and to be honest with you, it's -- it's more difficult to figure out how. we haven't had a gentle rain this month of may. may is our wettest month. i planted that we finished planting those crops two weeks ago, they're not going to come out of the ground until we get some moisture. this is pretty abnormal. we've had droughts before, but this is -- this is abnormal stuff. the end of bitter winters you think gosh it's less soil you're going to have to heat the house or propane or wood or whatever you're doing but the fact is those winters and the lack of cold winters has allowed a little beast called the saw fly to show up and if you don't deal with the saw fly by adding another operation, it can take as much of the crop as a hailstorm would, three quarters of it easily. it's time sensitive. the dead trees many of which litter our national forests you go south of flathead lake our forests are dead. combining with the historic drought, and the wildfires, season is longer, it's hotter,

and it's rougher. and it costs more money to fight. these stories go down the list and i can just tell you that a couple years ago, we flew in to down around by billings, they were having record floods. the next year, same people whose houses were under water one year were being burn out the next. same land. i don't know what's going on. i don't know if the air's getting warmer. i don't know if we're just in a cycle. but i can tell you we can talk about all the things that need to be done here. we can talk about how it's going to impact farmers and ranchers and sportsmen and all that. but if we end up passing on a climate to our kids that doesn't allow our kids to move forward with an economy that helps support, i think we're making a huge mistake. now, last year we had a record crop.

i can tell you right now it's going to be a pretty open summer for me if we don't get some rain pretty damn quick. those kind of variations in weather farmers always talk about as being normal. but this is -- this is above anything that i have ever seen in my 57 years on this place. and by the way, i live within 100 miles of that place till i got this job. so that's where i have spent my entire life. and i have seen things happen in our climate that i have never, ever, ever seen before. maybe it's just happenstance. maybe it's just choice. maybe if we ignore it, it will go away. but i think that if we can put a man on the moon in ten years, we can certainly, going off of 2005 standards, reduce the amount of co-2 going into the air by 30% in 25 years.

i don't think it's that much of a stretch. is coal going away? i don't think so. not for awhile. by 2030, nearly a third of our energy will still be coal. and i don't think that's a bad thing. so, mr. chairman, i appreciate you having this hearing, ranking member wicker, you know that i have a tremendous respect for you and i appreciate contribution to this. i think we have a choice, as people who serve in the senate and the house. we can do nothing, or we can try to find solutions that help drive our economy forward and address issues of climate. if we do nothing, and we're wrong, think about that. just think about that. it means there's going to be a lot of hungry people. with that sobering thought, i will say thank you for the opportunity to testify. i very much appreciate it. i apologize i ran over. by damn near double. but such is life. ashe will have to cut his way back.

>> senator, thank you very much for your testimony. and giving this district, on-the-ground impression of these effects from hail to fires to new pests, to fewer, as you put it, bone-chilling winds. indeed the point of this hearing was to hear about effects on the ground and we're going to now have witnesses to take a look across america, really appreciate your giving your sense. thank you. i'd like to invite director dan ashe of the u.s. fish and wildlife service to join us. dan has had a long career in public service. prior to being director he served as services deputy director for policy. as a science adviser and as the chief of the national wildlife refuge system. mr. ashe spent 13 years as professional staff on the former committee on merchant marine and fisheries in the house of representatives. and earned his graduate degree in marine affairs from the university of washington.

he is here today to give us perspective on how we can expect to see climate change impacting our national resources, and our key to sustaining our fishing and hunting economies. it's terrific to have you. welcome. >> thank you chairman merkley. ranking member wicker. it's a privilege to be here before this subcommittee, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today, really, and to have america's sportsmen and women. as americans we are extraordinarily blessed. among these blessings are the natural landscapes, and the healthy abundant native fish and wildlife that they support. and today, blessings are largely due to the leadership, and the foresight of yesterday's hunters and anglers, good people, and professional managers who found -- who found the will, and

the ability to face the great challenges of their day. it may have been a dust bowl in the 1930s, or pesticide use in the -- in the '50s and '60s. and wetlands destruction in the '70s and '80s. but these women and men found the will and the way to work with congress and others to address those challenges. do i'm really proud of my country and colleagues in public service. it was in 1990 i was a staff member, committee staff member in the house of representatives, worked with the house merchant marine and fisheries committee, the house science committee and others and this committee in the senate to enact the global climate change research program act. and then a few years ago we worked with our state colleagues and other partners to develop

the national fish, wildlife and plants adaptation strategy, and just recently we saw the most recent national climate assessment and then yesterday yesterday the epa proposing acceptable and effective regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and so i feel like our country finally has the information, and the wherewithal and it's finding the will to address this great challenge. and hunting and fishing are vital components of the nation's economy especially in rural areas. in 2011 americans spent $145 billion on wildlife related recreation, nearly 1% of the nation's gross domestic product and the changing climate system is affecting hunters and anglers today. and it is darkening the prospect for hunters and anglers tomorrow. shorter winters and earlier

springs are disrupting delegate water fowl migrations that have over' -- evolved over ions. drought and water scarcity are increasing, jeopardizing populations of native fish and aquatic species in dozens of watersheds, rising water temperatures are reducing habitat and altering breeding and spawning opportunities for many species of fish, milder winters are increasing the prevalence of parasites and disease that can have decimating effects on big game, and forest habitat. while enabling invasive species to spread into new areas and displace native wildlife. in oregon and across the pacific northwest, climate change poses a major threat to salmon, a vital element of the region's economy and culture. a study published in 2013 concludes that coastal coho salmon, a federally listed species, faces a significant climate driven risk to future sustainability.

the scale and intensity of these current and future climate change impacts pose a serious threat to america's hunting and fishing traditions, and there turn to the benefits they provide to wildlife and people. faced by these threats the administration is taking significant steps to ensure forward thinking, and effective conservation of fish wildlife and plants, and their habitats. this includes strategic planning through the president's climate action plan, the national fish, wildlife and plant adaptation strategy as i mentioned before, which we developed in cooperation with our state colleagues, and tribal colleagues. our survival and quality of life as a species is inexorably linked to the health of ecosystems which provide clean air, clean water, food, shelter and employment for the world's human population. how and whether we choose to respond here and now will determine the kind of world we

leave to our descendants, including whether we pass them a world that has a place for the great traditions of angling and hunting that we are able to practice today. mr. chairman, i want to thank you and the subcommittee for holding this hearing, and calling attention to this important and pressing issue. >> thank you. we'll now have five minute periods for questions, comment, and just to summarize, what you're seeing from your expertise within the fish and wildlife service are effects on the ground right now. >> there's no doubt, senator, that we're seeing the effects of changing migration patterns in our water fowl. we're seeing changing -- increasing parasitism and decreasing reproductive rates in

big game species like moose in the southern extent of their range. we're seeing rising water temperatures, which reduces the habitat quality and availability for cold water fishes. and so there's no doubt that we are seeing these impacts across the board. >> so let me just take a couple pieces out. let me start with the diseases related to big game. one of our senators from new hampshire was showing a picture recently of a moose with clumps on its back and pointed out that those big lumps, if you will, big black lumps were actually big infestations of ticks that wasn't warm enough -- that was not cold enough to kill them, and they were carrying them year round, and that this was resulting in both disease, and continuous loss of blood, if you will, to the ticks. and thus an impact on the moose populations. is that one of the most prominent examples of impact on big game or what else are we seeing? >> we're definitely seeing that

so we have a refuge, in northern minnesota. we've seen a 98% in the moose population at agacy refuge. we've seen a severe reduction in moose population throughout the state of minnesota. they're no longer hunting moose in minnesota. the reason is because the rising average temperature in the summertime places physiological stress on the animal so they're not reproducing the way that they used to. plus, we're seeing that these pests, like ticks in new hampshire, which are able to have multiple generations now during the spring, the summer, the fall, and fewer of them are being killed off by severe winters, and so the animals are besieged by pests, which put further physiological stress on the animals. and so, throughout the southern

range of moose, we're seeing declines in the population. so in states like new hampshire, decline in the population. that represents a lost opportunity for the american sportsman. >> so when you said 98% loss, 49 out of 50 moose that were there before are gone, that's pretty dramatic collapse. is that over just a few years? and have we seen that in earlier periods of just a -- a mean a few years of variation in temperatures that the moose population crashed and then resurged? we ever see anything like this before? >> we've not seen anything like this before, and we've always had, you know, warm spells where you would have a summer or two consecutively where you would then have a depression in the population. they would rebound then, as weather returned to a normal pattern. but what we're seeing now is that steadily rising temperature in the summertime so that the mean temperature in the summer is now putting physiological stress on the animals which is affecting their reproduction.

