if you do it right, which has not been done 

here for a little while, if you look at the tax legislation, there are 

all kinds of ways to make sure that people at the bottom end and 

people struggling to get into the middle class can be rewarded. And 

that is not what has happened. 

Mr. MASSIE. So soak the rich—— 

Mr. KERRY. If you look at the distribution, we have the most unequal distribution of income in America that we have had since the 

1920’s when we did not have an income tax. We have a country in 

which 51 percent of America’s income is going to 1 percent of 

Americans. That is not a sustainable political equation. 

Mr. MASSIE. We have a country—you want to use 1920’s as—— 

Mr. KERRY. People need to stop and think about that. 

Mr. MASSIE [continuing]. the benchmark—— 

Chairman CUMMINGS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. MASSIE [continuing]. people of this country are far better. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Krishnamoorthi? 

Mr. KRISHNAMOORTHI. Thank you, Secretary Kerry and Secretary 

Hagel, for joining us. 

Secretary Kerry, you mentioned that solar is now cheaper than 

coal and, in fact, the solar industry has doubled the number of jobs 

in the coal industry, 350,000 versus 175,000. As chair of the bipartisan congressional Solar Caucus, I want to thank you for making 

the point with regard to the decreasing costs of solar power. 

I want to turn to this panel that the White House is convening. 

The person who is reportedly spearheading the White House Climate Change Panel, Climate Security Panel, is called William 

Happer, who has a long history of downplaying and denying climate change. 

In 2010, Dr. Happer testified before the House Select Committee 

on Energy and Global Warming, and he said the following: ‘‘The 

warming will be small compared to the natural fluctuations in the 

Earth’s temperature,’’ and that the warming and increased CO2 

will be good for mankind. Do you agree with Dr. Happer that this 

increased CO2 will be good for mankind? 

Mr. KERRY. No. Clearly, I do not. I think it is similar to the argument that was just being made. No. The problem we have today 

is that greenhouse gases—I mean, this is basic science. Why is it 

called a ‘‘greenhouse’’? Because it behaves like a greenhouse. The 

heat is contained within the Earth’s atmosphere and trapped, and 

as these gases gather in the atmosphere, they are what is responsible for the continual warming. It is sort of basic scientific fact. 

And the result is the amount of carbon—the estimates by scientists 

are, I forget the exact number of gigatons, but we are going to have 

to get massive giga-tonnage of CO2 out of the atmosphere. We are 

going to have to reduce it to a net zero, net carbon, no carbon, low 

carbon economy by about, let’s say, 2050 is the accepted level. And 
31 

between now and then, we have plenty of time to make the changes 

if we are smart and committed to making those changes. But the 

amount of CO2 we have today is accelerating, and, unfortunately, 

China, even as they are moving rapidly into the solar market, and 

even as they have closed some old coal-fired power plants, are 

geared up to bring 250 megawatts of coal-fired power online. India, 

the same. 

Mr. KRISHNAMOORTHI. Secretary Kerry, I know that Mr. Massie 

has a science degree. I have a B.S. in mechanical engineering. Of 

course, I practice the B.S. part now on Capitol Hill. But Dr. Happer 

recently compared climate science to Nazi propaganda. He said, 

‘‘This is George Orwell. The Germans are the master race,’’ referring to climate change. ‘‘The Jews are the scum of the Earth. It is 

that kind of propaganda.’’ Those were Dr. Happer’s words. In a 

2014 interview, Dr. Happer said, and I quote, ‘‘The demonization 

of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of poor Jews under 

Hitler. Carbon dioxide is actually a benefit to the world, and so 

were the Jews.’’ 

Do you have a comment on Dr. Happer’s comments? 

Mr. KERRY. I think I have already commented on his comments. 

I said it earlier. I think what we really ought to try to focus on is 

the bigger issue here. Why after 20 years of consensus, Republican 

and Democrat alike, why after generals and admirals and guys who 

have laid their lives on the line for their entire life for our country 

and have made the judgment already, Republican and Democrat 

alike have acted on this, why suddenly should we have a secret effort within the White House, led by somebody like Mr. Happer, or 

being put together by him, at least, that is geared to reevaluate 

something where there is no legitimate call for that reevaluation? 

That is really the issue. 

Mr. KRISHNAMOORTHI. Secretary Hagel, what is your comment or 

thought about why this would be a secretive panel? What purpose 

would secluding these people in closed proceedings have with regard to this issue on the part of the White House? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, one would have to suspect the motive behind 

the effort to put together this panel. If the motive was transparent, 

clear, try to find out what we should do in this country about this 

issue based on science, based on facts, based on what we do know 

today, then why wouldn’t you do it transparently? Why wouldn’t 

you open it up and involve everybody and want others’ opinion? 

So I would answer your question that way. I do not know what 

is behind it. 

Mr. KRISHNAMOORTHI. What are they hiding? Right. 

Mr. HAGEL. But I think anytime it is that closed, it is always— 

it brings about a certain amount of suspicion as to what is the motive behind it. And as you have noted Mr. Happer’s background 

and comments, it is not very enlightening or it is not very likely 

that they would choose to open this up and make this a very transparent process for the good of the cause and for what the objective 

should be. 

Mr. KRISHNAMOORTHI. Thank you. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Armstrong. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you both 

for being here, and I do truly respect your service to this country 
32 

and also your ability to do these hearings well. So with that being 

started, I actually have a national—I want to bring it back to national security because I think there is part of a conversation on 

climate change we do not. 

But just before that, I do want to just say that if we are going 

to say things like stopping the politics and all of that and then also 

infer that it is the free market that ended up causing most of the 

coal industry’s problems, without at least recognizing that there 

was a combination of unrealistic Federal regulation, tax credits, 

and allowing primacy on an electric grid that was neither designed 

nor prepared for that, it seems to be a little disingenuous, particularly when it was not that long ago where we had a Presidential 

candidate that said she was going to put coal workers and coal 

miners out of business. 

But that being said, I am from North Dakota, and I think one 

of the things for national security is due to technical advances in 

the oil and gas industry, one of the best parts about it is we 

produce it at home. We are closest as we have ever been in this 

country’s history to being food and energy secure. And I would just 

say in recent events we have seen that happen because we have 

become less reliant on Middle Eastern oil. I mean, just two different events that have happened in the very recent past, whether 

it is the problems in Venezuela or even earlier this week designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorism activity. 

Now, I know there has been some fluctuation in the oil market, 

but not that long ago, 20 years ago, these types of events would 

have caused an incredible spike in oil prices, throwing our economy 

into issues. 

But I want to go to wind and solar because I support it all. I 

really do. I believe in an all-of-the-above energy policy. But one of 

the things I think we forget to talk about is we think wind turbines 

blow or the sun shines and then all of a sudden houses are powered and our cars drive. But there is a big middle part in the middle of this, and that is rare-earth metals, and this has to be a conversation regarding national security because, whether it is lithium, cobalt—I cannot say some of them because I definitely have 

a B.S. in B.S. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. But, I mean, rare-earth metals, they are actually relatively common, but they are extremely labor-intensive to 

separate them from a rock, and it requires chemical cocktails that 

produce tremendous amounts of waste and leak acids, heavy metals, and radioactive elements into the water and the environment. 

But I think more importantly from a national security standpoint, 

China controls about 90 percent of the rare-earth metal environment, and we know, regardless of where we are at on all of this, 

they do not have the Federal regulatory environment we do, nor do 

the other developing countries. 

As we transition to more batteries, whether it is large-scale storage batteries for solar, large-scale batteries for wind, car batteries, 

as we move to more electric, market pressures that are going to 

create processing—or incentives for processing plants in countries 

that, again, have none of our environmental incentives to keep— 

I do not want to export pollution, and I think we have to be consid-
33 

ering to have that conversation. And the supply chain and disruption in the supply chain has to be a conversation if we are talking 

about transitioning into these things. 

A single Tesla uses about 15 pounds worth of lithium, and current production of these, again, is in China, and there is no separating the Chinese Government from Chinese business. And it was 

not that long ago when Japan detained a Chinese fishing captain, 

and China enacted a de facto ban on exporting rare-earth metals 

to Japan, and it took about 48 hours for Japan to return the Chinese fishing captain, because as we move to this—and so what are 

the national security implications, I mean, as we transition and do 

all of this in relying on China for—and other developing countries, 

I mean, and there are some human rights issues in the Congo and 

a lot of different issues. But we do not talk about that part of this 

conversation at all. I have not heard it mentioned in the media. I 

have not heard it mentioned in any of the rhetoric, what I would 

call ‘‘inflammatory rhetoric,’’ what I would call ‘‘reasonable rhetoric.’’ But we are not having this conversation because we are as 

close to energy secure as we have ever been. And as we transition 

here, we will not be. I mean, we have these metals here, but that 

mining conversation will be a bigger one. But how do we deal with 

that issue? That would be my question. 

Sorry, I am only giving you 20 seconds, but I think this is an important issue that we need to continue to talk about. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, Congressman, you have absolutely put your 

finger on a critical issue, and we do not talk about it enough, and 

it is serious. And it is one that I came across in the course of the 

time that I was privileged to serve as Secretary. China has indeed 

cornered that market. But also, frankly, one of the reasons why we 

need to be paying attention to what is happening with climate 

change in the Arctic, because as the Arctic is opening up, there are 

a lot of people up there now—the Chinese included, and the Russians, who are mapping extraction possibilities. As you well know, 

Russia dropped a flag on the North Pole. It was kind of a tease, 

but the message of it is, ‘‘We are here, and we are playing for the 

long term.’’ We are not sufficiently on that, nor are we sufficiently 

geared up to think about what we have to be doing with respect 

to China and Russia now in terms of 5G and quantum computing 

and the whole issue of technology ‘‘security,’’ is the word I will use 

rather than—I think, you know, America has always been technologically secure in that regard. It is technology that has given us 

this energy incredible boost that we have today. That is why I am 

so optimistic, frankly, about our capacity to deal with the issue we 

are all talking about here today. 

America has DNA built on discovery, breaking barriers, moving 

forward, and that is why I think it is so critical that mission innovation and our technology partnership with the private sector—remember, in Paris, most of the Fortune 500 companies were there 

supporting the endeavor. All of the big oil companies were there 

supporting the Paris agreement. And all of the big oil companies 

are currently investing in alternative and renewable and sustainable energy. 
34 

So this is good for, you know, everybody, if we could come together around the notion of how we are going to protect ourselves 

on these rare minerals, which are critical. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Raskin? 

Mr. RASKIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

We are in a civilizational emergency. Senator Kerry, Secretary 

Kerry, you make the powerful point that we have actually had decades of scientific consensus about the anthropogenic causes and the 

dangerous dynamics of climate change, and we have also had a bipartisan political consensus endorsing the scientific consensus that 

has suddenly been ripped apart by the anti-scientific outbursts and 

outlook of President Trump and his administration and the pseudoscientific dogmas of climate change deniers, obfuscators, and industry propagandists. 

These deniers are undermining our ability to act forcefully, comprehensively, and in unity to address the forest fires that are out 

of control, the hurricanes of unprecedented velocity, the record 

drought and record flooding, the rise in the ocean levels, the vanishing of glaciers and so on. And it is troubling to me that we have 

to waste our time simply going back to basics to prove what should 

be obvious. 

I would like to ask both of the witnesses this question: Secretary 

Kerry, starting with you, if 97 percent of the doctors told you that 

you had cancer and needed to start treatment immediately, would 

you accept their judgment and start treatment? Or would you say 

that they have not convinced everybody yet and hold out for years 

or more debate on the subject? 

Mr. KERRY. Well, unfortunately, I can answer that in real terms. 

I was told by one doctor I had cancer, and I did the treatment. If 

97 doctors told me, I would redouble my efforts in 100,000 ways. 

But I think it is a measurement of the—it is not just the percentage. It is really measuring what they are saying to you and what 

the foundation of their analysis is. And it is there for everybody to 

judge. You just have to take the time to read it and make those 

judgments. 

Mr. RASKIN. And just to twist the hypothetical a little bit, Secretary Hagel, let me come to you. If 97 percent of the scientists told 

you not to drink the water in the Cannon House Office Building 

because it is not potable and it would be a danger to you, which, 

unfortunately, is the truth, would you follow their advice? Or would 

you say, ‘‘Well, three percent are still holding out and disagree, and 

so I am going to continue to drink the water’’? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, actually, I drank the Cannon House Office 

water for five years in the 1970’s, so I am still here. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. RASKIN. I take it you do not want some today. 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, I would hope it is better, but—— 

Mr. RASKIN. I can give you some from the cooler in my office. 

Mr. HAGEL. Thank you. 

Mr. RASKIN. President Trump has called climate change—against 

the vast majority of the scientific evidence and the weight of authority, he has called it an ‘‘expensive hoax,’’ ‘‘nonsense,’’ and ‘‘B.S.’’ 

Secretary Hagel, how do you respond to the President calling climate change ‘‘fake news’’? 
35 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, the President says a lot of things, and I do not 

know why he says that, as you have quoted. But the facts are different. I know he sometimes has difficulty with facts, but the facts 

are clearly different than what he says. Whether he believes it or 

not, I do not know. I assume he does. 

But to have the first President of the United States in our modern history essentially say those things, disputing scientists, his 

own intelligence people, military people, people who have been at 

this a long time, is really troubling because it sends a message not 

only to the United States but to the world that we are abdicating 

our responsibilities here in this country and around the world on 

one of the most vital subjects and topics that we are dealing with 

today, certainly we will be dealing with in the future. 

Mr. RASKIN. Well, I appreciate that point very much, and I wonder, Secretary Kerry, if you would care to elaborate on just this 

point. What is the message sent to the rest of the world? Does it 

undermine and squander America’s moral leadership to have the 

President denying the existence of climate change? And does it give 

cover to countries that want to opt out of participation in efforts 

to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? 

Mr. KERRY. I very much appreciate the question, and I particularly want to address it to our friends here in the Republican 

Party, some of whom have questioned the science to date. And let 

me just say this: One hundred and ninety-six countries came together, their presidents, their prime ministers, their finance ministers, their environment ministers, all of them came to an agreement that this is happening and that we have to move. 

Up until Paris, China was opposed to us. China did not move at 

all. In fact, Copenhagen four years earlier, the meeting failed because China led the G–77 to say, ‘‘Wait a minute. We are a developing country. You are the developed countries. You are the guys 

who caused this. Why should we have to do anything?’’ So we got 

nothing done. 

Now, President Obama authorized me to go to China, and I went 

and met with President Xi, and we negotiated about how to approach the Paris, and he agreed finally that he was ready to move 

and do something about climate. Why did he move? He moved because his Governors and his mayors were complaining that the citizens were complaining to them about the quality of the water, the 

quality of the air, you could not breathe in Beijing or other cities, 

and they were feeling the impact of climate change. So China 

joined the United States, leading the world to Paris, where all of 

these people responsible for their governments made the decision 

to move forward. 

