Reuters discusses Exclusive: U.S. air pollution monitoring network falling into disrepair – GAO report. The U.S. air pollution monitoring network has fallen into disrepair after years of budget cuts and neglect, leaving tens of millions of Americans vulnerable to undetected bad air quality from events like wildfires to industrial pollution, the investigative arm of Congress said on Monday. [No report number or link provided.]
Tag: Government Accountability Office (GAO)
Toxic Sites in danger from Climate Change
NBC News discusses the toxic sites near you that are threatened by climate change. Maps show that New Jersey has the most Superfund sites facing climate threats, followed by Florida, California and Pennsylvania. This interactive map was published in partnership with InsideClimate News, a nonprofit, independent news outlet that covers climate, energy and the environment, and the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. It is part of “Super Threats,” a series on Superfund sites and climate change. Read part 1 here. Across the United States, 945 toxic waste Superfund sites are vulnerable to hurricanes, flooding, sea level rise, increased precipitation or wildfires — all of which are intensifying because of climate change. See how global warming could threaten the polluted industrial sites in your state:
Inside Climate News discusses how many Superfund Sites are Dangerously Threatened by Climate Change. The Obama administration directed the EPA to focus on climate-related threats. Now, the Trump administration refuses to even use the word. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned in a report last year that French Limited was among 945 Superfund sites across the United States vulnerable to hurricanes, flooding, sea level rise, increased precipitation or wildfires, all of which are intensifying as the planet warms.
Report: How lessons from Isle de Jean Charles could guide federal climate migration planning
The New Orleans Advocate discusses how lessons from Isle de Jean Charles could guide federal climate migration planning.
The relocation of Isle de Jean Charles’ residents from their disappearing island could help the federal government develop a model for moving more people away from rising seas, stronger storms and other effects of climate change, according to an auditor’s report to Congress.
In its report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office warns that “relocation due to climate change will be unavoidable in some coastal areas,” particularly Louisiana, Florida, western Alaska and parts of the eastern seaboard. To reduce the costs of federal disaster responses to increasing flooding and storms, the GAO recommends a faster, more aggressive and focused approach toward moving at-risk communities out of harm’s way.
The U.S. Needs to Address Its Climate Migration Problem
Scientific American discusses why the U.S. needs to address its climate migration problem. With rising seas threatening coastal communities, federal watchdog warns the government’s scattershot approach needs revising.
Rising seas, storm surges and coastal flooding are displacing communities from Alaska to Louisiana to Maryland.
It’s time for Congress to get serious about helping them find higher ground, federal auditors say in a blunt assessment of the government’s scattershot approach to what could become the largest U.S. migration since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
In a 61-page report issued yesterday, the Government Accountability Office said Congress should consider a pilot program “to identify and provide assistance to climate migration projects for communities that express affirmative interest in relocation as a resilience strategy.”
Study: The Trump EPA is vastly underestimating the cost of carbon dioxide pollution to society
Yale Climate Connections discusses how the Trump EPA is vastly underestimating the cost of carbon dioxide pollution to society, new research finds. A recent study estimates that the ‘social cost of carbon’ is 100 times greater than the agency’s estimate.
In December 2017, congressional Democrats asked the Government Accountability Office to examine the Trump EPA’s new method for calculating the social cost of carbon. The GAO published its report in June 2020.
GAO confirmed that the Trump EPA slashed the social cost of carbon by implementing two dubious choices recommended by House Republicans in early 2017. The first was to consider only domestic, rather than global, climate damage costs. The vast majority of experts, including the National Academy of Sciences, agree that approach is inappropriate.
The Trump EPA justified these two choices by citing a guidance document from the Office of Management and Budget called Circular A-4. But the GAO concluded that EPA had ignored inconvenient parts of that guidance, which states, “Where you choose to evaluate a regulation that is likely to have effects beyond the borders of the United States, these effects should be reported separately,” and “Special ethical considerations arise when comparing benefits and costs across generations … Future citizens who are affected by such choices cannot take part in making them, and today’s society must act with some consideration of their interest.”