>> let me turn to your comments about migration patterns for water fowl and specifically ducks. what is causing the ducks to modify their direction? are the pools they would land in disappearing? what's going on? >> migratory birds like water fowl have a delicate and refined migration pattern that has evolved over ions, so what we're seeing, put yourself in the -- look at it from the perspective of a hand mallard who's leaving her wintering grounds in yazoo national wildlife refuge in mississippi and is heading toward the american prairie. she is stopping along the way, feeding and resting. she has a very narrow window when she gets to the prairies, she's looking for a place to

small a pothole or wetland to make a nest. in rehistoric times if that didn't exist in south dakota, she would go to north dakota and then she would go to saskatchewan and she would fly until she found that habitat. what we're doing is human development, we're constraining the habitat. so we have agricultural development. we have oil and gas. energy development, that's constraining that -- her availability of habitat, so now she's much more restricted in terms of where she can go. so she -- if she doesn't make that decision in about a two-week window of time, she's not going to have a successful nesting season. and so, what we're seeing is

birds are leaving later. they're migrating later in the spring, they're migrating -- or earlier in the spring they're migrating later in the fall. so they're -- their basic pattern is changing because of their response to weather, we believe. and then the habitat availability for her is shrinking. and the what the climate assessment tells us is that wet areas will get wetter and dry areas will get drier, and so as wildlife managers we're now looking at a more complicated picture. how do we put that -- that habitat on the ground for that hen mallard and what we have to do is be able to look into the future because we're not just responsible for today's water fowl hunters we're responsible for tomorrow's water fowl hunters. we have to be able to think about habitat 10 and 20 and 30 years from now. so we need to recognize that the climate is changing, that that -- the habitat needs of water fowl are going to change. their migratory patterns are going to change. we need to understand that better so that we can provide the opportunity for hunters in the future. >> thank you very much for your testimony. appreciate it.

>> thank you mr. chairman. in absentia thank you for mr. tester to come in. we do appear occasionally on cross fire and enjoy trying to match wits. i'm sorry senator tester is experiencing hailstorms, increased hailstorms. i think he made a very telling statement, though, when he said i don't know what's going on. i'm not sure what's going on. but i know that scientists of goodwill disagree about what's going on. and i would say to you, dr. ashe, and mr. chairman, gail and i have lived on 521 magnolia drive, tupelo, mississippi, for over 32 years.

the lady that built the house before us planted st. augustine grass over 50 years ago. and for the first time this winter i experienced winter kill of my st. augustine grass. now, i don't know what's going on. but the fact of the matter is i can play anecdotes all day, i'll just say that if somehow the cold and the ice, and the winter got to my st. augustine hasn't happened in 50 years. on magnolia drive. i don't know what that proves. except that we can give anecdotes that don't have really much to do with science. let's talk about these the

migration of the ducks, mr. ashe. it's my understanding that because of the increased demand for corn used in ethanol production we're seeing a reduction of available breeding grounds in the midwest wetlands, and grassland for ducks in mississippi and louisiana flyways. so don't you think there is an impact caused by the renewable fuel standards on hunting and hunting species and don't you think this is an unforeseen consequence of congress interjecting itself into the markets? >> senator, thank you. i would say we are seeing what ducks unlimited and others are calling a crisis in the prairies. we certainly if you think about the states of north dakota and south dakota, which are really

the heart of water fowl production for the united states of america, we have energy development in the oil fields squeezing from the west and we have agricultural development squeezing from the east, and so there is no doubt that we are seeing widespread and unprecedented conversion of habitat that is -- >> and if i can interject, because that clock is ticking. part of that reduction in habitat is putting more of the land into corn to -- to respond to this public policy decision that the federal government has made. that is a fact, is it not? >> certainly a part of the demand is related to use for ethanol. but the market is a global market for corn and soybean, and the global market is what is

driving the demand for that commodity. what's important for us to realize is that climate change lies over that. so as we are trying to maintain and now restore, and protect habitat for migrating water fowl we have the increasing complexity associated with changing climate, and the disruption of their migratory behavior. and so if you think again about that hen mallard as she's migrating, if the temperatures are warmer, hen mallard and what we have to do is be able to look into the future because we're not just responsible for today's water fowl hunters we're responsible for tomorrow's water fowl hunters. from a thermo dynamic standpoint, she not only has to make that trip with habitat, migration is a strenuous and

risky endeavor for any species. and now, we're increasing the stress on that animal to make that trip. she's got to make it every year. she's got a tight time schedule. she has demanding food and energy requirements and we are making that journey harder for her. >> i realize, mr. director, this is not a climate issue, but i'm merely trying to point out that you're concerned about the migration of ducks as am i, as are people in mississippi, particularly along the river counties and delta counties. i would submit to you there is a lot more to it than increasing of temperatures by one degree or 1.5 degrees. i'm going to want to take a

second round with this witness, so i'll yield back to you, but i'd like to take a second round. >> thank you. are you going to be able to stay with us for the second panel? terrific. why don't you go ahead and take your second five minutes. >> okay. let me ask you this, mr. director. do you dismiss altogether the scientific evidence senator sessions mentioned this morning that global temperatures have flatlined for the last 15 years? do you dismiss that as being inaccurate? >> i do, sir. >> we just have -- you have a disagreement with the scientists who have flatly stated that we basically have flatlined -- >> there is no scientific disagreement. if what people are doing is they're taking 1998, which was a high year for temperature, and then they're looking from 1998

to 2013 and they are saying there is no rise in temperature. you can't look at attempt record that does go up and down, and so you'll have warm years, relatively warmer and cooler years. you can't pick one year out of 150 year data base and say, well, if i use 1995, which was a particularly warm year, and i compare all the succeeding years to that, there has been no increase in temperature. if you look at the complete temperature record, there's no doubt that temperatures have risen during the course of the last decade. the last decade is the warmest decade on record. when you look objectively and completely at the scientific record, there is no disagreement. the national climate assessment reflects that science, that

large consensus body of science. >> do you acknowledge that the earth's climate has been changing up and down for tens of thousands of years? >> millions of years. >> millions of years. okay. and that has been irrespective of carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere, is that correct? >> carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere has changed over time, and has been correlated with by looking at the carbon dating record has been correlated with increasing and decreasing temperatures. what we are seeing now, and which science clearly points to is that human-based emissions of greenhouse gasses are driving concentrations in the atmosphere that have not been seen for hundreds of thousands of years.

>> are you suggesting that every time over the last million years the temperature has gone up, it's due to carbon dioxide? >> i can't say every time but what scientists have been looking back into paleontologic record, they've been associated with elevated and decreased levels of carbon dioxide in the eats fear. >> let me ask you about forest management. you won't be here during panel two. dr. david south in his prepared testimony says policy makers who halt and kill green harvesting jobs in favor of a hands-off approach contribute to the buildup of fuels in the forest.

this eventually increases the risk of catastrophic wildfires. also james wood on panel two will say because of past management of fire suppression, the worst neighbor a timberland owner can have is a national forest. how would you respond to that? basically in a nutshell, the argument is by refusing to allow the underbrush, there is this buildup of fuels and this intensifies forest fires. how do you respond to that? do they have a point? >> i would not say, and u.s. forest service is a poor neighbor. i don't think they have a point about that. i would say that the buildup of fuels in our nation's forest, public and private, has been a challenge for us. whether it's national forest,

national wildlife refuge, national park, state park or state wildlife management area, fire management is a challenge for any land manager. i would say the greatest need in that regard is funding for preventative management. it gives us more flexibility to do what you're calling for is to do prohibitive management of our nation's forests. >> that would be removing the fallen trees and underbrush that amounts to fuel for forest fires? >> in some cases. as a wildlife manager, sometimes

dead fall and understory is a good thing for wildlife management, but in some cases, managing forests, as senator merkley knows in the pacific northwest, we are working together with our state and federal colleagues on ecological forestry which involves many of the principles you're speaking of, which is get in, do thinning, do understory management. i think good, improved forest management is an important aspect of wildlife management and providing the habitat our game species are going to need in the future. i agree with you that that is an important adaptation for us to take. and we need better capacity to do that in knowing what we now know about climate change and what the future is going to look like. >> the chair agreed into indulge me on one other question. there is a strategic plan to

responding to climate change that includes increased data collection, initiatives to increase awareness and habitat conservation programs. how much money and how many employees is this going to take? and will this negatively impact other fish and wildlife service programs? >> i'm not sure what strategy you're talking about, sir. >> let me ask you, does fish and wildlife service have a strategic plan for responding to climate change? >> we do have a climate change strategic plan, and as i mentioned before, one of the outgrowths of that plan is the national fish, wildlife and plants adaptation strategy. it identifies a number of common sense steps that we can take.

