CLIMATE SCIENCE AND EPA’S 

GREENHOUSE GAS REGULATIONS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 8, 2011 

Serial No. 112–16 

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CLIMATE SCIENCE AND EPA’S 

GREENHOUSE GAS REGULATIONS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 8, 2011 

Serial No. 112–16 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

Chairman 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Chairman Emeritus 

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

MARY BONO MACK, California 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina 

Vice Chairman 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California 

CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

Ranking Member 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

(II) 

(III) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

Chairman 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

Vice Chairman 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio) 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

Ranking Member 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California (ex officio) 

(V) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Ed Whitfield, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth 

of Kentucky, opening statement ......................................................................... 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 3 

Hon. Bobby L. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, opening statement ....................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 5 

Hon. Michael C. Burgess, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas, opening statement .................................................................................... 6 

Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 202 

WITNESSES

Richard Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Scripps Institution of 

Oceanography ....................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 12 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 399 

John R. Christy, Director, Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama ...................................................................................................................... 54 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 56 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 407 

Christopher B. Field, Director, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington ........................................................................................... 78 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 80 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 416 

Roger Pielke, Sr., Senior Research Scientist, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder ........... 89 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 92 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 419 

Francis W. Zwiers, Director, Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium, University 

of Victoria ............................................................................................................. 102 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 104 

Answers to submitted questions /1/ .................................................................

Knute Nadelhoffer, Director, University of Michigan Biological Station, University of Michigan .............................................................................................. 119 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 121 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 423 

Donald Roberts, Professor Emeritus, Uniformed Services, University of the 

Health Sciences .................................................................................................... 135 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 137 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 429 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Letter of February 9, 2011, by 1,800 doctors, submitted by Mr. Inslee .............. 203 

Centers for Disease Control, statement ................................................................. 221 

Letter of May 7, 2010, by 250 climate scientists, submitted by Mr. Inslee ........ 223 

Letter of February 2011, by 2,505 scientists, submittted by Mr. Inslee ............. 230 

Statement of 18 scientific societies, including AAAS, submitted by Mr. Rush .. 339 

Report entitled ‘‘The US Economic Impacts of Climated Change and the 

Costs of Inaction,’’ by the Center for Integrative Environmental Research 

at the University of Maryland, submitted by Mr. Rush ................................... 342 

Letter of October 11, 2009, scientists and universitites of Wisconsin ................. 394 

1 Dr. Zwiers declined to answer the submitted questions for the record. 

(1) 

CLIMATE SCIENCE AND EPA’S GREENHOUSE 

GAS REGULATIONS 

THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed Whitfield (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Whitfield, Terry, Burgess, Scalise, 

McMorris Rodgers, McKinley, Gardner, Griffith, Rush, Inslee, and 

Waxman (ex officio). 

Staff Present: Michael Beckerman, Deputy Staff Director; 

Maryam Brown, Chief Counsel, Energy and Power; Ben Lieberman, 

Counsel, Energy & Power; Dave McCarthy, Chief Counsel, Environment/Economy; Gib Mullan, Chief Counsel, CMT; Mary 

Neumayr, Counsel, Oversight/Energy; Sean Bonyun, Deputy Communications Director; Andrew Powaleny, Press Assistant; Peter 

Spencer, Professional Staff Member, Oversight; Phil Barnett, Minority Staff Director; Greg Dotson, Minority Energy and Environment Staff Director; Jeff Baran, Minority Senior Counsel; Alexandria Teitz, Minority Senior Counsel, Environment and Energy; 

Karen Lightfoot, Minority Communications Director and Senior 

Policy Advisor; and Caitlin Haberman, Minority Policy Analyst. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ED WHITFIELD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY 

Mr. WHITFIELD. We will call the meeting to order. And I want 

to thank our panel of witnesses. We appreciate your being here this 

morning very much. And of course, the title of today’s hearing is 

Climate Science and the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Regulations. 

This is our third hearing on the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 

2011. The first two focused on the adverse impact that the Environmental Protection Agency’s global warming regulatory agenda 

would have on jobs and the economy in America. We could have 

had other hearings on that as well, but we decided today to focus 

on the science. 

I might say that I only brought one of my many books that questions global warming and the science on global warming. I am delighted to see that at least one member brought a number of books. 

I couldn’t get all mine in the car. Anyway, that is the reason we 

have these hearings, to hear both sides of the issue. 

2 

I might say also that we have had 24 hearings in the House of 

Representatives over the past 4 years relating to the science for climate change and/or global warming. One thing that really stuck 

out to me is that these computer models seem to have difficulty 

making seasonal or yearly forecasts and they certainly, according 

to many scientists, have great difficulty trying to forecast 100 years 

down the road. 

Science serves to inform us about the nature of a problem. And 

I look forward to listening to the presentation of all our witnesses 

today. But whether one thinks that science tells us that global 

warming is a serious problem, which some scientists do, a minor 

problem which some scientists do, or hardly a problem at all, which 

some scientists do, the real question before this committee is 

whether EPA’s regulations under the Clean Air Act are a wise solution to the problem. And, in my view, clearly they are not. 

In fact, one need not be a skeptic of global warming to be a skeptic of EPA’s regulatory agenda. Case in point is EPA Administrator 

Lisa Jackson, and she warned us about how complex and costly 

greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean Air Act would be. 

Now, of course that was in 2009 and 2010, when the administration was trying to pass through Congress a cap-and-trade bill. It 

is only now that the cap-and-trade legislation was not adopted in 

the Congress that the administrator has changed her tune and emphasizes how reasonable and workable these rules would be. 

I might also say that Administrator Jackson in testimony just a 

few weeks ago conceded that unilateral action by EPA would not 

make much of a difference, especially given the fact that China 

emits more greenhouse gases than the U.S., and its rate of emissions increases has become many times larger than ours in recent 

years. In fact, many people might be interested in knowing that 

carbon emissions actually fell 6 percent in 2009 in the United 

States, and China was responsible for 24 percent of global carbon 

emissions during that same year. 

Of course, the rhetoric coming from the White House is that the 

sky is falling and carbon emissions are going through the roof. 

The number one reason for the reduction in carbon emissions is 

the downturn in our economy. So it is pretty obvious that these 

greenhouse regulations will have a major impact on our economy, 

mainly because we don’t yet have an available technology to control 

carbon emissions on a commercial scale. 

Thus far, only one global warming rule has been analyzed by 

EPA, and that is, the new motor vehicle standards. The Agency estimated that, as a result of that, they would be able to reduce the 

earth’s future temperature by almost 1⁄100th of a degree by the year 

2100. Not much progress. I want you to keep that in mind, however, when you hear about these scary global scenarios. 

Even if you believe every word of them, the Agency rules are no 

solution. In fact, they are counterproductive, because these unilateral regulations would impose an unfair disadvantage on domestic 

manufacturers and chase some of our manufacturing jobs to nations like China that have no such restrictions in place and no 

plans to institute them. Manufacturing jobs would go overseas to 

countries whose emissions per unit output are considerably higher. 

3 

There is no question EPA rules are bad economic policy, but they 

may very well also be bad environmental policy. 

The Energy Tax Prevention Act, far from being an attack on 

global warming science, as some have suggested, is, in fact, a repudiation of a regulatory scheme that will harm the American economy and destroy jobs. It is also a repudiation of the attempt by 

unelected bureaucrats in government to bypass the will of Congress. Congress has spoken on this issue three specific times and 

each time has said no. 

H.R. 910 is not about global science. It is about stopping regulation certain to do more harm than good, regardless of how one interprets the science. It is about a dangerous and job-destroying attempt to transform the economy in ways that Congress has repeatedly rejected. 

As I said, we look forward to your testimony. At this time, I recognize the gentleman from Illinois for 5 minutes for his opening 

statement. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Whitfield follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. ED WHITFIELD

•This is our third hearing on the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011. 

•The first two focused on the adverse impact that the Environmental Protection 

Agency’s global warming regulatory agenda would have on jobs and the economy. 

At both hearings, several supporters of EPA’s regulations wanted to change the subject and talk about global warming science instead. I don’t really blame them, given 

what we are learning about the harm these regulations would do to domestic manufacturing, energy production, small business, farming, and other job creating sectors. And from a Kentucky perspective, what I learned about these regulations and 

what they would do to coal mining jobs and to those who rely upon coal-fired electricity was particularly worrisome. 

• We could probably have another hearing on the economic impacts, as we still 

have not heard from some of the many job creating sectors that consider EPA’s global warming agenda to be one of if not the biggest regulatory threat they face. But 

the minority wanted a separate science hearing and we have agreed to their request. 

• In my view, holding yet another science hearing is rather excessive, given that 

we have had 24 such hearings in the House of Representatives over the past 4 

years. But I suppose some on this committee have already read those 24 hearing 

reports from cover to cover, and need additional information. In any event, I am 

pleased to have this diverse scientific panel today. 

• Science serves to inform us about the nature of a problem, and I look forward 

to listening to the presentations that follow. But whether one thinks the science 

tells us that global warming is a serious problem, a minor problem, or hardly a 

problem at all, the real question before this committee is whether EPA’s regulations 

are a wise solution to that problem. Clearly they are not. 

• In fact, one need not be a skeptic of global warming to be a skeptic of EPA’s 

regulatory agenda. No less an authority than EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson 

warned about how complex and costly greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean 

Air Act would be. Of course, that was in 2009 and 2010 when the administration 

was trying to scare Congress in to enacting cap and trade legislation as the preferred option. It is only now that cap and trade is dead that the Administrator has 

changed her tune and emphasizes how reasonable and workable these rules will be. 

• In addition, Administrator Jackson has conceded that unilateral action by EPA 

would not make much difference, especially given the fact that China emits more 

greenhouse gases than the US and its rate of emissions increases has been many 

times larger than ours in recent years. 

•Thus far, only one global warming rule had been analyzed by EPA, the new 

motor vehicle standards. The agency has estimate that it will reduce the earth’s future temperature by about one one-hundredth of a degree by the year 2100. 

• Keep that in mind when you hear about these scary global warming scenarios. 

Even if you choose to believe every word of them, the agency’s rules are no solution. 

In fact, they are counterproductive, because these unilateral regulations would imVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:50 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 112\112-16 030811\112-16 CHRIS
4 

pose an unfair disadvantage on domestic manufacturers, and chase some of those 

manufacturing jobs to nations like China that have no such restrictions in place and 

no plans to institute them. Manufacturing jobs would go overseas to countries whose 

emissions per unit output are considerably higher. There’s no question EPA’s rules 

are bad economic policy, but they may very well also be bad environmental policy. 

•The Energy Tax Prevention Act, far from being an attack on global warming 

science as some have suggested, is in fact a repudiation of a regulatory scheme that 

will only succeed in harming the American economy and destroying jobs. It is also 

a repudiation of the attempt by unelected bureaucrats to bypass the will of Congress. 

• HR 910 is not about global warming science, it is about stopping regulations certain to do more harm than good, regardless of how one interprets the science. It is 

about a dangerous and job destroying attempt to transform the economy in ways 

Congress has repeatedly rejected. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOBBY L. RUSH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Mr. RUSH. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I must also 

commend you for allowing us to hold this very important hearing 

today. Mr. Waxman and I, as well as our colleagues on this side 

of the aisle, were adamant in requesting that this hearing be held 

because we believe this subcommittee would be doing a disservice 

to all of our constituents as well as to the entire committee process 

if we were to proceed to marking up the Upton-Inhofe bill, which 

would repeal EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases, without 

first hearing from actual scientists about what the scientific evidence says regarding greenhouse gas emissions and their efforts 

and their effects on both climate change and the overall public 

health. 

Let us make no mistake about it. With respect to all of the witnesses that we will hear from today, that there is really no widespread debate among the scientific community on whether greenhouse gases contribute to climate change. 

Mr. Chairman, I must note that it seems, though, from your 

opening statement, you are coming over to our side of the issue. On 

the one side, you have over 95 percent of respected scientists and 

scientific organizations worldwide, I might add, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, as well as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

All of these organizations are in agreement that man-made greenhouse gases do contribute to climate change, and these impacts can 

be mitigated through policy to curb these emissions. 

On the other side, you have a very small, less than 5 percent, 

of the scientists in the community, who range from straight-out climate change denial to those who would dispute the certainty that 

the claims that human behavior is contributing to climate change. 

I recognize that there is a real fear out there by those who believe the EPA’s attempt to regulate greenhouse gases, even if it 

were only by the largest emitter, would lead to job loss in some 

very important sectors of our economy. 

I represent Illinois, which is one of the largest coal States in the 

country, and I recognize that any policy regulating greenhouse 

gases will have a real consequence on the jobs and the economy in 

my State. And I sincerely believe, because the science tells me so, 

5 

that these gases must be regulated because they have a serious 

and costly impact on somebody’s health in my State and around 

the country. And as we look out for those people across this Nation 

that are being affected by the pollution associated with greenhouse 

gases, then we must find a way to sensibly address this issue in 

a balanced and in a measured way. For me, the cost of doing nothing outweighs the cost of action, because the science tells us that 

we cannot keep living by the status quo. 

I believe we can enact sensible measures that will both protect 

the public’s health and create new jobs so that we are not making 

our citizens choose between clean air to breathe and jobs to feed 

their families. 

Mr. Waxman and I sent a letter to you dated September 17, Mr. 

Chairman, asking you work with us in drafting clean energy standards so we can move our Nation forward in creating new energy 

jobs and technologies that will put people to work, clean our air, 

and keep America on the forefront of the environmental protection 

industry, an industry that was projected to reach $700 billion last 

year. 

Initially, Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to work with you on 

the clean coal industry, such as expanding programs like the Future Gen project which just began operation in Morgan County, Illinois; and hopefully we will provide answers on whether coal demonstration can be expanded for commercial use. So I ask you, Mr. 

Chairman, and all my Republican colleagues, to remember to listen 

to what the science is telling us, and let’s work together to move 

this country forward by creating a clean energy standard by working to promote clean coal initiatives, and by showing the American 

people that we can be serious about finding solutions and that we 

are not just here for political infighting and scorekeeping. 

Mr. Chairman, I have here something that I think is very telling 

and a demonstration in fact. It comes from the USA Today. And 

the cartoon states: ‘‘What if it is a big hoax and we create a better 

world for nothing?’’ But what would we be creating? Energy independence, preserve rainforests, sustainability, green jobs, liveable 

cities, renewables, clean air, clean water, healthy children, et 

cetera, et cetera. 

So, Mr. Chairman, even if it is a big hoax, it is a hoax that will 

provide many, many benefits for the American people. But I do believe that this is not a hoax. This is the real deal. The science says 

so and the scientists say so. 

Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of 

my time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rush follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. BOBBY L. RUSH

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I must also commend you for allowing us to hold 

this very important hearing today. 

Mr. Waxman and I, as well as all our colleagues on this side of aisle, were adamant in requesting this hearing because we believe this subcommittee would be 

doing a disservice to all of our constituents, as well as to the entire committee process, if we were to proceed to marking up the Upton-Inhofe bill, which would repeal 

EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases, without hearing from actual scientists 

about what the scientific evidence says regarding greenhouse gas emissions and 

their effects on both climate change and the overall public health. 

6 

Let us make no mistake about it, with respect to all of the witnesses that we will 

hear from today, there really is no widespread debate among the scientific community on whether greenhouse gases contribute to climate change. 

On the one side you have over 95% of respected scientists and scientific organizations, worldwide, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, as well as 

the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, all in agreement that man-made 

greenhouse gases do contribute to climate change, and these impacts can be mitigated through policy to curb these emissions. 

And on the other side you have a very small group, less than 5% of the scientific 

community, who range from straight-out climate change deniers to those who would 

dispute the certainty of the claims that human behavior is contributing to climate 

change. 

I recognize that there is real fear out there by those who believe that EPA’s attempt to regulate greenhouse gases, even if it is by only the largest emitters, will 

lead to job loss in some very important sectors in our economy. 

I represent Illinois, which is one the largest coal states in the country, and I recognize that any policy regulating greenhouse gases will have real consequences on 

jobs and the economy in my state. 

But I sincerely believe, because the science tells me so, that these gases must be 

regulated because they have a serious and costly impact on public health, in my 

state and around the country. 

And it is our duty to look out for those people across the country, who are being 

affected by the pollution associated with greenhouse gases, and we must find a way 

to sensibly address this issue in a balanced and measured approach. 

For me, the cost of doing nothing outweighs the cost of action because the science 

tells us that we cannot keep living by the status quo. 

I believe we can enact sensible measures that will both protect the public health 

and help create new jobs so that we are not making our citizens choose between 

clean air to breathe and jobs to feed their families. 

Mr. Waxman and I sent a letter to you dated February 7th, Mr. Chairman, asking 

you to work with us in drafting a clean energy standard, so that we can move our 

country forward in creating new energy jobs and technologies that would put people 

to work, clean our air, and also keep America on the forefront of the environmental 

protection industry, an industry that was projected to reach $700 billion last year. 

Additionally, I would be happy to work with you, Mr. Chairman, on a clean coal 

initiative, such as expanding programs like the FutureGen project, which just began 

operations in Morgan County, IL, and hopefully, will provide answers to whether 

coal sequestration can be expanded for commercial use. 