I would say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, when 

I was on the aisle, if I am wrong, Al Gore is wrong, all of those 

ministers and presidents are wrong, and every country that joined 

this—Iran—and we do this the right way, the worst thing that will 

happen is we have cleaner air, we are healthier, we have less cancer, less pollution, we are energy independent, we are clean in our 

energy, we are living up to our environmental responsibility, we 

pass on a better Earth to the next generation. That is if we are 

wrong, because all those good things will come out of the investments we are talking about. 
36 

What if you are wrong, if you are a denier? Catastrophe. If we 

continue down this road with every scientist telling us what is 

going to happen in 12 years with a 0.5 degree increase, and we are 

already seeing the consequences, catastrophe. History is going to 

judge what side of this people come down on, and it is already moving at a rate fast enough that it is making some of those conclusions right now. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Higgins. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for your service to your country, and as 

has been stated by my colleagues and each of you gentlemen today, 

what we hope to do in this committee is reach a reasonable accord 

regarding the reality of climate change and how it impacts our 

planet and our Nation. We are representatives of the American citizenry, and, thus, we are responsible to the citizens we serve. And 

yet America is, in my opinion, the leader of the free world and, 

thus, we have challenges on a global setting. And on that stage, we 

should be leaders regarding climate change and the reality thereof. 

And let me just say that the geological record is clear. The 

Earth’s climate changes, and I believe that the debate here is the 

percentage to which mankind may have some impact upon that. 

The decisions that we make in this body affect America. Climate 

change is not restricted to the Earth. According to NASA, Mars 

also undergoes large variations over thousands of years that result 

in ‘‘substantial shifts in the planet’s climate, including ice ages.’’ 

The Scientific American publication regarding the Sun’s cyclical 

change, studies indicate that sunspot activity overall has doubled 

in the last century, resulting in the Sun shining brighter here on 

Earth by a small percentage than it did 100 years ago. 

The solar wind, according to NASA, emanates from the Sun and 

influences galactic rays that may in turn affect atmospheric phenomena on Earth, such as cloud cover. Scientists admit they have 

much to learn about this. It is this body that does not admit that 

there is much to learn. In statements I hear from my colleagues 

that the science is settled and mankind is responsible, well, I do 

not believe mankind is responsible for climate change on Mars. I 

do not believe mankind is responsible for cyclical climate change in 

the Sun’s impact upon our Earth. 

What I am frightened of is the unintended consequences of bad 

legislation or international agreements that we have witnessed. I 

will not criticize my colleague from New York for her enthusiasm 

and her creativity regarding the Green New Deal. I shall just suggest that it would be very bad legislation and it would impact 

Americans we are sworn to serve. CO2 emissions in the United 

States have decreased markedly while emissions of China and 

India and other nations are increasing. 

You mentioned, Senator Kerry, that the oil and ga industry is 

one of the major investors in renewables and recapture technology. 

They have discovered, of course, over the course of doing business 

that clean, efficient, safe business is good business. We should be 

encouraging the American model of the fossil fuel energy industry 

not regulating it out of business. We should certainly not send this 

business to nations that have virtually zero standards compared to 

American standards. 
37 

Secretary Hagel, in your opinion, would bills like the Green New 

Deal—and, again, I say this respectfully to my colleague from New 

York, but by her own memo, it would attempt to de-commission 

every nuclear plant in 10 years and replace every building in the 

U.S. Would that in any way encourage China or India to regulate 

their own industries, Secretary? 

Mr. HAGEL. Thank you. Well, first, I have not read the Green 

New Deal proposal totally. I have read in the papers their—— 

Mr. HIGGINS. Would anything we do in America impact what decisions are made in China regarding regulating their own fossil fuel 

industries and expansion? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, there is no question that what America does 

has an effect on other countries, certainly. And marketplace regulations—— 

Mr. HIGGINS. You think that American legislation would cause 

China and India to change their legislation? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, wherever—— 

Mr. HIGGINS. Why not just take our business? 

Mr. HAGEL. Wherever you are driving this, I am not here to testify for the Green New Deal or defend it. That is not my role here 

this morning. I have not even read it in total. What I am here to 

talk about—and we have been talking about it—in answer to your 

question, generally the way the world works, as you know, America 

has been the leader in the world in every respect since World War 

II. Everybody emulates us, follows us in some way. We dominate 

the world still. 

Now, that is changing. It is shifting. Generations, technology 

have an effect on all of that. But this issue of climate change is one 

that has a futuristic dynamic to it, clearly, not just because of the 

impacts and consequences of climate change, but for our leadership 

in the world and how China will respond. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Pardon me, Mr. Secretary, but my time has expired. Mr. Chairman, I would just ask a yes or no question of the 

gentleman. 

Is American industry leading the world in clean evolution of the 

fossil fuel industry? 

Mr. HAGEL. China is doing very well, but I think America is still 

the leader in the world. 

Mr. HIGGINS. I yield back. Thank you for your indulgence. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Secretary Hagel, is climate change and its attendant effects from 

rising sea levels, intensifying temperatures and so on, currently 

contributing to the following global crises: the destruction or damage done to U.S. military bases domestically and across the world? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Is it contributing to the erosion of a healthy 

environment for our military veterans and current 

servicemembers? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Is climate change contributing to increased 

disease factors, including the exacerbation of global outbreaks? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes, and I mentioned that in my comments. 
38 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Is it contributing to increased migration 

patterns as referenced by Secretary Kerry in his opening statement? Is it contributing to increased migration patterns in Europe 

and the United States? 

Mr. HAGEL. Clearly, in the Pacific, too. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. And is it also contributing to increased social instability throughout the world? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Thank you for establishing that. I know you 

both have already spoken to it, but with the debate over what is 

already factually established, sometimes we have to reassert these 

things. 

Mr. HAGEL. By the way, Congresswoman, this issue of climate 

change is what, as you know, has been referred to often as a 

‘‘threat multiplier.’’ It multiplies and multiplies threats and more 

threats, and we have got to anticipate that, and we factor that in 

whatever we are going to do about it. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Thank you. Thank you, Secretary Hagel. 

Do you think that neglecting to address these threats could contribute to the loss of American life? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. And do you think that denial or even delaying in that action could cost us American lives? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Secretary Kerry, do you think that appointing a Federal panel that questions 26 years of established climate 

science be responsible for the loss of American life? 

Mr. KERRY. It could be. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. So I think what we have laid out here is a 

very clear moral problem, and in terms of leadership, if we fail to 

act, or even if we delay in acting, we will have blood on our hands. 

I do not know if you are allowed to agree with that, Secretary 

Kerry or Secretary Hagel. Would you agree with that assessment? 

Mr. KERRY. Well, if I can—here is what is happening, and it is 

happening. We are not responding. No country in the world is 

doing enough to be able to help the world meet the goal of holding 

the Earth’s temperature rise to two degrees Centigrade. And it is 

absolutely certainly decided as a matter of scientific fact, two and 

two is four, four and four is eight. We can predict when the Sun 

and Moon will rise because we have tables to do it with. With the 

same certainty, we know that human beings are responsible for the 

rise of CO2 contributing to climate change. So we have to lower it. 

And the fact is we are currently on track not to hit two degrees 

but to hit four to four-point-five degrees in this century. 

So as long as we do nothing, Congresswoman, we are complicit 

in our acts of omission and commission of what we are doing to 

choose for our energy, et cetera. We are going to contribute to people dying. We are going to contribute to trillions of dollars of damage of property, and we will change the face of life on this planet. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Thank you. Thank you, Secretary Kerry. 

You know, I would be remiss if I did not talk or address some 

of the comments made across the aisle, and while I am incredibly 

flattered that the ranking member and many members across the 

aisle seem to be so enamored with a non-binding resolution pre-
39 

sented by a freshman Congresswoman sworn in three months ago, 

I think that ironically, despite that fixation, it does not seem that 

they have actually read the contents of the proposed and presented 

resolution. And so I would encourage that we do not need Cliff 

Notes for a 14-page resolution that was designed to be read in 

plain English by the American people. So I would encourage my 

colleagues to actually read the resolution presented so that they 

can speak to it responsibly and respectfully. 

I would also like to highlight that it is not responsible to complain about anything that we dislike as ‘‘socialism,’’ particularly 

when many of our colleagues across the aisle are more than happy 

to support millions and potentially billions of dollars in Government subsidies and carveouts for the oil and gas and fossil fuel industry. So the fact that subsidies for fossil fuel corporations are 

somehow smart but subsidies for the development of solar panels 

is ‘‘socialist’’ is just bad faith and it is incorrect. And I think it is 

important to support and propose the fact that we need bold action. 

So I just have one final question. With any global threat on this 

scale in American history, has it been met with a war-time level 

scale of Government mobilization? 

Chairman CUMMINGS. The gentlelady’s time has expired, but you 

may answer the question. You can ask it again. He did not hear 

you. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Sure. In American history, when we have 

been presented with a threat on this scale, have we met that 

threat, the threat on the scale of climate change, have we met that 

within economic and mobilization on the scale of a war-time level 

mobilization? 

Mr. KERRY. Yes, we have, and we have done it with remarkable 

consequence for the planet. And I believe we can and I hope we 

will—we have time over the course of the next years to make 

thoughtful judgments about energy policy, which is the solution to 

climate change. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Thank you very much, Secretary. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Gibbs. 

Mr. GIBBS. Thank you. 

Witnesses, I represent the energy-rich area of eastern Ohio that 

is situated in the heart of the Utica and Marcellus shale formations. There are over a thousand million cubic feet per square mile 

of natural gas, according to the experts. The shale revolution has 

transformed the economy in eastern Ohio, and it has created hundreds of jobs, and we have seen that across the country. One of the 

best things we have seen in the downturn we had back 2008 and 

2009 and 2010 was the resurgence of our oil and gas industry. 

Policy proposals from the other side of the aisle want to erase 

this economic growth and replace our current energy portfolio with 

more expensive, less reliable alternatives. Switching exclusively to 

more expensive forms of energy will have a devastating effect on 

the competitiveness of our businesses globally and cost us jobs. 

My district is also heavily reliant on agriculture. Many of the 

policy proposals being debated by the members opposite among 

themselves are an assault on agriculture. 
40 

I come from a livestock background, and I know the importance 

of how to feed this country and be environmentally safe and provide for an economic foundation for our rural communities with reliable and affordable energy. 

Mr. Secretary, according to the think tank Progress, the Green 

New Deal would reinstate the Obama Administration WOTUS rule 

in its entirety. I have found this land and water grab from the beginning—I have fought it from the beginning and been doing everything in my power to provide certainty for farmers, ranchers, small 

businesses, landowners, and even local government. 

Secretary Kerry, do you hope that the Obama Administration’s 

WOTUS rule will be reinstated in its entirety? 

Mr. KERRY. Would you just say the question? 

Mr. GIBBS. The WOTUS rule, Waters of the United States, do 

you hope that will be reinstated? 

Mr. KERRY. The—which be reinstated? 

Mr. GIBBS. Waters of the United States, the WOTUS rule that 

expands the Federal jurisdiction of waters of the United States. 

Mr. KERRY. Oh, the watershed. It would be impossible—I mean, 

in principle, no, but I think you have got to look at what particular 

issue is at stake here. 

Mr. GIBBS. Okay. I will go on because obviously you do not know 

what I am talking about. Innovation and technology has improved 

with oil drilling, especially from fracking and horizontal drilling, 

and as we know, we have seen the emissions of this country, carbon emissions, drop, I think it was—I had it here a second ago— 

14 percent from 2005 to 2017, but China and India have increased 

by 21 percent. Mr. Kerry, my understanding is that the Green New 

Deal would eliminate oil and gas exploration. Do you support that 

that would happen, eliminate oil and gas exploration in the United 

States? 

Mr. KERRY. I believe, Congressman, first of all, I think—and I 

have said this many, many times—gas is going to be a component 

of our energy mix for some time to come because we have to be able 

to deal with baseload. And, obviously, when the Sun is not shining, 

when the wind is not blowing, or the waters are not flowing for 

hydro, we have got some challenges. But we are not moving, frankly, in the way that we could be moving to provide the alternatives 

rapidly because, I mean, gas gives us a 50-percent gain over other 

fossil fuels in the reduction of emissions. 

Mr. GIBBS. Okay. I appreciate—— 

Mr. KERRY. So it is a step forward. 

Mr. GIBBS. Okay. I want to move on. 

Mr. KERRY. In the end, though—— 

Mr. GIBBS. I want to move on because I—— 

Mr. KERRY [continuing]. we need a net low-/no-carbon economy, 

and we have got to begin moving toward that. 

Mr. GIBBS. Okay. I want to talk about—you were involved in the 

Paris Climate Treaty, correct? 

Mr. KERRY. Super-involved, yes. 

Mr. GIBBS. Is it correct that in that agreement we would let 

China increase their carbon emissions to 2030, to peak out at 2030, 

and then that would be their benchmark, where ours was immediate and there was no enforcement to put on China to cut their 
41 

carbon emissions, so that was a deal going out more than a decade 

with no enforcement actions, but it was a good—— 

Mr. KERRY. Congressman, let me try to explain to you what we 

sought to do in Paris. In the Kyoto Agreement, which Senator 

Hagel has referred to, we had a mandatory reduction enforceable 

mechanism. Nobody wanted it. We could not pass it because it was 

not shared in the same level. And so in approaching Paris, we came 

at it differently. We had each country joining to design a plan because the theory was that if 195 or 196 countries came together, 

all of them simultaneously agreeing to lower emissions and move 

in the same direction, the signal to the marketplace would be extraordinary. And it was. The next year, $358 billion was invested in alternative renewable 

fuel. For the first time in history, more money went into alternative and sustainable fuel than fossil fuel. So we accomplished the 

goal, and the theory was—— 

Mr. GIBBS. Were some of those dollars—— 

Mr. KERRY. I beg your pardon? 

Mr. GIBBS. Were some of those dollars a transfer of wealth from 

the United States to these other countries that signed on? 

Mr. KERRY. I am sorry. What? 

Mr. GIBBS. Were some of those dollars a transfer of wealth from 

the United States to—— 

Mr. KERRY. No. Actually, each—that is just the total amount of 

investment that the marketplace put into alternative. What happened in America happened in America. What happened in Europe 

happened in Europe. But the point is that collectively we were 

moving in the direction of trying to lower emissions, and every 

country made a decision to do that. 

Now, China has. China has reduced its energy intensity. It has 

closed coal-fired power plants. It is a leading deployer of solar energy at this point in time. Is it moving fast enough? No. 

Mr. GIBBS. Isn’t it through they are still building coal plants? 

