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Letter to Rep. John Yarmuth, Chair of the House Budget Committee and Rep. Nita Lowey, Chair of the House Appropriations Committee - Top Dems Push for Funding to Address the Climate Crisis

Letter

By: Greg Stanton, Jerry McNerney, Jim Costa, Jimmy Panetta, Judy Chu, Ted Lieu, Maxine Waters, Mike Levin, Diana DeGette, Eleanor Norton, Alcee Hastings, Sr., Donna Shalala, Tulsi Gabbard, Mike Quigley, Bill Foster, Stephen Lynch, Jamie Raskin, Ilhan Omar, G. K. Butterfield, Jr., Frank Pallone, Jr., Thomas Suozzi, Adriano Espaillat, Suzanne Bonamici, Raul Grijalva, John Garamendi, Barbara Lee, Anna Eshoo, Katie Hill, Tony Cárdenas, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Alan Lowenthal, Scott Peters, Joe Courtney, Darren Soto, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, David Scott, Robin Kelly, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Richard Neal, Terri Sewell, Jared Huffman, Mark DeSaulnier, Ro Khanna, Salud Carbajal, Adam Schiff, Gil Cisneros, Nanette Barragán, Juan Vargas, Joe Neguse, Lisa Blunt Rochester, Ted Deutch, Hank Johnson, Jr., Bobby Rush, Sean Casten, Cedric Richmond, John Sarbanes, Chellie Pingree, Ruben Gallego, Doris Matsui, Jackie Speier, Zoe Lofgren, Julia Brownley, Grace Napolitano, Mark Takano, Harley Rouda, Susan Davis, Jim Himes, Kathy Castor, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Ed Case, Dan Lipinski, Jan Schakowsky, Jim McGovern, David Trone, Debbie Dingell, Bennie Thompson, Annie Kuster, Ben Luján, Jr., Carolyn Maloney, Joe Morelle, Dwight Evans, Steve Cohen, Abigail Spanberger, Rick Larsen, Gwen Moore, Anthony Brown, Andy Levin, Kilili Sablan, Chris Pappas, Deb Haaland, Nydia Velázquez, Paul Tonko, Brendan Boyle, Joe Cunningham, Donald McEachin, Peter Welch, Ron Kind, Emanuel Cleaver II, David Price, Tom Malinowski, Kathleen Rice, Eliot Engel, Peter DeFazio, Mike Doyle, Jr., Elaine Luria, Gerry Connolly, Adam Smith, Earl Blumenauer, Matt Cartwright, Marc Veasey, Don Beyer, Jr., Pramila Jayapal
Date: April 4, 2019
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Environment

Dear Chair Yarmuth and Chair Lowey:

The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA) highlight the critical need for the United States to more effectively address known causes of climate change. As we consider future budgets and appropriations, we must adjust spending levels to respond to the latest science and to repeated calls from the scientific community to invest in efforts to meaningfully address climate change.

Congress cannot afford to maintain the status quo. The IPCC report found that climate change is occurring earlier and more rapidly than expected and that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society. If we maintain the status quo, we only have 12 years before we will reach a global warming of 1.5°C. According to the NCA, the dominant cause is human activities, particularly greenhouse gas emissions. We already see the consequences of 1°C of global warming through more extreme weather events, deadly wildfires, rising sea levels, and diminishing Arctic sea ice. Inaction and underinvestment will increase the risk of long-lasting or irreversible change.

We must keep these concerns front and center as we determine subcommittee allocations that sufficiently scale up research and development, resiliency, and mitigation to address the climate crisis. Under Republican control, Congress underfunded these critical programs. For example, the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy has never been funded at the scale or level of resources Congress envisioned. The National Academy of Sciences recommended a base level of $300 million in 2007, rising to $1 billion by 2011. Despite universal stakeholder agreement with those recommendations, Congress has failed to significantly scale beyond the initial $300 million recommendation. Similarly, demand for grants for coastal resiliency exceed availability. In fiscal year 2017, 167 proposals requesting more than $135 million in funding competed for just $15 million in grant funding.

As the IPCC report mentions, we minimize future climate risk and associated costs by upscaling and accelerating climate mitigation and adaptation. Now, with the new Democratic Majority, as Congress proceeds through the budget and appropriations cycle for fiscal year 2020, it is imperative that we meet the investment demanded to effectively respond to the latest climate science. Doing so will enable us to combat the climate crisis and protect our world for future generations.

Sincerely,


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