>> my question is about the cost of this and whether employees will be taken away from other programs and placed into this initiative? >> no. because they're basically synonymous with good management, as you have identified with forest management. what we need to do is we need to provide our managers, our federal and state and tribal managers with the tools they need to do better forest management, better range management with the scientific information they need. it will cost, it will take additional capacity to do this, but it needs to be done. >> where is that additional capacity going to come from? >> well, i think as the president has provided in specific context of fire management, as i said, the president has provided in this year's budget that 30% of the funds for suppression should come from the disaster funding ceiling. that will free up dollars for us

to do more preventive management for fire. i think we know, we have common sense approaches to find and build the capacity that you're talking about. i think the president has proposed one such step in his 2015 budget. >> thank you. i'll take my five-minute turn then. i would like to say that forest service plan makes a lot of sense because what we've had in the large fires has been complete depletion of the forest service and trying to restore the funds for every other function they have other than fighting fires. that's not treating emergencies as emergencies. and huge disruptive factor in the ordinary work force. that's a terrific proposal. i commend the forest service for it. you mention in your testimony some of the migrations that are occurring. specifically, you mention the pacific, i think it's called the brandt, and that it has migrated

a long -- its range changed dramatically. can you explain what's going on there? >> sure. pacific brandt is a small goose. pacific brandt have ranged their breeding grounds in the arctic and migrate historically cowan to mexico, winter in mexico, or summer in mexico. what we are seeing increasingly of brandt are staying in alaska throughout the breeding season. so what that creates is a potential that will have a disruption, will have a severe weather event and the birds will not have migrated and will take a big population reduction. these changes in migratory patterns put more uncertainty into the game for wildlife managers. so if we are facing more uncertainty, the way we typically deal with that is we

reduce opportunity. so i think that's the restriction that we are looking at. >> my impression is we are seeing this in studies of lots of species. some of my colleagues talked about the migrating lobster, so on and owe forth. so this is not just one particular -- lots of ocean species are things that are changing? >> across the board we are seeing changes in the blooming of flowers, the green-up in alaska tundra in the springtime. we are seeing changes in migratory patterns as we talked about. we are seeing changes in habitat availability for cold water fish. while one study in 2012 of cold water fish estimates that by 2100 we could see a reduction of 50% in habitat availability for cold water fishes, trout, salmon, a loss of as much as 6.5 million angler days, and as everyone as $6.5 billion in

economic activity. so these changes are not inconsequential for sportsmen and women. >> thank you. i want to take a look at the chart on the surface temperature issue that was just raised. so this chart shows change in surface temperature from 1970 through 201. -- 2013. it basically shows that there's about a 0.6 degrees celsius change in just that 44-year period. one can draw kind of impressions about this, i have another chart here that has a line that simply represents kind of the rising direction of temperature, but i wanted to specifically emphasize the second chart which shows

that rising temperature is a series of steps. because a number of folks have commented and said, well look, this last bar is flat and it's flat over a period of approximately 10, 12 years. and therefore, nothing to worry about, but when you see this chart going backwards, we see a series of periods where the average temperature keeps increasing by steps, if you will. is there any reason to think that if we are looking at this chart ten years from now, that we will see a new step that is lower than the step we're at now? is there any reason to think no issue here, that this trend is not going to continue? >> i'm not aware of any scientific study that predicts a decline in temperature from this point forward. your observation as i was saying in response to senator wicker's statement, you look at the

long-term temperature record, it's unequivocal temperatures are rising and the prediction is for temperatures to rise and the rate of temperature increase to rise in the future. >> thank you very much for your testimony. appreciate it very much. bringing the expertise of your agency to bear on these broad trends that we're experiencing. >> thank you, senator. >> mr. chairman, i wonder if there is any reason to believe that if we raise electricity rates on american farmers and ranchers by double digits that line is going to change one way or the other? >> is that something you want to speculate on? >> i think it's something i already speculated on. >> i will note looking at future power costs, it anticipates a reduction.

that's maybe for another hearing or another debate and discussion. let's turn to our second panel, if they could come forward. welcome. it's great to have you all. i'm happy to have our second panel of witnesses. we have a diverse group including three individuals that will talk about how climate change is impacting their area of expertise and two minority witnesses who will present their perception on climate change skeptics. i'll go ahead and introduce everyone now. then we'll proceed with the testimony. our first witness is jim walls, which i'm particularly delighted to have you here, from oregon. jim serves as executive director of lake county, organization to preserving our national forest,

expanding the use of renewable energy in rural communities. working to foster more collaborative approaches to forest management, as well as working to make and attract more biomass geothermal, hydro solar energy products to lake county. second witness is clay polke, wheat farmer and cattle rancher in oklahoma and serves as the state association executive director of conservation districts. clay served in the oklahoma house of representatives from 1994 through 2004. welcome. our third witness is daniel cohen. commercial fisherman and owner of atlanta cape fisheries, a scallop marketing company based

in new jersey but does business on both coasts. david south earned his ph.d. in forestry. mr. south served as director for the southern forest nursery management cooperative. and is it legates? associate director of geography and former director of climatic studies at the university of delaware. mr. walls, if you could kick off the testimony, the show is yours. >> thank you, mr. chairman and fellow members. it's a privilege to be here and an honor. as said, my name is jim walls, i run a small nonprofit in lake

county, oregon, concentrating on federal forest lands and renewable energies. we are 78% government land-owned in our county. that's over 8,500 square miles so it's big. it's bigger than some eastern states. within that like many communities with forest over the past three decades, we suffered high unemployment, poverty rates due to policies on our national forests. we look at renewable energy as a way to change our economy and bring new green jobs to the forefront. when discussing climate change on forests, i can't separate the actions of past forest management and impacts of climate change. they are both in the same. and treatments will have the both same effects. that is as we underthin, take the understory and remove it and remove that amount so there is more back to a natural area, a natural stand condition that was preeuropean, that was also the strategy we need to use for climate change. so they are intertwined.

in our case, i would like to point out that over the past decade, what has that meant in our forest? well, in ten years, the first fire was the winter rim tool box fire. we lost 100,000 acres. then we had a beetle kill of over 350,000 acres. then in 2012 we had the berry point fire, 93,000 acres. in less than a decade, we have now lost 24% of the fremont national forest. if we keep this rate up, because fires are getting more intense, insects are getting more intense because of the warmer climate change if we keep this up, we will lose in three decades our whole forest. i think that is a real and severe threat to us. it is not only a threat to our industry in timber, it's a threat to our agricultural industry, too. we average 10% to 20% moisture during the winter.

our summers are hot and dry normally. without that snow pack, we don't have agriculture. we don't have irrigational water. all you have to do is look to our neighbors to climate basin this year and what's going to happen there. even in lake county, we are going to see reduced irrigation rates because of the drought. droughts we have never seen of this sphere before. i think to debate the climate change, long-term, short-term, all that, i personally say it's here and the risk is way too high just to ignore the few that you might be right that it's not happening. i hope we don't go there. by using renewable energy, i feel we can offset that. we developed a plan in lake county, all the ones we have done, economic analysis and feasibility study on, we will offset 93% of the fossil fuel emissions in a decade out of lake county, and we will do it

economically so. so as we go forward with this debate, i would hope that we look at the things like that that make economic sense. can renewables compete with hydro? no. can it compete with coal and industry, solar is there, cost of a panel now is very cheap. it's reducing all the time. wind is there. as we invest in these more and more of them will become competitive at orates throughout -- at other rates throughout the country. and it's a way to turn our jobs around. i ask one thing is to change the definition, which senator merkley co-sponsored with senator wyden on on renewable energy. our federal lands is not considered renewable energy sources. we have two companies looking to locate in lake county we only have supply for one so hopefully one of those will make it. that is a jet fuel company and biomass energy production company.

with that definition, they do not want to invest because it's not considered renewable. so please do change that, senate bill 536. get that passed so we change that definition. it does not make sense to me. the other thing i would like to say is we need to increase the scale of getting treatments. i mentioned and senator rucker, you said my full testimony about the worst neighbors is the forest service. it's not because we don't know what to do, it's the time and the amount we are getting done. we need to increase that rather than treating 3,000 to 4,000 acres of land that is overstocked that we would be treating 20,000 acres a year and get to 100,000 acres and not just doing small acres projects at a time. we don't want to skip environmental rules. we want to be economically sound and ecologically. fire expense was mentioned.

we cannot achieve our goals if we don't deal with fire borrowing that occurs every year. and as these fires get more intense and hotter, we need to look at that. senate bill 1875, i hope you endorse that bill and we get that through, because it's far cheaper to treat the forestland than it is to suppress fire. and they're increasing. another thing that climate change has done in the thicker forest is that it keeps the snow from hitting the ground. we get large amounts of evaporation. so i do see by implementing and doing smcommon sense things tod such as renewable energy, we can make some big impact. after that, let's debate the more challenging stuff. thank you. >> thank you very much. mr. pope? >> chairman merkley, ranking

member and members of the committee. thank you for the chance to speak about climate change. first, let me say we've always had wild weather on the southern plains. i think oklahoma native will rogers said if you don't like the weather in oklahoma, wait a minute, it will change. what's different is the frequency and strength of the weather events that we're seeing. basically our crazy weather has been put on steroids. the drought we've been suffering through the last five years is a perfect example and it's had a drastic impact on agriculture. in oklahoma alone, we've seen a reduction in the cattle herd by 13%. it's shrunk to its lowest level since 1941 and over 80% of these happened in two states, oklahoma and texas. but the effects of the drought aren't just limtd limited to ly livestock. as bad as the cotton situation is, the real story is wheat. this year's wheat harvest is expected to be the lowest since 1957. it's estimated the amount of wheat harvested in 2014 will be