Mr. KERRY. I beg your pardon? 

Mr. GIBBS. Isn’t it true they are still building coal plants? 

Mr. KERRY. Yes, unfortunately. They are building a next generation, which they are trying to claim is Okay, and we are trying to 

tell them, no, it is not Okay. So we are still in this struggle. But 

we have done better than where we were. The point is we do not 

want to lose the momentum, and by having a President who, frankly, has pulled out of Paris and not offered leadership, we are losing 

that momentum. And the last meeting of the U.N. Conference of 

the parties in Katowice, Poland, was a reflection of the lack of 

American leadership, frankly. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Sarbanes? 

Mr. SARBANES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to both of you 

for your incredible service to the country over decades. And thank 

you for continuing your service to the country by being here today 

to raise a clarion call about the impact of climate change, particularly as it affects our national security. Nobody is in a better position to make those observations than the two of you. 

When I am trying to figure out why political leaders are moving 

in the opposite direction from where the public is moving or where 

science in this case is moving or the experts are moving, I have 
42 

found it pretty useful up here to follow the money. And I can tell 

you, when you look back over this issue of climate change, you 

have to conclude that the position being taken by some—and I put 

the President in this category—is being driven more by campaign 

donors, by the fossil fuel industry, industry front groups, than it is 

by any real dispute or genuine dispute over the science that is involved here. And I want to cite an example. The Mercer family contributed $15 million to President Trump’s 

2016 campaign, and it funds a variety of climate denial front 

groups, including the Heartland Institute and the CO2 Coalition. 

Both of those groups have received funding from the fossil fuel industry in the past. 

Since the 2016 election, surprise, surprise, the Heartland Institute, the CO2 Coalition, and other climate change denial groups 

have been pushing the administration to create this panel that you 

spoke about today that is publicly—we think will publicly dispute 

the science of climate change. 

The former head of the CO2 coalition is none other than, today, 

already, who is now employed at the White House, and he is the 

one trying to set up this panel that will deny climate change. 

Secretary Hagel, I assume you agree that the Federal Government should be making decisions about climate change based on 

facts and not based on the influence of campaign donors or other 

money that comes at the system? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Mr. SARBANES. Secretary Kerry, do you think that a panel that 

the fossil fuel industry and the President’s campaign donors have 

been advocating for is likely to produce meaningful and reliable results, given what you know about how politics works up here on 

the Hill and in Washington? 

Mr. KERRY. No. 

Mr. SARBANES. The fossil fuel industry has funded efforts for 

years to confuse and mislead the public on climate science, but 

here is the interesting development. Even that industry now I 

think increasingly persuaded, as you pointed to with some of your 

remarks today, and certainly motivated by the economic models 

that have shifted dramatically toward more renewable energy is 

making sense, even that industry is beginning to shift its position, 

leaving the Trump administration and the President’s position 

really increasingly as an outlier. 

So, for example, Shell Corporation recently publicly committed to 

meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, as I understand it, saying the need for urgent action in response to climate change has 

become ever more obvious since the signing of the Paris Agreement, and thank you, Secretary Kerry, for your work on that effort. 

And, recently, Shell quit a major fossil fuel lobbying group, the 

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, citing ‘‘material 

misalignment on climate-related policy positions,’’ and explaining 

that the lobbying group had failed to support the Paris Agreement 

and had supported the Trump administration’s rollback of EPA’s 

Clean Power Plan. 

I assume, Secretary Kerry—and Secretary Hagel, if you would 

like to comment as well—that it is at least encouraging that some 

members of that industry are stepping up and making the argu-
43 

ment that we have to take dramatic action on climate change and 

are moving away from some of the industry groups and others that 

still seem to be captive to these other interests and viewpoints that 

I think are on the wrong side of history. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, I think Shell just pulled out—Shell Oil just 

pulled out of one of the associations—fuel associations that they 

were members of because the association itself was taking a denier 

attitude on climate and Shell believes that it is happening. 

I would add also, when I was negotiating the Senate bill back 

with Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman and the folks in the Senate, we had the environment community at the table; we had the 

faith-based community at the table. We had the big oil at the table; 

we had the nuclear industry at the table; and we had agreement. 

And I reached a point where BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil—Rex 

Tillerson was there at the time—had all agreed to accept a price 

on carbon. And we were about to announce it publicly on a Monday, and on the Friday before the Monday, the president of BP 

calls me and says, ‘‘Sorry, I cannot be there. We just had a blowout 

in the gulf.’’ And so we had to postpone, and during the ensuing 

weeks, about $800,000 was spent in one state against one of our 

colleagues working hard on this to terrify him that he should pull 

back, which indeed he wound up doing, and we lost the momentum 

on the bill. 

So, you know, the bottom line is money has a lot to do with how 

it is spent, affecting the outcome and the attitudes on this issue. 

Mr. SARBANES. Thank you. 

Secretary Hagel. 

Mr. HAGEL. But that said, all the majors are moving in the direction that you are talking about, I noted in this paper yesterday. 

But what John is talking about, there are other examples, all of 

them, ExxonMobil, Chevron, all the big ones are moving in this direction. They are not giving up their oil resources or fracking operations. But they see where the future is, and every time one starts 

to move a little closer to a new era and buying into that future and 

planning for that future, that is good. 

Mr. SARBANES. Thank you. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Norman. 

Mr. NORMAN. Thank you. Secretary Kerry and Secretary Hagel, 

thank you for coming. I appreciate you taking questions. 

Let me just say that, you know, Secretary Kerry, you mentioned 

up front that you want to get politics out of it. Yet then you took 

off on our President. You took off on some of the qualifications of 

his Cabinet. You took off on the tax plan or tax reductions that this 

party initiated. Now, if you are going to take politics out of it, I do 

not think it starts with criticizing the President, who I think has 

had other things at the top of his agenda like getting a stagnant 

economy back going, like dealing with rogue countries as in North 

Korea, which were a disaster prior to him coming; you know, like 

dealing with facing an immigration problem now that he is dealing 

with that have been kicked down the road and not addressed. 

So I think if you are going to take politics out of it, let’s have 

a debate, and I disagree and I think others would disagree with 

both of you, in all due respect. There are scientists out there who 

disagree with your findings. If we are going to really have a discus-
44 

sion, let’s have the Harrison Schmitts sit down beside each one of 

you, who was a geologist and Apollo 17 astronaut who disagrees 

with you. Let’s have a Timothy Ball, who is a climatologist. Let’s 

have a Fritz Vahrenholt, who has got his doctorate in chemistry. 

Let’s have this guy right here in Thomas Massie, who is an MIT 

graduate and is an electrical engineer who has been off the grid 

with his house for a long time. Let’s have that debate, and other 

than one station of the media, all the other stations have been taking it as a given that climate change is real, which some parts of 

it are real, but I think it is irresponsible for anybody—and I do not 

criticize my colleague from the other aisle from New York for her 

plan. But what I do question is everything has a price tag. You 

have got to figure out how to pay for something along with proposing what you want to do. 

So I think it is irresponsible to do anything otherwise than that, 

and we cannot just say at the end of the day we are going to pay 

for it with higher taxes and add a thousand new pages to the Federal Register. That is not what the country wants to hear, and that 

is why, quite frankly, a lot of people are dubious of the Green New 

Deal and the other things. You have spoken of solutions. You have 

not put a price tag on them. You have not put a detailed plan on 

what do we do next. And I come from a—we are deeply interested 

in this. I come from Catawba Nuclear Station. They supply 80 percent of our power in South Carolina. There are 60 plants all over 

the country, and we cannot just spout these facts and figures without having alternate views and take them seriously. 

Do you want to respond to that? 

Mr. KERRY. I would be delighted to, Congressman. I appreciate 

the question actually very much. 

I am not taking off against the President politically. I am disagreeing with him substantively. It has a profound impact when 

the President of the United States, after America’s leadership that 

brought us the Paris Agreement, it is a profound setback to pull 

out of that agreement, saying to the American it places too great 

a burden on the United States and on our economy. 

Mr. NORMAN. That is your opinion. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, yes, it is a substantive issue in politics. The 

truth is it places no burden on America. The agreement per se is 

an agreement in which each country wrote its own plan. We wrote 

our plan, and we wrote our plan for Americans, by Americans, with 

American help from Fortune 500 companies, including the major oil 

companies who supported the Paris Agreement. 

So we have a substantive difference, but the profound impact of 

the President of the United States pulling away from it and speaking the language of a denier has a profound negative impact on our 

ability to meet the challenge and deal. When the President says 

the planet is freezing, record low temperatures, our global warming 

scientists are stuck in ice, he is mocking it. That is a mockery 

statement. When he says, ‘‘I believe in clean air, immaculate air, 

but I do not believe in climate change’’—he says, ‘‘I do not believe 

in climate change,’’ point blank. 

Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Secretary, let me interrupt. I have got 12 seconds. Let me just say I would welcome having you back. Let’s get 
45 

some alternate views of people who can debate every single issue 

that you have, and we will put a price tag—— 

Mr. KERRY. I would be delighted to have it happen, but let me 

just say—— 

Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chairman, I ask for us to—for you to get a 

hearing set up of alternate views. Let’s have these two fine gentlemen debate on a case-by-case, issue-by-issue point, and let’s get 

into how we are going to pay for it. 

Mr. KERRY. If you are going to have alternate scientists in, I suggest you have John Holdren and you have, you know, Jim Hansen 

and a bunch of people who have spent a lifetime on this. But I will 

just tell you this, Congressman: Ninety-seven percent is not to be 

sneered at. You can find people, I know that, you can find people 

who will say anything in today’s world. 

Mr. NORMAN. On both sides of the aisle. 

Mr. KERRY. You can find people to say anything anywhere at any 

time in this damn world we are living in today, unfortunately, and 

we have lost the capacity to decide what are the facts on which we 

as Americans are really deciding things. And a democracy depends 

on an ability to agree on what the facts are. 

Now, two and two is four, and the fact is that 97 percent of the 

scientists who have worked on this all their life say that this is no 

longer an issue for debate, it is beyond doubt that anthropogenic 

impact is what is responsible for the climate change rate—not entirely. I agree with Mr. Massie. Of course, there are natural occurrences that have an impact. Volcanoes contribute. The clouds that 

come from the volcanoes have an impact. Those enter into the models. All of this is difficult stuff. But no one that I know of within 

that 97 percent—you ought to have the 97 to three and see where 

people come out. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Ms. Tlaib. 

Ms. TLAIB. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for your 

incredible leadership and bipartisanship on this critical issue. 

I want to start with a quote from Emma Lockridge in my district. 

She said, ‘‘You cannot sacrifice people’s lives.’’ She lives near a 

Marathon Petroleum Oil Corporation refinery in southwest Detroit. 

She said, ‘‘At the end of the day, they are killing us.’’ She said, ‘‘We 

already cannot breathe over here. And the thought that pollution 

could just go up and the smell is just too much.’’ 

Today’s hearing makes it very clear that climate change threatens the health and security of each and every American, but the 

harm done by climate change will not be distributed equally. I welcome any of my colleagues—and I am being sincere about this—to 

please come to Michigan, come to my district and see what doing 

nothing looks like. 

According to both the October 2008 National Climate Assessment, climate change will have an unequal impact on poor communities and communities of color. The assessment explains, as you 

all know, Secretaries, multiple lines of evidence demonstrate that 

low-income communities and some communities of color are experiencing higher rates of exposure to adverse environmental conditions and social conditions that can reduce the resilience to the impacts of climate change. 
46 

The report also said, ‘‘In urban areas, disruptions in food supply 

or safety related to extreme weather or climate-related events are 

expected to unequally impact those who already experience food insecurity.’’ 

So, Secretary Kerry, do you agree that climate change will disproportionate harm low-income communities and communities of 

color? 

Mr. KERRY. Yes, absolutely, without any question. I mean, you 

know, diesel trucks—it is not just climate change. Our environmental policy does it. Where do the diesel trucks go driving 

through a city? They go through the poor neighborhoods. Look at 

the numbers of kids in hospitals and elsewhere impacted. I mean, 

you can see this in many ways playing out. 

Ms. TLAIB. Yes, and, Secretary, I will tell you, one of five children 

have asthma in my district. We have a Right to Breathe Campaign 

to talk about these issues in a more impactful way. And local environmental justice advocates in Detroit have identified extreme heat 

and flooding as the key concerns for the Detroit Wayne County 

area where my district is located, and low-income households are 

at extreme risk for exposure to heat. A study by the University of 

Michigan says temperatures in Detroit homes alone were 4 degrees 

warmer than outside temperatures from July to September 2016, 

with over 35 percent of those home studied registered average indoor temperatures above 80 degrees. 

This trend can be expected to continue. The extent and severity 

of the temperature increases will depend on the amount of future 

greenhouse gas emissions, as you both know. And under a higher 

emission scenario, there will be around 65 days warmer than 90 

degrees, and 23 days of those will be over 100 degrees alone in Detroit. This is a sentencing for some of our most vulnerable residents 

to death if we do not act now. 

Secretary Kerry and Secretary Hagel, what are some of the 

things that we can do to mitigate the impact of climate change on 

our most vulnerable communities? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, first recognize that we have a problem and 

then start addressing the problem, locally, nationally, globally. 

That brings us back to why we are here. What is the role of this 

committee, our energy committees, our science committees, commerce committees in the Congress of the United States? What is 

the role of the Governors and the state legislatures, city councils? 

And there are specific things that can be done, and we have been 

talking about a high level of things today in kind of a universe of 

world policy and national security policy. But you have brought it 

down to the ground level and reality, and that is where you start. 

But it has got to be a collaborative effort. It has to be a cooperative 

effort to recognize that we are doing harm to our communities, especially the most vulnerable people in these—— 

Ms. TLAIB. I could not agree more, and I can tell you, you know, 

it starts with us in this chamber to take leadership and accepting 

the science is real and it is true. And I can tell you, I think in the 

National Climate Assessment it explains and talks about across the 

climate risk, children, older adults, low-income communities of 

color are experiencing discrimination affected by extreme weather 

the most, partially because—and this is to ask all of us—they are 
47 

often excluded in the planning process. And I really truly believe 

that these are front-line communities that are already experiencing 

what doing nothing on climate change looks like. And they need to 

be at the table. And, yes, I am here speaking on their behalf, but 

I ask you both, bring them to the table as you are planning this 

process, as you are doing the advocacy and educating all of us in 

this chamber. Bring them here because when we do that, when we 

localize what is happening now and not doing nothing, because it 

is already happening across this country. Those voices need to be 

in this room. 

Thank you. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Hice. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you both for 

your service to our Nation and in the Senate as well. 

Of course, as we all know here, both in the Senate and the 

House, whenever we cosponsor a bill or a resolution, it is because 

we support it. We would love to get a vote on it, and I think all 

of us pretty much would admit that and agree to it, although a 

‘‘present’’ vote, as you mentioned earlier, was a political statement. 

