1. ADAPTATION: House bill shifts focus to climate change impacts (ClimateWire, 04/01/2009)

Lauren Morello and Sara Goodman, E&E reporters

Adaptation is at the center of a sweeping new climate and energy bill that marks a shift in focus from merely cutting greenhouse gas emissions to dealing with unavoidable consequences of global warming.

The draft climate and energy bill unveiled yesterday by House Democrats would establish a cap-and-trade program to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, set a national renewable electricity standard and create new energy efficiency programs.

But for many environmental and sustainability groups, what is notable is the bill's focus on helping communities and ecosystems deal with climate change that is unavoidable, based on the amount of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere.

"This is the first bill with really specific adaptation initiatives," said Michelle Wyman, executive director of ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, which runs a program helping cities plan for a changing climate. "They're now saying, 'This is what needs to be done.' It's making the science real. It's saying we now understand there are unavoidable impacts from a certain level of climatic change that is now taking place."

Included in the 648-page draft bill are provisions that would require federal agencies to prepare adaptation plans, create dedicated funds for general and wildlife adaptation efforts, and establish a new National Climate Service to provide local governments with information on climate change and technical assistance to help them develop strategies to adapt to shifting weather patterns. The bill also sets guidelines for inter-agency and international cooperation on adaptation programs and asks the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate how global warming will affect public health.

Can corals like this one adapt to a more acidic ocean? House Democrats' climate bill asks the question. Photo courtesy of NOAA.

The legislation was released yesterday, weeks after a federally requested report warned that climate change will affect the day-to-day operations of state and local governments, from building bridges to managing drinking water supplies. It said officials often do not have the information they need to help their communities adapt. "Climate is no longer stable," said the National Academy of Sciences report.

Richard Moss, vice president and managing director for climate change at the World Wildlife Fund, said he was pleased with the level of detail in the House bill's adaptation provisions.

"They think a lot about public health. There is a natural resources title that is very good," he said. "There's also attention to the fact that we need to work with other countries."

Beth Lowell, federal policy director for Oceana, said she was encouraged that the bill discusses the need to help marine and coastal environments adapt to climate change and ocean acidification caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

The bill would direct coastal states to come up with plans to protect and restore "ecologically important" coastal lands and coastal and ocean ecosystems. It would also require state and federal agencies to research and monitor ocean acidification's effects on natural resources.

"At a broad-brush level, what's there is a good integrated framework," said Eric Haxthausen, director of U.S. climate policy for the Nature Conservancy. "There's the right level of planning and coordination among the agencies, and it recognizes the need for international adaptation programs."

The bill would address adaptation planning at the state and federal levels. All federal agencies would be required to develop general adaptation plans, with the main agencies that deal with natural resources -- U.S. EPA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Agriculture Department, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Interior Department -- also charged with developing plans to help protect natural resources from climate change and ocean acidification.

Likewise, states would have to submit adaptation plans if they want to receive federal funding for their adaptation efforts. States would have to address the effects of climate change and ocean acidification on their wildlife, fish and ecosystems and set up plans for monitoring those impacts.

This is an important division of labor among the federal and state levels, Haxthausen said, because each agency sees climate change from its own vantage point.

"It's important to have a balanced approach that recognizes the number of different natural resource managers, and that each have roles to play," Haxthausen said. "It's in the ballpark of the right kind of distribution."

Bill would create National Climate Service

The bill would also create a new National Climate Service within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an idea that has been the subject of intense discussion within the agency and on Capitol Hill over the last year. NOAA's newly installed administrator, Jane Lubchenco, said Monday that she is working to establish a climate service.

The House draft envisions the climate service as a "clearinghouse" that would provide information to state, local and tribal governments on climate change's effects and strategies to adapt.

"It makes a ton of sense," said John Kostyack, executive director of wildlife conservation and global warming programs at the National Wildlife Federation. "A National Climate Service is going to help us understand which are the best available climate models for projecting future climate change in every type of research."

But WWF's Moss said placing a climate service in one agency carries some risk -- that NOAA will focus on developing the most accurate forecasts and models it can, based on its earlier work, and will not necessarily help fill information gaps for its audience -- states, local communities and tribes.