40% of what was cut in 2013 and that crop was 30% below what was cut in 2012. this drop in production isn't just due to the drought. a late season freeze also took its toll on oklahoma's wheat crop. late season freezes aren't anything new, but what is new, though, is the frequency. this is the third time in five years that a late freeze has impacted oklahoma's wheat crop. clearly we have a problem. the question is what do we do about it? well, the secret, senators, in my opinion, is in the soil. improving the health of our soil is the key to helping agriculture both mitigate and adapt climate change. our farm ground has lost between 60% to 80% of the organic matter that was present in the soil at initial plow-up. it's organic matter that feeds the community of bugs, bacteria and fungus that form our first and best line of defense against climate change. every 1% increase of organic matter can triple that soil's water holding capacity. that equals on average to an additional 25,000 gallons of water available per acre for growing crops. by converting the no till

cropping systems that also incorporate cover crops, we can greatly increase the infiltration rate while at the same time reducing the amount of moisture loss to evaporation when that land is tilled exposed to the sun. this helps farms better weather the droughts being exacerbated by climate change. this increase in soil moisture also helps restore balance to the overall water cycle, which increases stream flow. by using no till, but can also greatly reduce soil erosion while at the same time reducing runoff from agricultural land. this not only protects the soil, it also reduces pollution in our streams and rivers. in addition, that same 1% increase in organic matter can on average make available up to $700 worth of additional nutrients per acre for growing crops. by improving the health of our soil, we can help plants more effectively absorb the nutrients on the ground, helping us increase yields and we do all this, we're also lowering carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. no till can sequester on average roughly half a metric ton of

carbon per acre per year. we all know plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. it is stored in the form of organic matter. water quality w you improve wildlife habitat while you increase yields and at the same time sequester carbon dioxide in the soil. this is something we need to do. through the farm bill conservation programs, usda has the ability to help producers do it. unfortunately as budget tightened, financial assistance through these programs and funding for technical assistance continues to shrink. during the dust bowl it was determined it was in the public's interest to keep the farm ground of the southern plains in production. through the partner. ship of the federal and state governments and local conservation districts, farm grains in production. the tide of dust was turned back. this partnership has the ability to address climate change in the same manner they address the dust bowl if they have the necessary resources. even with these tools, though, research is needed to determine the technologies best suited to help agriculture adapt to climate change. usda started with the formation of the regional climate hubs.

they hold great promise but will go unrealized if they aren't provided with the resources necessary to do their job. as we focus on the droughts, we can't lose sight of the fact the floods will come again. droughts and floods of tennessee come together in oklahoma. the hammond flood in 1934. happened in the middle of the dust bowl and spurred the federal government to build small watershed dams through usda. oklahoma alone has 2,100 structures most in need of rehabilitation. many of these could be made into reservoirs for nearby communities to help with water shortages in the flash floods made by climate change. with passage of the farm bill funding was authorized to do this work. unfortunately, rules stated they were only to be used to rebuild existing structures. a change in the rules would allow federal funds be made available to help several communities with new water sources. when you look at the opportunities outlined, purposes like water quality and quantity, flood mitigation and wildlife enhancement, you see this

program as another tool usda already has that can help our country better adapt to climate change. in closing, i would reiterate southern plains agriculture faces serious challenges from climate change. the good news is though, that usda has tools to cope with this challenge and there is a path forward. the question is, will we take it? thank you for allowing me to speak today. i would be happy to answer any questions. >> thank you very much, mr. pope. >> thank you. >> do we have your microphone on? start over again. >> thank you very much for the opportunity to address the committee as you evaluate the impact of climate change in our environment and livelihoods for the next generations. fishing and agriculture of the united states, especially the shellfish industry is susceptible to increases in ocean temperature. like canaries in the coal mine, our shellfish industry has been significantly impacted and is

the harbinger of the consequences of the uses of fossil fuels and increases in co2 in the atmosphere. i'm daniel cohen, owner of atlantic capes fisheries. we operate vessels on the east coast and west coast with facilities in new jersey, maryland, rhode island, massachusetts and pacific northwest. we are focused on scallops, clams, crab and squid. i spent much of my team raising over $1 million a year with the mid-atlantic fisheries management council and prime marry science in conjunction with rutgers university and cornell university. about 15 years ago, recognizing that the wild harvests of commercial fishermen such as ourselves will be capped to make it certain we had sustainable harvests for the future, and with the sustainable capped harvests there would not be enough fish protein for a growing world population with 6 billion, soon to be 9 billion.

the industry is looking more and more towards agriculture to meet those rising needs. i'm going to use examples today that are not anecdotes, but actually what's happened to industry and then backed up with scientific research determining what is actually happening. i will do that with four examples that are really just examples. we can talk more about others. these champs are all coming from three sources. one, changes slowly over time, bottom temperature change of the ocean. two is rising ocean acidity from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere going into the ocean as co2 sink. raising the level of ocean. changes in ocean occurrence which scientists describe as changes in bottom temperature. four examples, we serve clam fisheries on the east coast, oyster hatcheries in oregon, the fluke fishery in north carolina and long island and scallop in british columbia.

the surf clam fishery was historically centered off the coast of virginia up to the center of new jersey. new jersey landed over 50% of the surf clams for the entire country and surf clams are the number one ingredient in clam chowder, which was, i think, the number one soup served in restaurants in the country. also enjoyed as fried and breaded clam strips. as outlined in the written evidence i've given, in addition, bottom temperature rise was first identified after the survey of the dying clams off virginia, rutgers and vims. scientists determined it was due to bottom temperature changes. cooler waters in new england saw greater spawning off new england. clam plants shut in virginia, maryland and new jersey and new plants opened in massachusetts and rhode island, showing a shift in the population of the clams due to bottom temperature rise documented by rutgers. and therefore, a change in jobs. in the pacific northwest, we've

seen large oceanification. our written testimony is from oregon state university documenting over $110 million worth of losses to the hatchery industry alone. they have to buffer all their water because of the ocean acidificati acidification. in the mid 2000s they discovered the problem of ocean acidity. in 2013 in british columbia there was a major die-off of 90% of all the scallops being raised offshore, three-year classes were killed. my company alone sustained a $10 million loss. scientists are continually researching this right now. they believe that the ocean -- highest levels of ocean acidification recorded last summer weaken the animals and they cause them to become more endemic disease. mostly documented by an article that is being released today by the daily climate, that is

documenting work in noaa, documenting temperature changes in the east coast affecting the migration and distribution of the fluke fishery. the fluke fishery is completely rebuilt, but because the distribution of those fluke are slowly moving north where they fished off north carolina are now being fished off new york and further north. therefore, there is a user conflict state by state allocation of the fluke fishery and recreational commercial conflict. all the consequence of change in distribution due to documented bottom temperature change. i conclude by saying i believe that it is irrefutable that climate change is happening. leaders of the east coast fishing industry along with myself have formed a company called fishermen's energy to try to also adapt, and we proposed the bill to offshore wind farms. these are an example we must shape to be agents of change rather than victims of change. i would be happy to answer

questions. >> thank you, mr. cohen. mr. south -- or dr. south. >> it is a privilege to provide you with my views of forest and wildfires. foresters know there are many examples how human activity affects total number and size of wildfires. policy makers who halt active forest management and kill green harvesting jobs really end up contributing to the buildup of fuels in the forest. this eventually increases the risk of catastrophic wildfires. to attribute this human-caused increase in fire risk to carbon dioxide emissions is simply unscientific. in today's world of climate alarmism, accuracy doesn't seem to matter. i am therefore not surprised to see many journalists spreading the idea carbon emissions cause large wildfires. there is a well-known point called the serenity prayer, god

grant me the serenity to change the things i can, the courage to accept the things i cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference. now that i'm 65, i realize that i can't change the behavior of the media. i can't change the weather. early in my career, i gave up trying to change the media and make them correct their mistakes about forest management. now i just concentrate on my colleagues, trying to get them to do a better job of just sticking to the facts. i'll leave the guesses of the future to others. untrue claims about the underlying cause of wildfires can spread like wildfire. the false statement that wildfires in 2012 burned a record 9.2 million acres in the u.s. is cited in numerous articles and is found in more than 2,000 websites.