Report: Trump Boosts Deregulation by Undervaluing Cost of Climate Change
The New York Times discusses a GAO report – Trump Boosts Deregulation by Undervaluing Cost of Climate Change. The Government Accountability Office has found that the Trump administration is undervaluing the cost of climate change to boost its deregulatory efforts.
A federal report released on Tuesday found the Trump administration set a rock-bottom price on the damages done by greenhouse gas emissions, enabling the government to justify the costs of repealing or weakening dozens of climate change regulations.
The report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan investigative arm, said the Trump administration estimated the harm that global warming will cause future generations to be seven times lower than previous federal estimates. Reducing that metric, known as the “social cost of carbon,” has helped the administration massage cost-benefit analyses, particularly for rules that allow power plants and automobiles to emit more planet-warming carbon dioxide.
Report: The Trump administration cooks the climate change numbers once again
The Hill discusses how the Trump administration cooks the climate change numbers once again.
In its campaign against action on greenhouse gas emissions, one of the more subtle moves by the Trump administration is its manipulation of the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC). This number is used to represent the damage resulting from emitting an additional ton of carbon. Climate economists sometimes refer to it as the most important number you’ve never heard of. Undermine the SCC and you can discredit action to fight climate change, boost support for the fossil fuel industry, tip the scales away from renewable energy and counter other important policy initiatives. Fortunately, in a detailed report on the estimation of the SCC, the congressional watchdog General Accounting Office has called out this latest affront to reliable assessment of the science and risks of climate change.
Reports: ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT INFORMATION: ANOTHER CORONAVIRUS CASUALTY?
The Center for Public Integrity discusses whether access to government information is another coronavirus casualty. A new report raises questions about Freedom of Information Act.
This week marks “Sunshine Week,” when civic groups and media organizations, among others, promote openness in government.
But as federal agencies respond to the escalating threat of the COVID-19 coronavirus, many government operations are likely to be slowed — including the processing of Freedom of Information Act requests that could detail the government’s coronavirus efforts.
It’ll exacerbate an already cloudy situation for the public’s access to government records: From 2012 through 2018, the backlog of pending FOIA requests grew by more than 80 percent, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.
Two conservative organizations, Cause of Action Institute and Americans for Prosperity Foundation, released another report on Monday about how federal agencies treat instant messaging under FOIA and the Federal Records Act. Thirteen of the 16 federal agencies they surveyed “do not preserve instant messages as a matter of policy,” which may violate the records act and almost certainly prevents requesters from getting copies of those messages under the FOIA.
Report: Not all bases factoring extreme weather, climate change into planning, GAO says
This article discusses a GAO report that shows that not all military bases are factoring extreme weather and climate change into planning.
After several bases suffered devastating effects from extreme weather last year, a government report released Wednesday found that the military has not consistently assessed weather risks or incorporated climate change projections into its construction projects.
The Government Accountability Office conducted the study between April 2018 to June 2019 to assess the Defense Department’s progress in developing ways to incorporate the potential for damaging weather into the design of facility projects. The Defense Department has said that climate change is a national security issue and a threat to their operations and installations, according to the report. The study looked at DOD documents and examined 23 bases that had one or more climate vulnerabilities.
ELIZABETH WARREN PRESSES PENTAGON ON ITS PLANNING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
This The Intercept article discusses how Elizabeth Warren is pressing GAO and the Pentagon to disclose what it is doing to counter climate change.
Specifically, Warren and Reed have asked the GAO to investigate three questions:
- To what extent does climate change pose a threat to facilities and operations of key private sector DoD contractors, and how do contractors’ climate change vulnerabilities affect military operations and readiness?
- To what extent are contractors required to disclose, either to the public, to financial regulators, or to DoD, any potential threats to their facilities or operations as a result of climate change?
- To what extent do DoD contracting officials, during the procurement process, take into consideration (1) the actions taken by contractors to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions and their history of compliance with the nation’s environmental laws; (2) the potential threats of contractors’ facilities and operations as a result of climate change.