munities on it, but I still feel that I think it was the right thing to do at the beginning. I'm starting to wonder now.

As the gentleman from California and I think others have said, do we have definitive goals that we are attempting to find answers to what brings about or will bring about climatic change? I know we have a lot of knowledge out of that $6 billion, but can you tell me maybe today how much longer we're going to be on this and how much more it's going to cost? I think my taxpayers will want to know, too.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FINGERHUT. Thank you. I think the one thing that we can agree on in the debate of whether we should go fast or go slow is we should go fast this morning to proceed to the witnesses. [Laughter.]

And in an effort to do that, I'll dispense with my opening statement and have it inserted in the record, if there's no objection.

[The prepared opening statements of Mr. Fingerhut and Mr. Fawell follow:]

OPENING STATEMENT

THE HONORABLE ERIC FINGERHUT

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

HEARING ON GLOBAL CHANGE RESEARCH:

SCIENCE AND POLICY

MAY 19, 1993

Last year, Congress ratified the Framework Convention on Climate Change -- the climate treaty that was signed at the United Nations "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro. President Clinton has committed his administration to move forward actively on climate policy and carry out our responsibilities under the treaty.

The climate change treaty sets in motion a process of National and international planning and action. This process is intended to promote not only interim achievements, such as stabilization of emissions of greenhouse gases, but also to move toward an ultimate objective.

The ultimate objective of the treaty is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level and within a time frame that will prevent dangerous interference with the climate system, allow ecosystems to adapt naturally, protect food production, and allow sustainable economic development to proceed.

At this point, we confront significant uncertainties in how to move toward this goal. We don't have a good enough understanding of the relative effectiveness and implications of alternative strategies for addressing the long-term risks and potentially adverse impacts of climate change.

It is not clear when, if ever, scientific research will be able to resolve with predictive accuracy the fundamental uncertainties about the processes that shape global change. It is not clear when and whether scientists will be able to provide public officials with reliable predictions about the regional and localized impacts of global change.

Yet policy decisions are already being made in the face of this uncertainty. For example, Congress has already taken action on major legislation, including the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 and the Energy Policy Act of 1992, with significant, yet highly uncertain, implications for emissions of greenhouse gases.

Thus we come to the question: What is the connection between the practical needs of policymaking and resource

management, on the one hand, and the ongoing global change research activities, on the other?

The U.S. Global Change Research Program was established four years ago as a Presidential initiative. In 1990, Congress established a statutory basis for the program with the Global Change Research Act of 1990. The program involves 11 Federal agencies, coordinated by an interagency committee, and has a currrent budget of one-point-three billion dollars. The Science Committee has authorizing and oversight responsibility for agencies that receive more than 90 percent of this budget.

The Global Change Research Program was designed as a longterm basic scientific research effort to develop a predictive understanding of the integrated Earth system. The primary focus of the program has been on key scientific uncertainties pertaining to global climate change.

In March 30 testimony before the Space Subcommittee, Dr. Robert Corell, Chairman of the interagency Subcommittee on Global Change Research, indicated that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy intends to work closely with Congress to integrate global change research and policy.

In the Committee's oversight hearings, we will be considering a diversity of viewpoints. The hearing today will consist of a single panel of independent witnesses from outside the Federal agencies involved in implementing the program. Each witness will address the problem of integrating scientific understanding of global change with the needs of national and international policymaking.

We want to ascertain: Does our current research program satisfy the mandate given by the Global Change Research Act of 1990: "to produce information readily usable by policymakers attempting to formulate effective strategies for

preventing, mitigating, and adapting to the effects of global change?"

If the program needs to be strengthened or modified in order to carry out its mission more effectively, what changes are needed?

To put it right up front, the witnesses today will offer several critical viewpoints on the question of whether U.S. global change research currently meets the need for information useful in developing effective response strategies. They will propose a number of new priorities, directions, and processes to strengthen the links between research on global change and the intended "users" of the research.

At subsequent hearings we will hear from representatives of the program agencies, and from global change researchers, to address the issues we will develop today.