you can see looking at the graph wildfires in the '30s burned four times that rate. wildfire in 2012 was certainly an issue of concern, but those who push an agenda really need to exaggerate the claims in order to fool the public. this graph shows carbon emissions rising since 1926. if we cherry-pick data from 1926 to 1970, we get a negative relationship between carbon dioxide and fire size. however, if we cherry pick data from 1985 to the current year, we get a positive relationship. now, neither of these relationships proves anything about the effects of carbon dioxide on wildfires. since during dry season, human activity is the overwhelming factor that determines both the

number and size of wildfires. in the 48 states there have been about ten extreme mega fires. eight of these fires occurred during cool decades. these data suggest that extremely large mega fires were four times more common before 1940, back when with carbon dioxide concentrations were less than 310 parts per million. looks to me like we cannot reasonably say that man-mad global warming causes extremely large wildfires.e global warming causes extremely large wildfires. seven years ago, this committee conducting a hearing about climate change and wildfires wasn't even mentioned in that meeting, but hurricanes, droughts were mentioned a number of times.

i'm pleased to provide you with my forestry views because unlike hurricanes, droughts and the polar vortex, we can actually promote forestry practices that will reduce the risk of wildfires. unfortunately some of our national forest management policies have in my view, contributed to increasing the risk of wildfires. i am certain attempts to legislate a change in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have no effect on reducing the size of wildfires or on the frequency of droughts. in contrast, allowing forest management practices to create economically lasting forestry jobs in the private sector might reduce the fuel loads of dense forests. in years when demand for renewable resources are high, increasing the number of thinnings and harvesting jobs might actually have a real impact on reducing wildfires. thank you for this opportunity to address the subcommittee.

>> thank you very much, dr. south. dr. legates. >> thank you, mr. chairman, senators. carbon dioxide is plant food and more of it can be a positive. if global water temperature would rise for any reason, the length of the growing season would be increased, the amount and diversity of the crops would be enhanced and more areas would be farmed. the big problem with is limiting factor for agriculture and much of the water is water availability. soil moisture in a warmer world depends on a complicated interaction of changes in precipitation and increases in water demand. globally we've seen drought frequencies have not changed over the past 60 years. the percentage of the united states in moderate or extreme drought has not changed in 112 years, a pattern noted by the climate change science program and ipcc. regionally droughts have not become more intense over longer duration, thus the historical record does not warrant a claim that global warming will negatively impact agriculture.

dire forecasts of extreme drought arise from climate model simulations which are only as good as their ability to simulate precipitation. they underestimate rainfall intensity. models may appear correct in the aggregate, they don't get the process correct. how can models make accurate estimates of precipitation changes whether they cannot simulate correctly the mechanisms that drive precipitation. evaporative demand is driven by air temperature but models have overestimated the air temperature rise since 1979 by almost one degree fahrenheit. if precipitation air temperature are not modeled properly, how can modeled soil moisture be relied upon to prepare farmers for an uncertain future? climate changes because climate always changed. droughts that happened in the past and are likely to occur again with similar frequencies and intensities. thus i believe preparation for their return is a better strategy than trying in vain to mitigate them through draconian carbon dioxide emission control

policies such as those proposed only yesterday. i've become increasingly concerned how this scientific debate is being corrupted. in my 2003 senate testimony regarding a hockey stick, lamented that a healthy side of the debate was being compromised. an attack had been made on the scientific process. editors at two journal was harassed. one was threatened with a organized boycott. the senior editor barred two science ties from future publication in the journal solely because of their position on climate change. without a hearing and without an accusation of fraud or plagiarism. i would like to report things have become better. they haven't. in 2009, climategate shed light how the process was being subverted. i learned i had been denied publication of an important paper due to solely a conclusion between another scientist and an editor. over the years, i applied for several federal grants including nasa and u.s. department of agriculture, the latter having nothing to do with climate change. it's not that i received bad

reviews. inde indeed, i received no reviews at all. program officers refused to respond by e-mail or telephone. their behavior appears related to an article in the academy of science used as a black list to target, quote, researchers unconvinced of global warming. several years ago i and two colleagues at delaware received materials related to climate change. my story is documented in my written testimony. university general council said he would review my documents regardless of how or where they were produced. the other factory members participated in the icc. he indicated foya did not apply to them. while the law does not require me from turning over anything, it does require him to do so. i will be treated differently simply because he can treat me that way. so i sought legal counsel. i could not hire my own lawyer and the college would no longer support me. i was removed as delaware state climate toll gist as co-director of an environmental network i spent nearly a decade to

develop. as faculty advisor to student group and from all didn'tal responsibilities. legal counsel agreed to treat us all equally. this never occurred. he never went through materials for anyone else. i alone was targeted and lied to. even the faculty union that supported dr. mann at the university of virginia told me foya matters did not fall within their bailiwick. according to the ceo of the university none of my research or e-mail fall under the foya law. they violate terms of the federal arbitration case. there is nothing in my record which i am embarrassed. i tell you this story not because i seek certainlythy but because there are many other cases where the victims cannot speak out. the so-called war on science is nothing but a diversion. the real war is being waged in the halls of academia. and within our federal granting agencies. as with the soviet union, a healthy scientific discussion is being subverted for political and personal gain. scientists who tv deviate from the global warming playbook are harassed, have articles, grants and proposals rejected without review, treated more harshly than their peers and removed

from positions of power and influence. young scientists quickly learn to tow the party line or at least remain silent, else they lose their career before it begins. when scientists come under attack from academia, all require rational thought to be effective. thank you. thank you very much for all your testimony. we'll have five-minute periods. i believe the order after i ask my questions will go to senator sessions, senator vitter. senator wicker said he will defer to his colleagues. i didn't see you come in, senator whitehouse. >> we'll go back and forth. between ds and rs. okay. thank you. i wanted to start.

mr. walls, in lake county, i've been very struck when i visit there. it's obviously a rural economy, rural part of the state of oregon and a lot of emphasis on renewable energy. i believe a stated goal of the county is to try to replace virtually all the fossil fuels burned with renewable sources. is part of the factor driving that conversation lake county a general observation by folks about the impact of carbon dioxide on, as you were putting it on the force? >> in the beginning, which had been ten years ago when we started working on this, it wasn't. but it became clear afterwards when we started to analyze it. and we did a paper on it that we could offset 93%. my board approved this past week we will go public with all our finding and try and develop a plan to use renewables to offset all carbon emissions. we grew into that as we learned

more of the economic benefits of renewable energy. how it impacts us. we said what is that going to do to climate change and carbon dioxide emissions? like i said in my testimony what we have on the drawing table today would offset 93, to get to 100 is not that difficult from there. we are well on that road. we can be 100% offset within ten years. >> great. thank you. i was looking at the national climate assessment and summary and it notes that climate change is exacerbating major factors that lead to wildfire, heat, drought and dead trees. it outweighed other factors determining the burned area in the western u.s. from 1916 to to you 3, including exacerbation of bark beatle outbreaks which ordinarily die in cold weather, more wildfires as change continues. then i saw there is a 2011

report that estimates if you increase the temperature 1.8 degrees fahrenheit, that you -- which is approximately 1 degrees celsius you would quadruple the amount of acreage burned. if you look at the forest issues, if i understand your testimony correctly, you are seeing both the many impacts of the human management of the forest as a factor, but also the overlay of these climate factors. >> exactly. as i mentioned, it's impacted our snow pack dramatically. if you look in the clamouth forest, and beatle kill -- it gets into the pine naturally. it's never been at the size thought is today. that's because we don't have the cold temperatures and they get to live year after year because of the warmer temperatures and they are not being killed. in 350,000 acres is abnormal.

