At the tail end of last week, the Department of Defense released an overdue report on the effects of climate change on military bases in the United States.The report, required by law under the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (that was passed by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed by President Trump), was intended to provide a full accounting of “vulnerabilities to the military resulting from climate change over the next 20 years.”
What we got fell short, to say the least.
Set aside, for a moment, the fact that the report was not initially released to the public and only saw the light of day thanks to environmental groups’ activism. The document mentioned only 79 facilities, failing to consider all military bases or include any Marine Corps installations. It was also missing key portions it should have included as directed by law, like a list of the top 10 installations threatened by climate consequences for each military branch or a cost mitigation plan for dealing with these problems. These failings and more have earned the ire of some lawmakers: Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, called the report “an alphabetical list” and said it “reads like an introductory primer and carries about as much weight as a phone book.”