As a general rule, when we cosponsor things, it is because we support it. 

The Green New Deal as a resolution is important because it sets 

forth a precedent, a clear choice for the American people. It sets 

forth a clear choice between two parties on a very important issue 

and what we believe and how best to address it. 

On the one side, for example—and, by the way, we have had 92, 

I believe it is, Democrats in the House cosponsor the Green New 

Deal; virtually everyone running for President in the Democratic 

Party in the Senate has signed on to it. So this is a statement of 

where the party is on the solution for the climate issues, and they 

believe that we must move to a 100 percent zero emission energy 

position within 10 years—never mind the fact that this could cause 

a potential nearly 300 percent increase in household energy bills, 

never mind the fact that it would require rebuilding or upgrading 

over 100 million buildings, never mind we are looking at nearly 

300,000 cars and trucks that would need to be replaced by electric 

vehicles, never mind it would take half—the Government would 

take over half of our economy at a cost estimated at $93 trillion. 

I mean, that is the GDP of the entire world combined. A central 

planning committee would have to be set up with this. 

On the other side, you have groups who believe in free market 

enterprise, believe in federalism, believe in competition, capitalism, 

believe that the best way to address this is to get the Federal Government out of it as much as possible and allow the free market 

to do what it does best. And I certainly hold to that. 

I want to see us drive all forms of energy, an all-of-the-above 

strategy to incentivize competition, to eliminate the barriers that 

currently exist, and for all of this reason, when we get back from 

Easter, I am going to the House floor to try to force a vote on this. 

The American people need to know where their Representatives 

stand on this issue, and I am putting forth a discharge position so 

the American people can know. And I hope my Democrat colleagues 

will not vote ‘‘present’’ but will stand up. Fifteen in this committee 
48 

have cosponsored this. The American people need to know where 

their Representatives stand on these two sides of a very important 

issue, and so I would hope that we would be able to get some cosponsors or some signers on that discharge petition. 

I have got about a minute and a half, I want to go ahead and 

yield to the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Massie, the remainder 

of my time. 

Mr. MASSIE. Thank you, Mr. Hice. 

The question was asked earlier, what is the worst that could 

happen if the climate change alarmists are wrong? And I think it 

is a right question to ask, but the conclusions were wrong. Here is 

the worst thing that can happen or some of the bad things that 

could happen by forcing a transition to renewable energy too soon. 

We could have higher taxes, lower crop production, higher food 

prices, wasted energy reserves, and a foolish effort to deplete CO2, 

which is plant food, from the atmosphere, raise energy prices on 

the poor. We could have shortages and blackouts for everyone. We 

could spend millions of man-hours of effort focusing on non-pollution while losing focus on real pollution and real problems that we 

have to solve, like what to do with our nuclear waste, which this 

body still has not resolved. 

Let me say this: I have lived for 12 years with 100 percent solar, 

and I am aware of the struggles and the realities and the technical 

challenges that are involved. There are sacrifices that, frankly, not 

everybody wants to make. I do not think everybody can make those 

sacrifices. 

I agree with something Secretary Kerry said, and Mr. Hagel. 

China has installed about four times as much solar panels as we 

have this year in this country. They are not doing it for the environment. It is a market thing. It is a reason—they are doing it to 

be energy independent. And I hope that in this country we could 

use our transition not for a force of big government, but for a force 

of smaller government and more independence from other countries. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Ms. Pressley. 

Ms. PRESSLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Secretary Hagel and Secretary Kerry. I consider you both to be patriots with your demonstration of bipartisan work. That is supposed 

to be the work of this committee where we demonstrate the ultimate patriotism in prioritizing the country and the health of this 

planet over party politics and gamesmanship. 

Just indulge me with a point of personal privilege here. Secretary Kerry, not only do I thank you for your contributions to our 

Nation, but your contributions in my life personally. The opportunity to have worked for you for 11 years changed the trajectory 

of my life, and as your former schedule and now as a member, in 

hindsight I would like to say, ‘‘I apologize.’’ 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. PRESSLEY. But in all seriousness, bringing some levity to a 

very serious topic here. Secretary Kerry, in our home state of Massachusetts—— 

Mr. KERRY. I thought you works for me for 15 years. 
49 

Ms. PRESSLEY. You might be right. But in our home state of Massachusetts, we have seen firsthand the impacts of climate change, 

from record snowfall in 2015 to four major nor’easters last year, resulting in record flooding, and these events can lead to very serious 

public health concerns, including contaminated drinking water. The 

gentlelady from Michigan was just speaking to these public health 

impacts. 

I want to also lift up not only the increased frequency and severity of asthma as well as the increase of the number of insects who 

carry diseases like Zika and West Nile. 

And so we do need to address these issues collaboratively on the 

Federal, state, and municipal level, and we have to look at them 

both in the macro and the micro. And since you have already spoken to the public health impacts, I wanted to just pick up on something in your opening statement, Secretary Kerry, and if you could 

expound upon this point since immigration has been a very contentious and polarizing issue here. And if you could just speak to the 

impact on migration and the potential for whole communities and 

territories to have to migrate and what that impact would be. 

Mr. KERRY. Thank you, Congresswoman Pressley. Let me just 

also say, as another point of personal privilege, how proud I am 

that you are here, and what an extraordinary public person you are 

and how lucky I was. 

There was an article, I think in—I think it was the New York 

Times had an article the other day about what is happening in 

Honduras where climate change is now impacting what can be 

grown at certain altitudes and what is happening, and people are 

abandoning lifetime-held land as a result of the inability to grow 

anymore, and they are migrating. They are becoming part of climate refugee status, which is already existent in other parts of the 

world. There are many parts of the world where people have had 

to move. 

There is an island nation, Palau; Tommy Remengesau is the 

President of that country. He has been very involved with us in 

working on oceans policy, and he is literally planning for where his 

people are going to move to. This is a nation that will not exist because of sea level rise already, and it is happening. 

So this plays to what Secretary Hagel and I have both been saying about—and as we have quoted many, many, many military people. I mean, this is not the two of us sitting here saying that climate change is happening, anthropogenic contribution causing it, 

and it is going to have multiplier effect. You have the Department 

of Defense, you have the U.S. Global Change Research Program, 

the National Academy of Sciences. In fact, every National Academy 

of Science in the world has agreed it is happening and human 

beings are causing it. The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate 

Change, the Office of DNI, former Secretary of Defense Mattis, I 

mean, you can run the list of people. They are not crazy. They are 

not stupid. They have given their life to the country. They have 

taken evidence that has been measured by scientists all around the 

world, and all of these nations have collectively made a decision 

that we seem incapable of making collectively. And we have got to 

stop and ask ourselves why that is true. 
50 

Also, I might add, with respect to immigration because it is such 

a hot issue, obviously, we faced the imminent implosion of the 

country of Colombia. The narcotraffickers were taking it over, the 

Cali cartel, the Medellin cartel, and 13 members of the Supreme 

Court were assassinated in one room in an afternoon in Bogota. I 

mean, this country was going down. 

So rather than sort of shut them off and say we are not going 

to deal with that and just give it up as a failed state, we put together something in a bipartisan way. Republicans and Democrats 

came together; we created what was called ‘‘Plan Colombia.’’ We 

put $1 billion on the table. We invested with President Uribe. 

President Uribe invested in his own country, in his own people, 

showed remarkable courage because we were with him, and we 

changed the violence pattern of that country. Just a couple years 

ago, the President of the country, Juan Manuel Santos, won the 

Nobel Peace Prize for making peace with FARC, which had been 

the longest-running civil war in history. 

Why did this happen? Because we engaged. That is what we 

need to do to deal with immigration. You have got failed state-ism 

happening in Nicaragua, in El Salvador and Honduras and Guatemala. And rather than cut them off, we should be increasing our 

effort to assist them to prevent people from being the victims of violence and give them a future. That is the way you are far more 

effectively going to begin to deal with people looking for a better 

life. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, I am amazed you said you did not want to get political, and then you go on a diatribe there on an issue that is not 

even the subject of this particular oversight hearing. 

Mr. KERRY. But it is part of climate change. It is part of climate 

change. Immigration—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. The President’s policy on Nicaragua and El Salvador is part of climate change? How is that the case? 

Mr. KERRY. Well—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So, Mr. Chairman, I have not interrupted a single 

person on your side of the aisle, and we get comments. 

So, Mr. Secretary, I am one of the few people here that actually 

has listened to the entire conversation today, is more predisposed 

perhaps to your message than most on my side of the aisle. I was 

a wind, solar, and geothermal expert for an electric utility many 

years ago back when the Department of Energy actually started. 

I have people on my staff that are looking at a carbon tax and a 

number of issues, and yet when we come in and say we want to 

pull out the politics and we start, Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, with hyperbole in some areas, it makes it very difficult to listen to. 

For example, your comments that would suggest that the unrest 

in Syria and the Middle East is largely a byproduct of climate 

change is just not accurate, and you know that, Mr. Secretary. You 

were the Secretary of State. Would you not agree that that was a 

little bit of hyperbole to suggest that climate change is the reason 

for the unrest and terrorist activity in those countries? 
51 

Mr. KERRY. Congressman, I am sorry that, you know, perhaps it 

was a step beyond the hearing for me to comment on immigration, 

but it is obviously a big issue, and I acknowledge that. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I appreciate your comment. 

Mr. KERRY. But coming back to this, I did not say that. I very 

clearly said that climate change is not the cause of the war in 

Syria. I said that as my opening comment. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But in your opening comments—— 

Mr. KERRY. But then I said—then I said that you have to—— 

Mr. MEADOWS [continuing]. you talked about Syria. 

Mr. KERRY. But everybody in the region understands that the 

level of violence, the intensity and some of the sectarian component 

of it was added to by the million people who descended on Damascus. That is a known fact. 

Mr. MEADOWS. That is a known fact. But what is also a fact, Mr. 

Secretary—— 

Mr. KERRY. I did not—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Hold on. What is also a known fact is historically 

that particular region has had famines, has had unbelievable unrest, long before there was a combustion engine. 

Mr. KERRY. Sure. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Long before. 

Mr. KERRY. Sure. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And so it is the hyperbole that makes it very difficult to have a bipartisan conversation where we try to find a solution to this. 

Mr. KERRY. But there is no hyperbole, I think, in saying, as I did, 

climate change did not cause the war in Syria, but a million people 

moving because their livestock died due to an unprecedented 

drought had an impact. That is a reality. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But an unprecedented drought—are you suggesting that droughts only started once the combustion engine—— 

Mr. KERRY. No, no. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And that is my point. When you take what is a 

rational argument and extrapolate it to a point, it makes it very 

difficult for us to say everything relates to climate change. 

Mr. KERRY. No, it does not. And I am not here—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. It does—well, with all due respect, it does for me, 

when we look at this. I mean—— 

Mr. KERRY. I think, Congressman, I said earlier in a couple of 

answers, I made it clear that there are things that obviously happen naturally. There are components of the models that shift, and 

I understand that. And that is why there are differences between 

the models. But even where there have been differences in the 

models, people agree on the basic precept, the basic concept that 

human contribution to the rate of—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. There is no doubt that human contributions have 

attributed to greenhouse gases. There is no denying as well that 

fracking has actually decreased the price of natural gas, which actually has changed our mix in what we have used for energy and 

lowered our greenhouse gas emissions. Would you not agree with 

that? 

Mr. KERRY. Congressman, it is absolutely—you have heard me 

advocate that we need to have gas used—— 
52 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you are in favor of fracking? 

Mr. KERRY. Fracking—I have accepted that fracking—I have accepted that fracking is currently the methodology by which we 

have been able to advance technologically to produce our—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. But it has lowered greenhouse gas emissions. 

Mr. KERRY. But, in fairness, I will also say we do not know yet, 

we do not know the full evidence yet on whether or not subterranean fissures and passages may someday come back to haunt us. 

We do not have the answer to that yet. And I have—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, we do have many of those answers, and I 

will be glad to discuss in private, offline, the science on both of 

those things. Here is what I am saying, Mr. Secretary, and I will 

close with this. Let’s have real discussions, and the real discussion 

right now is that fracking has lowered natural gas prices exponentially. 

Mr. KERRY. Absolutely. 

Mr. MEADOWS. To the point where we actually met the Kyoto 

Protocol guidelines without actually being a signatory on that particular agreement. Would you agree? 

Mr. KERRY. Fracking has been an enormous economic boon, but 

we actually do not know yet if it is going to be cost-free in terms 

of downstream impact. We just do not know that. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I will yield back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

As we go to Mr. DeSaulnier, let me say this, Secretary Kerry: Although it is not directly related, your comments on Colombia, I got 

your point that engaging—Colombia was a major accomplishment. 

Major. And I guess what you were saying is that by engaging we 

were able to resolve that. Is that what you were saying? 

Mr. KERRY. I am saying we empowered them to be able to resolve 

it. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. KERRY. They did it for themselves. At great cost, but they 

did it. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Yes. Mr. DeSaulnier. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank 

both of you for giving the committee so much of your time. I sense 

some level of frustration. I will also tell you, you are two of my heroes. I imagine a time when this institution was more based on rational thought and analysis. 

I will admit when I was 18 and I was a resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I registered as a Republican because I 

wanted to vote for Ed Brooke. I tell people under 30 now that I did 

that because I wanted to vote for a liberal Republican, and they do 

not believe there was such a thing. 

But times change. I have had many occasions to work with my 

colleagues on the other side, except on these big instances. So I 

want to talk about the Green New Deal, with all due respect to its 

author, and my experience in California. In the 1990’s I was fortunate enough to be appointed by two Republican Governors and a 

Democratic Governor to the California Resources Board. During the 

Wilson administration, our peer-reviewed scientific panels brought 

to us the evidence that climate change was real, was going to have 

a significant impact on the state of California, the snowpack, the 
53 

delta, the runoff, and we started to respond to it in a nonpartisan, 

analytical approach. 

So to me—and we had and we continue to have robust cost-benefits that are peer-reviewed, that created great value, that included 

the public health benefits, which are an international model. But 

to me the most compelling thing is the economic argument with the 

exceptions, as Mr. Meadows said, there are things that happen that 

we have to consider, like fracking. 

But California, I am sorry to be parochial, because we did these 

things 20 years ago, it is sort of a given that renewables and alternative fuels are a good thing to the economy. So I would like to get 

a response. It strikes me that one of our great national crises, if 

we do not adhere to the advice you are giving us and the scientists, 

is our economic growth. I tell my kids that their kids are going to 

grow up in a world where Chinese cars are probably going to dominate the world if they are capable of mass-producing electric cars 

in the next five or 10 years. General Motors has indicated that they 

understand this and are putting more resources in alternative 

fuels. 

