reu-2019-02-01 climate-denier due to head NSC-panel
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-climate/white-house-drafts-guidelines-for-panel-questioning-climate-threat-to-security-idUSKCN1QI385?il=0
White House drafts guidelines for panel questioning climate threat to security
Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is advancing plans to form a
presidential panel that will question science used in U.S. military and
intelligence reports showing that human-driven climate change poses
national security risks, according to a source briefed by participants in
the negotiations.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Army soldiers stand in line to get water at the Camp
Donna military base along the United States - Mexico border in Donna,
Texas, U.S., November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Adrees Latif -/File Photo
The National Security Council at the White House has been considering the
formation of a climate panel that would likely be headed by William
Happer, a retired Princeton University physics professor who says
greenhouse gas emissions are good for the planet and who lacks a
background in climate science.
Happer said on CNBC in 2014 that the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide,
has been demonized, "just like the demonization of the poor Jews under
Hitler."
The NSC held a meeting on Feb. 22 to discuss the 12-member panel. Next
the NSC will likely send participants a document for comment, the source
said. Then there will likely be a deputies' meeting and a cabinet meeting
before President Donald Trump puts forward an executive order calling for
the panel.
Trump has repeatedly questioned whether humans are causing climate change
and has been angered by reports from his military and intelligence
agencies that storms, droughts and floods made worse by climate change
pose national security risks. Trump's administration has pursued policies
to boost output of oil, gas and coal and roll back emissions limits on
power plants, cars and trucks.
U.S. military bases, including North Carolina's Camp Lejeune, have
suffered billions of dollars in damage from recent hurricanes and climate
change could force the military to increase global humanitarian missions.
At last week's meeting, attendees also discussed downgrading the panel to
an ad hoc advisory group that would not be subject to rules of a panel,
also known as a federal advisory committee, including that meetings must
be subject to public records requests. That idea was first reported by
the Washington Post. But several officials opposed forming an ad hoc
panel, the source said.
"There were more people at the meeting in support of forming the panel
than those who voiced opposition," said the source who spoke on condition
of anonymity. John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser who supports
forming the committee, is expected to talk with military and intelligence
officials who oppose it, the source said.
If the presidential panel is formed it would feature scientists including
Steven Koonin, a New York University professor who has written editorials
questioning whether climate science is settled and who served at the
Department of Energy under President Barack Obama.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The heads of four committees in the Democratic-led U.S. House of
Representatives decried the panel and sent Trump a letter asking for the
names of people on it.
Such a panel would run counter to the "overwhelming scientific consensus
on the causes and impacts of climate change," the House chairs, Adam
Smith, Frank Pallone, Raul Grijalva and Eddie Bernice Johnson, said in
the letter.
Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Cynthia Osterman