As this USA Today poster here highlights: there are so many more benefits in acting to address climate change, as the science tells us we must do, including energy 

independence, sustainability, cleaner air and water, and a healthier populace, to 

name a few, than living with the status quo and hoping beyond hope that the majority of the world’s scientists are just wrong. 

So I ask you, Mr. Chairman, and all of my Republican colleagues, to listen to 

what the science is telling us and let’s work together to move this country forward 

by creating a clean energy standard, by working to promote clean coal initiatives, 

and by showing the American people that we can be serious about finding solutions 

and that we’re not just here for political infighting and scorekeeping. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and with that I yield back my time. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Rush. 

At this time, I recognize for 5 minutes the gentleman from 

Texas, Mr. Burgess. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL C. BURGESS, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the chairman for calling the hearing. I 

want to thank the witnesses for being here with us today. It is likely to be a very lively discussion. And some of you we have seen before, some of you this will be your first time here. So we are all 

looking forward to it. 

The science is important. We talk a lot of times about the consensus from the International Panel on Climate Change at the 

7 

U.N., but science by consensus is fraught with some danger, and 

certainly Copernicus and Galileo, if they were still living, could testify to that effect. 

My opinion, for what it is worth, is that the science behind global 

temperature changes is not settled. And the fact that we have this 

panel of experts in front of us today, who, I suspect at some point, 

will disagree with each other, is indicative of that. 

Now, I do know this. We have had these hearings before, going 

back a number of years. In 2008, we saw very, very high energy 

prices, and those were the harbinger of a very significant economic 

collapse. As a consequence, carbon emissions in this country went 

down; but I don’t want to do that again. And energy prices are on 

the way back up. We have done nothing in the meantime to protect 

the American people from the effect of those high energy prices. 

And I rather expect, if past is prelude, we may see yet another reduction in carbon emissions, but it will be brought because of another jolt through the American economy. 

And the Administrator of the EPA, in fact, has testified to this 

effect. If Administrator Jackson’s efforts are successful and if we 

were to ever pass Waxman-Markey and those efforts were to be 

successful, how do we do this by ourselves when it is, in fact, a 

global climate change that we are talking about? 

So even if we do all of the things that have been suggested by 

the Administrator of the EPA, all of the things suggested by Ranking Member Waxman and Mr. Markey, without similar measures 

by other countries, we are damaging our own country and we are 

not saving anybody in the process. 

Now, weather and climate are complex phenomena affected by a 

host of variables. In the 1970s, we have all seen the cover of Time 

Magazine. The earth was cooling and the next Ice Age was on the 

way. It was the consensus of scientists at that time that that was 

fact and there was no point in debating it any further. And, we 

have a very significantly different set of variables to contend with 

today. 

Part of our issue today is, what is the role of the scientists in 

this debate? Are they there to function as a gatekeeper? Or, in fact, 

are they a broker for putting up the particular type of information, 

climate sensitivity to models and the way that has been interpreted 

over time, the role that these have had in the existing impacts in 

our public policy in regards to carbon and carbon regulation and 

the environment. 

We have got a great panel of witnesses. I look forward to a lively 

interchange. I would like, since I am the chairman now, to yield 

the remaining time to Mr. Griffith from Virginia. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I may just have to 

speak loud. Dr. Roberts is a constituent, and it is the first time 

that I have had a constituent testify in front of a committee on 

which I have served. So welcome particularly to you, Dr. Roberts. 

And then I would also say to you, Mr. Chairman, and to the others that being a Virginian and proud of the good things we have 

done in our history, although not perfect, we have done a lot of 

great things in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and sometimes that 

means standing alone, like when we were the only government in 

the world that recognized the rights to religious freedom. And I am 

8 

often reminded, when folks show up and say, well, 95 percent are 

going this way and everybody but you is going that way that, Virginia chose a different course on religious freedom, and now the 

world recognizes that we were right. Just because you might be in 

the minority doesn’t always mean you are wrong. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield my time back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you. Also, we have discovered the problems, Mr. Waxman, for the difficulty of speaking. We hit the ‘‘mute 

all’’ button, and nobody was allowed to speak. So we have now corrected that problem, and I will recognize the ranking member of 

the full committee, Mr. Waxman, for his 5-minute opening statement. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, I am glad you found the scientific way to 

have all the microphones working, Mr. Chairman. 

Today’s hearing is a crucial opportunity for this committee to understand what is at stake before it considers legislation to block action on climate change. Our health and lives, our economic 

strength, our national security, all are threatened by climate 

change. 

As we will hear today from some of the world’s leading experts, 

human-induced climate change is happening. We are already seeing its effects and harm from climate changes growing. Members 

of Congress have the responsibility to consider the threats facing 

the Nation and making careful choices about how to address them. 

We owe that to our constituents and to future generations. 

I am disappointed that this hearing is happening only because 

committee Democrats insisted on it, but I commend the majority 

for agreeing to our request. 

We now have the opportunity to hear the scientists explain the 

scope and magnitude of harm from climate change. I hope the 

members of this committee are willing to listen. 

The Upton-Inhofe bill would overturn EPA’s scientific finding 

that greenhouse gas emissions endanger health and the environment. That determination was based on the science we will hear 

about today. 

The Upton-Inhofe bill would remove EPA’s authority to protect 

the American public from carbon pollution and the impacts of climate change. The bill would legislate a scientific finding out of existence, and it would remove the administration’s main tools to address one of the most critical problems facing the world today. 

The premise of this radical legislation, as stated by its lead Senate sponsor, is that climate change is a hoax. So before we act on 

this legislation, the members of this committee must decide: Do we 

act because the personal opinions of Senator Inhofe; or, do we accept the vast body of scientific understanding, based on multiple 

lines of evidence across multiple scientific disciplines, which says 

that the climate change is real and dangerous? 

None of us would hesitate in our own lives. If my doctor had told 

me I had cancer, I wouldn’t scour the country to find someone to 

tell me that I didn’t need to worry about it. Just because I didn’t 

feel gravely ill yet, I wouldn’t assume that my doctor was falsifying 

the data. And if my doctor said he didn’t know how long I had to 

live, I wouldn’t say, well, if he is uncertain about that, he is probably wrong about the whole thing. I would try to get a second opinVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:50 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 112\112-16 030811\112-16 CHRIS
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ion from the best expert I could find about the diagnosis. But I 

would never call the findings of the medical experts a hoax. 

Most of us don’t substitute our own judgment for that of experts 

when it comes to medicine, nuclear engineering, building bridges, 

designing computer security, trying to figure out how to turn the 

microphones on in the committee room. The experts on climate 

change include atmosphere, chemists and physicists, meteorologists, biologists, statisticians, computer scientists, paleontologists, 

and geologists, thousands of highly-trained professionals, who have 

published tens of thousands of research papers in the world’s top 

scientific peer-reviewed journals. To reject that body of research by 

experts is breathtakingly irresponsible. 

Chairman Upton and Chairman Whitfield, I am not wedded to 

the language of last year’s energy bill. I am willing to work with 

you on new approaches and creative ideas. We can start from a 

blank piece of paper. I am prepared to meet with you without preconditions for as long as it takes to find the basis for common 

ground. But we need to find a way to work across party lines to 

address this threat to our health, our economic prosperity, and our 

national security. We have an opportunity to act now to forestall 

great harm to our Nation and our world if we don’t address this 

challenge, we do not meet our moral obligations to our children and 

to the future, and history will not judge us kindly. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Waxman. And now we are prepared to hear the testimony of the panel. I would like at this point 

to introduce the panel. 

First, we have Dr. Richard Somerville, who is a Professor Emeritus of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego; we have Dr. John Christy, who is Director, 

Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama, Huntsville; 

we have Dr. Christopher Field, who is the Director, Department of 

Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington in Stanford, 

California; we have Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr., who is senior research 

scientist, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental 

Sciences at the University of Colorado; we have Dr. Francis Zwiers, 

who is the Director, Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia; we have Dr. Knute 

Nadelhoffer, who is the Director, University of Michigan Biological 

Station, University of Michigan; and we have Dr. Donald Roberts, 

who is Professor Emeritus at the Uniformed Services University of 

the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. 

We welcome all of you. And you will each have 5 minutes for 

your statement, and then we are going to open it up to the panel 

for questions. And we look forward to your testimony. 

Dr. Somerville, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

10 

STATEMENTS OF RICHARD SOMERVILLE, DISTINGUISHED 

PROFESSOR EMERITUS, SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY; JOHN R. CHRISTY, DIRECTOR, EARTH SYSTEM 

SCIENCE CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA; CHRISTOPHER 

FIELD, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF GLOBAL ECOLOGY, 

CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON; KNUTE 

NADELHOFFER, DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN BIOLOGICAL STATION, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN; ROGER 

PIELKE, SR., SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST, COOPERATIVE 

INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, 

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER; DONALD ROBERTS, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UNIFORMED SERVICES, UNIVERSITY OF THE HEALTH SCIENCES; AND FRANCIS W. 

ZWIERS, DIRECTOR, PACIFIC CLIMATE IMPACTS CONSORTIUM, UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA 

STATEMENT OF RICHARD SOMERVILLE 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate this opportunity to testify concerning the 

science of climate change. Since 1979, I have been a professor at 

Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at 

San Diego. Today, however, I am speaking on my own behalf as a 

climate scientist. 

To date, the great preponderance of experts agree on the following facts: One, the essential findings of mainstream climate 

science are firm; the world is warming. There are many kinds of 

evidence: Air temperatures, ocean temperatures, melting ice, rising 

sea levels, increasing water vapor in the atmosphere, twice as 

many new high temperature records as new low temperature 

records, and much more. Many lines of evidence also clearly demonstrate that most of the observed warming is due to human activities. 

Two, the greenhouse effect is well understood. It is as real as 

gravity. We have known for 150 years that adding man-made carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will amplify the natural greenhouse 

effect and trap heat. We know carbon dioxide is increasing. We 

measure that. We know the increase is human caused. We analyze 

the chemical evidence for that. 

Three, our climate predictions are coming true. Many recently 

observed climate changes like rising sea levels are occurring at the 

high end of the predicted ranges. Some changes, like disappearing 

arctic summer sea ice, are happening faster than the anticipated 

worst case. Urgent global action is needed if climate disruption is 

to be limited to moderate levels, like the 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 

2 degree Celsius target above pre-industrial 19th century temperatures, a target not set by scientists, but by governments and agreed 

to by the G–8 and G–20 nations and the European Union. 

Four, the standard skeptical or contrarian arguments have been 

refuted many times over in technical papers published in the peerreviewed scientific research literature. Nobody today should be impressed by these discredited claims. 

Five, science has its own high standards. Science works by qualified scientists doing careful research and publishing it in well-reVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:50 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 112\112-16 030811\112-16 CHRIS
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viewed scientific journals. It doesn’t work by opinion-makers on the 

Internet or television or by bloggers or op ed pieces. 

Six, the leading scientific organizations of the world, including 

National Academies of Science and professional scientific societies, 

have carefully evaluated the results of climate science and endorsed these results. If the world is to confront the challenge of climate change wisely, it must first learn what science has discovered, then accept that, and then act. 

We are already experiencing impacts of climate change today on 

health, safety, food, water, and security. Some further climate 

change is inevitable, but how much is up to us. This problem is 

solveable. The future lies in our hands. We have the technology. 

We must find the will. The road forks now. 

We can choose a little more warming with relatively mild impacts or a lot more warming with serious consequences. If we, the 

world, continues on the current course of increasing emissions, 

there will be a lot more impacts. We and our children and grandchildren will experience more floods, droughts, and heat waves. We 

will see severe impacts on food, water, energy, and security as global climate is disrupted. 

Humanity can choose today among three courses of action: One, 

to reduce emissions; two, to adapt to the impacts; and, three, to 

suffer. How much of each depends on what we choose to do. The 

more we reduce the emissions, the less adapting and suffering will 

be required. 

The future is not necessarily bleak. It is not too late to avoid the 

worst impacts of manmade climate change. But this is an urgent 

issue, and the urgency is scientific and not political or ideological. 

We have a window of opportunity in which to act. It closes soon. 

If humanity can greatly reduce the global emissions of manmade 

greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and do it fast, then we can 

greatly reduce the risks of dangerous climate change. These will require that these emissions peak not in 50 or 100 years, but in 5 

or 10 years and then decline rapidly so that global emissions are 

about 80 percent lower by mid century. The sooner we start, the 

lower the cost and the greater the chance of success. 

Reducing emissions can be done in many ways, and the lowhanging fruit is to quickly improve energy efficiency. This also has 

many immediate benefits: Reducing dependence on imported oil, 

improving health, creating jobs, making cities cleaner and more 

liveable. 

Our Nation’s economic competitiveness depends on innovation. If 

this country takes reducing heat-trapping emissions seriously, we 

can lead in developing and producing the clean energy technologies 

of the future, rather than clinging to the dirty energy sources of the 

past. 

I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Dr. Somerville. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Somerville follows:] 

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54 

Mr. WHITFIELD. At this time, Dr. Christy, you are recognized for 

5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN CHRISTY 

Mr. CHRISTY. Chairman Whitfield, Ranking Member Rush, and 

members, thank you for this opportunity to discuss climate change. 

I am John Christy, Alabama’s State climatologist and Professor of 

Atmospheric Science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. 

My research actually involves building climate data sets from 

scratch to answer questions about what the climate is doing and 

to test assertions from model theory. In this verbal testimony, I 

will briefly address six points that are detailed in my written testimony. 

One, extreme events. It is popular now to claim extreme events 

are somehow caused by humans. The earth is very large, the 

weather is very dynamic, and extreme events will occur somewhere 

every year. A quick analysis shows that, A, floods in England in 

2000 and Australia in 2010 have been exceeded several times in 

the past; B, snowstorms in the eastern U.S. occur as part of natural circulation processes; and, C, the recent Russian heat wave 

and related flooding in Pakistan were due to blocking systems 

which occur without appeal to human causes. Natural, unforced climate variability explains these events. 

Two, the underlying temperature trend. An updated analysis of 

the underlying trend of global atmospheric temperature over the 

past 32 years, which accounts for volcanos and El Ninos, shows 

that an atmospheric warming rate of only 9⁄100ths of a degree has 

occurred per decade. This is the same value published in my 1994 

analysis, which covered only 15 years then. This rate is one third 

of that suggested by climate model theory. 

Three, patterns of warming. Continued research on surface temperature changes over land indicates nighttime warming but little 

daytime change. This is a classic feature that arises from land use 

change, not greenhouse gas warming. 

For the tropical atmospheric temperature, several new studies 

verify our earlier work that observations and models do not agree 

about the rate of tropical warming. 

Four, climate sensitivity and feedback. New research addresses 

a question fraught with uncertainty and contention: How sensitive 

is the climate system to extra greenhouse gases? My colleague, Dr. 

Roy Spencer, has shown that for time periods for which this quantity can be assessed, the observations indicate the earth has strong 

negative feedbacks that mitigate warming impulses. No model reproduces these type of feedbacks, and so this is a clue as to why 

models tend to show more warming than is observed when they 

add CO2. 

Five, consensus science. Widely publicized reports, purportedly 

by thousands of scientists, are often misrepresentative of our 

science and contain overstated confidence in their assertions. Very 

few scientists actually control the content of these reports, and they 

rarely represent the full range of scientific opinion and uncertainty 

that attends our relatively murky science. 

I understand the House has approved an amendment to defund 

the IPCC. I describe our proposal in my written testimony that, 

55 

should the IPCC be funded by taxpayers, then 10 percent should 

be set aside for a written report by credentialed scientists who 

have consistently found the IPCC to have underrepresented critical 

issues, such as the evidence for low climate sensitivity, the importance in natural unforced variability, and a focus on metrics that 

are of little value in understanding the greenhouse effect. 

And finally, number six, impact of emission control measures. 

Five years ago, I testified before the Oversight and Investigation 

Subcommittee chaired by you, Congressman Whitfield. At that 

time, I calculated the impact of CO2 emissions if we built 1,000 1.4 

gigawatt nuclear power plants, and that they were added by 2020. 

That is not going to happen. But using the average climate model 

sensitivity, I demonstrated that global temperatures would change 

very little. But with the new evidence that the climate is less sensitive to CO2 increases, the impacts will be even tinier. Developing 

countries will dominate emissions growth as they seek to rise out 

of poverty, a goal we cannot and should not subvert, which requires 

low-cost energy which is today carbon-based. 

Thank you. And I will be happy to answer questions at the appropriate time. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Dr. Christy. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Christy follows:] 

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Mr. WHITFIELD. Dr. Field, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER FIELD 

Mr. FIELD. Thank you, Chairman Whitfield, Mr. Rush, and distinguished members of the committee. It is a pleasure to speak 

with you today. And I want to congratulate you on the initiative 

to consider climate sciences and its importance for the country and 

the future. 

I am a professor of environmental earth system science at Stanford University and director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology. I have worked on climate change-related 

issues for the past 25 years. And I want to start with two key 

foundational points. The first is that climate warming over the last 

century is unequivocal and primarily human caused. The second is 

that climate changes are already occurring in the United States 

and they are projected to grow in the future. 