So California gets about 50 percent of the venture capital in the 

United States every year, year after year. A lot of that goes into 

tech. A lot of it goes into biomed. But a disproportionate amount 

goes into alternative fuels and renewables where 33 percent—when 

I was in the legislature, the utility said there is no way we can 

make it. They made it. They have surpassed it. We are talking 

about going to 50, 75, 100 percent. All of those things would indicate to me that there is plenty of research that California and the 

west coast is leading the country when it comes to economic 

growth. 

One of our key things is to make sure that people who are left 

behind are not left behind, so people who are coal miners need to 

have more than just career training and job training. But our success in California is a partnership between the building trades, 

when Republicans supported the building trades, and the environmental community, where the cultural differences in those two 

groups 20 years ago came together and said, ‘‘You are going to have 

the jobs of the future. You are going to be installing and maintaining these renewable fuels.’’ 

We have huge challenges on the alternative fuel side because 

battery electric cars or fuel cells will not require the maintenance 

that fossil fuel and internal combustion engines do. So maybe you 

could enlighten me just in your view of the economic benefits that 

go to international security for the United States and our leadership when it comes in terms of economic growth for everybody, for 

a middle class that does well and people who do not have a college 

degree to do well in a global economy that acknowledges that our 

dependence on fossil fuels, even if you were to accept the doubts 

of the science, that the economic growth is sort of inarguably there, 

that by changing the Europeans and California and the west coast 

is really leading the world and the Chinese are right behind us. 

Secretary Kerry or Secretary Hagel? 

Mr. KERRY. I have always considered myself a pro-growth Democrat but with sensitivity to the folks who do not always get the 

shared opportunity, and I think we have to be sensitive to that, 
54 

and I think it is particularly important to be sensitive in terms of 

what we call ‘‘environmental justice.’’ 

But the future—and I would just say to my friends here, the 

world is moving rapidly toward this transition. And the fastestgrowing job in America today, I believe, I am told, is solar power 

technician, installer, and the second-fastest is wind turbine technician. So it is happening. There has been an 88-percent reduction 

in the cost of solar. There has been a 69-percent reduction in the 

cost of wind in the last 10 years. And you have to look at the trend 

line of what we are living with. The last 10 years included the hottest year in recorded history. The 10 years prior to that decade was 

the second hottest. The 10 years prior to that decade was the third 

hottest. There is sort of a trend line here, I think, over 30 years. 

And given the science that is added to that trend line, when the 

scientists in such overwhelming number are saying this is what 

humans are causing, we have an alternative opportunity here to 

dominate a market. The global energy market is the biggest market ever, 4 to 5 billion users today. It will go up to 9 billion users 

in the next 30 years, and already it is a multi-trillion-dollar market. The market that we experienced in Massachusetts and California in the 1990’s, when a lot of people made a lot of money, was 

fundamentally a $1 trillion market with 1 billion users, and yet we 

created more wealth than we have ever created. In the 1990’s in 

America, every single quintile of earner of income went up. 

So I believe to have America on the sidelines not aggressively 

pursuing this market is to be contrary to the very success that 

California has had as, what, the sixth largest economy in the 

world? 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Fifth. 

Mr. KERRY. Fifth. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Almost fourth. 

Mr. KERRY. Fifth largest economy in the world. So I hope we will 

understand this is economic opportunity. This is not cost. 

Mr. HAGEL. You know, I would just add one thing. The reality 

is we are all global citizens in a global community, underpinned by 

a global economy. The world is interconnected in every way: climate, environment, economy, security. And I am not sure we always take that into consideration when we are debating, passing 

laws, making regulation, and doing the things to move this country 

forward. Sometimes we are too insulated, and we will pay a price 

for that. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. I am going to recognize Ms. Ocasio-Cortez 

for a unanimous consent request. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just very briefly, 

since there seems to be some confusion on how climate change is 

connected to immigration patterns, I seek unanimous consent to 

submit to the record this article from the New Yorker on how climate change is fueling the U.S. border crisis, particularly in Guatemala. The question is no longer whether someone will leave but 

when. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Without objection, so ordered. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

[The New Yorker article referred to is available at: 

docs.house.gov.] 
55 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Jordan. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Hagel, who is on the President’s task force, this council? Who are the members? 

Mr. HAGEL. I have no idea. 

Mr. JORDAN. You do not know? 

Mr. HAGEL. The President’s task force on—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Yes, we have been talking a lot about it. I just was 

curious who is on it. 

Mr. HAGEL. I do not know. I said in my statement I do not now. 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you know when the Executive order was issued 

to form the task force? 

Mr. HAGEL. No. 

Mr. JORDAN. That is because there was not one. 

Mr. HAGEL. I do not know. All I know—— 

Mr. JORDAN. There was no executive order issued to form a task 

force. There is no task force that exists, and, therefore, there are 

no members on the task force. 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, there is certainly a lot of conversation evidently going on in the White House about it. 

Mr. JORDAN. Let me ask you this—— 

Mr. HAGEL. It was picked up by the press reporting it. 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you agree with your colleague, Senator Kerry, 

Secretary Kerry, in his testimony just a few hours ago when he 

read his testimony, he said, ‘‘It is a council of doubters and 

deniers.’’ Is that accurate? 

Mr. HAGEL. Secretary Kerry just handed me a draft of the President’s Executive order setting up this task force. Maybe we should 

include—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I have got the draft in front of me. I have seen that. 

It is a draft. It has never been done, never been executed, no one 

has been appointed. So I am just curious how the Secretary—— 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, it should not be, and I hope it is not. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, that is no my question. My question is: Do you 

agree with what Secretary Kerry said when he said, ‘‘It is a council 

of doubters and deniers’’? 

Mr. HAGEL. I do not know who the council is. I have already told 

you that. I do not know who it is. 

Mr. JORDAN. That is the point. We have had a three-hour hearing talking about this council—— 

Mr. HAGEL. I think you should direct your question to Secretary 

Kerry. 

Mr. JORDAN [continuing]. that is yet to be formed. 

Secretary Hagel, are emissions up or down for the United States 

over the last 15 years? 

Mr. HAGEL. They are down. 

Mr. JORDAN. Down. 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Earlier, both of you talked about market forces. It 

is amazing to me that emissions are down in spite of the fact that 

we had the first Green New Deal, the loan guarantee program in 

the Obama Administration, that gave millions and millions and 

millions of dollars to all kinds of companies, and almost every sin-
56 

gle one of them went bankrupt. And yet, still, somehow the market 

figured out a way to drive emissions down. 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, I think President Obama may have—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Is that—do you—— 

Mr. HAGEL. I think President Obama may have had something 

to do with that, too, and a Congress recognizing what the issues 

are and the seriousness of the issues. 

Mr. JORDAN. I will tell you about market forces. Market forces 

said Solyndra got a bunch of our taxpayers’ money, folks from the 

4th District of Ohio, and went bankrupt. That was market forces. 

Beacon Power got a bunch of taxpayer money, some of it from the 

citizens of the 4th District of Ohio, went bankrupt. Abound Solar 

went bankrupt. Fisker Automotive went bankrupt after receiving 

tons of taxpayer money. That is market forces. And in spite of 

those companies, which were the end-all, be-all, save-all, emissions 

went down because the market did it—something you both talked 

about. 

Mr. KERRY. Not just the market, Congressman. The fact is we 

put in place the strongest CAFE standard—— 

Mr. HAGEL. The Obama Administration—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I was talking to Secretary Kerry. Is the Green New 

Deal, Secretary Hagel, is the Green New Deal bipartisan? 

Mr. HAGEL. I do not know. I told you before in my comments in 

responding to the Green New Deal question, I do not know about 

it other than what I have read in the paper. I do not know who 

is cosponsoring it. I do not know the details of it. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, both of you have talked a lot—and I agree 

with this. Both of you have talked about de-politicizing this issue. 

Both of you have talked about working in a bipartisan fashion. The 

Green New Deal has got 91 Democrat cosponsors, 13 Democrat 

Senators, not one Republican. 

Mr. HAGEL. Take that up with the Congresswoman, not me. 

Mr. JORDAN. No, I am just asking your thoughts. Would you define that as bipartisan? 

Mr. HAGEL. I am not here to defend that bill or testify about it. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, you made—— 

Mr. HAGEL. You talk to your Congress—— 

Mr. JORDAN. You have made that clear several times. 

How about the statement, do you—I want to go back to—do you 

agree with what Secretary Kerry said, that the council is made up 

of doubters and deniers? 

Mr. HAGEL. I said I do not know who is on the council. 

Mr. JORDAN. So is it an accurate statement? If we do not know 

who is on the council—in fact, we not only do not know who is on 

the council, there has been no council formed. How can you conclude it is a council of deniers and doubters? 

Mr. HAGEL. Take that up with Secretary Kerry. 

Mr. JORDAN. Secretary Kerry? 

Mr. KERRY. I made it clear in the beginning—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I am asking the Honorable Secretary a question. 

Mr. KERRY. I made it clear in the beginning that the prelude to 

the actual language of the draft Executive order, which was obviously leaked by somebody who was deeply concerned about it, said 
57 

very clearly that it claims to authoritatively link climate change. 

It is—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I am not asking about the Executive order. I am 

asking about what you told us three hours ago. You said definitively, you said—— 

Mr. KERRY. The names—— 

Mr. JORDAN [continuing]. it is a council of doubters and deniers, 

and I am just asking the fundamental question: How can it be a 

council of doubters and deniers when it has not even been formed? 

Mr. KERRY. Well, it would be. Congressman, you are quibbling. 

It would be. 

Mr. JORDAN. It would be. 

Mr. KERRY. Clearly—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Now we know you can foretell the future. That 

is—— 

Mr. KERRY. No, because there are several names that have been 

also leaked about the people who have been approached with respect to membership on this, and so, you know, I can submit their 

names if you really want that. But I do not think it is necessary. 

For my judgment to be made, it was made on the basis of Mr. 

Happer’s experience, his background, his lack of being a climatologist, and various other statements he has made publicly, including—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I am not here to defend Mr. Happer. I am just asking about a simple statement you made. You already know who is 

on the council—— 

Mr. KERRY. I stand by my statement. 

Mr. JORDAN [continuing]. you already know—well, I know you 

stand by your statement. 

Mr. KERRY. The purpose of this council—— 

Mr. JORDAN. You already know who is on the council, and you 

already know the conclusions they are going to reach, even though 

there has been no council formed—— 

Mr. KERRY. No, I do not know—I do not know—— 

Mr. JORDAN [continuing]. and no Executive order creating the 

council in the first place. 

Mr. KERRY. I do not know at this point in time who all the members are. I know enough members, and I know the purpose of it, 

and I know with clarity what it is doing. What is the secrecy about 

it? Why don’t they ask some of the top people in the country—— 

Mr. JORDAN. There is no secrecy about it because it has not been 

formed. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, come on. You are playing games now, Mr. 

Ranking Member. 

Mr. JORDAN. No, I am not. You are playing games. 

Mr. KERRY. Yes, it is really—— 

Mr. JORDAN. You are taking all kinds of latitude with an Executive order that has not been issued. 

Mr. KERRY. No. I am hoping it never will be issued—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I guess I am out of time. 

Mr. KERRY [continuing]. and I trust that because I and others 

have raised this issue about it, 58 national security concerned people, that this will never be issued because it does not deserve to 

be—— 
58 

Mr. JORDAN. Maybe you are right. Maybe you are right. I do not 

know. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, it could be that they have been warned off by 

this hearing and by other things. 

Mr. JORDAN. I just think we have had three hours of talking 

about something that has not even been formed. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Ms. Wasserman Schultz? Ms. Wasserman 

Schultz. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretaries, it is good to see you both, and thank you both 

for your real serious devotion to making sure that we can actually 

get the facts out about global warming and climate change. 

Secretary Kerry, I do just want to point out—this is not what I 

intend to ask you about, but I do want to point out that if we are 

going to talk about the so-called White House Panel on Climate 

Change, that apparently it has been widely reported that William 

Happer has been spearheading the proposed White House Panel on 

Climate Change, and he believes that CO2 has undergone decade 

after decade of abuse for no reason, and that he has compared carbon dioxide similarly to the treatment that Jews received under 

Hitler. 

So would you say that it is legitimate to suggest that someone 

spearheading a proposed White House Panel on Climate Change 

that had those beliefs perhaps was a doubter or someone who had 

no idea what they were talking about? 

Mr. KERRY. Obviously, for sure, which is what we said earlier. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Okay. So, Mr. Chairman, I have an 

article here from Vanity Fair that describes the individual, Mr. 

Happer, which I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into 

the record. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Without objection, so ordered. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you. 

[The Vanity Fair article referred to is available at: 

docs.house.gov.] 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Now, to ask you both—I want to 

thank you both for being here. President Trump and his appointees 

really have seemed intent on casting doubt on the science of climate change, and they are joined by our colleagues, unfortunately, 

on the other side of the aisle. There is already a consensus on climate change. The Federal Government’s definitive statement is the 

National Climate Assessment. The assessment represents the consensus view of 13 Federal agencies and more than 300 experts from 

Federal, state, and local governments, universities, and the private 

sector. The entire 1,500-page report was peer-reviewed by the National Academies. This document represents the zenith of current 

scientific understanding of the dangers of climate change. The report said that climate change will have a startling impact on the 

American economy, costing us hundreds of billions of dollars per 

year by the end of the century. 

I see this happening at home in South Florida as well where 

properties are sinking into the sea, beaches are eroding, and algae 

blooms get worse every few years. It is disappointing but not surprising that President Trump, who has repeatedly demonstrated an 
59 

irrational hostility toward science, disbanded the advisory committee that provides guidance to the Government based on the assessment. 

So Secretary, both Secretaries, do you agree that the National 

Climate Assessment went through a rigorous scientific review process? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes, it did. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Secretary Kerry? 

Mr. KERRY. Yes. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Do you agree the assessment represents a consensus view on the science of climate change? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Mr. KERRY. Yes. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Do you know of any reason why the 

American public should not trust the results of the assessment? 

Mr. HAGEL. No. 

Mr. KERRY. No. I don’t either. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you. Now I chair the Military 

Construction Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee. And 

so I have a very specific understanding how the Department of Defense has been struggling with the consequences of extreme weather, and it’s taking a toll. 

The Air Force is looking for $5 billion to restore Tyndall Air 

Force Base, in my home state of Florida. Offutt Air Force Base, in 

your home state of Nebraska, Mr. Secretary, has been devastated 

by historic flooding along the Missouri River. It drowned a third of 

Offutt under water. Hurricane Michael bulldozed Tyndall Air Force 

Base. The marines need more than $3 billion to restore Camp 

Lejeune after Hurricanes Florence and Michael tore through North 

Carolina. 

