Posted on 03/18/2015 9:44:18 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Republican lawmakers have unveiled their 2016 budget proposal, which looks eliminate the budget deficit in the next decade and that means spending cuts. One place, in particular, the GOP is looking to cut: federal defense spending on global warming research.
Republicans have proposed cutting global warming research programs at the Defense Department and the CIA.
“The Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency, two of the most important agencies in our national security apparatus, currently spend part of their budget studying climate change,” the GOP’s budget notes in a section detailing ways to “eliminate redundancies and end the abuse or misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
Republicans have long been critical of Pentagon efforts to “go green” and reduce their reliance on fossil fuels — remember the Navy’s costly “Green Fleet”? More recently, the GOP has criticized President Barack Obama for saying that global warming was as a bigger national security threat than terrorism.
In 2013, the White House reported that 18 federal agencies funded global warming programs, including scientific research, international climate assistance, incentivizing renewable energy technology and subsidies to renewable energy producers. In total, the government spent $22.2 billion fighting global warming.
Republican plans to cut global warming research funding also comes after Democratic lawmakers launched an investigation of scientists skeptical of global warming. Lawmakers also launched an investigation into companies and organizations they believed to be paying scientists for research critical of the so-called “climate consensus.”
The scientific community, however, fought back, calling the investigation launched by Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva and other lawmakers a “witch hunt” meant to intimidate scientists who had differing views than the Obama administration.
“Publicly singling out specific researchers based on perspectives they have expressed and implying a failure to appropriately disclose funding sources — and thereby questioning their scientific integrity — sends a chilling message to all academic researchers,” the American Meteorological Society wrote to Grijalva.
“Mr. Grijalva’s letters convey an unstated but perfectly clear threat: Research disputing alarm over the climate should cease lest universities that employ such individuals incur massive inconvenience and expense—and scientists holding such views should not offer testimony to Congress,” Richard Lindzen, a climate scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
House Republicans are proposing to cut $5.5 trillion in government spending over the next decade and eliminate yearly federal budget deficits. The budget proposal claims to cut redundant federal programs, streamline the regulatory process, simplify the tax code, and repeal Obamacare.
Republicans are also stressing their budget eliminates the budget deficit without raising taxes.
“Today, our nation faces tremendous fiscal and economic challenges and, if nothing is done, a future of less opportunity and low expectations,” House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Price of Georgia said in a statement.
“In this budget, we have embraced the innovative spirit of the American people by putting forth policies that can deliver real results and that empower individuals, families, job creators and our communities to build a stronger more secure future,” Price said.
The GOP budget would make budget cuts while increasing defense spending from current levels and reforming entitlement programs to make them fiscally sustainable in the coming decades.
But Democrats have derided the budget, saying it cuts funding to crucial programs that Americans rely on while giving tax breaks to the rich.
“Our budgets are nothing less than a statement of our values,” House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California said in a statement. “Republicans’ values are clear: big tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and no concern for the challenges faced by hardworking Americans.”
Congress should eliminate ALL federal discretionary funding in every department and agency. Those are the funds that are used to influence federal employees to stay silent on the government’s abuses. It’s hush money.
Right, or worse, we will have to remove the collaborators from leadership first; it may not be a lack of gonads so much as they are working with and for the Rats against America. In the present situation, the GOP would pass such a bill, Obama would threaten a veto and the GOPe would fold with a weak whimper and a Boehner tear.
Finally! The Republicans are doing some good!
Our feckless leader will veto a DEFENSE bill if they do that. I’m sure of that. What’s that crap doig in a defense bill anyway?
Because dear leader has declared it the biggest threat to peach and safety that the world has EVER known! Was that a freudian slip, peach instead of peace, I am leaving it cuz both work!
The science is settled! There is no rational reason to study it further anywhere let alone in the defence budget.
I can’t believe these clowns actually think they are going to do budgets and get cuts. I can’t believe any conservative still buys this “we are going to do real budgets...” line. Why would obama even give them the time of day on a budget. He will simply wait until the current CR runs out and then say “government shutdown, it’s the Republicans fault...” and Boner and McWeasal will need to change their Depends before sprinting to the nearest MSM partisan hack telling them they surrender and will give the president whatever $$$ he needs to keep their beloved government in operation.
You are probably right, but I have seen stories where they basically were saying the US military was planning for problems caused by “global warming”... this is despite the fact that satellite data shows that there has been none for 18 years or more.
Why study settled science?
I’d bet 10 or 20 per cent of the “defense budget” is similar irrelevant earmarks.
You’re probably right. Politicians know that the best way to try to make the budget for your pet project “cut proof” is to put it n the defense budget.
Why is any more research even needed?
The “scientific” community has assured us that Global Warming is happening, it is inevitable, and there’s nothing we can do about it now.
That money should be spend on ships, because with sea level rise, we will need many more of them.
Real conservatives will do whatever they can to cut wherever they can.
This is one thing they might actually do. it’s a fairly marginal cut that is supported by the base, with whom, they are not in the best graces right now.
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