Chairman Whitehouse Responds to Committee Republicans’ Complaints, Details How Climate-Related Economic Risks Discussed in Committee Hearings Are Already Beginning to Occur
“It is not a question of if, but when, and how bad.”
Washington, D.C.— Amid mounting warnings of economic and budgetary catastrophes caused by climate change, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, sent a letter to the Committee’s Republican members detailing how many of these warnings are already beginning to come true and imploring them to act to stave off climate-related systemic risks to the economy.
“[W]hen at least $10 trillion of our national debt stems from two exogenous shocks to the economy—namely, the 2008 financial crisis and Covid—it would be folly for this Committee not to focus attention on dangers that portend the biggest systemic shock to the economy yet. Climate change alarm bells for the economy are being rung by economists, central bankers, financial experts, insurance and mortgage industry leaders, and many others … It is not a question of if, but when, and how bad,” wrote the Chairman.
Citing the series of hearings the Budget Committee has held on the economy-wide risks of climate change, the Chairman stressed a concerning trend: “The pattern is that we bring serious witnesses before the Committee with serious warnings; Republicans try to mock the problem or change the subject; and then news reports confirm the accuracy of the warnings.”
Notable examples:
Since the Committee’s three-part series in March 2023 on climate-caused disruption in insurance markets, stories of insurers fleeing increasingly risky insurance markets in Florida and California have dominated the news, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently testified that inflation is being driven in part by climate change driving up insurance costs.
After the Committee’s June 2023 hearing on the harms climate change poses to the agricultural sector and commodity prices, journalists reported that skyrocketing prices for olive oil, sugar, chocolate, and other products are linked to climate-related phenomena.
Following the Committee’s October 2023 hearing on climate risks to global supply chains, news reports linked worsening drought conditions in Panama to reduced canal traffic that is disrupting global trade and pushing up prices.
In the face of myriad risks that climate change poses to the economy, American consumers, and long-term fiscal sustainability, Chairman Whitehouse noted Republican inaction on climate and behavior in hearings.
“[W]ith a few exceptions (notably, the wildfire and agriculture hearings), you met these hearings by retreating to the stable of witnesses propped up by the fossil fuel polluters at the core of the problem. One witness even dismissed the flooding of cities like Boston and New York by rising seas as something from which people could just move away. It is hard to convey how insulting that is to your colleagues representing coastal constituents in harm’s way,” the Chairman continued.