Secretary Hagel, you understood the criticality of missions at 

Offutt as secretary, but you also represented the base as a senator, 

and you know better than most what the consequences of record 

flooding there could entail. 

The new U.S. Strategic Command, STRATCOM, headquarters 

was built on higher ground because they were aware of some flood 

risk, albeit probably not the extent that what actually occurred. 

There were levees that were ultimately breached, but those levies 

gave the air force time to prepare for the flood. 

Secretary Hagel, what if someone convinced STRATCOM that 

there was no threat of flooding? What if they were told there was 

no need to build levees or come up with flood evacuation plans? 

What if they built STRATCOM on lower ground in harms way, and 

it was knocked out by the flood? What if someone directed DOD to 

ignore the risk? What would the mission consequences be, and how 

would an incident like that impact our national security? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, reality is reality, and when the base was built 

many, many years ago, and upgraded, and those dikes were built, 

and upgraded, it was anticipation of flooding, not historic. I mean 

it’s biblical—— 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Right. 

Mr. HAGEL [continuing]. proportions. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Right. 
60 

Mr. HAGEL. But it was never intended it would be that bad. But 

they knew, 20 years ago they knew. When I was in the Senate, I 

remember talking then with Defense officials at Offit about the 

possibility of devastating flooding. They weren’t prepared. They 

had dikes built. But what happened this time is something that the 

people out there and in the Pentagon had considered possible with 

the climate change and the environment changing. 

John Kerry said something exactly right on this. The rate of 

change, the rate of destruction that we’re seeing around the world 

in every way, flooding, hurricanes, typhoons, wildfires, we didn’t 

even anticipate even close to that, knowing that we had to anticipate something. 

So we’ve got to factor this into future planning, and build accordingly. Probably what it is going to mean is some bases are going 

to have to be changed, moved, or in some way adjusted, because 

the seriousness of this is not going to go away. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And I know my time has expired, Mr. 

Chairman, but I will just note that all of those provisions that were 

prepared, were prepared based on climate science. 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Actual hard data. Thank you. I yield 

back the balance of my time. And thank you both for your service. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you. 

First of all, Secretary Kerry, I just want to point out something 

that I do not feel was accurate, or at least implied as inaccurate, 

that you said leading off today, particularly with so many children 

around. 

You started off by saying during the cold war no one in public 

would have been taken seriously if they did not offer a policy to 

counter the Soviets. I am old enough to remember a lot of the cold 

war. I am old enough to remember tens of thousands of people 

marching ‘‘Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh,’’ who clearly wanted victory 

for the Atheistic Totalitarians who lived in North Viet Nam. And 

I remember a lot of politicians kowtowing to those people at the 

time, and eventually they kind of got their wish when they 

defunded the war, and we had over a million people die in Cambodia, and all the churches shut down in South Viet Nam. 

And I just think it is something for any of the young people listening here, they ought to look into all of the politicians who seem 

to be on the other side at that time of our history. 

Now I want to talk to you a little bit about being open-minded, 

Secretary Kerry. I mean I am old enough to remember—just as I 

remember people who wanted the United States to lose in Viet 

Nam, I am old enough to remember experts being quoted in Newsweek or Time in the 1970’s about global cooling. 

And at the time we were assured by people who were experts in 

the field that food production was going to go down, and we were 

going to have huge problems because of it by the turn of the century. So when that did not happen, it kind of makes me a little bit 

skeptical, and I don’t always believe everything any, I’ll call them 

global alarmist, says. 

I know that over 20 years ago there were experts before the 

United Nations who talked about if we didn’t do something within 

10 years this global warming thing would be a disaster, and we 
61 

couldn’t turn back from that. That was back in 1989, and those 

global alarmists have since proven to be false. 

I have with me here an article that appeared in the Financial 

Post a couple years ago strongly questioning your 97 percent figure, 

and they say that among the American Meteorological Association 

it is way under that figure. There are all sorts of people who believe that global warming or manmade global warming doesn’t 

exist. 

How much do you, Secretary Kerry, do you ever interact with 

people who don’t share your worldview here, particularly, because 

so many times in the past the alarmists have proven to be wrong? 

Do you ever show up with them? 

I know today we set up a situation which have two likeminded 

people testifying before us, which is very unfortunate. But do you 

ever spend any time dealing with these people who may have a different view than your own, people who maybe predicted all along 

we wouldn’t have a disaster by the year 2000? 

Mr. KERRY. I have spent a lot of time with a lot of people who 

have different points of view on many different issues. I seek them 

out, and I spend time trying to examine my own issues versus 

theirs. Sure. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Have you read articles, you know, that—— 

Mr. KERRY. Yes, I have. And I have talked to many—I have 

talked to, you know, people who allege that climate change isn’t as 

bad as it thinks, and why they think it, and—— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. I encourage you to keep doing it. I encourage our 

chairman to have another hearing in which we are able to bring 

in people who maybe don’t—have another opinion other than yourselves. Like I said, I’d like to put into the record an article in the 

Financial Post that strongly—— 

Mr. KERRY. Let me just say to you, Congressman, I have spent 

now—— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. No. That’s Okay. I only have a limited amount 

of time, and I’d like to yield the rest of my time to my good friend 

from Kentucky, Thomas Massie. 

Mr. MASSIE. Thank you, Mr. Grothman. 

People ask me is the next generation going to be better or worse 

off than our generation. And I think it’s a crazy question. Of 

course, they’re going to be better off, because you’ve got engineers, 

and entrepreneurs, and inventors laboring in a system of free markets, capitalism, and strong intellectual property. And so for politicians to sit here and take credit for solar power is a little bit like 

the rooster taking credit for the sunrise. 

But I think we’re on the verge of, in our lifetimes, we are going 

to have an energy revolution, and it’s going to be because of those 

entrepreneurs. And our job here is not to screw that system up, because if we do, there is going to be suffering. 

I mentioned before that China has installed a lot of solar in the 

past few years. They have capped it now, because there are technological limitations. You put any more on their grid it’s going to destabilize it, and we’re going to be in the same situation soon, and 

that’s why we are waiting on a better battery. Right now it takes 

30 cents a kilowatt hour to put power in and take it back out. Nobody’s going to pay that. 
62 

So that’s what we’re facing now. We need a technological breakthrough. We don’t need another government program, and the free 

market will do that. 

Thank you, I yield back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Gomez. 

Mr. GOMEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I said also, not on just Oversight, but I also said on the Committee of Ways and Means, when it comes to this Administration, 

I notice a reoccurring theme. They view the practice of transparency as a nuisance. Whereas most Americans see transparency 

as essential to our democracy, this Administration responds to 

oversight requests as if they are Presidential harassment. 

So I’m not surprised that I’ve heard reports that the White 

House could structure their proposed climate panel to avoid the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, or FOCA. 

FOCA requires committee meetings and records to be open to the 

public. So if the White House conducts their panel, their climate 

change panel in secrecy, the public would have no idea whether the 

panel was meeting with fossil fuel lobbyists or campaign donors. 

Secretary Hagel, do you agree that any White House committee 

on climate change should be open and transparent? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Mr. GOMEZ. FOCA also requires committee membership to be 

‘‘fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the 

functions to be performed.’’ Avoiding FOCA would make it easier 

for the White House to stock the panel with climate change 

deniers. 

Secretary Hagel, do you think a panel made up entirely of individuals who do not believe in climate change is likely to make any 

meaningful recommendations about climate science or policy? 

Mr. HAGEL. No. 

Mr. GOMEZ. In contrast, the National Climate Assessment was 

developed through a process that was entirely in public view. The 

assessment represents the consensus view of over 300 experts from 

both government and the private sector, and was peer-reviewed by 

the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. 

What’s more, the author conducted a ‘‘series of regional engagement workshops that reach more than 1,000 individuals and over 

40 series.’’ The author also had listening sessions, webinars, and 

public comment periods to receive input from Americans from all 

walks of life. 

Secretary Hagel, based on reporting so far, is it fair to say that 

the proposed White House panel may be far less transparent than 

the National Climate Assessment? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, what we know, but we don’t know anything 

yet. There’s no executive order, as Mr. Jordan has pointed out, so 

we don’t know what we’ve got. 

Mr. GOMEZ. Okay. 

Mr. HAGEL. So it’s all speculation on everyone’s part. 

Mr. GOMEZ. Given that the National Climate Assessment was a 

result of a transparent process, has it already been peer-reviewed 

as a non-transparent White House panel likely to add value? 

Mr. HAGEL. Is it—I’m sorry? 
63 

Mr. GOMEZ. Would the panel add value if it’s not transparent 

and open to the public for review? 

Mr. HAGEL. I don’t believe so, because there will be a question 

of trust and confidence in the panel, the makeup, if it’s not transparent. 

Mr. GOMEZ. And I’m also concerned that the White House climate panel will be no different than the Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy taskforce, which was famously—held secret meetings 

with oil companies, lobbyists, and republican donors. Perhaps, 

unsurprisingly, the Cheney taskforce recommended giving handouts to oil and gas companies. 

Secretary Kerry, should we be concerned that the White House 

climate panel would cater to the oil and gas industry like the Cheney taskforce did? 

Mr. KERRY. Well, I think it is one fair concern. 

Mr. GOMEZ. Doesn’t the public have a right to know who’s on the 

panel and who’s meeting with it, and how they would arrive at 

their conclusions? 

Mr. KERRY. Absolutely. 

Mr. GOMEZ. One of the things I asked to—I was trying to get the 

ranking member to yield to me, because I think a fair request is 

if any panel that’s conducted by this administration should meet 

the FOCA requirements. Do you agree with that statement? 

Mr. KERRY. I do. 

Mr. GOMEZ. And before I end, I just want to kind of make a 

statement. We’ve heard a lot of criticism from our republican colleagues about the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal is a bold 

and ambitious at its goals. It doesn’t really stipulate how to get 

there. But I believe it has to be ambitious. Decades of inaction on 

climate change have put our country in a position where we need 

bold action. 

Just like our Nation’s infrastructure. The more it decays, the 

more it falls apart, the more costly it becomes. We dealt with that 

in California, and we’re paying the price for it. 

If Congress had taken steps years ago when the climate science 

was clear, you know, we would be able to just have incremental 

changes. California started on this path almost 15 years ago. Many 

more years ago actually if you’ve taken, you know, the gas—our 

tail pipe emissions standards, and the like. So being bold is just to 

make up for the lack of urgency that previous administrations, previous Congresses failed to really address this issue. 

So I know there will be a lot more discussion on this topic, but 

I want to just say that we believe that we need to act now for future generations. 

And I thank you, and I yield back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Green. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ranking member, members of the committee. Thanks for the opportunity to share my 

thoughts and pose a few questions to the witnesses. 

And first, let me apologize, if I have any excess emotion over my 

normal level, I just returned from an internment of a special operator over at Arlington who died in Syria. He is from my district. 

I represent Fort Campbell, Kentucky area. 
64 

I think everyone here recognizes that our planet is an amazing 

place, and while we should look at all the climate theories with a 

critical eye, we can all admit that we can harm our planet, and we 

should always cleanup after ourselves, and we should focus ourselves on sustainability, as our farmers have for many years. 

My concern for this briefing is that we are focusing on the wrong 

agency, particularly to address these concerns. And let me explain 

what I mean if I were to ask our witnesses the purposes of the Department of Defense, I assume they would answer it, ‘‘Sir, it is to 

defend our Nation against all enemies and war, and to deter war 

through strength.’’ With that purpose in mind, we could also ask 

the question that is there’s $1 in the budget spent on, say, climate 

research or excessive costs of energy, that is a dollar that is not 

spent on flight training, or tank maintenance, or weapon marksmanship, or ship readiness. 

If I ask that, I’m certain that the witnesses would agree that if 

we spend a DOD dollar on non-warfighting capability, it decreases 

the potential of our warfighting capability. 

Since this hearing is about the national security ramifications of 

climate change, I assume a possible scenario that the witnesses 

might propose or would be concerned about are the potential wars 

that might be started after famine or other natural disasters allegedly caused by climate change. 

But let’s think about what that means. The end result is potentially war. And there’s one department in the U.S. Government 

that exists about determining when those wars, should they happen, shouldn’t we then let them use all of their resources to train 

to deter war, and win it, if necessary. And I say yes. 

I propose some non-hypothetical questions. These are not 

hypotheticals. This is just the current assessment in the opensource information about where our military is. I ask the question 

how many fighter pilots are we short in the United States military. 

It’s not classified. It’s well over 1,000. 

How many ships are we short if we go back to winning the two 

strategies as opposed to the current strategic imperative of one contingency, and deter another contingency? If we go back to winning 

two simultaneously, and if this is such a great crisis that’s going 

to produce those needs for military, we should go back to that two 

scenario—how many ships are we short? Fifty-six. 

What’s the percentage of our combat battalions at the top line of 

readiness? Again, open-source information. Thirty-three percent. 

Thirty-three percent. 

What’s the average age of our aircraft? Twenty-eight years. The 

oldest in the history of the United States. 

Mr. Secretary, let me just tell you, when I went to war in 2003 

and 2004, our force was second to none, and it was honestly an unfair fight. It was just an unfair fight. If we’re preparing for some 

national security crisis second to climate change, it would be an injustice to send American’s sons and daughters to war where they 

did not have the very best equipment, training, and leadership, and 

that costs money. 

In the business world we confront the opportunity costs of our 

decisions every day. To put it bluntly, the Department of Defense 

has one purpose, and that is to kill our enemies. Your use of the 
65 

national security threats surrounding this issue prove my point. 

There are tigers in the world, and we need men and women that 

we train to fight those tigers to be elite at every level. 

Forcing them to spend money, forcing the department to spend 

money on anything but preparations to do their mission has the opportunity costs, and it’s measured in tombstones in Arlington. We 

must not use a single dollar of the Department of Defense budget 

to address the climate change issue. And that is my statement for 

today, period. 

Mr. Chairman, I’d like to yield the remainder of my time to the 

gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Massie—to the ranking member 

then, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Ms. Norton? 

Ms. NORTON. Yes. And I want to speak to the gentleman’s notion 

that no money should be used for our military to combat climate 

change. First, I want to say how grateful I am for this hearing, Mr. 

Chairman. Congress as an institution has failed the American people by failing to do something about what I regard as the most important issue for our country and for the world today. 

I’m pleased that we have a select committee on the climate crisis, 

and that this committee has a new subcommittee on the environment. And I want to directly respond to this notion relating to the 

military with facts and figures that we have to face now. And my 

question really goes to the impact on national security of climate 

change, notwithstanding this administration, and some of my 

friends on the other side. 

The Defense Department itself has issued a report to examine 

the vulnerability of 79 military bases to climate-related events. 

