Bush Policies Will Lead to Rise in Terrorism

Not only does climate change potentially have an adverse impact on the world we inhabit from a health and survival perspective, it also has the potential to decrease our national security. According to NPR on June 25, 2008:

Global climate change is likely to trigger humanitarian disasters and political instability that will have a major impact on U.S. national security, a top intelligence official told Congress on Wednesday.

A new assessment by the National Intelligence Council — with input from all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies — treats climate change as a security threat.

"Logic suggests the conditions exacerbated [by climate change] would increase the pool of potential recruits for terrorism," said Tom Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, who testified before a joint House committee hearing Wednesday.

The day after this revelation, the Washington Post reported that White House officials were determined to circumvent a Supreme Court decision that ruled the EPA had violated the Clean Air Act by refusing to take up the issue of regulating automobile emissions that contribute to global warming. The EPA responded to this admonition by submitting new guidelines that would limit greenhouse-gas emissions on the grounds they pose a threat to public welfare. When the White House found that this proposal had been developed, they insisted on withholding the rule change and refuting its claims.

EPA's original December proposal included language saying that climate change poses a threat to public welfare, but the draft that [Agency Administrator Stephen L.] Johnson is preparing to issue will seek comments only on "whether" it poses such a danger, the sources said. It will also be shorter than the original document, which ran about 250 pages and included detailed alternative approaches on how to regulate greenhouse gases from fuels, vehicles and stationary sources such as power plants.

One EPA official said agency staff had encountered fierce opposition from Bush appointees on several of these sections. "They don't even want us to talk about alternatives," the official said, adding that Johnson and his top aides have been in an "intense negotiation" with White House officials on how much to alter the rulemaking, with Johnson working to resist major changes.

"The White House has found EPA's draft finding to be radioactive in three key areas," said S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. "It validates the approval of California's waiver to regulate greenhouse gases from motor vehicles. It demonstrates that the Transportation Department's proposed fuel economy standards fall far short of what is technologically feasible and cost-effective. And it makes a strong case supporting how the existing Clean Air Act can be used to regulate greenhouse gases."