It is important to realize that the world has convened a large 

number of scientific organizations, several in the United States, coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, by the National Academy of Sciences, or internationally by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And in each of these consortia, 

there has been an aggressive, comprehensive effort to consolidate 

views across the spectrum of climate science. We haven’t looked at 

institutions that have been put together to reflect one perspective 

or another. And when we see as what appears as consensus statements, these are overviews of the positions of the wide range of climate scientists, including the full diversity of positions and the 

measured statements that come from these assessments are in fact 

reflecting the entire diversity across the spectrum of legitimate 

science. 

What I would like to do in my comments is focus specifically on 

relatively recent research on the sensitivity of key sectors in the 

United States to climate change. My distinguished colleagues who 

focus more on atmospheric science will talk about where we are 

headed with the climate and where we have been, but what I want 

to do is talk about sensitivity that is observed from data, not based 

on simulations, that takes advantage of the fact that, for example, 

the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been surveying crop fields 

very, very carefully over the last more than 100 years. And I want 

to focus on two important sectors for the United States. The first 

is yields of agriculture and their sensitivity to climate change; the 

second is wildfires in the west and its sensitivity to climate change. 

By looking at the summary of global agriculture yields over the 

last 50 years or so, we can see that agriculture is one of the triumphs of human ingenuity. We have been able to increase crop 

yields by 1 percent to 2 percent per year over many decades, but 

there is increasing evidence that we are doing this with an anchor 

or climate change that is pulling us back. By looking at the yearto-year variations in climate change, we can see that for several of 

the world’s major food crops, there has been a negative effect of 

warming that is occurring on our ability to increase yields, such 

that for crops including wheat, corn, and barley, we are seeing a 

decrease globally that means that something like 40 million tons 

79 

of food production has been foregone as a consequence of the climate changes that have already occurred. 

For each of these crops, we see a sensitivity to warming, based 

on observations, not simulations, of something like 10 percent yield 

loss for each 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming. In terms of 2002 

ag yields, this 40 million tons of foregone productivity represents 

an economic loss of about $5 billion. 

Recently, Wolfgang Schlenker and John Roberts have explored 

the climate sensitivity of U.S. agriculture using an incredibly detailed data set that has allowed them to, with much higher precision, assess the sensitivity of U.S. crops. And what they find is that 

for corn, soybeans, and cotton, there is a profound sensitivity to 

warming such that at a threshold that is about 82 for corn, 84 for 

soybeans, and about 90 for cotton, you see a very steep drop-off in 

productivity as temperatures rise above that. There is no question 

that temperatures are at these thresholds and exceeding them relatively frequently. 

With wildfires, we see a pattern where warmer, longer summers 

increase the probability of wildfires. And what we have seen by 

summarizing wildfire data is that in the United States a warming 

of 1.8 Fahrenheit increases on average the area in the west that 

has burned from 1.3 million acres per year to 4.5 million acres per 

year. These are profound effects that indicate, based on observations, the deep sensitivity of U.S. activities. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you very much, Dr. Field. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Field follows:] 

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Mr. WHITFIELD. And Dr. Pielke, you are recognized for your 5- 

minute opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF ROGER PIELKE 

Mr. PIELKE. Thank you. I have worked throughout my career to 

improve environmental issues, including air quality, by conducting 

research, teaching, and also providing scientifically rigorous information to policymakers. At the State level, I served two terms on 

the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, where we developed 

the oxygenated fuels program through reduce carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, promulgated regulations to mandate strict controls on wood and coal burning in residential fireplaces and stoves, 

and on asbestos concentrations in the air. 

In my testimony today and in more detail in my written testimony, I have four main points. 

First, research has shown that a focus on just carbon dioxide and 

a few other greenhouse gases as the dominant human force on climate is too narrow and misses other important influences. 

Two, the phrases global warming and climate change are not the 

same. Global warming is a subset of climate change. 

Three, the prediction or projection of reasonable weather including extremes decades into the future is far more difficult than commonly assumed. As well, the attribution of a string of events to a 

particular subset of climate force scenes is scientifically incomplete 

if the research ignores other relevant human and natural causes of 

extreme weather events. 

And, four, the climate science assessments of the IPCC and 

CCSP, as well as the various statements issued by the AGU, AMS, 

and NRC are completed by a small subset of climate scientists who 

are often the same individuals. 

Decisions about government regulation are ultimately legal, administrative, legislative, and political decisions. As such, they can 

be informed by scientific considerations but they are not determined by them. In my testimony, I seek to share my perspectives 

on the science of climate based on my work in this field over the 

past four decades. 

First, the production of multi-decadal climate predictions of reasonable impacts whose skill cannot be verified until decades from 

now is not a robust scientific approach. Models themselves are 

hypotheses. The steps of hypotheses written with respect to climate 

predictions are, first, make a prediction; quantitatively the prediction with real-world observations, that is test the hypothesis; 

and, three, communicate the assessment of the scale of the prediction. 

There is no way to test that a hypothesis with a multi-decadal 

global climate model forecast for decades from now as step two as 

a verification of the skill of these forecasts is not possible until decades pass. 

There has also been a misunderstanding of the relationship between global warming and climate variability and longer term 

change. Global warming is typically defined as an increase in the 

global average surface temperature. A better metric is the global 

annual average heat content measured in Joules. Global warming 

involves the accumulation of heat and Joules within the compoVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:50 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00097 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 112\112-16 030811\112-16 CHRIS
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nents of the climate system. This accumulation is dominating by 

the heating and cooling within the upper layers of the ocean. 

Climate change, in contrast, is any multi-decadal or longer alteration in one or more physical, chemical, and/or biological components of the climate system. Climate change involves, for example, 

changes in fauna and flora, snow cover, and so forth, which persists 

for decades and longer. Climate variability can then be defined as 

changes which occur on shorter time periods. 

With respect to climate change. In 2009, 18 fellows of the American Geophysical Union accepted an invitation to join me in a 

paper where we discuss three different mutually exclusive 

hypotheses with respect to the climate system. 

Hypothesis 1. Human influence on climate variability and change 

is of minimal importance, and natural causes dominate climate 

variations and changes on all time scales. In coming decades, the 

human influence will continue to be minimal. 

Hypothesis 2a. Although the natural causes of climate variations 

and changes are undoubtedly important and human influences are 

significant and involve a diverse range of first-order climate 

forcings, including but not limited to the human input of carbon dioxide. Most, if not all, of these human influences on regional and 

global climate will continue to be of concern for the coming decades. 

Hypothesis 2b. Although the natural causes of climate variation 

and change are undoubtedly important, the human influences are 

significant and dominated by the emissions in the atmosphere of 

greenhouse gases, the most important of which is carbon dioxide. 

The adverse effect of these gasses on regional and global climate 

constitutes the primary climate issue for the coming decades. 

Hypothesis 2b, the one with the CO2 dominance, is the IPCC perspective. In our EOS paper we concluded, however, that only hypothesis A has not been refuted. Hypotheses 1 and 2b are inaccurate characterizations of the climate system. 

In our 2009 paper, we concluded, in addition to greenhouse gas 

emissions, the other first order forcings are important to understand the earth’s climate. These forcings are spatially heterogeneous and include effects of aerosols on clouds and associated 

precipitation, the use of aerosol deposition, and reactive carbon in 

the roles of land use and land cover change. Among their effect is 

the role in altering atmospheric and ocean circulations away from 

what they would be in a natural climate system. As with CO2, the 

length of time that they affect the climate or estimated on multidecadal time scales are longer. 

We concluded, therefore, the cost benefit analysis regarding the 

mitigation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases need to be 

considered along with other human climate forces in a broader environmental context, as well with respect to the role on the climate 

system. 

Unfortunately, the 2007 IPCC assessment did not significantly 

acknowledge the importance of these and other human climate 

forcings in altering regional and global climate and their effects on 

predictability at the regional scale. 

A major conclusion indicated from these studies is that regional 

atmospheric and ocean circulation features produce extreme events, 

91 

not a global annual average surface temperature anomaly. It is the 

multi-decadal change and the statistics of these circulation features 

in response—— 

Mr. WHITFIELD. You can complete. 

Mr. PIELKE. In response to natural and human forcings and 

feedbacks which must be skillfully predicted, this level of predictive 

scale has not been achieved even in hindcasts of past decades. 

And my last point is policymakers and the public rarely encounter this broader view of the climate system, in part, due to the limited number of scientists who are leading climate assessments. As 

just one example, I present my experience with the first CCS report, and my experience is documented in a public comment. 

In the executive summary of that report, I stated: The processes 

for completing the CCS report excluded valid scientific perspectives 

under the charge of the committee. The editor of the report systematically excluded a range of views on the issues of understanding 

reconciling lower atmospheric temperature trends. 

Future assessment committees need to appoint members with a 

diversity of views who do not have a significant conflict of interest 

with respect to their own work. Such committees should be chaired 

by individuals committed to the presentation of a diversity of perspectives and unwilling to engage in strong-arm tactics to enforce 

a narrow perspective. Any such committee should be charged with 

summarizing all relevant literature, even if inconvenient or which 

presents a view not held by certain members of the committee. 

Finally, I have proposed a new approach in the climate committee based on a bottom-up resource-based perspective. There are 

five broad areas that we can use to define a need for this assessment. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. OK. Thanks. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pielke follows:] 

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Mr. WHITFIELD. Dr. Zwiers, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS ZWIERS 

Mr. ZWIERS. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Rush. Thank 

you, committee members. I am privileged as a Canadian to be able 

to speak to this body. It is truly an honor to be able to do so. 

I have trained as a statistician, I have spent all of my career applying the tools of statistics to problems in climate research, and 

I have held various positions in climate research enterprises. I am 

currently a professor at the University of Victoria. 

There is a growing body of literature available that examines 

both the observed changes in temperature and precipitation extremes. These are events that, of course, do happen all the time. 

A 100-year event at a particular location is expected to recur at 

that location once every 100 years. The question that we are posing 

to ourselves in this literature is whether or not humans influencing 

the climate system are tilting the odds and are increasing the likelihood of an event from a one-in-100-year event to perhaps a more 

frequent event. And this is the kind of evidence that the literature 

seems to be turning up. The literature shows that extreme warm 

temperatures seem to becoming more likely over time and extreme 

cold temperatures seem to be becoming less likely over time, and 

very intense precipitation is becoming more likely. And these are 

phenomena that we are generally observing at operational meteorological observing stations basically throughout the world where the 

data are available. 

These are changes that are expected with an overall warming climate. We have observed the shift to warmer temperatures. We understand a lot about the causes of those rises. The warming climate 

leads to increases in the likelihood of extreme warm temperatures. 

It leads to decreases in the likelihood of extreme cold temperatures. 

We have observed both of those phenomena. It leads to increases 

in the amount of water vapor that is held by the free atmosphere, 

something that has also been observed, and that creates conditions 

that would allow more intense precipitation events to occur, something that we are beginning to see in observations as well. 

Climate models simulate extreme events, and climate models 

simulate changes in extreme events that correspond more or less 

to changes that have been observed, and those models are run with 

historical increases in greenhouse gases and changes in other forcing factors. Changes in the amount of aerosol that is present in the 

atmosphere, for example, another product of fossil fuel combustion. 

Statistical analysis of the observations finds evidence that these 

signals that are anticipated by climate models are present in the 

observations. We find this evidence with high confidence in the 

case of temperature extremes and with somewhat lower confidence 

in the case of precipitation extremes, but in both cases, it would 

be difficult to explain observed changes with natural climate variability alone. The most plausible explanation for observed changes 

in temperature extremes and observed changes in precipitation extremes is human influence on the climate system and human-induced increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. 

With regard to temperature, we are beginning to be confident 

enough so that we can cautiously attempt to estimate changes in 

103 

waiting times for rare events. You could think of the 20-year extreme temperature event. In the case of cold temperature events 

that were expected to recur about once every 20 years in the 1960s, 

we see that by the end of the 20th century these events were recurring roughly two times as frequently, they became roughly 10-year 

events, and we are able to attribute that change and probability of 

likelihood in extreme cold temperature events to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. 

Similar results are available for warm temperature extremes. In 

the case of precipitation, the odds of extreme events has appeared 

to increase, but it is generally too soon to quantify scientifically the 

extent to which those odds have changed. So we have evidence that 

indicates that human influence on the climate system is tilting the 

odds towards more intense precipitation events, but at this stage, 

we are not able to say by how much. 

A few events have been studied in detail. One that has been 

studied in detail was the European 2003 heat wave, which was an 

event that took 40,000 lives. It is very likely that human influence 

on climate increased the odds of that event by a factor of at least 

two. In the case of the U.K. flooding in the fall of 2000, it is also 

very likely that human influence has increased the odds of flooding. 

The best estimate is the risk was doubled. 

So these kinds of events have significant impacts. Heat waves 

cause death. Flooding cause death, damage, and enormous economic impacts. Even seemingly benign changes can have negative 

impacts. If you think of the reduced intensity of cold extremes in 

wintertime, this has been linked to forest bark beetle outbreaks 

throughout western North America which have devastated forest 

industries in western North America as an impact of climate 

change over the last several decades. 

The available studies are subject to uncertainties, and therefore 

do not provide the final word on the question of whether and by 

how much increasing greenhouse gas concentrations has affected 

the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, but they 

provide sufficient evidence, I believe, to indicate that human influence is having an effect on high impact events to put people and 

their livelihood at risk and provide an additional piece of information for taking action on greenhouse gas emissions. Thank you. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Dr. Zwiers. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Zwiers follows:] 

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Mr. WHITFIELD. Dr. Nadelhoffer, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF KNUTE NADELHOFFER 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. Thank you, Chairman Whitfield, Ranking 

Member Rush, and other members of the committee. It is a true 

pleasure and honor to be testifying before you, and I very much appreciate the opportunity. My name is Knute Nadelhoffer. I am a researcher and professor of ecology. I am not a climatologist or a climate scientist, but I study the effects of all kinds of factors as they 

affect arctic and arctic ecosystems and tempered forests. 

I worked for 20 years as a researcher in Woods Hall, Massachusetts, at the marine biological laboratory, and for the past 8 years 

I have been a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann 

Arbor. 

I am also the director of a major field station near the center of 

the Great Lakes Basin. Our field station, the University of Michigan biological station, is over 100 years old. It attracts researchers 

from around the world who have been recording distributions of 

plants and animals, ecosystem properties, and interactions between 

humans and their environments for over a century. 

That field station is in the middle of the largest freshwater system in the world. Twenty percent of the world’s surface freshwater 

is in the Great Lakes Basin. Our economy, the economy of the 

eight States and Canadian provinces that surround the Great 

Lakes are the third or fourth largest economy in the world, and in 

our region we interact intimately with our natural resources to sustain our economy and our culture. So we pay very close attention 

to what happens around us. 

Measurements at my field station and others across the Great 

Lakes region are providing knowledge and insights into changes in 

ecosystems associated with the changes in climates that we have 

heard about. 

Climate change is real. You have heard that from others on the 

panel. The fact that there is a consensus is minor in my view. The 

evidence is what drives our conclusions, and science is an evidentiary-based process. The evidence is strong and overwhelming. 

We can measure its effects in the Great Lakes region, and we know 

that the change is primarily driven by increases in greenhouse 

gases. In fact, even the skeptics call these gases greenhouse gases. 

We can thank them for warming the planet as much as it is. Excursions that we are now encountering and experience are likely to 

drive our planet to a warmer state. They have, in fact. 

In the Arctic, where I have worked for 20 years on the north 

slope of Alaska, we see changes, changes in vegetation. There is 

now more shrub cover in the Arctic, but more importantly, summer 

ice cover has decreased by 30 percent in the satellite records since 

1978. Less summer sea ice means less reflection of heat back into 

space and more absorption of heat by the ocean. This has huge implications for global climate, as our climate scientists will tell you. 

Not only is the Arctic warming but the Great Lakes region is 

warming—in the north by 4 degrees Fahrenheit; in the southern 

part of the Great Lakes region by 1 degree since 1978. 

120 

Stunning is the fact that Lake Superior has warmed by 41⁄2 degrees in the past 30 years. That is a lot of joules. That is a lot of 

energy. Lake Superior is a big thermometer. It is the deepest lake 

and the largest lake in the Western Hemisphere, second largest in 

the world, and it is warming at a rate that no one thought it 

would. 

Ice cover is decreasing on the Great Lakes. It varies year to year, 

but over decades we can see that the ice cover is lower. That affects 

our climate. That affects evaporation from the lakes. 

In the Great Lakes itself, in the region, total annual precipitation 

has been relatively constant over the past 50 years, but major 

storm events have increased by a factor of two, and those major 

storms tend to come in the springtime, late winter; and they are 

balanced by droughts in the summer, and we feel it. Our coastal 

cities, small cities, like South Haven on the west coast of Michigan, 

and larger cities like Milwaukee on the east coast of Wisconsin, 

have storm sewer systems that are now compromised. They were 

built 50 years ago, and they can’t handle the floods. So we are paying a cost in terms of infrastructure. 

