Hey Congress - Restore the Climate Change Committee
It appears that the Trump administration has stretched the truth in justifying the elimination of a federal climate change advisory panel. On August 20, 2017 the White House allowed the Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment to expire and end its mission. According to a Washington Post article published on May 16, 2018 internal emails prior to that August action revealed a questionable basis if not outright deception for making that decision. It may be time for Congress to take the matter into its own hands.
At the heart of the administration’s objections to the 15-member committee was its lack of industry representatives on the panel which largely consisted of scientists. At the time of the committee’s demise only one member of the panel was from industry. However, the emails released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that there was a good deal of internal debate on the matter between Trump appointed officials who had been on the job just a few months and senior career government employees.
Trump appointee George Kelly, the deputy chief of staff at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration raised the ‘industry’ complaint in a June 13 email saying of the panel, “It has only one member from industry and the process to gain more balance would take a couple of years to accomplish.” Kelly’s office was giving indications that the panel would not be renewed. However, NOAA’s assistant administrator for oceanic research, Craig McClain, told Kelly in a follow up email just a few days later that the committee “can achieve a greater balance towards the interest you described and we are compiling a list of likely nominees.” According to the Post article McClain then wrote in the email that the next group of members would rotate off the committee in April 2018 and “could be replaced by more industry focused members at that time.” This means that the committee could beef up its industry representation less than 8 months after the August deadline, not two years.
The committee played a key role in translating climate change findings and reports of scores of federal sources into practical advice for stakeholders around the country. According to the Post, “The advisory panel worked to translate those findings so they would be useful for everyone from a water manager out West to a business owner on the Atlantic Seaboard.” Many groups, including the American Society of Civil Engineers, say the committee’s work is crucial to establishing standards for commercial and residential construction in coastal areas. “I think it’s going to be a serious handicap for us that the advisory committee is not functional,” said Richard Wright, past chair of the ASCE.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced in January that his state will reconvene the committee along with other states. But some key officials say that effort will not be enough. “The coalition of states can't replace federal support for science, including maintaining satellites and building better climate models,” said Richard Moss, the New York committee's chairman and a researcher at Columbia University's Earth Institute, in an article published in Scientific American.
It’s time for Congress to step in and re-establish the climate change advisory panel. According to the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 Congress can take that step immediately. The act empowers both the Executive Branch and Congress equally to establish Federal Advisory Committees to render independent advice or provide the federal government with policy recommendations. What the Trump administration takes away can and should be put back by Congress. It is urged that supporters of this action get in touch with their elected representatives immediately to get this effort started through letters, phone calls and petition drives.