Others questioned whether the climate service would provide "really practical assistance" for communities struggling with adaptation.

Steve Winkelman, director of transportation and adaptation programs at the Center for Clean Air Policy, said he would like to see a "climate extension service" that would consist of individual centers at academic institutions, each closely examining one topic and providing practical advice to local governments.

"It could be best practices for dealing with hurricanes, green roofs, planting trees for flood management. It's the sort of very applied, practical things that exist but aren't being thought of as adaptation," said Winkelman, whose organization is working with several U.S. cities to develop adaptation policies.

Taking the temperature of public health

The House bill also includes language that would direct the secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a national strategy for addressing the public health effects of climate change.

The strategy, to be completed within two years after the bill is enacted, would include input from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. EPA, the National Institutes of Health, NOAA, NASA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Agriculture Department, Indian tribes, local governments, public health organizations and scientists.

The bill responds to criticisms leveled by public health organizations and scientists who say federal spending and attention to climate-related health issues remain low (ClimateWire, March 30).

And it comes as scientists are beginning to outline how climate change could affect America's well-being. Climate models predict increased air pollution and changes in weather patterns as the Earth warms, including shifts in the strength and frequency of heat waves, droughts, intense storms and floods. That's likely to increase the number of heat-related deaths, exacerbate lung and heart diseases, and increase the spread of some food- and water-borne pathogens, according to a report the government's Climate Change Science Program released last year.

Scientists consider coral reefs to be one indicator of global warming's impact on oceans. Can funds established by Congress keep this coral healthy? Photo courtesy of NOAA.

In simpler terms, "climate change acts as an amplifier" for existing problems, a top CDC official said yesterday in Washington, discussing the link between warming and health.

Howard Frumkin, director of CDC's National Center for Environmental Health, also said that policies to counteract climate change could carry their own health risks and must be studied.

"We've all seen surprises like that -- steps taken to protect the environment that threaten health," he told attendees at a climate change summit organized by the National Academy of Sciences. One example he gave is the chemical MTBE, which began to replace lead in gasoline in the late 1970s. Scientists later discovered that the anti-knocking agent had unexpectedly contaminated groundwater around the country.

Don Hoppert, director of government relations at the American Public Health Association, said he is pleased with the health language in the House bill but views it as a "placeholder" that must be fleshed out.

"We'd like to see some language in there for support for state and local public health agencies, to begin to develop plans to address the forthcoming impacts of climate change," he said. "We'd also like to see some strong inter-agency cooperation between CDC, EPA, [the National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences], NOAA and other agencies."

The public health association has also been lobbying Congress to make CDC the lead health agency working on climate issues, he said, seeking funding of about $50 million per year.

A potential 'tug-of-war' over funding

But some key provisions aren't clear, experts said. Moss said he was unsure how the new programs the bill would create would mesh with the existing Climate Change Science Program and other efforts authorized by the Global Change Research Act of 1990.

That includes the national climate assessment the earlier bill calls for every four years, language the House Democrats' bill echoes. It is not clear whether the "national climate change vulnerability assessment" described in the new legislation would supplant the climate assessment called for by the 1990 law.

The new House bill is also vague about the cost of the adaptation programs it would create -- giving no details, for example, on the source of cash for the climate change adaptation and wildlife adaptation funds, for example.

It's a move some experts said was smart, given the delicate nature of distributing money raised by the cap-and-trade system the bill outlines or other sources.

"That's the most politically charged part of the whole endeavor," Haxthausen said. "It's going to require some careful thought. There needs to be a significant level of dedicated funding, and it suggests that the chairman sees this as serious issue."

Oceana's Lowell said she expects a "tug-of-war on resources," adding that her group would "obviously ... like to see more resources dedicated toward the ocean adaptation section."

But making tough calls to establish the new funds is necessary, said the National Wildlife Federation's Kostyack, citing tight budgets at federal, state and local wildlife agencies.

"One thing that has not changed is the fundamental problem [of] a lack of financial resources to do this work," he said. "People already have a fairly full plate. There's only so much they can shift to deal with complexities of climate change until these resources are created."

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