We are experiencing more late-winter, early-spring storms, more 

summer droughts and heat events. Not only does this compromise 

our infrastructure, but it can degrade drinking water quality, lead 

to the export of nutrient sediments into our lakes, exacerbating 

dead zones. It delays planting in springtime and stresses crops in 

the summer. 

We have heard about the heat tolerances of corn and soybeans, 

which are major crops in the Midwest. It stresses them for us, 

making them more vulnerable to pests, and jeopardizing a $40 billion forest products industry. It reduces summer swim flow and 

groundwater recharge and threatens our tourist and recreation industry which is a part of our culture. 

Business-as-usual scenarios of various greenhouse gas emissions 

will exacerbate these trends, compromising our environment and 

the economy and culture and water of this resource-rich region. 

Thank you very much for listening to me. I look forward to questions. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Nadelhoffer follows:] 

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Mr. WHITFIELD. And, Dr. Roberts, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DONALD ROBERTS 

Mr. ROBERTS. Thank you, Chairman Whitfield, Ranking Member 

Rush, and members of the committee for the opportunity to be here 

this morning. 

I am a retired professor emeritus of tropical public health. I follow closely the debate on claims of public health harm from climate 

change. There are parallels in claims about climate change and 

regulatory controls of carbon dioxide and claims about insecticides 

and human health. The arguments for government interventions in 

both topic areas rests on fearful claims, doomsday predictions of 

devastating consequences in the absence of regulatory intervention, 

and in my mind, this is fear messaging. 

Thirty-nine years ago, the EPA took a political position to ban a 

famous insecticide, DDT. Global public health leaders at that time 

repeatedly and firmly warned that a ban would cause return of 

devastating diseases and millions and millions of deaths. In 1972, 

in spite of those warnings, the EPA banned DDT. The public health 

community was right, and the results of that decision have been 

devastating. 

I raise the issue of this famous insecticide because it is an excellent example of the harm that arises when politics and ideology 

trump science. Poor people in malaria countries are paying every 

day for an EPA decision taken 4 decades ago. As supporting documentation, I am submitting for the record recent statements by 

Ministers of Health of Namibia and Guyana, as well as a recent 

peer-reviewed paper I coauthored confirming an ideological agenda 

which is, regrettably, supported by the EPA. 

As I document in written testimony, those who campaigned to reduce CO2 emissions through EPA regulatory controls are striving 

to show climate change is a source of harm to public health. Claims 

of such harm are necessary for fear messaging. These claims are 

reflected in many attempts to attribute all sorts of increases in malaria, dengue, and other diseases to global warming. Again, I offer 

documentation of this in written testimony. 

However, attempts by climate change advocates to link those diseases to climate change have been vigorously rebutted. While climate can affect disease rates, there is most assuredly no simple relationship between climate and public health. The truth is those 

diseases are under control of many complex and dominant factors, 

with condition of human poverty and man’s own effort to control 

them being most important. 

As evidence to back up this statement, I would point to the different conditions of public health on the border of Mexico and 

Texas. I could also point to the differences in insect-borne disease 

rates on the border areas between Mozambique and South Africa. 

Both those cases show how, under the same climatic conditions and 

same geography, divergent public health outcomes are achieved 

thanks to differing poverty rates and man’s efforts in disease control. 

Growing publicity about climate change and asthma shows an effort to prove climate change harms public health are unabated. In 

136 

written testimony, I review a recent well-publicized paper on this 

topic. My area of expertise is in tropical public health, but I review 

this paper as a scientist and a taxpayer, and I question the political agenda of highlighting climate change as an asthma problem. 

If we accept that it will worsen asthma, the question that arises 

is, what should we do about it? How are we to improve the health 

and welfare of those suffering from asthma? The whole body of 

asthma science points to conditions of poverty being dominant risk 

factors for asthma. Thus, if we want to reduce asthma problems, 

then, first, our goal is to improve our economy and eliminate conditions of poverty. It is a mistake to believe that greater EPA control 

over carbon dioxide will make the slightest difference for asthma 

sufferers. To the contrary, I believe that with greater EPA control, 

economic growth will suffer and we will be a poorer Nation as a 

result. 

Let us disabuse ourselves of the idea, if it is out there, that EPA 

controlling CO2 will improve health outcomes in the U.S. Or elsewhere. I fear, based on outcomes of past EPA decisions, that greater EPA control over our lives and economy could indeed worsen our 

health outcomes and, most assuredly, worsen our economy. 

Thank you, and I welcome questions. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thanks, Dr. Roberts. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Roberts follows:] 

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Mr. WHITFIELD. And thank all of you for your testimony. We appreciate your coming here and appreciate your remarks this morning. 

First question I would like to ask you is a raise of hands. How 

many of you have participated in some way and at some level with 

the International Panel on Climate Change? OK. So everyone except one has been involved in that. OK. 

Now, we find ourselves today in a situation where EPA is moving 

quickly on regulating greenhouse gases. So, in some ways, as far 

as their decision is concerned, the science is behind us. And I 

would just like to ask you, Dr. Christy, in your view, would EPA’s 

regulations to control greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. Have 

any real impact on the overall presence of greenhouse gases in the 

world? 

Mr. CHRISTY. I have done several calculations in that regard, and 

the impact is minuscule to whatever—really both the greenhouse 

gas concentration total and really what the climate system might 

do as a result of that delta. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. So you would agree with Administrator Jackson? 

That is basically what she said as well. 

Mr. CHRISTY. Yes. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. OK. Now, Dr. Roberts, I may have missed— 

maybe I didn’t hear you correctly, but did you say that there is no 

relationship between climate and public health? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Not precisely, but the fact is that the relationship 

between climate and public health is not going to go in a single direction. I think my fear that the feeling that climate change is a 

negative force for public health is flatly wrong. It is just wrong. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. A lot of the hearings we have had relating to 

these regulations, the new people at EPA say, oh, this is essential 

because we have got to cut back on asthma. We are exposing children and elderly people to all sorts of difficulties if we don’t cut 

back on greenhouse gas emissions with these regulations. Do you 

believe that the proposed EPA regulations would appreciably impact public health in any way? 

Mr. ROBERTS. No, I do not. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. OK. Now, I am going to make just a comment 

here. Obviously, this whole issue has been politicized in a way— 

I mean, we have got science, we have got politics, we have got all 

sorts of things going on, and when you look at the events at the 

University of East Anglia, when you consider Dr. Lai on the 2007 

IPCC who made the comment that the Himalayan glaciers would 

melt by the year 2035, which I think then he backed off of that and 

said, you know, I don’t—that was a mistake, we are not—this is 

not accurate. 

I remember Dr. Landsea, who was an expert on hurricanes, 

served on a panel at the IPCC, in fact read the study on hurricanes, and he testified here that someone at the IPCC announced 

emphatically that more hurricanes were a direct cause of global 

warming. He was so upset about it, because he said the science is 

simply not there, that he resigned from IPCC. And we have heard 

other incidences of that. 

And I know that you can pick out isolated events in anything, 

but you hear this so frequently with IPCC, it is disserving in many 

171 

ways. So just yes or no, on the IPCC in general, do you have confidence in what they are doing? Dr. Somerville. 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. I certainly do have confidence, very isolated instances. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Dr. Christy? 

Mr. CHRISTY. Yes and no. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes, no, oK. Dr. Field? 

Mr. FIELD. Yes, I have confidence. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Dr. Pielke? 

Mr. PIELKE. No. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Dr. Zwiers? 

Mr. ZWIERS. Yes. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Dr. Nadelhoffer? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. As a reviewer of IPCC reports, I have confidence. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. OK. Do you have a comment, Dr. Roberts? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I do not have a confidence. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. I would also, Dr. Pielke, I don’t know if I have 

all of the details on this, but the NOAA temperature monitoring 

stations—and I think I read some article that you all did an analysis and you found that 85 percent of these stations were unduly 

close to heat-generating areas—is that correct or is that not? 

Mr. PIELKE. Well, we have a study that is almost through the review process that shows that many of the stations are very poorly 

located next to air conditioners, under satellite dishes, and we are 

showing that is contaminating the surface temperature record. In 

fact, it is introducing a warm bias over the United States. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you. I see my time has expired. So I recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Rush. 

Mr. RUSH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And Dr. Nadelhoffer, I actually appreciate you being here. Explain to the subcommittee what the effects of climate change are 

on the economy and the environment of the Great Lakes region. 

You spoke something about—someone about that in the testimony. 

Would you like to expound upon it, please? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. Well, thank you, Congressman Rush. I am 

not an economist. I can refer to several reports on the Great Lakes 

economy, one most recently by the Michigan sea grant program 

which identified large numbers of jobs depending on the waters 

themselves. But as I mentioned in my previous testimony, we in 

the Great Lakes region, in particular, are dependent upon natural 

resources. Many of those natural resources are provided by natural 

systems like forests, wetlands, and agricultural ecosystems. Our 

agricultural ecosystems are at great risk because of not only warming temperatures and summer droughts, spring rains, and floods, 

but also exceeding levels of heat tolerance of major crops like corn 

and soybeans, which, as you know from Illinois, are major to our 

agricultural economy. So... 

Mr. RUSH. Well, you also reference drinking water. And the question is, if we should fail to limit greenhouse gas emissions, how will 

this affect the supply of drinking water to the millions of people 

who live in the Great Lakes region in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, 

and Indiana? 

172 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. Thank you for that question. It is a very complex and interesting question, but there are simple things and simple answers. One is, again, springtime floods which deliver large 

loads of waters to the large lakes with a lot of energy, carry sediments, pesticides, fertilizers, and nutrients into the water. These 

cause increases in production in the lakes, more algae growth, and 

are well associated with toxic algae blooms; that is, blooms of algae 

that actually produce toxins that harm people. 

They also contribute to dead zones, organic matter that falls to 

the bottom of the lakes and then is decomposed, consuming oxygen 

and thereby killing fish. These are happening now again on Lake 

Superior. They are likely the result of floods that deliver materials 

and nutrients to the lakes. So this increases our costs of water 

treatment. 

Also the flooding, when it comes early in the spring, carries more 

water off of the landscape, and there is less water available for percolating into aquifers and groundwater sources. So our groundwater sources paradoxically are at risk in the Great Lakes region. 

Mr. RUSH. What will be the effect on the Great Lakes region if 

we do not curb emissions of greenhouse gases? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. Part of that answer is in deference to our climate scientists who, again, I have reviewed IPCC reports. I am not 

an author, but I think the evidence is very clear that business as 

usual with respect to emissions will exacerbate the trends we have 

seen and therefore, I think, compromise not only our agricultural 

and forestry resources, but our water supplies. 

To the extent that future droughts, draw down of aquifers in the 

Great Plains creates needs for waters outside the basin, any policies in the futures which actually remove water from the Great 

Lakes could have dramatic effects on water levels. Right now, 1 

percent of the volume of the Great Lakes leaves the Great Lakes 

annually in the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and the lake levels are 

relatively stable. They go up and down a meter or two, but they 

are relatively stable. If we start exporting large quantities to 

drought areas outside the basin, our water levels will more than 

likely decrease, decreasing supplies, as well as quality. 

Thank you. 

Mr. RUSH. Dr. Somerville and Dr. Zwiers, with 95 percent of the 

world’s scientists saying that climate change is man-made and can 

be rolled back, do you think that it is wise policy for Congress and 

the Federal Government to risk our family, our children, our 

grandchildren’s future because a few holdovers are not really certain climate change does exist and can be avoided? Will you answer 

that? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. I am glad to speak to that, Congressman Rush, 

and I harken back to Congressman Waxman’s metaphors to the 

medical profession, that you don’t go seeking the lone contrary doctor when you have received a serious diagnosis. Get a second opinion, but not 99 opinions, until you find one that you like. 

I think here the scientific evidence is overwhelming. I mean, if 

I could use another medical metaphor, sure, there is risk and costs 

to taking action, and there is—we also know for elective surgery, 

for example, as well as climate change, there are risks and costs 

to not taking action, too. And I think the balanced view here is that 

173 

we have a strong case. We need international action. The U.S. Can 

lead. It cannot do the whole job, as you have heard, but I believe 

that the U.S. And China together contribute more than half of the 

global carbon dioxide emissions. If they could reach an accommodation in which they both took action, then I think that would be an 

enormous step forward. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Gentleman from Texas, 5 minutes. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Somerville, let me stay with you for just a moment. Is it your 

opinion that the United States Congress should pass legislation 

that increases the government’s control over how much energy the 

American family uses or the type of energy that is used by American families? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. Congressman, I am not an economist or a politician, and I would leave that decision to you. I think that in many 

other areas we see a variety of actions to promote things that are 

taken to be good and to discourage those things taken to be bad. 

Mr. BURGESS. Let me ask you a question. I don’t mean to interrupt, but my time is limited. 

In this committee just exactly 2 years ago, we had—little less 

than 2 years ago, we had legislation popularly known as the Waxman-Markey legislation. Are you familiar with that? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. Yes. 

Mr. BURGESS. And was it your opinion that that represented a 

balanced and reasonable approach to addressing the problem of climate change? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. I think it is far better than doing nothing. 

Mr. BURGESS. And are you aware that that bill had as its major 

premise to control the amount and type of energy used by American families? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. I do understand that aspect of it, sir. 

Mr. BURGESS. And do you understand there was no such control 

over families in India or China? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. Of course, the U.S. Congress can’t control India 

and China. 

Mr. BURGESS. Exactly right. It is a global problem. And do you 

understand why the revulsion that the country had after that legislation was passed late at night on the floor of the United States 

House of Representatives, just prior to the Fourth of July recess in 

2009, can you understand how Members of Congress went home to 

their districts and were actually reviled by their constituents for 

having done such an activity? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. Congressman, I am going to have to stick to the 

science here. 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, I will tell you, having been in those town 

halls and actually voting against the legislation, voting ‘‘no’’ was 

not enough. People wanted us to stop that thing cold dead in its 

tracks, and they were not shy about telling us that. 

So, again, I reference my opening statement, some of the problems that we encountered here in this very committee room in 2008 

when gasoline prices went to $4 a gallon. 

Now I remember after Hurricane Katrina we also had hearings in this very committee room, and gasoline went to $3 a gallon. We 

had hearings about that. Now the American public is kind of inVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:50 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00181 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 112\112-16 030811\112-16 CHRIS
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ured to $3 a gallon. It gets to $4 a gallon and it gets their attention 

again. 

But I remember a panel similar to this where I asked the question that you guys have to be pretty happy now with gas up at $3 

a gallon—there is going to be less used. And the answer I got actually stunned me, and I don’t remember the witness at the time, but 

he said, Actually, sir, you have to get it to $6 a gallon before you 

are going to affect utilization. 

People hear statements like that, and it understandably scares 

them to death. And that is one of the reasons why it is so important for us to have a panel like this today. It is important for people to understand just exactly what it is we are talking about. We 

all talk in pear-shaped tones about controlling the climate and controlling carbon dioxide, but what we are really talking about is 

placing energy costs beyond the reach of the average middle-class 

American family. 

Dr. Christy, let me ask you a question. The memorandum that 

the minority has put out for this hearing explains that the state 

of the science is—climate change is occurring, it is caused largely 

by human activities, poses significant risks for, and in many cases 

is already affecting, a broad range of human and natural systems. 

Is that an accurate description of the state of the science as we 

know it now and, of course, man’s role in the science? 

Mr. CHRISTY. I think if I remember the comment right, they stated that humans were the cause or some major cause of it. Climate 

always changes. I mean, that is a fact. So the fact that climate is 

changing is not news to anyone, others here. But the notion that 

humans are causing most of it, that is purely a model-driven result 

that you cannot discount and cannot prove that natural enforced 

variability is causing this. We don’t have thermometers that say 

this much warming was human cause and then this much warming 

was natural. We only have one thermometer. So you are trying to 

figure out how much might have been caused by human, and the 

fact that models fail so many times in the tests we do with the 

data sets that we build tell us they don’t have the natural enforced 

variability level at all yet. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The gentleman from California is recognized for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Dr. Christy, is there warming going on globally? 

Mr. CHRISTY. Yes, the average temperature, yes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. So there is a fact of warming? 

Mr. CHRISTY. Yes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. OK. Now, Dr. Somerville, as I understand most 

people looking at this problem, they look at the fact of warming 

and they see climate change happening as a result. The mainstream consensus appears to be that it is primarily caused by humans. 

The widespread impacts are occurring now and expected to get 

worse. I am not a scientist, but my understanding is that there is 

a tremendous amount of data to support these conclusions, not just 

models but actual observations and measurement. Can you briefly 

175 

describe the independent lines of evidence that support these scientific conclusions? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. Yes, Congressman Waxman, I am glad to do 

that. I would like to say that a thread has been running through 

this hearing that disturbs me; that I think that it is wrong to 

frame this issue in terms of the evidence for human-caused climate 

change hanging from some very slender chain of evidence that 

could be cut by one brilliant insightful paper. It is not a slender 

thread at all. It is a thick rope woven together of many, many 

chains of evidence, and there is a well-developed branch of science 

and chapters in the IPCC report devoted to exactly this question 

of discerning unnatural climate change and attributing it to a 

cause. There are hundreds of papers cited in the report. It is very 

unlikely that they are going to be overturned by a single Einstein. 