nobody's ever seen that. i think throughout the whole west into canada was over 4 million acres beetle kill, somewhere in that neighborhood. >> thank you very much. mr. pope, turning to the farming side, one of the things you mentioned were changes in the wheat farming. are you arguing that the changes in wheat are being impacted by changing temperatures? >> yeah. when you look at the situation on the southern plains, clearly the drought over the last years had a huge impact. i think when you look at the situation as far as precipitation, clearly with wheat, wheat is a resilient crop. depends when you get the rain and what time the rains come. the challenge is the rain patterns we've been seeing, the way things are changing. put into that effects of the late season freezes, the droughts. clearly, we are seeing an impact on the wheat crop from the changes in the climate we are experiencing right now. i think there are some things we can do to help adapt to that situation. i hope we can do some things to move forward a little bit as far

as improving the soil health to try to do things to make our farms more resilient to droughts, freezes, to some of the flooding events, heavy rain events. that's a challenge in front of us to make sure we've got those tools to do that job. >> thank you. in the 45 seconds i have left, i read a recent report about oysters in the chesapeake declining in part because of acidity, but that also it has a secondary impact because oysters filter the water of the chesapeake, possibly offsetting many of the efforts to clean up that chesapeake bay. is that consistent with what you're seeing? >> first, oysters are specifically a great benefit for the environment. they are filter feeders and they do clean. one of the things why in the chesapeake bay they are trying to bring them back because they need to clean the bay up. in the chesapeake, similar to what's happening in the pacific northwest, we have rising levels

of pco2, partial pressure of co2 in the ocean and, therefore, rising acidity. in the pacific northwest, we are able to document it because it's mostly hatchery base. if it's hashry based, you can control what's happening and identify. it's harder in the wild environment to determine what's happening and see whether or not a spawning event is taking place, again with, it's not really spawning but with baby larvae have a hard time setting up their shell. they can't get set the calcium because of the acidity. if you use tums in your stomach, it is really a calcium. you are buffering. did i answer your question? >> thank you. i would ask more but my time expired. i'll ask everyone to keep their questions in five minutes. maybe the answer will go over since we have a number of folks who want to jump into this. i believe senator sessions, you're next. >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. legates, the time we can

intimidate people who present scientific papers that disagree with the current idea that's in fashion needs to be over. we need to challenge that. i'm not going to rest easy about it myself. i know the president, and i've challenged this, twice said the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even ten years ago. he said that twice. do any of you gentlemen support that statement? do you have any science that would back that up? mr. ashe doesn't because i asked him about it. so we have no -- we do not need to tolerate the president of the united states falsely asserting the status of climate in america. and we need to be able to allow scientists to present contrary views without being intimidated by the politically correct

crowd. i feel strongly about it and we are going to keep working on that. the u.s. climate change science program said, quote, in may of 2008, a tendency toward severity and duration and drought over the latter half of the 20th century, a decline in -- a decrease in the severity and duration of drought. if i think about that kingston trio song, mr. pope, texas you could substitute oklahoma for texas, they're riding in africa, they're starving in spain, the the whole world is full of strife and texas needs rain. so we have a lot of drought in the '30s, did we not in oklahoma? more than you have today? during the dust bowl times? >> actually, if i could answer, it is actually drier now than it

was in the 1930s. and actually the drought of the 1950s is the drought of record in oklahoma. the drought of the 1930s is actually the third worst, the would than that we are in right now is worse than the one we had in the '50s and '30s. >> you think it is more severe than the '30s? >> yes, it is. if it hadn't been with the conservation practices on the land right now, i am confident -- confident -- we would experience the challenges we saw in the 1930s as far as wind erosion. >> that is not the trend across the country, apparently. dr. south, thank you for your statement and data you submitted with it. you have a chart that indicates rainfall in forest lands in different regions of the country have increased over 100 years ago. is that the way i read that? northeast? indicates other areas have increases also? as a matter of fact, every one of the regions seems to show -- you indicate other regions had

reductions. >> no change in the west. there is a slight decrease in the southwest. >> where the droughts are severe now. you have 4% increase in the northeast? >> minus 4% increase in the northeast? >> minus 0.2 inch in 100 years. >> in the southwest? >> in the southwest. >> yeah. so overall, we are not seeing a decline in rainfall, it appears to me, throughout the country as a whole. dr. south, isn't it true that we had a resurgence of game in alabama? >> certain species, that's correct. >> isn't it true that many forests are being managed far better than in the past? >> better is a value term. from a forestry perspective, i would say yes. >> lands that were once row cropped and broken up every

year, marginal lands, highly erodible lands are now in timber, are they not? >> yes. >> from an environmental and co2 point of view, is that increase in timberlands in the southeast, that i know about, that's positive, would you not say, for co2 and the environment? >> from a mathematics perspective, yes. >> so instead of having land -- is my time up? nope. the way we managed timber, you would plant an open field being harvested every year, trees grow for 15 years, they're thinned, the trees then grow faster because there is a thinning, then they are harvested 15 years, 30 years, 50 years and replanted. i would say that's a renewable resource, would you not? >> definitely. >> would you oppose the idea

that we shouldn't treat wood as a renewable resource like we do corn? would you oppose the idea some are raising that we shouldn't use wood for renewable energy or other resources like pellets? >> yes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. senator whitehouse. >> i appreciate that planting trees helps reduce carbon, but it hardly offsets the coal plant next door that's putting out tens of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide. the 50 worst carbon plants in the country put out more carbon than korea. korea is a pretty industrialized country. and we are seeing these effects in new england. senator sessions was pleased to bring up that there is actually additional rain falling in the northeast.

not only is there additional rain falling in the northeast, just as the climate projections expect, but it is falling in more powerful rain bursts, just as the climate experts predicted. it just keeps coming. like senator merkley, we are an ocean state and we are seeing dramatic changes in our oceans. we had a very nice guy, chris brown, head of the rhode island commercial fisherman's association. mr. cohen, this eccos what you

said. chris is a fisherman. he grew up on the ocean. his dad and granddad were fishermen. this is his life. here's what he said when he testified for us -- i fish on a much different ocean today than when i first started fishing with my grandfather as a boy in the mid 1960s. not that long ago. when i started out catching haddock in the waters around point judith was common place. last year i caught only two. regularly caught now in rhode island are the species of croaker. grouper. cobia. drum. and tarpon. my grandfather never saw a single one of these in his entire life as a fisherman. as another fisherman said to me, sheldon, it's getting weird out there. and it's not just rhode island waters. i traveled through the south atlantic over the break and they

told me that off charleston, they're catching snook. snook is a fish used to go down to ft. lauderdale to cash. now they're catching snook off of charleston and it is working its way up. redfish are being caught as far north as cape cod. in case the warming oceans and moving around the fisheries and all that upheaval in the natural order is enough, against rhode island's shores, the oceans are ten. higher than in the 1930s. sooner or later another hurricane like the hurricane in '38 is going to come and give us a punch. i ask my colleagues if you're genuinely interested in this issue, spent ten minutes, for my sake, looking at the images of what happened to my state in the hurricane of 1938. then imagine what happens when that ten inches that is there now and wasn't then of additional sea level, gets stacked up further by storm surge and thrown against our

shores. it is a potential catastrophe. and the idea that i'm supposed to overlook this is preposterous. and the idea that my side of the ledger doesn't count and the only side of the ledger that counts is jobs in the coal industry or jobs in the oil and gas industry, is equally preposterous. the science out there has become spectacularly clear. even though there remains a fringe. but it's not a fringe that any rational person would put a bet on in their real lives in any other circumstance. and so i want to just -- i'll conclude by thanking senator merkley for this program. thank witness cohen for his testimony about these fisheries. we're way past the debate on whether this is real. this is happening in people's lives now in ways that are un e

unprecedentsscedented and we hao get responsible about doing something about it. >> senator vitter. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thanks to our witnesses. first of all, i'm sorry i came too late for the first panel featuring director ashe. on february 25th, when he was last before the committee, i asked him some questions, important questions, i think, regarding the consultation under the endangerered species act with regard to epa's new proposals regarding existing power plants. his job is about endangered and threatened species and understanding impacts on that. clearly these new regulations have the potential for major impacts on that and i asked him if he and epa were consulting under the law because of that.

he didn't know. he didn't have answers. i asked him to follow up. he had not followed up. i sent a letter to him and administrator mccarthy regarding this mandated consultation on march 6th. i have gotten no response. so i'll continue following up. but that is his job. this is a major set of regulations and we do expect answers about their responsibility for consultation. now in terms of questions, dr. south, i share your concern that every weather item in the news it seems is sort of held up as newest example of the impact of climate change with no real science behind that assertion. and this is also true of wildfires. just recently, for instance, the democratic majority leader,

harry reid, claimed global warming was the cause of increased wildfires, pure and simple. you testified about that. if you can go back and underscore what do you think the science, the historical record lays out in terms of any trends over time regarding wildfires, number one. and number two, what do you think are the leading causes of any trends that do exist? >> those who claim that co2 causes additional wildfires are not making scientific statements. instead of being easily fooled by journalists. wildfires have typically been associated with droughts and with forest conditions that are -- make wildfires more

probable. the chart that i showed showing a lot of wildfires in the '30s and before we started having really active wildfire fighting forces, gives you an idea of how cyclic it can be. the downward trend there that you see is caused by humans. our activity is trying to fight the fires. the you are balance sprawl that has caused people to -- or has resulted in people building houses in the forest has, in my view, and others, taken manpower away from fighting fires and into protecting homes. and this can increase the size

of the wildfire that they happen to be working on. so spending more time on fighting -- or preventing houses from catching fire and taking the time away from attacking the front causes the size of the fire to be larger. >> and also in this area, what are your thoughts about current management of our forests and that factor regarding wildfires? >> well, we have -- the general view of the public, we're starting to let the public manage our forests instead of letting foresters. and when the public causes litigation, delays thinning practices, delays fire fuel wood reductions, activities, we get a

