Subcommittee Discusses NOAA FY 2017 Budget
(Washington, DC) – Today the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittee on Environment held a hearing to review the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget request for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Testifying before the Committee was the Administrator of NOAA, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan.
Ranking Member of the Environment Subcommittee, Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), said in her opening statement, “NOAA is a critically important agency tasked with helping our communities, economy, and ecosystems remain healthy and resilient in the face of an ever-shifting environment. NOAA conducts state-of-the-art research to understand and predict changes in weather and the climate, as well as in the oceans and our coasts. This science is used to create products and services that inform decision-making by a diverse set of stakeholders, including emergency managers, farmers, pilots, and utility operators.
“NOAA is an agency that has a direct effect on the livelihood of all of our constituents. In Oregon, NOAA helps coastal residents decide when it’s safe to go fishing and if the shellfish they are harvesting or buying for dinner are free from harmful algal blooms. Their work supports the wine industry in Yamhill County as they grow grapes that become Oregon’s world-famous pinot noir. And NOAA assists people in Oregon, and across the country, in planning for and responding to extreme weather events and natural hazards like heavy precipitation, drought, earthquakes, and tsunami.
“Overall, I am pleased that the President’s budget request recognizes the importance of NOAA to the economic security of our nation. The budget request also recognizes that NOAA’s critical mission of “science, service, and stewardship” can only be accomplished through a robust observational infrastructure.”
Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) commented on the Chairman’s ongoing investigation regarding a climate study published by NOAA scientists in Science magazine last year. She said, “It is clear to me that this investigation is unfounded and that it is being driven by ideology and other agendas. The Majority has asserted, without offering any credible evidence, that NOAA and the climate science community, at-large, are part of some grand conspiracy to falsify data in support of the significant role humans play in climate change. However, the overwhelming body of scientific evidence, across many different fields has shown that this is not the case.
“There may be an ongoing scientific debate about the rate of warming over the last 15 years, but that does not change the basic facts according to science: the world is warming, the warming is caused mostly by humans, and there are significant risks associated with this warming. I hope my friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle can move past their efforts to create scientific controversy where it doesn’t exist and instead focus on finding solutions to addressing the threat of climate change.”
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