You know, we have hard about the Einsteins and Copernicus and 

Galileos. They are rare. I think they deserve extreme scrutiny. A 

claim to upset conventional wisdom on the basis of a few papers 

which we have heard mention of today, I think deserves extremely 

strong scrutiny. 

Einstein was actually very quickly accepted by the physics community, won a Nobel prize. He wasn’t the lone voice in the wilderness for very long. He was, of course, an isolated genius. Those 

geniuses are rare. Those people who claim that they are Galileo are 

just plain mistaken. In fact, I wonder, since the skeptics or 

contrarians tend not to agree with one another, which of them, if 

any, is going to turn out to upset the conventional wisdom here. 

I think it will require a very strong case to go against the IPCC. 

You know, the IPCC was established just to get around this cacophony of hearing many voices. There are outliers in any field of 

science. We have retrovirus experts who don’t think that AIDS is 

caused by HIV. 

But the IPCC is not merely a consensus. I resent that characterization of it. The IPCC assesses the state of science. It says where 

the science is solid and relatively firm, where more research needs 

to be done, and it does take into account a wide range of views. I 

think the discussion of this has to begin with that and not with 

outliers. 

Mr. WAXMAN. What did you think of Dr. Christy’s comment? I 

thought it was interesting. He said that if we are going to fund the 

IPCC—and of course, the Republicans have said, no, we shouldn’t 

give them any money anymore—he suggested that we have a certain amount set aside for people who have contrary points of view. 

What do you think of that in terms of distribution of money to scientific research? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. You have to start with the fact that the IPCC 

doesn’t really have much money. It is a little organization with a 

skeleton staff in Geneva. It basically organizes scientists into writing these reports, and we serve without pay. It is our universities, 

our employers, who pay our salaries. We don’t get a penny from the 

IPCC, and I think the IPCC does a very fine job of taking into account contrary opinions. 

You know, the stolen e-mails from the server in East Anglia have 

been mentioned in this hearing. People have to realize that those 

events have now been thoroughly investigated. The scientists have 

176 

been exonerated. They are cleared. They did not commit fraud. 

They did not suppress publication of their opponents’ views. They 

did not manipulate data, and in fact, the IPCC considered the very 

publications alleged. I think they do a fine job of considering other 

opinions. 

Mr. WAXMAN. I appreciate your comments. I just think it is quite 

amazing that scientific money for research ought to be distributed 

based on who has minority points of views and give them a certain 

amount of money. It seems to me it ought to be peer-reviewed and 

see what is the most promising research. Otherwise, I could see 

going into a pretty good business, always objecting to whatever the 

majority view is, and then getting my share of the allocations. 

Professor Field, in your testimony, you focused on the impacts of 

climate change in American agriculture and wildfires in the Western United States. What are the key impacts on future crop yield? 

What is it that you see happening in this area? 

Mr. FIELD. If we look at the observation, what we see in global 

agriculture a system that is very sensitive to warming. Based on 

farmer experiences, on models, there are a wide range of different 

mechanisms that kick in at different parts of the world. Some of 

the stresses are related to limited water availability. Some of the 

stresses are intrinsic to the crops. Some of the stresses have to do 

with outbreaks of disease and pathogens, and some have to do with 

complicated factors like when the farmers can get into the fields for 

different kinds of activities. The observations of the crops’ sensitivity are based on summaries over all of these different processes, 

and that is one of the reasons that they are so robust. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes, sir. Mr. McKinley, you are recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Roberts, let me start with you if I could, please, just to try 

to frame the argument a little bit here. We have been besieged now 

for the last 60 days on greenhouse gas questions, and we have apparently 15 million people unemployed in America. Probably an 

equal amount are underemployed or quit seeking work. We have 

10.3 percent unemployed in West Virginia. Lisa Jackson was here 

just a few weeks ago and said that she feels that she has no obligation to take into consideration the economic impact of any of her 

decisions to the regulatory bodies. 

We have had others come before this group and say that there 

is no cost-effective way to handle the greenhouse gas emissions, not 

cost effective. Others have testified that higher energy costs are a 

result of the greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. 

And others have talked about the high energy costs will cause economic malaise and deter the manufacturing expansion. 

So, since West Virginia is one of the leading producers of fossil 

fuel and so dependent on all this, with 150 million tons in the work 

that we do producing coal in West Virginia, what is the future? 

What is going to be the impact of all this testimony that we are 

hearing about the EPA overregulation of greenhouse gases on West 

Virginian jobs? 

Mr. ROBERTS. It will be a disaster. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Thank you. Dr. Pielke, do you agree with that? 

177 

Mr. PIELKE. That is really outside my area of expertise. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. So you don’t have an opinion of whether or not 

an attack on coal or war on coal is going to have an economic impact? 

Mr. PIELKE. Well, I came to talk about the science, and that really is outside my area of expertise. I don’t want to get into the politics of it. I just want to stick to the science. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Thank you. Dr. Christy 

Mr. CHRISTY. As a State climatologist, I deal with a lot of economic development activity, and in my State, too, it would be a real 

problem. It would create more poverty than there is now, and I can 

tell you, as someone who has lived in Africa, without energy life 

is brutal and short. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Thank you. Do the three of you concur that has 

been—your predecessors that have come before the panel before 

have indicated to this group that the greenhouse gases are a precursor to Earth warming, global warming. Is that generally a consensus? 

Mr. PIELKE. I think we have to realize that greenhouse gas increases are one component of the climate system. It is not the entire picture, and I think that is one of the failures of the IPCC to 

adequately take intoaccount these factors. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Dr. Pielke, we have had some come before us and 

say it is a precursor to global warming; you are going to see the 

emission of greenhouse gases is a precursor to global warming. But 

yet, from my reading, your paper, Landsea’s, Hal Lewis’, and others have indicated that what they are finding in Antarctica, the 

Russian scientists down there, that the reverse is true. 

Mr. PIELKE. But it is unequivocal. I think that is the wrong argument, because we can see that CO2 is increasing because of human 

activities. We know that. The problem is how does that fit into 

these other forcings—land use change, aerosols, the natural variability? And as we learn more about the climate system, it is more 

complex than we thought. And the IPCC, unfortunately, takes a 

very narrowed, limited view of how we are altering the climate system. 

So when we are talking about all these impacts about global 

warming, first of all, climate change is more than global warming; 

and secondly, even global warming and cooling is affected by more 

than just carbon dioxide. And we need to recognize that broader 

perspective and apparently the IPCC decided not to do that. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Dr. Roberts, would you like to amplify on that? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I am not sure that I have the expertise or background to add much to that, actually. 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. I would be glad to comment. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Sorry. Yield back my time. I am sorry, I missed 

something? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. I just said I would be glad to comment on the 

issue you raised. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Go right ahead. I am sorry. I am hard of hearing. 

So if someone wanted to make a joke over that, that is their problem. 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. Sure. I am happy to clarify the issue of timing 

of carbon dioxide increases that you mentioned in the Antarctic ice 

178 

coolers. We do know that the Ice Ages and transitions between Ice 

Ages and interglacial periods are paced by changes in the Earth’s 

orbit around the Sun, but that after the pacing happens, then as 

a feedback carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere, comes out 

of the ocean in a warming period, goes away out of the atmosphere, 

and a cooling period. So it is an amplifier. It adds probably 30 percent to the effect of the orbital forcing, but it is not a primary cause 

but it is an amplifying effect. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Thank you. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you. Mr. Inslee, you are recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. I want to thank all of you for being here 

today, but I have to express some degree of embarrassment that a 

Nation that went to the Moon, mapped the human genome, established the best software companies in the world, does now have one 

of its great parties adopt a chronic anti-science syndrome; one of 

its great parties that has decided to have an allergy to consensus 

science instead of respect for science and scientists. And that is embarrassing. 

In listening to this hearing, I am convinced that if we had Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and Einstein at this table instead of you 

fine scientists, one of these parties would still not accept the clear 

science until the entire Antarctic ice sheet has melted or Hell has 

frozen over, whichever comes first. That is the situation that we 

are in today, and I think it is a pretty sad state of affairs. 

There is one point I want to make particularly, and I hope some 

who are covering this hearing might pay attention to this. There 

are seven people at the table. If this hearing is reported as saying 

four people said one thing and three people said another, you are 

missing the big story here, and I want to make sure everybody understands this. 

I want to put in the record a letter dated February 9 by 1,800 

doctors saying specifically that the health of United States’ citizens 

is jeopardized by greenhouse gases, and I want to put this into the 

record. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Without objection. 

Mr. INSLEE. I want to put a statement by the CDC, the Centers 

for Disease Control and Prevention, which says specifically that climate change gases affect the health of human beings in America. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Without objection. 

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to put in the record 

a letter from 250 of the most esteemed climate scientists in the 

world urging us to act on this clear science of climate change dated 

May 7th, 2010. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Without objection. 

Mr. INSLEE. I want to put in the record a letter of February 2011 

of 2,705 scientists basically urging us to allow the Environmental 

Protection Agency to do its job. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Without objection. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. INSLEE. Those are 4,560 scientists, and what I want to say, 

standing behind Dr. Field at his table are 4,560 scientists. Now, 

the Republican Party has found two people to raise some questions, 

and of course, there are lots of questions about how fast this is 

179 

going to go, and what it is going to do, but there is enormous scientific consensus on the Planet Earth about this fact that we have 

got a problem. 

Now, I want to ask a question on how fast we are going. Can we 

put up this slide, please, of the Arctic? I want to show an Arctic 

picture of the Arctic icecap. It shows 1979 the northern icecap on 

top. Then you see in September 2007, it shrunk by about 40 or 50 

percent. The most recent science predicts it may be absolutely gone 

in any meaningful sense in the next 5 to 10 years. I understand 

a few years ago we thought that wouldn’t happen for 20 or 30 

years. 

It appears to me like this is happening a lot faster than many 

of us thought was going to happen, and this is one of the things 

that are causing not fear, Dr. Roberts, but I think a rational concern that my 2-year-old grandson is going to grow up in a world 

that is really, really different than I grew up in, with no coral reefs 

and no Arctic icecap. 

Dr. Field, could you comment on what is the most recent science 

in that regard?. 

Mr. FIELD. The changes are occurring very rapidly. There is no 

question that changes in things like Arctic ice, in the positions of 

glaciers, in the ranges of species and in the water availability for 

the western U.S. Have changed dramatically. 

Now, the science tends to keep up with the new observations, 

and so I don’t think it is accurate to say that the current scientific 

consensus is inconsistent with these observations, but I do think it 

is fair to say that as of a few years ago, most scientists were projecting that the kinds of events we are seeing now might occur in 

the second half of the century. 

Mr. INSLEE. I read yesterday that the algae bloom in the Arctic 

is now 50 days earlier than it was. I read that the melting of the 

Greenland ice sheet seems to be much more significant than perhaps we even predicted 5 or 10 years ago. Many of these indices, 

to a layperson such as myself, would suggest that we are in the 

upper, sort of the redder zone of the parameters of what we have 

looked at. Is that a fair assessment or not? Dr. Somerville wants 

to say something. 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. Yes, that is very much a fair assessment, and 

the Greenland icecap is a good example. The IPCC has been cautious. It is not political at all, but it is intellectually conservative. 

It doesn’t go beyond the data. It doesn’t do hunches and conjectures. And it said in the last report that you could put a number 

on how much sea-level rise would happen from melting ice on land 

and thermal expansion of the ocean, but it said we don’t yet know 

enough about what might happened to the Greenland and/or Arctic 

ice sheet. Now the newer science says, yes, there are positive contributions. 

Mr. INSLEE. As one layperson, I had the oyster grocers of Washington State into my office last week. They are having trouble 

growing oysters in Puget Sound because of ocean acidification, 

which we haven’t talked about. Carbon goes in the air, goes into 

the ocean, and makes it more acidic. My oyster growers are having 

problems today. My berry growers are having problems. This is not 

hypothetical. This is a problem today. 

180 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Did you want to say something, Mr. Pielke? 

Mr. PIELKE. Yes, I would. I think the observations are certainly 

correct that the Arctic ice has been diminishing and the result are 

effects we talked about. I think the question is, are there other explanations that haven’t been fully explored in addition to carbon dioxide? And one of them is black carbon, which I think most of the 

members of the IPCC would have recognized. It has been better 

recognized recently. There is also natural circulation effects that 

have caused this. 

And I think that the proposal that Dr. Christy made that there 

needs to be an alternative view is analogous in the medical community to basically getting a second opinion. And if you had a medical 

drug developed by a company and that company is reporting on 

how well that drug does, you certainly would like to have an independent assessment of that, and I think that is what we need, and 

I think John’s suggestion is a good one. 

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chair, would you permit me one comment or follow-up question in light of Dr. Pielke’s comment there? 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes, I will give you one follow-up question, and 

then we have to move on. 

Mr. INSLEE. I appreciate your courtesy, Mr. Chair. 

The concern that I have, and I think many people, are that this 

is a profound geophysical change in the entire system of the Planet 

Earth to have this icecap disappear, and I am very concerned about 

black carbon. I actually have offered a bill to deal with black carbon. It is a problem. 

But I think it is a fair statement, as far as I can tell, is that no 

one in any peer-reviewed research that I can find have suggested 

such a rapid change in a fundamentally pivotal part of the climactic system, geophysical driver which the Arctic is, other than 

carbon. Has anybody come up with any other peer-reviewed hypothesis to say why this is happening? I am not aware of any. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Maybe we will have a second round, but we have 

got a number who haven’t had questions yet. 

Mr. Griffith, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want you all to know I am here today because I have lots of 

questions about the various things that are going on and what is 

happening, and so I am not sure I am going to get to answers. So, 

if we don’t get to answers, if you all could submit those to the committee so I can review the information, that would be great. 

Let me also say that I am concerned that we are shifting jobs to 

other parts of the world where they are not going to pay attention 

to this. So, even if we believe that there is a problem and we shift 

all the jobs to someplace that is going to create actually more 

greenhouse gases, are we creating a solution or are we making the 

problem worse by having some of the EPA regulations? 

That being said, here are some of my questions. Has anybody 

studied what the temperatures were, or do we know what the temperatures were during the period in history known as the Great 

Optimum, which led to the rise of the Mesopotamian Egyptian cultures? That was a time in history of global warming. We know 

that. But how warm did it get? Obviously those were things that 

led to the rise of our earliest civilizations. 

181 

At some point, I would like to have somebody look at the Lesser 

Optimum, which is a little closer in time, and how much did the 

temperature rise then? We know that that led to the Vikings—Professor Nadelhoffer—led to the Vikings dominating Europe for several hundreds years, and also led to where the icecap in the North 

is melting; we are now finding evidence of Viking habitation in 

those areas. 

Can somebody answer the question, and has the IPCC studied 

why are the icecaps on Mars melting? Both NASA and National 

Geographic have had reports on this. Is it, in fact, and has there 

been a study, a shift in the orbit of Mars, or is it that the Sun is 

putting out more radiant heat? 

If we have known, as you suggest, Dr. Somerville, for 150 years 

the effects of greenhouse gases, then why 40 years ago, when I was 

in elementary and middle school, were we taught that an increase 

in greenhouse gas effect was going to lead to a new Ice Age? 

In regard to radiant heat, the Sun spot effects, what do we know 

about that? I was reading one report here that indicates that by 

2020 we will reach a new peak on Sun spot activity, and this report 

actually suggests that the Earth’s temperature may be raised by .5 

degrees Centigrade as a result of the Sun spot activity. And could 

that also be the cause—when we were talking about patients earlier, somebody said why do you distrust the doctor? Then somebody 

made the comment, May we get a second opinion? I would like to 

know if we have looked at maybe the other patients? And Mars, 

having a similar global warming effect or event going on, have we 

studied what that is and has the IPCC done that? 

And then what is the optimum temperature for man? Have we 

looked at that? Dr. Somerville, you indicated that pre-1900 industrialized world temperatures was where you wanted to go, but in 

light of the fact that we had a little Ice Age in the 18th century, 

are you indicating that we want to return to the little Ice Age period? Or are you indicating something between 1820 and 1900? 

I don’t know the answer to that, and it was just kind of an interesting—these are questions that I, believe it or not, lay awake at 

night trying to figure out. 

I would like to actually hear from Dr. Christy and Dr. Pielke 

first, and then if we have time we can move on to the others. But 

I did anticipate there wouldn’t be a lot of time for answers, which 

is why I started my comments by saying if you have got info, you 

know, feel free to get it to me and please give it to the committee 

as well. 

Mr. CHRISTY. I think what you are describing is the fact that natural, unforced viability creates a large excursion of temperature 

that humans have no responsibility for. I didn’t see up on the chart 

here after the Arctic sea ice, I didn’t see the Antarctic sea ice which 

reached its maximum recorded 2 weeks later after that particular 

picture was taken. 

I will be happy to answer those questions. That was a boatload 

of them, if we can have them in writing. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. GRIFFITH. I would be happy to give you my notes. These are 

things I have been worrying about for some time and questions 

that—particularly the one about why we were taught there was a 

182 

new Ice Age coming, if we have known about this 40 years ago because all of my constituents were taught that. Now, maybe our 

books in southwest Virginia just weren’t up to par and maybe they 

were 150 years out of date, but I doubt it. 

