House Democrats demand changes to Pentagon climate change report

Top House Democrats are demanding the Pentagon revise a mandated report on the impact of climate change that they have criticized as “inadequate.”

In a letter to acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, three Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee called out what they said was the report’s failure to address key congressional requests, including an assessment of the top ten military groups that are affected by climate change and an analysis of the threat climate change poses for Marine Corp bases and overseas installations.

“It is deeply disappointing that the department did not take notice of that correspondence and subsequently failed to fulfill its statutory mission,” reads the letter, signed by Chairman Adam Smith of Washington state, Rep. John Garamendi of California and Rep. James Langevin of Rhode Island.

The climate report, mandated in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, concluded that virtually every military department is at risk of being affected by changing global climate patterns.

Democrats were quick to slam the report, which came out earlier this month, claiming that military officials failed to present a clear strategy for dealing with such challenges as flooding, drought, desertification, wildfires and thawing permafrost, which are all expected to affect U.S. base operations in the years to come.

According to the letter, the Defense Department has until April 1 to submit a revised climate report.