Letter to Andrew Wheeler, Environmental Protection Agency - Blumenauer & Bonamici Urge EPA Acting Administrator to Read National Climate Assessment

Letter

Dear Acting Administrator Wheeler:

We watched your confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works with great interest. Although we are relieved that you acknowledged that climate change poses an existential threat to our way of life, it is unacceptable that you admitted you have not been fully briefed on the U.S. Global Change Research Program's Fourth National Climate Assessment.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of the 13 participating agencies in the U.S. Global Change Research Program. EPA scientists contributed to the National Climate Assessment and worked through a collaborative, peer-reviewed process to inform its findings. Surely the most comprehensive science-based evaluation of the consequences of climate change, the risks of inaction, and potential adaptation strategies for the United States to date bears enough significance to come across your desk.

The findings of the National Climate Assessment are incredibly dire for the U.S. economy and the environment, which the EPA is tasked with protecting. The Assessment outlines the devastating effects that climate change will have including catastrophic wildfires, crop failures, dramatic sea level rise, more acidic oceans, and crumbling infrastructure. The Assessment also makes clear that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the only explanation for the observed global warming over the last six decades and carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are now higher than at any time in the last three million years. And the Assessment even concludes that U.S. gross domestic product could be reduced by one tenth by the year 2100 as a result of climate change.

The points we make in this letter only scratch the surface of the report. We have enclosed a copy of the Assessment so you can familiarize yourself with its contents.

We urge you to read this report promptly, and we are confident that you will find its conclusions alarming. Finally, we welcome any serious action you will propose to address the climate crisis as a result.

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