IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 767 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that it is the duty 
of the Department of Defense to reduce the overall environmental impact 
of all military activities and missions, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 3, 2021 
Ms. LEE of California (for herself, Ms. BARRAGA´N, Ms. BASS, Mrs. BEATTY, 
Mr. BLUMENAUER, Mr. CASTEN, Mr. CLEAVER, Ms. ESHOO, Mr. 
ESPAILLAT, Mr. GARCI´A of Illinois, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. HUFFMAN, Mr. 
JOHNSON of Georgia, Mr. LIEU, Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New 
York, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin, Ms. NORTON, Ms. 
BLUNT ROCHESTER, Ms. TLAIB, Mr. WELCH, Mr. KHANNA, Ms. MENG, 
Mrs. HAYES, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. SWALWELL, and Mr. MCEACHIN) 
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 
on Armed Services 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 
it is the duty of the Department of Defense to reduce 
the overall environmental impact of all military activities 
and missions, and for other purposes. 
Whereas, in January 2021, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Aus-
tin stated the Department of Defense ‘‘will immediately 
take appropriate policy actions to prioritize climate 
change considerations in our activities and risk assess-
ments, to mitigate this driver of insecurity’’; 
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Whereas Secretary Austin further stated, ‘‘[B]y changing 
how we approach our own carbon footprint, the Depart-
ment can also be a platform for positive change, spurring 
the development of climate-friendly technologies at scale. 
. . . It is a national security issue, and we must treat 
it as such.’’; 
Whereas the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change re-
port entitled ‘‘Climate Change 2021’’ states that human- 
induced climate change is already affecting many weather 
and climate extremes in every region across the globe; 
Whereas the October 2018 report entitled ‘‘Special Report on 
Global Warming of 1.5° C’’ by the Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change and the November 2018 
Fourth National Climate Assessment report found that— 
(1) global warming at or above 2 degrees Celsius be-
yond pre-industrialized levels will cause— 
(A) an increase in the number of people both 
exposed to climate-related risks and susceptible to 
poverty by up to several hundred million by 2050; 
(B) the potential for losses in some sectors of 
the United States that could reach hundreds of bil-
lions of dollars per year by the end of this century; 
(C) more than 350,000,000 more people glob-
ally to be exposed to deadly heat stress by 2050; and 
(D) a risk of damage to $1,000,000,000,000 
worth of public infrastructure and coastal real estate 
in the United States; and 
(2) to keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees 
Celsius above pre-industrialized levels, which is necessary 
to avoid the most severe impacts of a changing climate, 
requires— 
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(A) the global reduction of greenhouse gas 
emissions from human sources by 45 percent from 
2010 levels by 2030; and 
(B) net-zero global emissions by 2050; 
Whereas the Department of Defense does not publicly or reg-
ularly report its overall fuel consumption or greenhouse 
gas emissions and there is no official publicly available 
Department of Defense source for all military greenhouse 
gas emissions; 
Whereas current estimates of the overall greenhouse gas 
emissions of the United States Armed Forces rely on 
publicly available emissions data from the Department of 
Energy; 
Whereas the Department of Defense does not release petro-
leum fuel consumption data, and most United States 
Government accounting of United States greenhouse gas 
emissions omit figures on how much the Armed Forces 
and the defense industry contributes to United States 
emissions beyond domestic facilities and installations; 
Whereas Under Secretary of State Stuart Eizenstat testified 
in 1997, ‘‘At Kyoto, the parties . . . took a decision to 
exempt key overseas military activities from any emis-
sions targets’’ consequently excluding United States over-
seas military bases; 
Whereas the United States Armed Forces emit more carbon 
dioxide than over 120 separate countries and would rank 
47th out of 170 if measured as a separate country; 
Whereas the Department of Energy reports that the Depart-
ment of Defense produced an average of about 
66,000,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per 
year during the period of 2010 to 2018, roughly the same 
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greenhouse gas emissions as 14,000,000 passenger cars 
driven for one year, or roughly equivalent to the green-
house gas emissions of the residential sector of the 
United States; 
Whereas emissions from United States industries producing 
defense materiel averaged 153,000,000 metric tons of 
carbon dioxide each year during the period of 2001 to 
2017; 
Whereas Vice President Kamala Harris stated, ‘‘One coun-
try’s carbon emissions can threaten the sustainability of 
the whole Earth’’ in her 2021 commencement address to 
the United States Naval Academy; 
Whereas NATO’s June 14, 2021, communique states it ‘‘will 
develop a mapping methodology to help Allies measure 
greenhouse gas emissions from military activities and in-
stallations, which could contribute to formulating vol-
untary goals to reduce such emissions’’; 
Whereas section 328 of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry 
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 
(Public Law 116–283) requires the Secretary of Defense 
to submit to Congress a report on Department of De-
fense greenhouse gas emissions levels for each of the last 
10 fiscal years, including the agency-wide total, break-
downs by military department, and delineations between 
installation and operational emissions; and 
Whereas the House of Representatives recognizes that as 
‘‘one country’s carbon emissions can threaten the sus-
tainability of the whole earth’’, the emissions of the 
globe’s largest institutional source of greenhouse gas 
emissions, the Department of Defense, must be mon-
itored and reduced: Now, therefore, be it 
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Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that— 
(1) it is the duty of the Department of De-
fense— 
(A) to reduce the overall environmental im-
pact of all military activities and missions; 
(B) to monitor, track, and report green-
house gas emissions from all of its operations, 
including 
combat 
operations, 
deployments, 
drone attacks, weapons production and testing, 
and base construction and functions; 
(C) to set clear annual greenhouse gas 
emission reduction targets for both domestic 
and foreign activities that are consistent with 
the 1.5 degrees Celsius target specified by the 
2015 Paris Agreement; 
(D) to commit to annual greenhouse gas 
emission reporting mechanisms that are robust, 
comparable, and transparent, are based on rec-
ognized greenhouse gas monitoring protocols, 
and that are independently verified and include 
emissions from domestic and overseas United 
States military bases, from Department of De-
fense contractors, and from the manufacture 
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and transport of military equipment and weap-
ons; 
(E) to define clear greenhouse gas reduc-
tion targets for its military technology contrac-
tors and to report their full greenhouse gas 
emissions; 
(F) to prioritize greenhouse gas reduction 
initiatives at the source and only utilize verifi-
able offsets of greenhouse gas emissions; 
(G) to publish greenhouse gas reduction 
policies, strategies, and action plans, with an-
nual followup reporting on performance from all 
its operations; 
(H) to evaluate how reducing military ex-
penditure and deployments and altering mili-
tary postures can reduce emissions; and 
(I) to demonstrate leadership, openness, 
and a willingness to collaborate and exchange 
information on good practices with nonmilitary 
stakeholders; and 
(2) the Department of Defense should— 
(A) repurpose and manage its properties to 
promote carbon sequestration and biodiversity; 
(B) commit to increase climate and envi-
ronmental training for decision makers, includ-
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ing with respect to how the Department can 
mitigate climate change and environmental deg-
radation; 
(C) incorporate climate and environmental 
assessments in decision making for all procure-
ment, activities, and missions; and 
(D) commit to allocating the appropriate 
resources to ensure all climate and environ-
mental protection policies can be fully imple-
mented. 
Æ 
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