Title: 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.
Policy area: Armed Forces and National Security

Summary:
This resolution expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that it is the duty of the Department of Defense (DOD) to reduce the overall environmental impact of military activities and missions and to monitor and report greenhouse gas emissions from all of its operations. The resolution also suggests that DOD take other environmentally conscious actions, including committing to annual greenhouse gas emission reporting mechanisms and repurposing and managing its properties to promote carbon sequestration and biodiversity.

[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 767 Introduced in House (IH)]

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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. Barragan, Ms. Bass, Mrs. 
    Beatty, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. Casten, Mr. Cleaver, Ms. Eshoo, Mr. 
   Espaillat, Mr. Garcia 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 Austin stated the 
        Department of Defense ``will immediately take appropriate policy actions 
        to prioritize climate change considerations in our activities and risk 
        assessments, to mitigate this driver of insecurity'';
Whereas Secretary Austin further stated, ``[B]y changing how we approach our own 
        carbon footprint, the Department 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 report 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 beyond pre-
industrialized levels will cause--

    G    (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;

    G    (B) the potential for losses in some sectors of the United States 
that could reach hundreds of billions of dollars per year by the end of 
this century;

    G    (C) more than 350,000,000 more people globally to be exposed to 
deadly heat stress by 2050; and

    G    (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--

    G    (A) the global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from human 
sources by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030; and

    G    (B) net-zero global emissions by 2050;

Whereas the Department of Defense does not publicly or regularly 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 petroleum 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 emissions targets'' consequently excluding United 
        States overseas 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 Department 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 greenhouse 
        gas emissions as 14,000,000 passenger cars driven for one year, or 
        roughly equivalent to the greenhouse 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 country'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 installations, which could contribute to 
        formulating voluntary 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 
        Defense greenhouse gas emissions levels for each of the last 10 fiscal 
        years, including the agency-wide total, breakdowns 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 sustainability of the whole earth'', the 
        emissions of the globe's largest institutional source of greenhouse gas 
        emissions, the Department of Defense, must be monitored and reduced: 
        Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives 
that--
            (1) it is the duty of the Department of Defense--
                    (A) to reduce the overall environmental impact of 
                all military activities and missions;
                    (B) to monitor, track, and report greenhouse 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 recognized greenhouse gas 
                monitoring protocols, and that are independently 
                verified and include emissions from domestic and 
                overseas United States military bases, from Department 
                of Defense contractors, and from the manufacture and 
                transport of military equipment and weapons;
                    (E) to define clear greenhouse gas reduction 
                targets for its military technology contractors and to 
                report their full greenhouse gas emissions;
                    (F) to prioritize greenhouse gas reduction 
                initiatives at the source and only utilize verifiable 
                offsets of greenhouse gas emissions;
                    (G) to publish greenhouse gas reduction policies, 
                strategies, and action plans, with annual followup 
                reporting on performance from all its operations;
                    (H) to evaluate how reducing military expenditure 
                and deployments and altering military 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 environmental 
                training for decision makers, including with respect to 
                how the Department can mitigate climate change and 
                environmental degradation;
                    (C) incorporate climate and environmental 
                assessments in decision making for all procurement, 
                activities, and missions; and
                    (D) commit to allocating the appropriate resources 
                to ensure all climate and environmental protection 
                policies can be fully implemented.
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