[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 767 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
117th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 767
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that it is the
duty of the Department of Defense to reduce the overall environmental
impact of all military activities and missions, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
November 3, 2021
Ms. Lee of California (for herself, Ms. Barragan, Ms. Bass, Mrs.
Beatty, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. Casten, Mr. Cleaver, Ms. Eshoo, Mr.
Espaillat, Mr. Garcia of Illinois, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Huffman, Mr.
Johnson of Georgia, Mr. Lieu, Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, Mr.
McGovern, Ms. Moore of Wisconsin, Ms. Norton, Ms. Blunt Rochester, Ms.
Tlaib, Mr. Welch, Mr. Khanna, Ms. Meng, Mrs. Hayes, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr.
Swalwell, and Mr. McEachin) submitted the following resolution; which
was referred to the Committee on Armed Services
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that it is the
duty of the Department of Defense to reduce the overall environmental
impact of all military activities and missions, and for other purposes.
Whereas, in January 2021, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated the
Department of Defense ``will immediately take appropriate policy actions
to prioritize climate change considerations in our activities and risk
assessments, to mitigate this driver of insecurity'';
Whereas Secretary Austin further stated, ``[B]y changing how we approach our own
carbon footprint, the Department can also be a platform for positive
change, spurring the development of climate-friendly technologies at
scale. . . . It is a national security issue, and we must treat it as
such.'';
Whereas the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report entitled ``Climate
Change 2021'' states that human-induced climate change is already
affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the
globe;
Whereas the October 2018 report entitled ``Special Report on Global Warming of
1.5C'' by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the
November 2018 Fourth National Climate Assessment report found that--
(1) global warming at or above 2 degrees Celsius beyond pre-
industrialized levels will cause--
G (A) an increase in the number of people both exposed to climate-
related risks and susceptible to poverty by up to several hundred million
by 2050;
G (B) the potential for losses in some sectors of the United States
that could reach hundreds of billions of dollars per year by the end of
this century;
G (C) more than 350,000,000 more people globally to be exposed to
deadly heat stress by 2050; and
G (D) a risk of damage to $1,000,000,000,000 worth of public
infrastructure and coastal real estate in the United States; and
(2) to keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-
industrialized levels, which is necessary to avoid the most severe impacts
of a changing climate, requires--
G (A) the global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from human
sources by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030; and
G (B) net-zero global emissions by 2050;
Whereas the Department of Defense does not publicly or regularly report its
overall fuel consumption or greenhouse gas emissions and there is no
official publicly available Department of Defense source for all
military greenhouse gas emissions;
Whereas current estimates of the overall greenhouse gas emissions of the United
States Armed Forces rely on publicly available emissions data from the
Department of Energy;
Whereas the Department of Defense does not release petroleum fuel consumption
data, and most United States Government accounting of United States
greenhouse gas emissions omit figures on how much the Armed Forces and
the defense industry contributes to United States emissions beyond
domestic facilities and installations;
Whereas Under Secretary of State Stuart Eizenstat testified in 1997, ``At Kyoto,
the parties . . . took a decision to exempt key overseas military
activities from any emissions targets'' consequently excluding United
States overseas military bases;
Whereas the United States Armed Forces emit more carbon dioxide than over 120
separate countries and would rank 47th out of 170 if measured as a
separate country;
Whereas the Department of Energy reports that the Department of Defense produced
an average of about 66,000,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent
per year during the period of 2010 to 2018, roughly the same greenhouse
gas emissions as 14,000,000 passenger cars driven for one year, or
roughly equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of the residential
sector of the United States;
Whereas emissions from United States industries producing defense materiel
averaged 153,000,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year during the
period of 2001 to 2017;
Whereas Vice President Kamala Harris stated, ``One country's carbon emissions
can threaten the sustainability of the whole Earth'' in her 2021
commencement address to the United States Naval Academy;
Whereas NATO's June 14, 2021, communique states it ``will develop a mapping
methodology to help Allies measure greenhouse gas emissions from
military activities and installations, which could contribute to
formulating voluntary goals to reduce such emissions'';
Whereas section 328 of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (Public Law 116-283) requires the
Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress a report on Department of
Defense greenhouse gas emissions levels for each of the last 10 fiscal
years, including the agency-wide total, breakdowns by military
department, and delineations between installation and operational
emissions; and
Whereas the House of Representatives recognizes that as ``one country's carbon
emissions can threaten the sustainability of the whole earth'', the
emissions of the globe's largest institutional source of greenhouse gas
emissions, the Department of Defense, must be monitored and reduced:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives
that--
(1) it is the duty of the Department of Defense--
(A) to reduce the overall environmental impact of
all military activities and missions;
(B) to monitor, track, and report greenhouse gas
emissions from all of its operations, including combat
operations, deployments, drone attacks, weapons
production and testing, and base construction and
functions;
(C) to set clear annual greenhouse gas emission
reduction targets for both domestic and foreign
activities that are consistent with the 1.5 degrees
Celsius target specified by the 2015 Paris Agreement;
(D) to commit to annual greenhouse gas emission
reporting mechanisms that are robust, comparable, and
transparent, are based on recognized greenhouse gas
monitoring protocols, and that are independently
verified and include emissions from domestic and
overseas United States military bases, from Department
of Defense contractors, and from the manufacture and
transport of military equipment and weapons;
(E) to define clear greenhouse gas reduction
targets for its military technology contractors and to
report their full greenhouse gas emissions;
(F) to prioritize greenhouse gas reduction
initiatives at the source and only utilize verifiable
offsets of greenhouse gas emissions;
(G) to publish greenhouse gas reduction policies,
strategies, and action plans, with annual followup
reporting on performance from all its operations;
(H) to evaluate how reducing military expenditure
and deployments and altering military postures can
reduce emissions; and
(I) to demonstrate leadership, openness, and a
willingness to collaborate and exchange information on
good practices with nonmilitary stakeholders; and
(2) the Department of Defense should--
(A) repurpose and manage its properties to promote
carbon sequestration and biodiversity;
(B) commit to increase climate and environmental
training for decision makers, including with respect to
how the Department can mitigate climate change and
environmental degradation;
(C) incorporate climate and environmental
assessments in decision making for all procurement,
activities, and missions; and
(D) commit to allocating the appropriate resources
to ensure all climate and environmental protection
policies can be fully implemented.
<all>