Mr. PIELKE. Can I follow up? 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Yes. 

Mr. PIELKE. What you asked about Mesopotamia and the other 

regions, these are affected by regional temperatures, and I think 

this really highlights the global average surface temperature trend 

is a very poor metric to use to diagnose climate change. Even global warming is not properly diagnosed by that metric. So the question is, What was it like in Mesopotamia, what was it like in the 

Arctic, for example? Those are the questions we really need to focus 

on. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you. I only have 11 seconds but you are 

welcome to them, Dr. Somerville. 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. I would like to respond. I wish I had time to 

respond to all of them. 

The 1970s global cooling is a myth, perpetrated by the popular 

media. It is in Newsweek magazine. It is not in the scientific literature, papered by Peterson, et al., Bulletin of American Meteorological Society establishes that—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Chairman, if I might, look, I was there. I studied it. Now maybe it is a myth. Maybe I am remembering a myth, 

but I was there. It was in my textbook. That is all I can say. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. I think we will just stipulate that there may be 

difference of opinions about that. 

Mr. Gardner, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GARDNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 

witnesses who have joined us this morning. 

And to my friend from Washington, I think I am going to get you 

a Kindle. I am a little concerned about that tower of books over 

there. 

Mr. INSLEE. Would you like to read some? It might be helpful. 

Mr. GARDNER. Only if you will read some of mine. 

Mr. INSLEE. I would be happy because it is a lot shorter list. 

Mr. GARDNER. Anyway, I wanted to just briefly touch base with 

Dr. Christy. We talked a little bit about agriculture in this committee hearing. In my view, farmers are really America’s true environmentalists, people who work every day in the land, and if global 

warming really threatened to cause extreme weather, they would 

be the first in line to want to stop it because it threatened their 

livelihoods, or livelihoods are at stake. 

If the speculation is out there that warming reduces crop yields 

had any real-world validation, farmers would be on the front lines 

fighting for global warming regulations, encouraging the EPA to 

pass the regulations, encouraging Congress to pass the bill. 

But what the agriculture community has been saying is that 

global warming policies are far worse than global warming itself. 

The Farm Bureau opposes EPA’s regulations for what they would 

do to energy and fertilizer costs for farmers. From an agricultural 

standpoint, is the cure worse than the disease? 

Mr. CHRISTY. Oh, I think so. I was just on the farm 2 weeks ago, 

working with a farmer on something, and I am just surprised at 

183 

my colleagues’ comments here about how agriculture changes. We 

grow corn from North Dakota to Alabama. When it is warm in Alabama, we still get 240 bushels an acre for irrigated corn, a tremendous amount of corn. 

The temperature is not as critical when you know how to farm 

and deal with the variations that occur in their particular area. 

But I can assure you, because I talk to a lot of farmers and deal 

with them, that their fuel costs, their fertilizer costs, they are complaining a lot right now and just cannot bear to see those costs go 

up any more, which would happen if a price were put on carbon 

like that. 

Mr. GARDNER. Thank you. 

Dr. Pielke, in your testimony, there is a 2009 paper you wrote 

and an excerpt in your testimony that says: Therefore, the costbenefit analysis regarding the mitigation of CO2 and other greenhouse gases need to be considered along with the other human climate forcings in a broader environmental context, as well as with 

respect to their role in a climate system. 

Do you feel that there hasn’t been adequate cost-benefit analysis 

regarding the CO2 regulations? 

Mr. PIELKE. No. Actually, what we proposed is a bottom-up resource-faced focus where you basically take something like corn 

and asked what are the threats to that resource, of which climate 

is one of many but it is one of them, and what are the worse of 

the policies and the funding go to try to minimize those risks? 

Mr. GARDNER. So you believe there hasn’t been enough cost-benefit analysis? 

Mr. PIELKE. No, there has not been. 

Mr. GARDNER. There has not been enough cost-benefit analysis. 

And to follow up on that, Dr. Pielke, EPA is moving quickly on 

a number of greenhouse gas and other regulations right now, and 

we have seen a chart that shows what is called the ‘‘train wreck.’’ 

Do you think it is a good idea to do all of what we are talking 

about, greenhouse gas regulations in the middle of a recession and 

what those effects could be? 

Mr. PIELKE. Well, now you are asking me a political policy question. I will defer that because I want to focus on the science. 

Mr. GARDNER. Dr. Christy? 

Mr. CHRISTY. My mind might have been drifting there, but I 

think you were asking about—— 

Mr. GARDNER. Moving forward with these regulations in the middle of a recession, given what we have said, the lack of cost-benefit 

analysis. 

Mr. CHRISTY. Well, I think moving forward, whether it is a recession or not, is going to make energy prices go up. In a State like 

mine, which is very poor, that is a big fraction of the people’s expenditures and their own economy, so I would—— 

Mr. GARDNER. When those costs go up here, will it in turn then 

cause jobs to go overseas where there is little or no regulation? 

Mr. CHRISTY. We have seen that. I have talked to particular industries that say we have already looked at Mexico and China, because if our energy costs go up, we are going to move, period. 

Mr. GARDNER. You mentioned if we could build 1,000 nuclear 

plants, what was that statistic you used? 

184 

Mr. CHRISTY. Yes. If we could build 1,000 nuclear plants, which 

is not going to happen, 1.4 gigawatts each, that would be approximately 10 percent of the CO2 emissions taken out of the mix, and 

that is not going to have much effect at all on climate. 

Mr. GARDNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back my time. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you. At this time, I recognize the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Scalise. 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate all of the 

panelists being with us today to talk about this issue, especially as 

it relates to broader efforts by the EPA to regulate greenhouse 

gases. We have had a number of hearings on not only the science 

in the past but also on economic impacts, and I would like to talk 

about both of those with you. 

Now, one thing we hear a lot by people on the other side is this 

concept that the science is settled—and I think when we go into 

past hearings that we have had on this, as well as today, I think 

it is clear that the science is not settled. There is, you know, these 

armies of thousands of scientists somewhere that hide behind these 

organizations that themselves have been discredited, but that try 

to in essence diminish countering views. And it should all come 

back to science. And I know, Dr. Pielke, you talked about this, too. 

Would you address this? 

Mr. PIELKE. Yes. There is certainly not a consensus. In fact, let 

me give you an example. 

In 2005, a National Research Council report on expanding the 

radio forcing concept, was coauthored by a range of different people, including Michael Mann, for example, was on this committee, 

and he signed off on this report, or all of us did, in which we 

showed that there are these multiple other types of climate 

forcings. The IPCC basically ignored that report which was available to them. 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you. 

Dr. Somerville, in your opening statement you used terms like 

‘‘the great preponderance of experts agree.’’ Later on, you say ‘‘Nobody should be compressed by these discredited claims.’’ Later on 

you used the comment, ‘‘It is silly and just accepted and it will take 

a strong case to go against the IPCC.’’ 

Why is there this kind of elitest arrogant view to people that 

have a contrarian view in the scientific community to that that you 

hold? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. I am certainly not trying to be elitist or arrogant, Congressman, and I regret it if you took that impression 

away. 

What I am saying is that obviously no science is firmly settled, 

so you don’t get absolute 100 percent certainty from science. Everybody recognizes that. But some things are much more firmly known 

than others. I am not going to write a research proposal to the National Science Foundation to find out whether the Earth goes 

around the Sun. That is pretty firmly established. 

Mr. SCALISE. And none of us dispute that. However, there is dispute over this claim that man is the cause of global warming. 

And let me ask Dr. Christy because, you know, kind of in contrast to some of the statements Dr. Somerville has made, I know 

you have been involved, I think, in some of the IPCC, some of the 

185 

scandal that has been going on over there over the last year. Can 

you comment on this—this concept that the science is settled? 

Mr. CHRISTY. Yes. I don’t agree that it is at all, and I think Dr. 

Somerville’s comments about being exonerated for these folks in 

the climate gate thing is just absolutely false, because that was not 

a legal test of anything. There was not admissible evidence. There 

was not cross-examination of the evidence. There was not due process and all those things, so those were not exoneration panels. 

Well, that is what they were is exoneration panels. They weren’t 

science or investigative panels. 

Mr. CHRISTY. Your original question was about why are there so 

many scientists that seem to look one way, or—— 

Mr. SCALISE. Yes, let me restate it a little bit. Because, you 

know, we have seen—and this has been a common trend over the 

last over a year, well over a year. You have people like Al Gore, 

‘‘The debate is over.’’ They literally try to make somebody out to 

be a flat-earther if they just disagree in a scientific way. And, 

again—— 

Mr. CHRISTY. OK. 

Mr. SCALISE [continuing]. Just this attempt to discredit scientists 

who pose scientific theories that counter their—in some cases, it is 

not even scientific theory. Al Gore is surely not a scientist; you are. 

But then you go to what happened in Climategate, where the 

IPCC—and they have used the hockey-stick graph to try to, again, 

say this is a settled science. And we saw in Climategate, they used 

a trick to hide the decline. This is something that really happened. 

And yet, it seems like people like you and Dr. Pielke and others 

who truly do go to the data—I think you have built models on 

data—they are trying to actually change our economy in the United 

States in a way that would run millions of jobs out of this country. 

We have already seen real evidence of that, by the way. The scientific evidence clearly is not settled on this issue, but we do know 

from testimony we have had about people who have said they have 

moved jobs to other countries. 

If you can maybe give me a summary of what carbon leakage 

means. For those companies that go and they will build a steel 

plant or they will build a refinery in another country that doesn’t 

have the standards that we have today, where they will actually 

emit more carbon, what does that do to the global atmosphere, if 

they are concerned about carbon and you are actually emitting 

more carbon in another country because you have sent those jobs 

out of America instead of keeping them here? 

Mr. CHRISTY. Yes, emissions will rise as a result of that kind of 

unintended consequence. Poverty will increase in a State like mine. 

In fact, I had this very conversation with a plant owner who said 

it is ironic that, with this legislative action, if it were to go forward—they were looking at Mexico, in fact—that they would emit 

four times more emissions if they were to move their operations, 

plus create a pocket of poverty that we don’t need in our State that 

would make health concerns even worse for those folks. 

Mr. SCALISE. I appreciate that. Thank you. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Terry is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TERRY. Thank you for that, Mr. Chairman. 

186 

Dr. Nadelhoffer—did I pronounce that correctly? I got here a little late. 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. Yes, correctly enough. Thank you. 

Mr. TERRY. Should nitrogen be banned? Should the EPA ban nitrogen? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. The short answer is, no, the EPA could never 

ban nitrogen. It is—— 

Mr. TERRY. Why? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER [continuing]. The dominant gas in our atmosphere. 

Mr. TERRY. All right. Man’s use of nitrogen? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. Again, the use of nitrogen as synthetic fertilizer has essentially allowed us to feed 8 billion, 9 billion people 

on Earth. I don’t think EPA is proposing to ban nitrogen fertilizer. 

Mr. TERRY. I didn’t—OK. How about you? Do you think we 

should? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. No. 

Mr. TERRY. OK. Just wanted to establish if we were allowed to 

eat anymore. 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. Oh, yes, we are. 

Mr. TERRY. OK. 

It was interesting, it piqued my curiosity, Dr. Pielke; you had 

mentioned earlier in the discussion—and it is a real nuance here, 

but it is one that I think grasps at average, nonscientific citizens 

when they are trying to digest all of this global warming and man’s 

role in it. 

You had said earlier, in an answer to a question, that man’s role 

is a part of global warming, that there are many other attributes 

or causes, and it is difficult to, kind of, unwind man’s cause. That 

is the ultimate issue here, because we can only control man’s role 

within the borders of the United States of America. 

So I am curious, what are some of the other factors? Has there 

been scientific studies that would enable us to measure more accurately so we can have a more targeted solution here than simply 

trying to eliminate and go to a zero-carbon baseline from 1820? 

Mr. PIELKE. Well, we have to recognize there are consequences 

whenever humans do anything. But what we have done—and there 

was that 2005 National Research Council report I referenced that 

talks about land-use change, talks about aerosols, talks about nitrogen deposition, for example, as well as carbon dioxide, both the 

biogeochemical and the radiative effect. And the more we learn 

about this, the more uncertain it becomes. 

And to try to factor out what is the CO2 contribution to any of 

these impacts, whether it is floods or heat waves, is becoming an 

increasingly more difficult problem. And when we discuss just CO2, 

we focus just on C02, we are ignoring all these other influences and 

not even then considering what the natural part is. 

Mr. TERRY. If the United States did go to an 1820 carbon baseline for man’s emissions within the United States, has the scientific 

community concluded what globally the impact would be on global 

warming? 

Mr. PIELKE. Well, in terms of the CO2 emissions, I am sure that 

work has been done. And Chris can probably talk more about that. 

187 

But in terms of man’s impact, look at the land-use change that 

has occurred since 1820. And we have done quite a bit of research 

showing that that has a major effect on precipitation and on temperature and extreme weather. And this factor was inadequately 

assessed in the IPCC. 

So there are these other climate forcings in addition to CO2 that 

really should be explored further, and they have not been, by the 

IPCC. 

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Somerville, do you believe that farming contributes to global warming? Farming activities? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. I think that there is certainly a contribution, 

a minor contribution. 

But I would like to reiterate, if I may, sir, that the overwhelming 

scientific consensus—that there is no doubt that land-use changes 

especially have an influence on the local climate. But when you 

talk about the global climate, the science community is not persuaded by the arguments you have heard today from—— 

Mr. TERRY. That there is additional contributions. Your belief is 

it is 100 percent caused by these activities. 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. No, it is not 100 percent at all, but it is the 

dominant contribution. IPCC said in their last report—— 

Mr. TERRY. All right. 

Mr. SOMERVILLE [continuing]. In this language that your government approved—— 

Mr. TERRY. Have you in your studies or your research been able 

to determine, if we went to an 1820 baseline for man’s contribution 

of CO2 in the United States, what impact that would have on global warming? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. Congressman, by itself it would not solve the 

problem. We are not advocating anybody go back to the 1820s. 

What is scary now—— 

Mr. TERRY. All right. 1880? 1900? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. What is scary now is the rate of change of climate. We are not saying there was an ideal climate in some year 

in the past. What is frightening, what is something to be very concerned about is the rate at which the climate is changing now. 

Mr. TERRY. And my time is up. And that is part of the problem 

here, is we can’t get our mind around what we are supposed to be 

doing if there is really that great of a problem. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. OK. We appreciate you all coming from many 

long distances, and this is a very important subject. 

Do you all have any interest in doing one more round? 

Mr. RUSH. Oh, absolutely, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. All right. Five minutes each. 

All right. I will start off. 

As public-policymakers, I think the thing that concerns me, particularly, just like this—we have had 24 panels of witnesses on 

science. And every time basically there is an agreement there is 

warming, there is a disagreement on why it is. 

And we know that we have had warming periods in the past. We 

have had the Minoan warming period, the Roman warming period, 

the medieval warming period. And during that time, there was no 

industrialization, and so CO2 carbon emissions were not as high as 

they are today. Why? We don’t exactly know the answer. The ice 

188 

in the Arctic is diminishing; the ice in the Antarctic is growing, for 

lack of a better word. 

So when we are asked to adopt policies unilaterally for America 

that would place us at a competitive disadvantage with other countries like China and India when jobs are at stake, when we have 

high unemployment, then it is a significant issue here. 

And this administration, through EPA, has made the decision 

that they are going to regulate greenhouse gases. So, as I have said 

before, on three different occasions Congress has said no. In 1990, 

they said no. In 1998, they said no. They rejected the cap-and-trade 

legislation the last time. 

So we can talk about consensus on global warming, fine. But consensus on why and the questions about the models, I don’t think 

anyone, obviously, can say definitively, ‘‘This is the answer.’’ 

So you all have been really helpful today. I really appreciate all 

of you coming. I know you are all scientists, you are well-educated. 

You are committed to trying to improve America and our world 

that we live in. 

So I just wanted to make that comment. And, at this point, I 

would recognize Mr. Rush for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RUSH. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I join you 

in thanking these panelists, all of them, who are making some significant contributions to this subcommittee. 

I want to get back to Dr. Nadelhoffer. 

Dr. Nadelhoffer, you spent 20-plus years in the Arctic. And there 

has been some testimony, I saw you squirming and biting at the 

bit because you wanted to jump in. 

So would you answer the question, what impact does climate 

change have for population centers globally? And referring to your 

experiences from the Arctic, what did you learn from your Arctic 

experiences? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. Excuse me, Congressman Rush. Could you repeat the last part of the question? It was hard to hear. 

Mr. RUSH. Yes, your experiences in the Arctic drew you to certain conclusions about the effect of climate change on population 

centers globally. Could you expound on your experience? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. Well, the Arctic is a fragile environment. It 

is a cold environment, and temperature excursions change the Arctic in ways that we really are only learning are playing out. But, 

certainly, in many parts of the Arctic, permafrost is getting warmer, and in some places permafrost, which holds the ground firmly 

in place, is melting and diminishing. And so, many of our north 

Alaskan communities are compromised. Their building structures 

are sinking, often, into thawing permafrost. 

