HOUSE SCIENCE HEARING SHOWCASES PARTISAN GULF ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Moniz Unwavering in Human Contribution to Warming, Need to Act

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
6/21/13

The widening gulf between Democrats and Republicans on climate change was on full display earlier this week as the House Science Committee’s GOP members grilled new Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz on the science underpinning global warming. A June 18 hearing meant to focus on the Department’s science and technology RD&D priorities quickly transitioned into a debate about whether climate change is occurring and how much humans have contributed to the trend as Republican lawmakers said the data is inconclusive. Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) grilled Moniz on the percentage of climate change that is attributable to anthropogenic CO2 versus naturally-occurring phenomena. “Is there any way to estimate what percent? Is it over 50 percent, 75 percent or 90 percent that is attributable to human activity or not?” he asked. Throughout the questioning, Moniz underscored the views of the vast majority of scientists that climate change is being accelerated by human activities. “The science is clear that manmade activity is a major contributor to the global warming that we are seeing,” Moniz said.

Moniz quickly disputed a claim from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) that “the temperature has stayed steady for 16 years now.” Moniz said, “We know how much CO2 is emitted from anthropogenic sources. We know how much CO2 remains in the atmosphere, and this is all consistent with a track that would have us in the multiple degree centigrade average global warming.” He added, “The more one goes into localized expectations of consequences, the more scientific debate there is.” Rohrabacher cited arguments from well-known climate skeptics like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Richard Lindzen and Roger Pielke, of the University of Colorado-Boulder, and argued that extreme weather events like tornadoes, droughts and major hurricanes have not increased in strength or frequency in decades. “For someone to suggest that [heavy storms are] something new, that’s wrong. We have always had these intense storms,” Rohrabacher said. 

Democrats Back Up Moniz

Committee Democrats, meanwhile, were quick to back up Moniz and expressed shock that their GOP colleagues were still debating whether human contribute to climate change. The committee has “heard from economists, lobbyists, lawyers, lots of folks, but not a lot of climate scientists,” said Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.). She added, “I hope we put that to rest so we don’t have to revisit it over and over again in this Committee.” Rep. Ami Bera (Calif.), a freshman Democrat with a background in biology, said it is time to accelerate the debate about climate change beyond whether it exists and toward mitigation efforts. “We certainly are seeing the changes that are occurring. The vast majority of the public understands that the climate is changing. The vast majority of the science community understands that the climate is changing. And it is about time that we move past debating percentages and addressing the root cause issue where we can address that root cause issue,” he said.

Climate the ‘Clincher’ for Moniz

During the hearing this week, Moniz said the Department of Energy would look to take a “multi-pronged approach” to tackling climate change that pursues energy efficiency measures and low- and zero-carbon energy technologies like renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage. “The key is to really push hard on the science and technology that underpins a transition over time to a low carbon economy,” he said. “That’s the innovation agenda … the fundamental goal is cost reduction of these technologies so that they will all be marketplace competitive.”

Moniz has made clear from the start of his tenure as Energy Secretary that climate change was one of the driving forces for his return to DOE. “Moving forward on climate is enormously important, and frankly, that was in some sense the clincher for me to want to come back and be a part of advancing that agenda,” Moniz said during a townhall meeting with DOE employees last month. “In my view, the underlying science is really not debatable in terms of the driver to address climate change. There’s clearly lots of room to debate on how we do it, what we do, how fast we do it, but not the underlying science,” Moniz said during a June 17 speech at an Energy Information Administration conference in Washington.