build-up of fuels and an increases risk of wildfires. so by enacting policies that lock up wilderness areas, decreases, harvesting rates of -- we used to harvest about 12 billion board feet per year off of a national forest and that has just dropped down to nothing now. so our national forests are getting bigger. and this is all causing for more catastrophic wildfires when they do occur. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you very much, senator vitter. senator wicker. >> thank you, mr. clahairman. i have to say this. i have not today, or have i ever in a committee hearing, insulted

the integrity of witnesses on the other side of an issue. and we have come perilously close to that in the committee today and it's been suggested by my friend from rhode island that dr. south and dr. legates are part of a fringe, and to me, this is the very kind of public intimidation and insulting rhetoric that professor legates has talked about having experienced at the university of delaware and i take exception to it. no dr. legates, you were a signatory of the oregon petition, are you not? >> yes, sir. >> and that oregon petition says

there's no scientific -- they are -- there is no solid convincing evidence that methane or greenhouse cagases create disruption in the earth's climate. >> i believe there's 30,000-some people who signed that petition. >> would you describe these people. >> many of them are scientists, ph.ds and other disciplines. people who are connected with climate change and doing research in various areas associated with it. >> well, i just have to say i appreciate someone standing up and challenging the conventional wisdom. you know, martin luther did that. martin luther king did that. so i appreciate some people who are willing to hold up their hand and say, wait a minute, i've got some day a that here

that i would like to suggest is a contrary position. >> i wouldn't put myself quite in that category. >> well, but, it is an important issue. and i have to say, i admire you for standing up durand sout, an also, standing up and saying you have a right to be heard and a right to be listened to and a right not to be insulted by being called a part of a lunatic fringe. now you've concluded that droughts in the united states are more frequent and more intense during colder periods. is that correct? >> that's what the data seemed to indicate. when we look at droughts over the last 2,000 years, they tend to become more intense and more frequent when the temperatures have become colder. >> dr. south, you've offered a couple of bets to your fellow

scientists over time. is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> and i believe five years ago you offered to bet on an ice-free arctic in the summer 26013 when the bbc journalist wrote a 2007 article entitled "arctic summer's ice-free by 2013." several ice experts declined to bet with you. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> if they had bet with you, they would have lost that bet. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and you currently are offering a bet on sea level rise. would you tell the committee about that? >> yes. i'm looking for someone who would be willing to bet $1,000 on the sea level increase for the year 2024 in charleston, south carolina. >> and -- >> the rate currently is around 3.15 millimeters. i don't know how they do that to the nearest hundredths of a

millimeter. can you do it matt math mathically. i don't know how you can do it scientifically. i will bet that the rate in over ten years from now is not ovemi meters. millimeters. if 57 millimeter rate starts now and goes to 2100, it would equal about a two-foot increase. many people are talking about a 14 millimeter being equivalent to a four-foot increase. so i'm essentially betting that for the next ten years, it will be not increasing at a rate that would equal a two-foot increase by the year 2100. but i'm not going to be living that long so i can't win that bet. >> well, would this bet apply to your heirs and assigns?

i don't know. you look pretty healthy. >> well, yes. yes, it would. >> well, thank you very much. we've had a good hearing and there are people watching this and there will be people late at night, mr. chairman, watching this hearing that are sufficienting from insomnia and perhaps someone will take dr. south up on his bet. >> thank you very much to all of our witnesses. i appreciate you bringing your expertise to bear. we have heard today that climate change is having impacts on the ground right now, that it is not an abstract theory, it is not about models decades or multiple decades into the future. that the changes on the ground right now are real and measurable and they are affecting americans' livelihoods. in farming, in hunting, in fishing, and in forestry. these are real jobs and real impact on this generation and

the next. we've heard about bark beatle infestations. we've heard about migrations of fish. we've heard about the impact on intensifying wildfires. the impact of magnify droughts. the impact of more acidic oceans in the pacific, their impact on oyster reproduction. i just have to wonder about if baby oysters are having trouble forming a shell, how many other shellfish impacts are there that are going to be problematic for the food chain in our oceans and our fisheries. so, these things are real at this moment and they confront us with evidence that must not be ignored. certainly this is in the context of a debate at this moment about specific measures that we might

take to limit carbon dioxide, including that from coal-fired power plants. and the cost of ignoring climate change will continue to increase. the costs are real, the costs are tangible, they will affect jobs. they affect our rural resources. with this challenge in mind, i really appreciate the testimony before this committee today. members of the committee will have two weeks from today to submit additional written questions to the witnesses and i would certainly ask that if you receive such questions, that you respond and we will make sure the answers are circulated. with that, the meeting is adjourned. this weekend on book tv, live coverage of the chicago tribute printers row lit fest. the authors include cal thomas for a solution on a stronger america, joseph ellis on his book "revolutionary sum wesh"

and aur bra ehrenreich. "father/son relation shfle bill and willie geist. arming of america during world war ii. the "chicago tribune" printers row lit fest live this weekend on c-span2, book tv, television for serious readers. >> the highway trust fund is expected to run out of money in september. paid for with an 18-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax, the money goes to road construction and mass transit. senate surface transportation subcommittee held a hearing on the issue yesterday. connecticut senator richard blumenthal chairs the subcommittee. >> good morning. welcome, everyone. we were -- we're just waiting for senator blunt. i'm going to begin with an opening statement. when he gets here, he can make

his. i welcome senator klobuchar and thank her for her leadership on these issues. we're here at a moment of tremendous promise and peril for our nation's transportation system. literally, the funding for that system expires at the end of september and there's a need to reauthorize the nation's surface transportation law known as the map 21 which expires at the end of september. even before then the highway trust fund will go broke in july, just next month. and, fortunately, the appropriate senate committees are moving ahead with those funding proposals. but the transit funding must include rail and must include safety. and that brings us today to these issues and to hearing from the representatives of some of our most important federal oversight and scrutiny agencies

when it comes to safety and reliability. we're here at a moment of enormous peril and promise. promise because we have an opportunity to invest in the future of our transportation system, grow the economy, expand job creation, and achieve a larger vision for our nation's transportation system. but at the same time, there's tremendous peril in the decaying and crumbling infrastructure that faces us literally every day on our roads, bridges, railroads, and other public facilities. so we're here to examine how well the agencies are doing, as welling a our transportation systems. we need to look at what our agencies are doing in their watchdog and oversight roles, as well as what our public transportation systems are doing to protect safety and

reliability. for the pipeline and hazardous material safety administration, protecting safety and reliability means ensuring that transportation of many products and materials is done in a way that assures protection of the people who live in their environs as well as workers who work on them. for the federal rail administration, our hearing today means ensuring the safe movement of people and freight on our nation's massive railroad system 3 the abili. the ability to properly ensure this mission is about resources as well as rules. that's true about all your agencies, resources and rules and effective enforcement of those rules is a prerequisite to safety and reliability. there are indications that some of these agencies have, very

simply, been absent from what they should be doing, not on the job. i want to make sure that we are as rigorous and vigilant as need be to protect people who use our railroads, as well as other transportation systems. there are red flags. for example, have been red flags with metro north, which is a railroad much in need of attention as, as well as investment. and i want to make sure that both metro north and the fra have learned from the is dents th incidents that have occurred there. and of course, thethere. and of course, the agencies include the federal motor carrier safe administration which is essential to ensuring the safe commercial driving workforce that drives our economy, as well as the individuals who ride it. so this hearing is about resources and rules.

our job is to assure that there are sufficient resources, as well as rules, but really the rules have meaning only if they're enforced, and only if scrutiny and oversight works to protect people who rely on those rules. and part of our job ghb, in addn to make being the rules, the rules of the road and the laws that govern those rules, is to assure that they're realistic and practical, but also that they are properly funded. i want to hear from all of you and i look forward to hearing from our colleagues on these issues and turn now to the rank member, senator blunt. >> well, thank you, chairman. i want to say, chairman, in the brief time you've been chairman of this committee, you've really brought focus on a number of issues. we've had a number of hearings, including the one we're going to have today, that i think are very important and your leadership here has made a difference. the commerce committee does work on all modes of transportation,

not just highways. railroads, waterways, even pipelines. and from a state like mine, this is critical work. if you look at a railroad map of america or highway map of america or river map of america, as i told the general assembly in missouri the other day, and began to focus on where all three of those things come together, we're right in the middle of that. all these things matter dramatically to our future, to our economic future, and our ability to compete. obviously there is a lot of discussion going on about the highway bill for a couple of reasons. one is the one we are currently under expires in september. another one is that that fund runs dry even before that. what our committee can do, and what this subcommittee can do to get ready for our part of that bill is important. things we can do to draw