The climate system—interesting that we talked about Antarctica. 

The Antarctic ice sheet, of course, is a very complex system. But 

most of the glaciers that are measured in the Antarctic continent 

are increasing their flow rates into the Antarctic Ocean. And so, 

you know, it only makes sense that there may be more ice in the 

Antarctic Ocean because of the donation from the landscape. 

The Antarctic Peninsula, over the past 50 years, has increased 

more than any place on Earth of a comparable size. So there are 

indicators from the Antarctic region, as well. 

189 

And, of course, these regions, one of the reasons that I and others 

work in the Arctic and my colleagues are working in the Antarctic 

is they are bellwethers. Those are the parts of the Earth that in 

the Arctic summer and the Antarctic summer face into the sun. 

The field station I work in in northern Alaska has sunlight continuously from May 20th to July 20th. And when there is less reflectivity from ice in the summer, there is more heat coming into 

the Earth’s system in the summer. 

So the Arctic systems, although sparsely populated, feed back 

and affect the global climate in ways that I think others on the 

panel could express better than I can. But thank you very much 

for your question. 

Mr. RUSH. Well, I have another question. Dr. Christy indicated 

that crop loss may be more contributed to farmers not really knowing what they are doing than the impacts of climate change. Do 

you have a response to this, his assertions? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. Well, I have an indirect response. I, again, 

don’t cover agricultural policy and farmer behavior and attitudes in 

my research. 

However, I think one of the things that climate change does for 

agriculture—or, one of the ways it impacts agriculture is to increase the uncertainty surrounding extreme events. I think farmers 

could well benefit from talking at high levels with climate scientists and trying to understand the risks involved with a more 

variable climate in agricultural regions. 

Mr. RUSH. Dr. Field, would you respond to that question also? 

Mr. FIELD. Sure. 

I would like to congratulate John on knowing some very successful farmers. 

The observations are that, in warmer periods, crop yields go 

down. And with corn, it is very clear that there is a threshold of 

about 84 degrees Fahrenheit, and when the temperatures are higher than that, yields go down. 

The sensitivity of corn is quite dramatic. A single day with a 

temperature of 104, as opposed to 84, can decrease corn yields by 

about 7 percent. 

Mr. RUSH. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. BURGESS. Dr. Christy, from your study of—and we have 

heard some talk today and some comparison to medicine and diagnosis and treatment. So what does the evidence say about how we 

are going about diagnosing this problem? 

Mr. CHRISTY. Well, as someone who actually builds those data 

sets, what I find is that we have one standard of instrumentation 

that gives us some answers but there are really more answers to 

be found. We do need a better set of satellites going up. I can divert 

there for a second, but I won’t. 

I will say—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Unfortunately, some of the satellites seem to be 

coming down, and that is a problem. 

Mr. CHRISTY. Right. That is a problem. 

Someone mentioned about, there were 4,500 people behind Dr. 

Field here. And my point in my talk was that I have looked at the 

190 

very evidence for this thing, a climate model. So those 4,500 people, 

to make it simple, think the world is warming at 0.26 degrees C 

per decade right now. That is what climate model theory, that is 

what greenhouse theory in these models indicates. The data set 

does not. Does that mean they are still right and I am wrong, or 

what is it? 

So I am not here to be a popular person. I hope I am providing 

the numbers of science that make this situation more understandable. 

Mr. BURGESS. And you have put together these observational 

databases essentially from—you have built them on your own, you 

have built them from scratch? 

Mr. CHRISTY. Yes, our group has built them and published them. 

They are in the literature. 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, does the AIPCC or the National Academy of 

Sciences use your work? 

Mr. CHRISTY. Sparingly. 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, when they talk to you, what do they say is 

the justification for not including your work in the consensus? 

Mr. CHRISTY. I think they would say, because we have so many 

people, we have to include everybody’s work, and so you are just— 

you know, it is a democracy there, so you only get one vote. It 

doesn’t matter how good the data are, it is one vote. 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, what are your observations suggesting to you 

about the impact of carbon dioxide on global climate change or 

global warming? 

Mr. CHRISTY. Yes, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. There is 

no question about that. It will increase the surface temperature 

somewhat. But the effect is about one-third, the best we can figure, 

than what the current theory indicates, on which all these legislative actions are based. 

Mr. BURGESS. Dr. Somerville, let me ask you a question. In your 

summation of your opening statement, which I appreciate you providing for us, item number 5, you state that, ‘‘Science has its own 

high standards. It does not work by unqualified people making 

claims and expressing opinions on television or the Internet. People 

who are not experts, who are not trained and experienced in this 

field, who do not do research and publish it following standard scientific practice, are not doing science.’’ 

Does that statement apply to Dr. Christy? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. No. 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, let me ask you this. And I alluded to it earlier, the legislation that was before us in this committee late into 

the night on May 31st and then on the House floor late into the 

night on June 26. Why do you think it is—if the vast preponderance of science and scientists agree with you and your position, 

why haven’t you closed the deal with the public? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. That is a very good question. I think that we, 

as a science community, suffer as communicators. I think that we 

have not done a good job of outreach. The IPCC reports are hard 

to read. I think we haven’t translated them into plain English. 

I think that some people who have done that translating aren’t 

well enough recognized, and I would put the U.S. military in that 

category, sir. I highly recommend to this subcommittee a report 

191 

called ‘‘Climate Change and National Security’’ by the CNA Corporation, which is composed of retired flags officers, generals, and 

admirals and so on, who reviewed this area, were briefed by climate scientists—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Yes. 

Mr. SOMERVILLE [continuing]. Said, it is a threat multiplier, it is 

a national security concern—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Let me just—— 

Mr. SOMERVILLE [continuing]. We don’t wait for perfect information before—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Let me just reclaim my time. It obviously doesn’t 

take a rocket scientist, or a rocket surgeon for that matter, to know 

that Members of Congress are not held in very high regard right 

now, so anything we say is certainly suspect. The military is held 

in very high regard. 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. Right. 

Mr. BURGESS. So why—again, I would pose my question to you— 

why have you not closed the deal with the public? Why, when I go 

home to my district and have my town-halls, why is the public not 

clamoring for me to control carbon in the atmosphere and drive up 

energy prices? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. I think there are many reasons for that. There 

is an active disinformation campaign out there, as you may 

know—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Who are you accusing of the active disinformation 

campaign? 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. I am accusing parts of the fossil fuel industry 

and certain think-tanks and political centers. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and we haven’t done as good a job as we 

need to to counteract it, sir. 

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Chairman, if I could, just a point of personal 

privilege. I really appreciate Mr. Inslee bringing his own brand of 

carbon sequestration to the committee. It is an interesting tower he 

has constructed there. 

Thank you. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you. 

Mr. Waxman, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This panel was invited to give us information about the scientific 

record. I don’t think that it would be fair to ask any of you to tell 

us exactly how to solve the problem. There are a lot of different alternatives, and we could explore those alternatives if we think 

something needs to be done. 

I think there is a moral imperative to address climate change because of the damaging consequences that appear to be occurring. 

We don’t have an abstract concern about how many parts per million of carbon dioxide are in the atmosphere. We are worried about 

extreme weather events, the reduced crop yields, the wildfires, the 

floods, the rising sea level, and the rest of a long list of impacts. 

And when analyzing the costs of acting to address climate 

change, it would be irresponsible to ignore the costs of inaction. 

But this isn’t the panel to ask about what costs we ought to spend 

on acting and what are the consequences of inacting, except on the 

level of science. 

192 

Professor Field, let me just go back to this point. Earlier you said 

that corn, soybean, and cotton yields are very sensitive to increased 

temperatures. What effect does a very high-temperature day have 

on corn yields? How much are corn, soybean, and cotton yields in 

the U.S. expected to decline as a result of climate change? For example, if you have a single day of 104 degrees temperature, instead 

of 84 degrees, what would be the impact on corn? And what would 

be a modest warming impact? 

Mr. FIELD. Currently, the best science came out in a 2010 report 

of the National Research Council. And what it concluded is that we 

should expect, in the absence of other activities, to see U.S. crop 

yields drop by something on the order of 5 to 10 percent for each 

degree Fahrenheit of warming. 

We may be able to do technological fixes that avoid some of those 

changes. But I think that the best way to understand the climate 

change is, it is like an anchor that we are trying to drag as we advance agricultural technology through improved breeding and improved practices. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Now, if a single day of 104 degrees temperature instead of 84 reduces corn yields by 7 percent—is that accurate? 

Mr. FIELD. Yes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Even modest warming over this century is expected to reduce corn, soybean, and cotton yields by 30 to 46 percent. Is that an accurate statement? 

Mr. FIELD. That is as well. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And so, if we had a severe warming, that could reduce 63 to 82 percent. 

Mr. FIELD. Yes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Now, maybe the farmers don’t know about it; they 

are not clamoring for any legislation on the subject. But I could 

easily imagine they not knowing about it because they are not 

doing this research that you are doing. 

Mr. FIELD. The new information is really quite striking. What it 

demonstrates is that, for major food crops in the U.S. and for cotton, there is very little temperature sensitivity until you reach a 

threshold. After you reach a threshold temperature—I indicated 

that it is 82 for corn, 84 for soybeans, and about 90 for cotton— 

you will begin to drop rapidly. And that is why people aren’t generally aware of the sensitivities. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Now, some of our Members represent districts in 

the western United States. Have the frequency and duration of 

western wildfires been affected by these increasing temperatures? 

Mr. FIELD. Since the middle of the 1980s, we have seen a dramatic increase in the area burned, in the average length of fires, 

and in the length of fire season across the western U.S. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And these are already happening? 

Mr. FIELD. Yes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. What can we expect as temperatures continue to 

rise? 

Mr. FIELD. The best estimates, based on observations, not based 

on any kind of a simulation, is that a warming of about 1.8, more 

or less the same amount of warming that the U.S. has seen over 

the last century, would increase the annual area consumed in 

wildfires in the western U.S. From about 1.3 million acres a year 

193 

to about 4.5 million acres per year, a more than threefold increase 

as a consequence of a very modest warming, more or less the 

amount of warming we have already seen. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And, Professor Nadelhoffer, what climate change 

impacts can we expect to crop yields in the Midwest? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. Well, I don’t have a percentage number, but 

we are seeing higher frequencies of high-heat events. And to the 

extent that those high-heat events exceed the critical thresholds beyond which crop yields decline qualitatively, I can say that it would 

damage agriculture in the U.S. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Is it possible that soybean yields could decline in 

Illinois by as much as 55 percent by the end of the century? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. I would not rule that out. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And weed-induced losses for corn could increase 22 

percent in the Great Lakes States and 35 percent for soybeans? 

Mr. NADELHOFFER. That is within the realm of possibility. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, I want to end, Mr. Chairman, by saying that 

we have heard a lot of reasons from Members of Congress why people are afraid to do anything. But for us to do nothing, for the rest 

of the world to do nothing, there is a cost of inaction. And we ought 

to recognize that fact and try to figure out what can we do to make 

things better. 

If we don’t want something major, let’s do something modest. But 

let’s don’t just put our heads in the sand and say, ‘‘We heard there 

is no problem from some scientists and some people that seem to 

be reputable, and therefore we are not going to do anything. Let’s 

let the problem get worse.’’ I don’t think that is a responsible position. 

I yield back my time. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you. 

Mr. Griffith, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me reiterate something that I mentioned previously. As you 

know, I was on a rapid-fire because I thought I was only going to 

get 5 minutes and I wanted to get all my questions out there. And 

I do ask you all to please get me answers, and we will get the questions in writing to you and so forth. 

But one of my great concerns in this whole debate is that we 

shift our jobs and our wealth to other countries—Asia, Mexico— 

other countries that are not doing what we are doing. If it turns 

out that those of you who believe that it is all manmade greenhouse gases and manmade effect, I worry that we have crippled 

ourselves to respond to it later when other countries want to do 

something about it because we won’t have the money. We will be 

a second-tier nation at that point, and that is a great concern of 

mine. 

And I think we should have, you know, reasonable rules and regulations, but I want to make sure that we are doing it in a reasonable fashion. And I am not sure that unilaterally stopping the use 

of carbon fuels does this country or the world any great favors. 

That being said, I was interested in the comments by you, Dr. 

Christy, in regard to land use. And I am wondering if you can amplify that, as to how that is affecting global warming and what we 

might be able to do. You know, is one of the concerns deforestation? 

194 

Are we worried about the peat bogs? I heard permafrost mentioned. 

I am just wondering if you could amplify on that. 

Mr. CHRISTY. I will just talk about the fact that, when you look 

at surface temperature measurements, like I saw a chart up there 

earlier, we have shown how that is contaminated by the fact that 

it uses nighttime temperatures, which are a clear signal and affected by surface development of all kinds. It is a really complicated problem that we published on. 

But there is clearly a warming component that is very large in 

that surface-temperature record over land that is not due to greenhouse gases at all, but it is due to humans. It is due to surface development. And so, I made the comment one time that if you turn 

California back into a desert, you will see the temperature fall, 

simply because of this effect. I don’t recommend it, but. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Yes, I am not in favor of that either. 

But what other—you said turn California, you know, back. What 

other things would we have to turn back to get back to temperatures pre-industrialization in the 19th century—or, excuse me, in 

the 1900s? 

Mr. CHRISTY. It would be to go back to what it was like in the 

18th century. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right. 

And then, Dr. Fields, I have been very interested in—and you 

may not have it here today, but I have been very interested in— 

and let me see if I have this right—90 degrees for cotton, 82 for 

corn, 84 for soybeans? Did I get that correct? Can you give me the 

same number on barley, wheat, oats, millet, rice, et cetera? 

Mr. FIELD. I can’t give you the specific numbers because the 

analysis for barley, we have only been able to do it with a global 

scale. And with barley, the sensitivity is about 5 percent yield loss 

per degree Fahrenheit of temperature increase. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. But do you know the number for barley? 

Mr. FIELD. I don’t know if there is a threshold for barley. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. OK. And how about wheat, oats, millet, rice? Just 

picking up some of the other grains. 

Mr. FIELD. Right. So, the only grains for which—the only crops 

for which we have been able to identify the threshold temperatures 

are corn, soybean, and cotton. For the others, we can detect the 

sensitivity to warming and we can detect the fact that historical 

warming has put this anchor on yields. But as far as we can tell, 

we are in a part of the temperature range that is already responsive, where we are already seeing the yield decreases. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. OK. Now, let me ask this, because, as Congressman Waxman pointed out, we want to deal with science here today, 

and that is what I am trying to do. I have all kinds of questions. 

Do we not know the other grains because we haven’t studied 

them or we have not yet reached their threshold? 

Mr. FIELD. Well, we have reached the threshold. What we are 

seeing at the global scale is that there are already yield decreases 

with historical warming for wheat, maize, corn, and barley. What 

I said is that there is no evidence from the observations that there 

is a threshold. We are already in the responsive part of the system 

for wheat, barley, and corn. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. OK. Has there been a study on oats? 

195 

Mr. FIELD. No. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. So we have lack of science there. 

Mr. FIELD. As far as I am aware, on oats. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. OK. And the same would be true for millet and 

rice? 

Mr. FIELD. In the study of the world’s six major food crops, we 

do not see that rice is decreasing yields in response to the warming 

that has already occurred. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right. Thank you very much. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you. 

Mr. Inslee, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. 

Dr. Somerville, I would like to suggest that you have been way 

too self-critical on the scientific community about why there is 

some remaining uncertainty in the public’s mind about this. And 

I want to suggest that the reason there is some uncertainty is 

there has been a concerted war on science on this subject, just like 

there was in the tobacco debate. 

This is a movie we have seen before. When the devastating evidence with a scientific consensus came out that tobacco killed 

Americans, there was a very concerted effort to distort and attack 

that science. It lasted for decades until it was finally overwhelmed. 

And it was in part because there were people with enormous financial stakes that attacked that science, and it was in part and 

is part today—and here is another reason for it, and I will suggest 

it. Maybe it is controversial, but I will suggest it. Folks in the press 

report this like a divorce trial: He said, she said, then she said, 

then he said. That is not the way science ought to be reported in 

this country. 

And if people start reporting that this mountain of evidence—by 

the way, this is just a partial list of the scientific documents on 

this. These things could reach to the ceiling. And there isn’t one, 

single peer-reviewed paper in the world that supports a hypothesis 

about why the Arctic is melting other than this phenomena. And 

we need people in the press to start reporting that, frankly, so that 

Americans can make rational decisions. 

Now, I want to bring in the parameters of what our real scientific discussion here is, because there is uncertainty about this, 

obviously, about how fast this is going to go and what the temperature ranges will be. 

But I want to ask Dr. Christy, there was a lawsuit up in 

Vermont, and a judge quoted an expert who testified on behalf of 

the plaintiff. And he quoted this—I will call him Dr. X for the moment. I will quote from the judge’s opinion. 

Quote, ‘‘Plaintiff’s own expert, Dr. X, agrees with the IPCC’s assessment that, in light of new evidence and taking into account remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 

50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in GHG concentrations. Christy’’—excuse me, I gave it away—‘‘Dr. X agrees 

that the increase in carbon dioxide is real and primarily due to the 

burning of fossil fuels, which changes the radiated balance of the 

atmosphere and has an impact on the planet’s surface temperature 

toward a warming rate.’’ 

