U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Ranking Member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, released a statement on July 17 regarding a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that links human-caused, fossil fuel-driven climate change to increasingly extreme weather events in the United States and globally.
Whitehouse said, “Today in America, wildfire smoke blankets the northeast and mid-Atlantic, heat domes settle over whole regions, and Europe remains locked in the third month of an unprecedented deadly heat wave. The National Academies report confirms that fossil fuel-driven climate change is making extreme weather and natural disasters more frequent and more intense. That in turn raises costs for Americans: higher property insurance premiums, grocery prices, electricity bills, and healthcare costs.”
He continued by saying, “The fossil fuel industry sees the public waking up to the consequences of their pollute-for-free business model, so (same old, same old) they’re unleashing their dark money climate denial machine to smear the report’s panel of distinguished scientists. Personal attacks against scientists and science itself will not lower Americans’ costs, nor save the planet from climate disaster.”
The National Academies was created by Congress as the scientific national academy of the United States. Its scientists are described as independent and nonpartisan. The new report finds it has become increasingly possible to scientifically measure how much individual extreme weather events have been intensified or made more likely due to climate change—especially with high confidence for heatwaves and extreme precipitation events.
Since its formation two years ago, critics funded by fossil fuel interests have attempted to discredit this attribution panel through public criticism as well as records requests for private emails and documents.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee oversees federal programs related to environmental quality, natural resources and infrastructure; it also handles legislation affecting environmental regulations nationwide, according to the official website.