attention to sustainable funding and to additional and innovative funding sources i think can make a difference here. we're now examining how we maintain this system. i'm going to be interested today to hear from the federal rail administration and the pipeline hazardous materials safety administration on how things are going in the crude by rail discussion. obviously there's been a lot of testing data shared recently involving bach and crude and how we're reacting to that. i'll also be interested to hear how this is being utilized as we line up the collection that fsma is doing and how we're going to be ready for that. also, ongoing concerns regarding regulations and enforcement programs with federal motor carrier safety administration are topics that i hope we hear discussed today. i'll have some questions on

that. i've heard from motor carriers of all sizes that the agency really isn't adequately considering the impact of its rules and programs. i asked the secretary at a hearing we had not too long ago for a response on a couple of specific questions that i haven't gotten yet. and hopefully will get those covered today. i finally look forward to hearing from the office of research and technology on how research funding might be accessible to local communities who are trying to come up with innovative and locally driven solutions to their transportation problems. i'll close by stressing the need to focus on our long-term transportation planning which includes a stable funding source, something that every member of the senate and the congress should be interested in. great opportunities are out there with the expansion of the panama canal with how we collect all of our transportation modes together, how we connect them together in the best possible

way and i'm pleased we're having this hearing today. again, thanks for your leadership, chairman. >> thank you, senator blunt. and thank you for your leadership and for your being here today. i'm not going to provide lengthy backgrounds as to your -- each of your credentials in the interest of time. think we'll just turn to the testimony. but we're very pleased to have today individuals who not only lead significant agencies but also have extraordinary backgrounds and expertise in the areas of transportation. so we thank you for your public service, as well as for your being here today. perhaps we can begin with joseph szabo, administrator of the federal railway administration. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and to ranking member blunt and members of the subcommittee. i appreciate this opportunity to

testify today. by 2050 our transportation system must be able to move an additional 50 million people. california, texas, new york and florida. our freight system meanwhile will have to annually move an additional 4 billion tons of freight. the weight roughly of 10,000 empire state buildings. so imagine if we fail to move all these people and all that freight safely, reliably, and efficiently. imagine the negative impact that that could have on business growth, on commute times, and on quality of life. if we return to a decades-long pattern of underinvesting in our rail system, there will be negative consequences. just look at the cost of highway and airport congestion. more than $140 billion in 2012 and this was driven by current demand, not future. we have an opportunity through the grow america act to chart a

more sustainable course. we have an opportunity as the title implies, to grow our rail network and grow america's transportation xcapacity to mee. in the grow america act, it will enable us to do this while driving continuous improvement in safety. since fiscal year 2004, our rail safety program has reduced train accidents by nearly 50% to record low numbers. but we also know from our data that our most vulnerable safety area is human error. today it accounts for nearly 40% of train accidents. in grow america, in several ways, supports our efforts to drive continuous safety improvement. for one, the $19 billion it would invest in rail safety and rail development programs includes $2.3 billion to support commuter rail lines in their efforts to install positive train control. to technology that is designed to reduce human error accidents.

and it would provide us the tools to manage the implementation process effectively, including the authority for provisional certifications. grow america would also give us the authority to establish new hours of service regulations, based on sound fatigue science, a key step towards reducing accidents caused by fatigue. and it calls for a national nationwide rollout of confidential close call reporting systems, allowing us to gather data before an accident occurs, and develop risk mitigation strategies well in advance. but sustained federal investment in rail network enhancements, and in research and development, has to also be a part of the mix. on the rail development side, our bill would fund needed repairs, improve existing services, and build new corridors. it would invest in the rail passenger connections that record number of amtrak riders deserve.

and it would invest in short line infrastructure, safety upgrades to bridges, tracks and signal systems. and it would invest in grade crossing improvements in the sealing off of corridors, improving network efficiency, reducing the negative impacts of rail operations on communities and enhancing the safe transportation of hazardous materials. but our proposal does even more than that. it provides rail for the first time ever with predictable dedicated funding to put it on par with other service transportation modes. if you go back to 2009 and 2010 when the passenger rail program was made available, those years we received applications requesting seven times the available funding. grow america will keep us moving forward, and not just for one or two years, but over the long term. so we look forward to working with all of you to reverse this

pattern of federal underinvestment in our rail system, to working together to foster public/private partnerships, to incentivize state and local funding all across the country in need of a federal funding partner. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much, administrator szabo. now to administrator ferro, thank you for being here. >> thank you. thank you for inviting me to testify today on the federal motor carrier safety administration's progress in implementing both our map 21 requirements as well always the opportunity to lay out the safety provisions in the grow america act. safety is fmca's top priority. yet since 2009, with the advent of our continued economic recovery, which is very good, the down side is there's been an 18% increase in crashes involving commercial motor vehicles and the number of

people killed in those crashes. we can do better than that. in working together with congress, enforcement, advocates, and our industry partners, using research, public dialogue and sensible policies, we can raise the safety bar for truck and bus operations. map map 21 has been part of the strategy. fmca is pressing forward to meet all the requirements. to date, we've completed more than half of the rule makings under map 21. for example, at the outset we implemented security requirements for brokers and freighters as required under the law. and we are well on our way to establish the first national drug and alcohol clearinghouse which will in fact help employers determine whether a driver is complying with federal drug and alcohol regulations, including mandatory testing. the notice of proposed rule making and 90-day comment period closed just last month.

in march, we issued a supplemental notice to create an electronic logging device requirement across the industry. this proposal will improve our service compliance, and hence, the uniform use of those logs will actually improve and mitigate the impacts of fatigue related driving and fatigue related crashes. in fact, the analysis of this proposal shows that it will help prevent approximately 20 deaths, over 400 injuries each year, and have an annual safety benefit of almost $400 million. comments on that proposal are still able to be made up through the end of this month. map 21 is helping us to get one level of safety for all passengers regardless of what type of bus company they choose. we're training all of our safety deficiencies and remove dangerous buses and operators from the road. some companies take full

advantage of the opportunity we give them to get better, to use the information we provide, use the audits to fix their problems. but for those who don't, we will put them and have put them out of business. last year we shut down over 100 unsafe bus operations. looking at the long term, president obama has laid out a vision in the grow america act that enhances our safety work. grow america focuses on three key areas to improve commercial motor vehicle safety. on motor coach safety, grow america will expand our opportunities to inspect motor coaches at additional sites, and it will give fmcsa jurisdiction over passengered ticket brokers, folks who really do defraud customers as to what kind of company they're about to use. it takes strong steps to improve our effectiveness under grow america by allowing criminal prosecution of companies that deliberately violate federal out of service requirements. another provision requires companies to pay drivers for uncompensated time.

it's not news to know that when drivers are held up at the loading dock, waiting for shipments to be loaded or unloaded, they're more often than not unpaid, uncompensated. as they face pressure to make up that loss, uncompensated time by pushing both their physical limits as well as the legal driving limits. this proposal will ease the economic stress on long distance drivers by ensuring that they receive fair compensation for the hours they work. finally, grow america streamlines and consolidates our safety grant program, providing better efficiencies for the agencies and more importantly for our state enforcement and licensing partners. mr. chairman, thank you for the opportunity to share a bit about what fmsca is focused on and the opportunity to answer questions today. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much. and now administrator quarterman, thank you for being here. >> good morning.

chairman blumenthal, ranking member blunt and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today to testify on the pipeline and safety material administration's progress, in implementing the hazardous safety provisions of map 21. i'm also delighted to discuss the ways the grow america act will further improve upon the efforts of fmsa and the department to enhance the safety of our nation's hazardous materials transportation system. safety is the top priority of secretary fox, the department of transportation, phmsa and its sister modes. all of us at d.o.t. appreciate your dedication, and leadership in advancing hazardous materials transportation safety. for a relatively small agency, with limited resources, the staff at phmsa works diligently to protect the american public and the environment from

hazardous materials transportation incidents and have made great strides in implementing the provisions of map 21. since map 21's enactment in 2012, phmsa has met or will meet more than 90% of the established timelines for the 32 separate provisions assigned to the agency. this is significant, given that the many challenges and emerging issues that phmsa has faced over the same time period, including efforts to enhance the safe transportation of crude by rail, and continuing to consistently reduce the number of hazardous materials incidents over the past 25 years. a significant contributor to phmsa's success has been the strategy and action plan we developed and implemented to take advantage of the additional resources map 21 provided, to bolster compliance with hazardous materials regulations.

as the transportation sector continues to evolve and become more interconnected with the international community, phmsa has continued to adopt smarter strategies to adapt to those changes. through the authority of map 21, phmsa raised the penalty amount for violations resulting in death, injury or illness. we believe that clear and appropriate civil penalties can improve transportation safety by acting as a deterrent for noncompliance. that's why the grow america act submitted to congress by secretary fox proposes to further increase the maximum amount of phmsa for violators of hazardous materials regulations. the increased penalty authority will address situations where a higher penalty is warranted, including those events resulting in death, injuryr