Minority Statement

• Ted Stevens

  Senator
  Read statement

  Minority Statement

  Ted Stevens

  The United States is the world leader in climate change research.  We currently spend more on research than any other nation in the world.  Since 2001 Congress has appropriated nearly $37 billion for climate change research, technology and incentive programs.  In fact much of this funding was appropriated during my term as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee. 

   

  A robust research program is essential because any decision about the mitigation and prevention of climate change must be based on sound science.

   

  In Alaska we have already begun to see the effects of climate change.  This is especially true along our Arctic coast where communities are literally falling into the sea due to erosion.  It is vital that we have the tools to allow these communities to adapt. 

   

  There is consensus that manmade carbon emissions have an impact on climate change.  This, along with the need to achieve energy independence, is why I support raising the corporate average fuel economy standard.  However, there is no agreement on how much of an influence these emissions carry. Sound science will help to resolve this question and avoid making policy decisions that can be unnecessary and over burdensome.

   

  I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how we can improve our understanding of climate change.

  Question and Answers

   

  Panel 1

   

  Sen. Stevens: What do you think about the International Arctic Research Institute that we have at the University of Fairbanks?

   

  Dr. John Marburger III: Well, I think these institutes are an important part of the science that’s done to keep us informed about the process of global change.

   

   Sen. Stevens: Do you have a climatologist on your staff?

   

  Dr. John Marburger III: I do.

   

  Sen. Stevens: Who is it? 

   

  Dr. John Marburger III: His name is Phil DeCola and he is a scientist who is temporary, on loan to us from NASA.  I might add that he reports in his NASA capacity to Dr. Kaye, here on my left.   

   

  Sen. Stevens: Well, I’ll save some questions for Dr. Kaye.  I find it interesting that we listen to so many people who claim to have knowledge, yet the climatologist that have been studying this matter for forty years at our university, and that’s an universal organization, sponsored by Japan and Canada and the United States and sometimes other countries, has given us a definite impression that what we’re seeing is a continuum that is coming out of the little ice age.  Have you seen the percentages?

   

  Dr. John Marburger III: Yes, I have Senator.

   

  Sen. Stevens: Have they influenced at all you in terms of work?

   

  Dr. John Marburger III: Well, there’s no question that there are natural, that is to say non-anthropogenic or non-human causes for climate change, but there’s a strong consensus that recent warming of the climate which is observable, does have human origins. 

   

  Sen. Stevens: It all has human origins?

   

  Dr. John Marburger III: Not all.

   

  Sen. Stevens: I’m told it’s one-fifth the change in the last 100 years that has resulted from human intervention.  Do you disagree with that?

   

  Dr. John Marburger III: I’m not sure of that number.  Dr. Kaye, do you know? 

   

  Dr. Jack A. Kaye: I’m not familiar with any one number.  I know we would have to look at a wide range of groundwork that has been trying to assigned, to what extent something is anthropogenic or to some extent it’s natural.  You really have to look at the swing of things, that’s how you get a fingerprint of what’s human induced and what would be natural.     

   

  Sen. Stevens: One last question for today, but I do think there is a human contribution to the current problem of the increased warming but it’s added to the ongoing warming trend that’s been going on for well over 900 years.  And we’re at the end of that trend, as in the terms of the climatologist that I’ve had business with and if they’re right, if we overreact now and set arbitrary goals, we are liable to do more harm than good.  I look forward to hearing.  Thank you Mr. Chairman. 

   

   

  Panel 2

   

  Sen. Stevens: I do appreciate all your testimony.  As I mentioned at the beginning, we are spending more and have spent more than any nation on earth.  Now, if we’re to increase the budget, what do you want to cut out?  We’re spending that money already.  It hasn’t gotten you the answers, so you want more money?  And I say to you, no one else in the world is spending the kind of money we’re spending now.  What portion of the science base we’re supporting now would you not support or go into this.

   

  Sen. Kerry: Why don’t you describe what you need to do?  Why’d you need more money?  What’s the money going to do? 

   

  Dr. Moss: Well, I think it’s already been pointed out that there are serious gaps and problems in observing systems.  I think those are going to be expensive to fix, but they have to be fixed because as Dr. Christy pointed out, once we lose the continuous record, that’s gone forever.  We may be able to come back with a new satellite or something, but it’s not going to be that continuous record, which from a climate perspective is…

   

  Sen. Stevens: I agree absolutely with what Dr. Christy said, but I agree we sort of need something like a red team.  We need someone to access what’s going on now that’s not giving us the information we need.  Why should we continue to spend money on that and then add what you want now to the budget, that’s already greater than any nation on earth?