196 

Now, I gave away who Dr. X was. I just want to make clear, Dr. 

Christy, you agree, do you not, that human emissions of some of 

these pollutant gases is playing at least some role in changes in 

our climate? Now, if you could just say ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ to that, I 

would really appreciate it. 

Mr. CHRISTY. The question was a little confused there. Was it the 

pollution—— 

Mr. INSLEE. Let me just ask you if you agree with the statement 

you gave up in a court in Vermont. You said you—— 

Mr. CHRISTY. No, the judge got the statement wrong. 

Mr. INSLEE. Oh, I see. The judge did it. 

Mr. CHRISTY. I did not say that. Go back to the transcript, and 

that is the problem. 

Mr. INSLEE. Well, let me just ask you this. Do you agree with the 

IPC’s conclusion, assessment, that, in light of new evidence and 

taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 6 years is likely to have been due to 

the increase in GHG concentrations, testimony by you on May 4th, 

2007? Do you agree with that or disagree with that? 

Mr. CHRISTY. What I said on the transcript was I mostly agreed 

with that. I did not say I agreed with it. And if they just changed 

one word, I would agree with that, instead of ‘‘most’’ to ‘‘some.’’ 

Mr. INSLEE. Let’s show the picture of the Arctic up here again, 

if we can. If we can put the picture of the Arctic up here. 

Now, what we have observed, due to satellite data and observations on the surface, is incontrovertible. A massive part of the 

Earth has changed. I don’t know how many thousands of square 

miles are on there, but this is a bunch. And we have seen a 40 to 

50 percent reduction in volume of the Arctic Sea ice in September 

in the last couple of decades. If current trends continue, there will 

be virtually no Arctic ice in September probably within this decade, 

perhaps within 5 or 6 years. 

Now, what I am told is, this is a very significant change in the 

planet because of the albedo effect. And perhaps, Dr. Field, could 

you describe to us what that is and why this is important to us? 

Mr. FIELD. Thank you. 

Sea ice reflects about 90 percent of the sunlight that hits it. Seawater absorbs about 90 percent of the sunlight that hits it. That 

is a big difference in the amount of heat that is reflected back to 

space versus absorbed in the Earth’s system. Sea ice tends to cool 

the planet. Open water tends to warm the planet. 

Mr. INSLEE. Now, this appears to me to be a very dramatic 

change in the world that we have known since humans walked the 

planet. This has never existed before while humans were on the 

planet Earth. 

Has anyone produced a peer-reviewed article to suggest a hypothesis as to why this has happened in the Arctic other than the 

accumulation of greenhouse gases and associated effects? Has anyone published a peer-reviewed article suggesting another hypothesis? 

And I am not seeing any takers, because there are none. 

Mr. PIELKE. Excuse me. If you are asking a question, that 2005 

NRC report talks about the black carbon. And there is also the 

issue of natural circulation—— 

197 

Mr. INSLEE. Black carbon is something associated with burning 

our fossil fuels. And that—— 

Mr. PIELKE. I understand, but—— 

Mr. INSLEE [continuing]. Is another problem we have to get—— 

Mr. PIELKE [continuing]. It is not a greenhouse gas. 

Mr. INSLEE. Well, it is good enough to melt the Arctic. And it is 

one of the reasons why the EPA should not be stopped from enforcing the Clean Air Act, like the Republicans want to do. And we are 

going to stop it. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

You know, there was some nodding going on here when we 

talked about there is not one peer-reviewed article relating to the 

Arctic diminishing of ice. Are any of you aware of any peer-reviewed articles that—— 

Mr. CHRISTY. There are articles that talk about the circulation 

being a dominant component of why that is missing up there. If 

you go back several—a few thousand years, not several, just a few 

thousand years, there were times when it was probably completely 

free of ice. This is not a new situation. 

And I agree with you that there is no question the Arctic ice has 

diminished in the past 20 years. Antarctic sea ice has increased. 

And it has a greater albedo effect, by the way, than the Arctic does. 

And I think Roger knows something about that. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The gentleman from Louisiana is recognized for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the second 

round. 

And, obviously, I think we are seeing some more very interesting, 

kind of, divergent views. But, in some ways, it is not really divergent. We are really starting to see more of the details that seem 

to be excluded too often in other reports, when some people want 

to issue a report just to prove what they are trying to accomplish, 

as opposed to following the data. 

And I want to ask you about this, Dr. Pielke, because you refer 

to the Climate Change Science Program’s report. And I think you 

had done an analysis of it, maybe with some other doctors, I would 

like to ask you to comment on. 

But in a few parts of your statement, you talk about, ‘‘The process for completing the CCSP report excluded valid scientific perspectives.’’ You talk about, ‘‘The editor of the report systemically 

excluded a range of views on the issue of understanding and reconciling lower atmospheric temperature trends.’’ Later on, you mentioned that, ‘‘The executive summary of the CCSP report ignores 

critical scientific issues and makes unbalanced conclusions concerning our current understanding of temperature trends.’’ 

All of you are scientists, and, respectably, you can disagree with 

each other if you are trying to come to a conclusion. But if you are 

going to issue a report and deliberately exclude certain things because maybe they don’t reach the same conclusion that you are trying to reach, that is not science. 

And I think, Dr. Pielke, what you are talking about here—and 

you reviewed this—is getting to the heart of that very concern 

many of us have, that there are people running around out there 

talking about ‘‘thousands of scientists’’ out there and trying to disVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:50 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00205 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 112\112-16 030811\112-16 CHRIS
198 

credit anybody who comes out against it, when, in fact, some of 

these reports exclude key data, and then the thousands of scientists are basing their assumptions on the report that, in itself, 

is factually inaccurate because it excluded key data. 

So if you can talk to me about maybe specifically the CCSP report and what was excluded. And in the broader picture, are there 

other scientists like you that have reviewed these kinds of reports 

and said, ‘‘Wait a minute, they are leaving out key data’’? 

Mr. PIELKE. Exactly, they certainly are. And in the CCPS report, 

I documented it for others in a series of e-mail exchanges that I 

had that is actually on my Web log. What you quoted was out of 

a public comment that I responded to. And an outgrowth of that 

was that we published several papers with many authors in the 

peer-reviewed literature that showed unresolved issues with the 

surface-temperature record. I am not going to go through them 

here, obviously, but one of them is how good is the siting of these 

sites; what height do they measure the temperatures at. 

They deliberately excluded this, and they wanted to assume that 

this surface-temperature record is robust and they don’t need to 

look at it any further. And on the CCSP report, we raise issues. 

They were excluded. And then I finally resigned it to the public 

comment. And since then we have published papers on it and have 

documented that there are serious issues with the use of that metric to diagnose global warming. 

Mr. SCALISE. And, again, this should be based on the data. If the 

data backs it up, that is one thing. But then there are people running around using these reports that, in and of themselves, are corrupt because they specifically excluded key—this data. 

Mr. PIELKE. As you know, the CCSP was used in preparation of 

the 2007 IPCC report. And I also documented peer-reviewed papers 

that were excluded from that report that showed an alternative 

perspective than what was presented in the report on that issue. 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you. 

And let me ask you, Dr. Christy, because you talk about this in 

a similar way. You talk about, ‘‘Widely publicized consensus reports by thousands of scientists are misrepresentative and contain 

overstated confidence in their assertions, rarely representing the 

range of scientific opinion that attends a relatively murky field of 

climate science.’’ 

Can you expand upon that, following a similar line of questioning 

that I had with Dr. Pielke? 

Mr. CHRISTY. Well, fundamentally, only a few people can write 

the report. Thousands of people don’t write the report. Thousands 

of people don’t approve of everything in the report. And so it really 

comes down to those few who are, as I call them, they are gatekeepers of the information rather than brokers of the information. 

This is the information I presented to the InterAcademy Council 

last summer that they pretty much took to heart. And how do you 

get out of that? That was one of the things I was trying to—— 

Mr. SCALISE. Let me ask you this, because we have heard this 

in previous testimony before this committee. Some scientists—who, 

as you, Dr. Pielke, and others have maybe pointed out some inaccuracies or data that is left out, other things—they talk about 

blacklisting that goes on inside the scientific community. I don’t 

199 

know if you want to comment on it. But, I mean, what kind of reaction do you get from scientists when you do point out these things 

that are not necessarily reflective of the full picture? 

Mr. CHRISTY. They are hard pressed to deal with the numbers, 

because all science is numbers, and that is really what we have. 

But—— 

Mr. SCALISE. And you have built your own data models, so I take 

it—and I looked at what you reviewed on the Sierra Nevada mountains, some other things you found in the United States and Africa 

in terms of temperature, and the complexities, when you get into 

what really causes it. It is one thing to show that you have a temperature change over thousands of years. You have seen that up 

and down throughout history. What causes it, I guess, is at the 

heart of the issue here, and the complexities of that. 

So if you can make one final comment there. 

Mr. CHRISTY. Well, I would just say, kind of, the thrust of your 

question, if someone would read the Climategate e-mails, and as 

someone who was denigrated in those e-mails, I have a completely 

different view about them than Dr. Somerville might. 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you. 

And, Mr. Chairman, if I may, just one last thing. Today is Mardi 

Gras day. I just flew in from New Orleans this morning to be at 

this panel, so I couldn’t be at the parade. But, as we are talking 

about icing and agriculture, I have got a king cake back in the 

back. So if members of the committee on either side would like to 

come back, we have some good king cake from New Orleans with 

icing on top—— 

Mr. WHITFIELD. How big is it? 

Mr. SCALISE [continuing]. And I would invite you all to have 

some of that. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Is it big? 

Mr. SCALISE. It is—and, by the way, your good friend Herschel 

Abbott is the king of Mardis Gras today. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. All right. 

Mr. SCALISE. So, a beautiful day back in New Orleans. Wish I 

could be there, but glad to be here. And I yield back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. That concludes today’s hearing. I want to 

thank—— 

Mr. RUSH. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes? 

Mr. RUSH. Mr. Chairman, I have a unanimous consent request 

for some reports to be entered into the record, if I might. A very 

extensive—— 

Mr. WHITFIELD. How big is this report? 

Mr. RUSH. There are a number of reports. But I would like to 

have them entered into the record. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, yes. And we will enter some in the record, 

too, then. All right, go ahead. 

Mr. RUSH. Mr. Chairman, the first report is a 2009 report entitled, ‘‘Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States.’’ And 

this study was conducted on behalf of the National Science and 

Technology Council and the U.S. Global Change Research Program 

and was transmitted to the Bush White House and the Congress 

200 

in June 2009. The report summarizes the science of climate 

change—— 

Mr. WHITFIELD. How many pages is that? 

Mr. RUSH. I think it is about 170, 180 pages. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. OK. 

Mr. RUSH. And I will quote just one part of it. It says, ‘‘Observations show that warming of the climate is unequivocal. The global 

warming observed over the past 50 years is due primarily to 

human-induced emissions.’’ 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Rush, I mean, if you would read the title, 

we would be happy to submit them. 

Mr. RUSH. All right. Well, then this study is a 2007 study entitled, ‘‘The U.S. Economic Impacts of Climate Change and the Costs 

of Inaction,’’ and it is a review and assessment by the Center for 

Integrative Environmental Research at the University of Maryland. 

The third is a statement from the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society, which serves 262 affiliated societies 

and academies of science and 10 million individuals. 

The other is a statement by 18 scientific societies, including the 

American Association for the Advancement of Science, representing 

an assessment of the science. 

The other one is a letter on behalf of 152 researchers from universities, colleges, and research institutes across the State of Michigan strongly urging members of the Michigan congressional delegation to reject any measure that will block or delay the EPA from 

protecting the people of Michigan from air pollution and humancaused climate change, which endangers the public agriculture and 

the environment and the economy. 

The next is a letter on behalf of scientists and colleges and universities across the State of Wisconsin urging the Wisconsin congressional delegation to support strong Federal policies for rapid 

and deep reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other 

greenhouse gases at least on par with the reductions recommended 

by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

And the last report, Mr. Chairman, is the report that I heard 

about today, along with the rest of the Members, is the report that 

Dr. Somerville stated—and I don’t know the full name of the report. It was a military report, the CNA report. Maybe Dr. Somerville can give us the formal name of the study. 

Mr. SOMERVILLE. Yes, I am glad to do that. It is ‘‘National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,’’ 2007, the CNA Corporation. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. We will be happy to do that. 

And we will also include this document, ‘‘More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming 

Claims.’’ Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. First of all, I want to thank you for holding this 

hearing. I think it was important for us to hear about the science 

of this whole issue. 

201 

But I was just informed that you are planning to call a meeting 

of our subcommittee to mark up the bill on Thursday, and I want 

to make a request that you not do that. I have extended an offer 

to you to work with you. I would hate to see Congress take a position on declaring science, a science conclusion that what the EPA 

determined was false, amending the Clean Air Act and denying the 

EPA ability to do anything. 

I would hope we could come up with a more nuanced and more 

reasonable policy in light of what we are hearing from people today 

and how this issue is of a great deal of significance to many of us. 

So I would appeal to you to meet with us, no preconditions, and 

see if we can come up with something better. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, Mr. Waxman, thank you very much for 

those comments. And, you know, these are some issues that there 

are significant disagreements on. And I know that when we have 

this markup on Thursday there will be a lot of debate, a lot of 

amendments, and we will air it all out at that time. 

And I want to thank the witnesses for being here today very 

much. We appreciate your testimony. This is a very—your testimony is very important. 

I would like to also remind Members that they have 10 business 

days to submit questions for the record. 

And I ask that the witnesses all agree to respond as quickly as 

you can to any questions that come your way. I know Mr. Griffith 

has a lot. 

And so, with that—— 

Mr. RUSH. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. RUSH. Mr. Chairman, I would ask, if I could, I would join 

with the ranking member of the full committee and ask that this 

subcommittee delay the markup that is occurring on Thursday. 

You know, Mr. Chairman, it seems like we are trying to forcefeed a hoax on the American people. And I just think that we 

should be more deliberative and that we should take our time with 

this. 

The ranking member has offered his sincere request that we 

delay this and offered his participation and his eagerness to work 

with you and the committee and the subcommittee on trying to 

come up with some kind of modification of the bill that is currently 

going to be under markup. And I would join him in that. 

I just think it is important, Mr. Chairman, that we take our time 

on this, because, as you can see, there is not any agreement. As 

a matter of fact, most of the scientific community basically take 

odds, enormous odds, with the opinion of the majority on this particular issue. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, Mr. Rush, thank you very much. I appreciate your and Mr. Waxman’s comments. We certainly have a lot 

of respect for both of you and your views. 

As I said in the beginning of this hearing, we have had 24, now 

25 hearings on the science on this issue. And on this side of the 

aisle, we feel like that EPA is really forcing us to act quickly because Congress has addressed this issue three separate times and 

said ‘‘no’’ each time. 

202 

So we will go by regular order. It will be in the subcommittee, 

it will be in the full committee, and if it is able to get out of there, 

it will be on the floor. So we will have plenty of opportunity for debate, plenty of opportunity for amendment. And we look forward to 

working with all of you. 

So, with that, the committee is adjourned. Thank you very much. 

[Whereupon, at 12:46 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON

• As chair of Energy and Commerce, I see a country that needs a whole lot more 

of both. Accomplishing this is the core goal of this committee and is why I have introduced HR 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011. This bill would stop the 

EPA’s global warming regulatory agenda, an agenda that poses a serious threat to 

the economy and to job growth. 

•The issues here are not new, as Congress grappled with cap and trade legislation 

in 2009. There were a lot of hearings on global warming, including the science. 

Some were held before this committee and more before the Select Committee. At 

the end of that debate, I concluded that cap and trade energy taxes would impose 

far more economic pain than environmental gain, and I did not support the legislation. 

•For me, that decision is an even easier one when it comes to EPA’s attempt to 

impose the regulatory equivalent of the failed climate cap-and-tax legislation. 

•This subcommittee has held two hearings on the Energy Tax Prevention Act. 

Both focused on the economic impacts. We learned about the jobs EPA’s global 

warming regulations are already costing manufacturers. It was the number one concern for most of the manufacturers that testified. 

• At both hearings, there was a concerted effort by some to shift the emphasis 

away from the economics of EPA’s regulatory agenda, and discuss global warming 

science instead. But these discussions miss the point of HR 910. The bill is not a 

referendum on global warming science, it is a referendum on the merits of EPA’s 

regulations. 

• We already learned about the high costs of this agenda last year, but we also 

gained insights into its inconsequential environmental impacts. EPA’s unilateral 

measures would only shift emissions to other countries. In other words, we would 

be outsourcing both jobs and emissions, harming ourselves economically but accomplishing nothing environmentally. No matter what your beliefs in the climate 

science spectrum, you should have substantial doubts that EPA’s regulations make 

any sense. 

• Beyond the science, let us not lose sight of the bigger issue, and that is whether 

EPA has offered a reasonable response, and it most definitely has not. For that reason, we need to enact HR 910. 

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Æ 


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