And they issue these sobering results, 36 bases are vulnerable to 

wildfires. Forty-three are vulnerable to drought. Fifty-three of our 

bases face recurrent flooding caused by sea-level rise and storm 

surges. That’s the Defense Department speaking. 

Secretary Hagel, how does the vulnerability of our military bases 

to extreme weather impact national security? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, it’s a centerpiece for national security, because 

not only does it affect the infrastructure, it affects readiness and 

preparation, just as we know from the destruction of Tyndall Air 

Force Base in Florida. Seventeen of our F–22s were damaged, some 

of them significantly damaged. They’re out of the lineup now. Seventeen F–22s are out of the lineup because of the damage during 

that hurricane. 

Readiness affects the bases in North Carolina, Fort Bragg, and 

others, where they can’t train. They’ve got to rebuild. They have to 

shift their people, and their structures, and their readiness, and 

their planning, and move those people to different places. 

And you could go on and on, the differences and the dynamics, 

and the results, and the consequences—— 

Ms. NORTON. That’s very explicit, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. HAGEL. But it is very clear that planning—let me just finish. 

Planning for climate change is not some frivolous waste of time, a 

waste of money. It is essential to our troops and to their wellbeing, 

and the national security of this country. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Secretary. 
66 

It is not coming. It is here. And that is why I cited those base 

statistics. And I want to cite some more, because of the effect on 

several of our military installations. Offutt Air Force Base, in your 

home state, Secretary Hagel, is the headquarters of the U.S. Strategic Command, which is responsible for nuclear weapons already 

hit by climate change. 

Tyndall Air Force Base took a direct hit from Hurricane Michael. 

That was the strongest storm on record of the Florida Panhandle. The Air Force estimates repairs will cost $3 billion. Hurricane 

Florence slammed North Carolina in September to cause massive 

damage to Camp Lejeune. California, the Vandenberg Air Force 

Base has experienced multiple wildfires, including one that delayed 

a satellite launch. 

Secretary Hagel, do you agree that climate change continues to 

change the costs of repairing our military facilities and will increase as we face more climate change? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. What do the armed forces need to do to become 

more resilient to these climate change threats that they’re already 

facing? 

Mr. HAGEL. Well, they have to plan for the reality that we are 

going to have more. And they will be more severe. And that means 

probably having to relocate some bases, especially in Norfolk, for 

example, very vulnerable, our Atlantic Fleet, on the coast. 

But bases within those numbers, those statistics that you cited, 

are all going to have to be looked at and reviewed as to how serious 

it could—more, and probably more disastrous climate change 

events happen, and what would be done to those bases, and what 

would be the consequences if they didn’t do anything, if they didn’t 

move, or change, or dikes, or something. 

So this is reality. This is what they have to plan for. 

Ms. NORTON. Your testimony has been very helpful, and I yield 

back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Cloud. 

Mr. CLOUD. Hello. Thank you for being here, continuing on with 

this, and for the time you’ve taken to be here for this committee. 

Is the world demand for energy growing or shrinking? 

Mr. KERRY. Growing. It will probably double in the next 15, 20 

years. 

Mr. CLOUD. Right. And if the United States were to suddenly 

stop production of fossil fuels, where would the world get its energy? 

Mr. KERRY. Well, nobody is talking, I don’t think—I mean we’re 

not talking about stopping or use fossil fuels. We’re going to use 

fossil fuels, as I said, for some time in the future. 

Mr. CLOUD. Right. 

Mr. KERRY. The question is how, which one, and at what rate are 

we going to transition to try to hit a low carbon, no carbon economy 

by 2050. 

Mr. CLOUD. I appreciate the fact that we need to look at a mixed 

energy portfolio, but there have been proposals out there that suggest that in the next 10, 12 years we need to get rid of fossil fuels. 

Generally speaking, do U.S. companies produce energy cleaner or 

more responsibly than those in developing nations? 
67 

Mr. KERRY. Generally speaking, in developing nations, yes, abso- lutely. We put together a $100 billion fund in the Paris agreement, 

which was supposed to help those countries to leapfrog, so that 

they could develop, create stability, grow, but do so in a responsible 

way. And unfortunately, there’s almost no money in the Green Climate Fund, is at $5 billion. 

Mr. CLOUD. Well, you mentioned that we’re, as you put it, not 

in the game as a Nation. But carbon emissions in the U.S. has decreased by 42 million tons in 2017. So it seems that we’re one of 

the world’s leaders in carbon emission—— 

Mr. KERRY. We were. 2017 was a very good year. And as I mentioned earlier, in 2017, 75 percent of the new electricity that came 

online in the United States came from solar power. That’s good. 

Unfortunately, this year we’re going up again in terms of emissions, as is Europe and other parts of the world. 

So we’ve had a good year. We made some gains. But now we’re 

moving in the wrong direction. 

Mr. CLOUD. It seems to me that we’re maybe moving in the right 

direction in the sense that a lot of our advancements have also 

been in the production of L&G. 

Mr. KERRY. In what? 

Mr. CLOUD. L&G. 

Mr. KERRY. Yes, it has. Yes. 

Mr. CLOUD. And in the sense of, we’re talking about national security today, that if the amazing transition that our Nation is making from an energy-dependent nation to an energy-dominant nation 

is providing our allies and other nations across the world a new 

place to get energy. And to me, that’s a national security win, a big 

national security win 

Mr. KERRY. Absolutely. Congressman, I advocated for energy 

independence for years, and I welcome it. It’s fantastic. It’s a great 

tribute to American ingenuity, to our technology, and people deserve credit for it. 

Natural gas is obviously a critical bridge fuel to help us create 

a virtuous grid, a smart grid, where we’re minimizing our emissions. But, you know, some people are fighting to add coal to that. 

And that would be moving in the wrong direction. 

Mr. CLOUD. Well, some people are also advocating that we get rid 

of fossil fuels in the next 10 years, and—— 

Mr. KERRY. Well, yes. And I don’t think it’s possible to do it in 

the next 10 years, needless to say. But over the next 50 years, 40 

years, next 30 years, we have an incredible capacity to develop new 

fuels. And what we need to do is put enormous resources into mission innovation, enormous into consortium R&D. 

Maybe hydrogen will be a fuel of the future, if we could bring it 

to scale. It’s flammable. It’s got some problems. But if we can bring 

it to scale, it’s possible to do that. Possibly battery storage is going 

to have a massive breakthrough, which would be a gamechanger 

all across the board. 

I have confidence in the future. What I’m afraid of is, as a country, we are not coming together, the Congress, the President, to 

push that future to create the incentives that will help it work. 

I mean why is it that in 2019—— 

Mr. CLOUD. I only have 40 seconds. I’m sorry. 
68 

Mr. KERRY. I’m sorry. Okay. Go ahead. You’ve been very fair. 

Mr. CLOUD. I agree with you that I think technology is the answer. I think the great huge push in something like the Green New 

Deal to shutter the progress we have made in energy, and that 

technological advancement is based on a thriving economy. That’s 

how those advancements are funded, with market principles and 

such. 

And so a diverse portfolio that makes us a world’s leader in energy I do think is the best way to go for national security. I think 

that’s a bipartisan issue. 

We mentioned, you know, the importance of not taking crises and 

looking at them on the merits of the issues. I just ask in the context of national security, it’s been said by our chairman here that 

the debt and the border are manufactured, are fake crises. Do you 

think that those two are real crises or fake crises? 

Mr. KERRY. That the what? 

Mr. CLOUD. Both our debt and the issues going on with the border. 

Mr. KERRY. Our debt? 

Mr. CLOUD. Our debt. 

Mr. KERRY. Yes. 

Mr. CLOUD. And our border. 

Mr. KERRY. I think our—— 

Mr. CLOUD. Are those real or manufactured crises? 

Mr. KERRY [continuing]. debt is increasing, and moving in the 

wrong direction. And we’re going to have an increasing deficit problem, I believe. 

I think we have a problem on the border. I wouldn’t call it a crisis. I think there is an easy way to deal with it in a fair-minded 

way, and we are not being offered an opportunity to do that. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you. Mr. Khanna. 

Mr. KHANNA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary 

Kerry, Secretary Hagel for your service. 

Let me say I actually agree with my friend, Representative Jordan, about the history, that the Green New Deal isn’t a new idea. 

Thomas Friedman wrote a whole column about it in 2007, and 

President Obama adopted part of it in his platform in 2008. I 

know. I served in his administration, far lower level than either of 

you. I was a lowly deputy assistant secretary at Commerce. But I 

was proud of the work. 

And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just came over. She’s introduced 

the Green New Deal with new energy. But she reminded me that 

the Energy Department in the Obama Administration actually 

funded Tesla. And I know Representative Jordan wants to pick on 

the one or two things that didn’t work. 

Let me tell you, in Silicon Valley you’d be going to Kleiner Perkins and saying, ‘‘Well, you invested in all these wrong things. Oh, 

forget that you invested in Google.’’ You know, we at least ought 

to talk about the things that succeeded. 

Now here’s why Tesla matters, and I’d like both of your thoughts 

on this. China, as I understand it, has 50 percent of the market 

on electric vehicles. Fifty percent. And China is going to spend 

$450 billion on clean energy. And China right now has about 20 
69 

percent solar and wind. We are at 10 percent. They’re projected by 

2025 to be 41 percent. 

My question is this: Put aside even whether you believe in climate change or not, let’s talk about a green energy race. Is there 

a single American, in your view, Secretary Kerry or Secretary 

Hagel, democrat, republican, I don’t care what party, who believes 

that America should lose the green energy race to China? 

Mr. KERRY. I hope not. 

Mr. KHANNA. Secretary Hagel? 

Mr. HAGEL. I’d be giving the same answer. I hope not. 

Mr. KHANNA. So let me ask this, and I just want to put in the 

record that the Green New Deal resolution doesn’t say anything 

about getting rid of fossil fuels in 10 years. I certainly don’t think 

10 years is some magical number. 

But if you were going to be president of the United States in 

2020, and Secretary Kerry, of course, you’ve run for president, and 

you were saying that a very simple promise to the American people, by 2024 or 2025, America will beat China when it comes to 

clean technology. That’s it. We’re going to do what it takes. What 

would you recommend that we need to do to make sure that we’re 

ahead of China by 2025? 

Mr. KERRY. Well, first of all, I think it would be very exciting. 

I think that would be our moon shot, so to speak. I think it would 

be one of the great challenges that the American people would respond to, providing it was accompanied by a realistic set of proposals for how we do it, to begin with. 

As I said earlier, a massive commitment to technology R&D, reverse incentives. We ought to be providing incentives for—it has 

been a struggle. We managed to keep them temporarily, at least, 

on solar, wind, et cetera. But electric vehicles, we ought to be doing 

whatever is necessary to try to advance battery storage, battery capacity. That’s going to be critical to leadership in the electric field. 

And there are a number of other incentives, I think we could 

put—energy efficiency. There are huge gains to be made in efficiencies. It’s probably the lowest hanging fruit of the energy choices 

that we face. But R&D is the biggest single piece of this. 

Technology is what is going to do it, and if we put the right incentives in place, money is going to come pouring in from the private sector, because people want to be winners, whatever it’s going 

to be, the next Sergey Brin, the next Bill Gates. That’s what excites 

people’s imagination. And this is the sector we ought to be doing 

it in. 

Mr. KHANNA. Well, let me ask both of you this, a final question, 

because whether people agree or disagree with your particular ideology, I don’t think anyone would question both of your patriotism 

and extraordinary service to the country and national security expertise. 

And if this president is right, that China poses the long-term biggest strategic threat to the United States’ competition, how critical 

do you think it is, from a pure national security perspective, that 

we win the energy race against China to maintain America’s 

weight? 

Secretary Hagel. 
70 

Mr. HAGEL. Thank you. Let me answer the other question, and 

then I’ll get to that question. 

Very simply, in addition to what Secretary Kerry said in answering your first question, smart government and regulatory policy, 

and let the market work. Those are the two big factors. Let the 

market work, because our market does produce better than anybody, and it’s free. We have a nation of laws, the infrastructure, 

but the government and regulatory policy to go with it have to be 

smart. 

Now your second question? 

Mr. KHANNA. How critical is beating China on energy to make 

sure America—— 

Mr. HAGEL. I think it’s absolutely—no question. It’s absolutely 

necessary, essential that this country not lose that race to China, 

because it affects not just this country, but it affects the world. It 

affects other countries and technologies that they will buy and they 

will use. We just can’t afford to give that up. We must lead. 

Mr. KERRY. And while we’re at it, Congressman, it is a very important question, it’s critical that we also face up to the realities 

of what’s happening with cyber. We need to make much more significant effort to create rules of the road in the same way that we 

reigned in the possibilities of nuclear confrontation in the 1950’s, 

1960’s, 1970’s, et cetera. We need to be working for much greater 

restraint with respect to cyber today. It’s as big a threat as any of 

the other security challenges that we face. 

Mr. KHANNA. Thank you. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Gosar. 

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Today’s hearing proves that democrat leadership is tone deaf and 

out of touch with the issues that the American people actually care 

about. A hearing to threats of our national security should be focusing on the ongoing crisis at our Southern border, as opposed to 

the publicity stunt that we see here today. 

In fact, climate change has been changing all through the life of 

this planet. I’ve got a fossil right here from Western Wyoming, a 

desert, that once was under an ocean. 

Now on March 18, more than 125 scientists, climate experts, and 

leaders on energy and environmental issues sent President Trump 

a letter urging him to set up a commission to conduct an independent review of the fourth national climate assessment. Mr. 

Chairman, I ask permission to submit the letter for the record. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. So ordered. 

[The Letter for the Record referred to is available at: 

docs.house.gov.] 

Mr. GOSAR. Now Mr. Chairman, if the democrats are so confident 

that their fundamentally flawed report, written mostly by career 

bureaucrats under the Obama Administration, why are you opposed to having the science analyzed, and the report independently 

reviewed by a commission? If the science from the report is factual, 

then it should hold up under independent review, correct? But we 

all know the report was bogus, that it utilized computer models 

that predicted excessive warming, and negative impacts associated 
71 

with increased warming were derived from highly unrealistic scenarios that surface temperature data was also manipulated. 

In fact, we’re spending, as proposed by the Green New Deal, $93 

trillion. You think you’d want to explore everything under the sun 

to make sure that it was right. 

Now I’m pleased that Representative Cortez actually showed up 

today. We actually had an opportunity with the Western Caucus 

for her to actually have a discussion with it. She initially RSVP’d, 

and then backed out a day before. 

Now for decades alarmists have been using scare tactics and 

false science to push environmental agendas. The Green New Deal 

is no more than rhetoric and the false narratives. On December 13, 

2009, former president candidate Al Gore citing so-called scientific 

reports predicted there was a 75 percent chance that the entire 

north polar ice cap could be completely ice free in five years. 