   

  Dr. Moss: Well, I respectfully disagree that the program is not giving us information we need now.  I think it is giving us a lot of information.  I think, if you look for example at climate modeling, there are certainly still deficiencies, but we’ve made tremendous progress and I credit the Bush Administration for a lot of that because when they came into office in 2001, there were still problems with the modeling system, and they’ve devoted the resources to help fix that.  So, I think there are improvements underway.   I think, as we’ve also heard from the National Academy of Sciences that there is a need to improve the regional research and the kinds of work that’s done to bring the implications of climate change to people who are living in the regions and trying to live and work there and make decisions.

   

  Sen. Stevens: I agree with your assessment about trying to correct the models we’ve had in the past, but I go to this back further than that.  It’s thirty years ago we started International Arctic Research Commission.  We’ve had people out collecting data every year for forty years and they have come to some conclusions and they publish those conclusions, internationally known climatologist from three different countries and our scientific community completely ignores them. I don’t understand why.  I don’t understand why the scientific community in this country has ignored the advice of the climatologist who’ve dedicated their lives and a lot of federal money and a lot of Japanese money and a lot of Canadian money to their studies.  It’s as Dr. Christy points out, yes, there’s a lot less ice up our way right now, but there’s a tremendous increase of ice in Antarctica.  And no one at all has addressed that.  All the things I’ve heard from our scientific community.  And I know it’s going to cause problems for us in the future if that ice does come back.  The prediction of the climatologist is it will come back.  And there’s other reason for the ice disappearing right now.  Particularly the oscillations of the Pacific and the Atlantic and the warm water that was dumped into the Arctic Ocean for five years in a row.  Now under those circumstance, every one of you said give us more money.  And I was Chairman of the Committee that gave you more money for eight years.  And now the answer is give us more money for more science.  I really got to tell you, I think the scientific community has to tell us what we have been doing now that’s wrong and stop doing it and find out what we should do right and assist with the money we have available to pursue that new course. 

   

  Dr. Moss: Well, again, I would have to disagree.  I don’t think we’ve been wasting money at all.  I think we’ve made tremendous progress and I think you yourself among others have pointed out how complex the climate system is.  There are different scales of natural variability that are under way.  We’ve identified a number of these oscillations, El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation that operates on even longer time scales, perhaps, as yet, others undiscovered.  These are all important.  We also see the fact that humans are really intervening very sharply in the climate system.  That’s going to have an effect on these natural cycles.  These things occur in different periods and different phases.  We don’t always know how they add up, so you have to look at this from the long term perspective.  We can’t solve this problem in eight years.  Furthermore, I think it also points to the importance of these periodic assessment reports, including the one we have not yet started under this administration to look at the consequences of climate change because as Dr. Christy and all of us will point out, science moves quickly.  You have to look at what’s available in 2004, in 2008, in 2012; there will be better information in each one of those years.  That information needs to be assessed and then applied to decision- making.      

   

  Sen. Stevens: Well, along with these, I got to tell you, we had a typhoon off of Wrangel Island, which is the tip of Russia, across the Bering Straits from us.  The ravages of that typhoon hit at least nineteen villages along our coast, and put nine into direct danger.  Right now, they’re still in danger.  We have so far received a total of $10 million to help those people out there and each instance there had to be an environmental impact statement before they did anything to help those villages.  When Katrina came along, I helped Katrina get about $140 billion.  There were no environmental impact statements required.  The area that has suffered the worse, I think in the world, has been the Alaska Arctic, so far, from this global warming.  Any yet, we want more money to study what might happen in the future and right now we can’t deal with the present because we’re not doing anything to help them.  I’m going up again to hold meetings next Monday on the erosion problems that were occurred three and four years ago.  Now, I think we ought to find out a little bit better about why the amount of money we’ve put up in the past has not given us the information we need right now to predict the future.  Thank you very much Mr. Chairman.     

Testimony

• Dr. John Marburger III

  Director

  Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President
  Download Testimony (140.88 KB)

• Dr. Jack A. Kaye

  Accompanying Dr. Marberger

  Director, Research Division, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Office of Earth Science

Witness Panel 2

• Dr. Richard Moss

  Vice President and Managing Director

  Climate Change World Wildlife Fund
  Download Testimony (48.01 KB)

• Dr. John R. Christy

  Professor and Director, Earth System Science Center

  National Space Science and Technology Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville
  Download Testimony (128.17 KB)

• Dr. Lynne M. Carter

  Co-Director

  Adaptation Network
  Download Testimony (16.60 KB)

• Dr. Peter C. Frumhoff

  Director of Science and Policy, Chief Scientist

  Climate Campaign, Union of Concerned Scientists
  Download Testimony (80.62 KB)

• Dr. Braxton Davis

  Chair, Climate Change Working Group

  Coastal States Organization
  Download Testimony (29.69 KB)

• Dr. Donald F. Boesch

  Professor of Marine Science and President

  Center for Environmental Science, University of Maryland
  Download Testimony (73.07 KB)