Mr. Kerry, is there any ice on the Arctic Cap today? 

Mr. KERRY. Yes, there is, but it’s—— 

Mr. GOSAR. What it basically shows is there’s flaws to predictability, and that’s what I’m pointing out. 

Now according to the think tank data progress, the Green New 

Deal will ban plastic straws. Mr. Kerry, do you ban the use of plastic straws in America? 

Mr. KERRY. Do we what? 

Mr. GOSAR. Do you support banning plastic straws in America? 

Mr. KERRY. I think it would be great to find a way to move on 

to a biodegradable straw, frankly. Yes, we should try. 

Mr. GOSAR. Especially if they were nutritious. 

Secretary Hagel, you testified that you supported the Paris climate agreement in 2015. The U.S. was the world leader in carbon 

emissions reductions not just in 2017, but 2016 and 2015. 

Further, from 2005 to 2017, the U.S. cut 62 million tons, a 14 

percent decline. Over the same period, global emissions increased 

by 26 percent, and China increased its emissions by 4 billion tons. 

And India increased its carbon dioxide emissions by 1.3 billion 

tons, with a B, a 70 percent increase. 

Now I heard in the discussion earlier that we were going to 

incentivize people. Are we really going to incentivize India and 

China for best behavior? Really? 

Now with an estimated price tag of $93 trillion over the first 10 

years, Admiral Mullen said that our debt is our biggest national security problem. At 93 trillion, that is even going to be worse. So 

we better get this right. 

Now the democrat socialists pushing the Green New Deal want 

to get rid of all energy sources, as quoted, except for wind, solar, 

and batteries by 2030. 

Mr. Kerry, how are we going to do that when wind and solar only 

produced 8.2 percent of our electric currently? And the reason why 

they’re so far ahead of us in electric is they control this, they have 

a monopoly on rare earths. Where’s the incentivization right here? 

This isn’t a real plan, because we don’t see that. This comes from 

the Mojave Desert out in Arizona. It’s all over the desert. Yet, we 

have no ambition, whatsoever. We are anti-mining on the other 

side. We don’t want to do any of this. So how are we going to do 
72 

that when we allow China to be the monopoly? Batteries are the 

problem. 

Mr. Chairman, you know, I’d love to see the debate. That’s how 

we actually discovered that the earth was not flat. We actually had 

people that said it was different, and they sailed to the far reaches, 

and found out that there was a planet. It was round. 

And I yield back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Steube. 

Mr. STEUBE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary, Mr. Secretary, my questions are for Secretary Kerry. 

I just want to kind of drill down on, you know, we had a lot of 

discussion today about the Green New Deal, which would move 

America to 100 percent clean and renewable energy in 10 years. 

You had stated that you want zero carbon emissions by 2050. 

Mr. KERRY. Net. Zero net. 

Mr. STEUBE. Zero net. 2050. 

Mr. KERRY. Net means that you would have carbon in certain 

places, but you’d have offsets against it, so that you are net at zero. 

I know we can’t do zero—I understand that. I’ve made that clear 

in my testimony, and I made it clear, certainly, with respect to the 

10 years. But that is what scientists tell us we must achieve in 

order to have a balance globally with respect to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

Mr. STEUBE. So I guess I’d like to ask if you were still in the U.S. 

Senate, then would you have voted against the Green New Deal if 

it were brought up for a vote. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, I’m not going to get—I learned long ago in the 

Senate not to do hypotheticals. And I’m not in the Senate, and I’m 

not voting, happily. 

But what I would say is this, that I know the difference, after 

28 years in the Senate, between a serious effort to try to legislate 

something, and a political game that’s going on. 

We just had a five-minute presentation about all the reasons we 

can’t do this or that without any legitimate, you know, question or 

dialog. I understand how it’s played. But the fact is—— 

Mr. STEUBE. I’m asking you a question right now. I’m having a 

dialog. I’m asking you if you would vote for it. And I’ll—— 

Mr. KERRY. No. Where was the dialog? 

Mr. STEUBE. How about this? I won’t give you a hypothetical. 

Mr. KERRY. Okay. 

Mr. STEUBE. Do you support moving America to 100 percent 

clean or renewable energy in 10 years? 

Mr. KERRY. It’s a wonderful ambition to have. I don’t think you 

can quite pull that off, given where we are. But I applaud the ambition. I applaud the notion that this is a serious issue, and we 

need to be dealing with it. And I would love to see what, you know, 

everybody else is proposing as an alternative, or as a better way 

of doing it. 

That’s how we used to legislate here. We’d get together. We’d 

work on the legislation. We’d come up with something. It wasn’t 

perfect. Neither side loved it, which is usually a good piece of legislation. That doesn’t seem to happen now. 
73 

Mr. STEUBE. Well, I agree with you. I haven’t had a conversation 

with the other side, nor have they approached me to work with on 

issues. 

You had said that it would take enormous resources. In Ms. 

Cortez’s fact sheet it says massive investment. Like, what type of 

dollars would you expect to make this transition to a 100 percent 

clean and renewable energy? 

Mr. KERRY. Well, it depends over what period of time you’re talking about. 

Mr. STEUBE. Well, hers is 10 years. And the facts say 35 trillion to $70 trillion. 

Mr. KERRY. There are estimates. 

Mr. STEUBE. My question to you would be, is: How are we as 

Americans going to pay for this transition to no fossil fuels? 

Mr. KERRY. Well, we make choices all the time legislating around 

here in the budget. If this is, indeed, a national security crisis, 

which I hope a consensus will finally agree on at some point in 

time, and people are dying today, and billions of dollars of property 

damage are occurring today, and the vast majority of scientific evidence is indicating that if we don’t take steps, we’re going to pay 

a lot more, in the high trillions. If we have a .5-degree increase in 

the earth’s temperature in the next 12 years, it could cost us, I am 

told, $54 trillion. If we go up to two degrees, it could cost us 69 

trillion. 

Mr. STEUBE. Well, I haven’t seen anything that—— 

Mr. KERRY. You better start making a judgment about what 

we’re prepared to invest in to avoid catastrophe and avoid these 

large expenses—— 

Mr. STEUBE. I just don’t see how you’re going to pay for $70 trillion when we have $22 trillion in debts, and all the other problems 

that we have in our country right now. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, we’re the richest country on the face of the 

planet, and we have to begin to decide what we’re going to invest 

in that is important or not. We can bend the cost curve in 

healthcare, believe me, in big ways. We’re spending more money 

than any other country in the world on healthcare, and we get 

worse results than about 26 other nations. We could make that better. 

We could gain some ability to put some money into other things. 

Infrastructure can pay for itself in many different ways. 

Mr. STEUBE. Well, I do not see how any of these natural disasters are directly scientifically related to climate change. I represent 

the state of Florida, and we—— 

Mr. KERRY. Well, I am sorry you do not, but—— 

Mr. STEUBE. Irma came through my backyard, in fact. We were 

without power for a week. We had hurricanes—— 

Mr. KERRY. Well, scientists—— 

Mr. STEUBE. I remember growing up and having hurricanes in 

the state of Florida. 

Mr. KERRY. And I experienced them as a kid. 

Mr. STEUBE. I am the one with my time here. I do not see any 

scientific evidence that says that because we had Hurricane Irma 

that came through my district and devastated the citrus growers 

in my district, that that is related to half a millimeter, half a rise 
74 

in the ocean’s rise or a degree change in the climate from last year, 

and I do not see that. 

With that I would yield—well, I am out of my time. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. KERRY. The evidence is, and scientists will back this up, that 

because the oceans are warming at a rate 40 percent faster than 

they were—40 percent faster than any time recorded previously, 

there is increased moisture that is going into storms because of the 

warming—— 

Mr. STEUBE. So how would us curbing our CO2 emissions, when 

China and India are not doing anything to curb theirs, make any 

difference globally? 

Mr. KERRY. Actually, that is a legitimate complaint. If others do 

not also reduce, we are all cooked. The question is who is going to 

lead? Who is going to step up and show how this can happen? 

Mr. STEUBE. We are leading. Ours have gone down over the last 

several years. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, I am not—— 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Roy, your time is running. 

Mr. Roy? 

Mr. ROY. Okay, starting out. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am going to yield for 30 seconds to my friend from Kentucky. 

Mr. MASSIE. I have a quick question that does apply to national 

security and foreign policy and relates to energy. Germany earlier 

this year announced they are going to phaseout all of their coal 

production. Is that not really a commitment to Putin and to Russia? Because, as you mentioned, Secretary Kerry, they have to have 

those peak plants, they have to have natural gas, and unless the 

American taxpayer is ready to subsidize gas companies in the 

United States to export that to Germany, really Germany is going 

to be more dependent on Russia. And I do believe you are qualified 

also, Secretary Hagel. You are both qualified to answer that question. 

Mr. KERRY. That is true, and it is a concern, and that is why we 

oppose the Nord Stream Pipeline. We thought it was a mistake and 

we were concerned about the security implications. 

Mr. ROY. Secretary Hagel, do you want to quickly respond? 

Mr. HAGEL. Yes. I would not add anything to John’s comment. 

The only thing I would say is what John’s last point was. We have 

opposed this, and we have been working with the Germans trying 

to explain to them what is down the road here if you make yourself 

dependent that way on Russia. 

Mr. MASSIE. That is just the downstream consequence of their 

commitment to reducing CO2, and it is geopolitically unstable. 

Mr. ROY. I appreciate that. And thank you for being here, Secretary Kerry, Secretary Hagel. I apologize for being a little bit late. 

I took my dad, a Texas Tech alum, to Minneapolis last night, which 

would seem like a magnanimous gesture for a son to his father, except that I went to the University of Virginia. So we had a nice 

family experience last night. But I appreciate you all’s time here 

today. 

I would have liked to have been here a little bit more, and I will 

followup with some questions. I just wanted to followup on the 

question of could you be more specific about the timing at which 
75 

you think the earth is at a particular level of risk based on the current trajectory? I would like just a quick answer. 

Mr. KERRY. Well, I base my judgment on the science. I am not 

a scientist but I have read as much as I can, studied it, worked 

with a lot of people, and my judgment is that if the scientists are 

telling us that you have 12 years within which to try to prevent 

the 0.5 additional degrees of warming, to bring us to 1.5, we want 

to try to avoid it. Is that going to be the end of the earth? No. But 

it is going to be profound changes in how we live on earth, and in 

crises, and that will take us up closer to the 2 degrees. 

The problem we have is right now we are on track to hit four 

or 4.5 degrees. That is unlivable. That is a different world from 

anything we have imagined. 

Mr. ROY. Reclaiming my time, let me ask this question. If that 

is as apocalyptic as some make it out to be, then do you support 

moving to a full nuclear strategy in order to avoid emissions? 

Mr. KERRY. A full what? 

Mr. ROY. Nuclear strategy. 

Mr. KERRY. I think it has to be one of the options, and I have 

advocated for fourth-generation modular and for some more R&D. 

I think there ought to be a government effort to try to help re-kindle the pipeline. One of the reasons nuclear is so expensive today, 

and in the program we have down in Carolina and Georgia, is that 

it is a one-off. Everything is a one-off, so it drives the prices up. 

Mr. ROY. If I could just—— 

Mr. KERRY. It has to be part of the menu. 

Mr. ROY. Okay, good to hear, and I am glad to hear that. 

Do you also agree that moving to clean-burning natural gas is a 

step in the right direction, and that the emissions that we are reducing in the United States, that that is a benefit to the country—— 

Mr. KERRY. Absolutely. 

Mr. ROY [continuing]. and liquefied natural gas being distributed 

around the world is beneficial both geopolitically for the United 

States and the world, and for the emissions that would go off in 

the atmosphere? 

Mr. KERRY. Absolutely. 

Mr. ROY. That is good. 

Do you also agree that the benefit to the world of abundant, 

clean energy is particularly important when we have upwards of 1 

to 2 billion, depending on how you define it, people around the 

world who do not have access to the kind of power and resources 

and quality of life that we have? Would we agree to that? 

Mr. KERRY. Sure. 

Mr. ROY. And would we agree that you have life expectancies 

around the world that have risen dramatically where reliable access to energy has increased? 

Mr. KERRY. Yes. 

Mr. ROY. Right? And would we think it is probably immoral to 

deny Third World countries access to a better standard of living if 

we were to adopt policies that might negatively impact countries 

that do not have our standard of living by denying them access to 

power if we are perpetuating policies that would prohibit that access to power? 
76 

Mr. KERRY. I would just change your formulation slightly. I believe it is important to get power, but it is important to get the 

right kind of power in the right mix with respect to that particular 

country so that you are not doing them worse downstream harm 

or contributing to the larger problem. 

Mr. ROY. I understand that, and I will finish with this, Mr. 

Chairman, my last question, which is just to say I happen to believe that the world has been extraordinarily made better by the 

abundant availability of fossil fuel energy in terms of the quality 

of life, in terms of hospitals that are powered, in terms of the tools 

and resources that we use, in terms of access to power to warm 

houses, air conditioning in the summer, in terms of life-saving technologies, babies being on incubators that are powered instead of 

bags like you have in certain countries around the world, and I 

would just suggest that we do not want to be following the line— 

and I will wrap up right now, Mr. Chairman—of Europe, where 

you have 54 million people choosing between heating and eating 

because of prices increasing, because of policies that I think could 

be harmful. So I think that should be a part of our discussion. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. No problem. 

I want to thank you all for your testimony today. You have given 

us four hours of your life. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman CUMMINGS. And I do not say that lightly. 

Mr. KERRY. It has been a life-changing experience, Mr. Chairman. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman CUMMINGS. But the fact is that you are here because 

you care about somebody other than yourselves. That is what this 

is all about. You are looking far into the future. Like I said, when 

we are dancing with the angels, hopefully the world will have benefited from what you are doing. I honestly and deeply appreciate 

what you are doing, and I encourage you to continue to do what 

you are doing. I had hope that our hearing would not be whether 

we had a problem—we have one—but how we would go about solving it. 

I do believe that minds will be opened, that we will get this done, 

because we have no choice, and that is my opinion. 

With that, I would like to again thank you all. 

Let the record show that, without objection, all members will 

have five legislative days within which to submit additional written 

questions for the witnesses to the Chair, which will be forwarded 

to the witnesses for their response. 

I ask our witnesses to please respond promptly, as you are able 

to. 

Just one last thing. I think it was Mr. Gosar who made a comment with regard to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. He said that she rarely 

shows up, or something to that effect. I just want to correct the 

record. I have been here for every minute of every hearing, and she 

probably has the best attendance of any member. So I just wanted 

to put that on the record. 

Mr. ROY. I would concur, Mr. Chairman. I have seen our colleague from New York here regularly, so I agree with that. 
77 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Big time. 

All right. We are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:10 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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