While we appreciate the work of the hundreds of scientists involved in this effort, we recognize that a substantial amount of research remains before we can fully understand the complex and dynamic relationship between the atmosphere, the oceans, land, and mankind. I plan to review the U.S. research contributions to this global problem to ensure that our contributions are helpful and adequate.

I note that much of the assessment report is based upon computer models, and I must say that I am alarmed to hear about the recent National Research Council's report on the shortcomings of the U.S. climate modeling program. We hope that today's discussion will go a long way in aiding this Committee and the Congress in crafting future actions to address this issue. This is the fourth hearing we have held on this topic in the past year.

I plan to work with the other members of this Committee and the Senate, along with our witnesses today, to determine the appropriate next step in this complicated process of addressing the changing global climate. I welcome all of our witnesses here today. We would like to start with our two colleagues from the Senate, Senator Craig and Senator Hagel, and obviously we would appreciate your remarks and hope that they can be relatively brief. Senator Craig, welcome.

STATEMENT OF HON. LARRY E. CRAIG, U.S. SENATOR

FROM IDAHO

Senator CRAIG. Well, Mr. Chairman, certainly I thank you for convening this hearing today, and I think you and I both agree that the potential of climate change is a serious issue with high stakes. I do believe that premature government action to cut back energy use to levels lower than those in the growth-oriented nineties could cool the economy faster than it cools the climate.

On the other hand, you and I agree that ignoring the concerns expressed by some respected scientists about recent warming trends is equally irresponsible. During the last 4 years, Mr. Chairman, you have held hearings, I have held hearings, Senator Hagel, I, and a good many others have been involved in the fascinating issue.

I have traveled to Woods Hole to listen to the scientists. I have traveled to the Hague to see the international politics of this. I have attended numerous hearings. I have listened and read the testimony out of the hearings that you have assembled. Clearly, the scientific community has made impressive gains in its understanding of global climate change, but with increased understanding has come increased uncertainty about the relative roles of greenhouse gases, aerosols, land coverage changes, ocean currents, in the last century's temperature changes.

In my opinion, Mr. Chairman, moving ahead with strict government action based upon our current best guess of what we are thinking is not a wise action. This is especially true in light of the potential economic and national security implications that are likely as consequences of restricting our nation's energy use.

What is needed at this time, Mr. Chairman, is steady and thoughtful leadership, and I think your hearings demonstrate that national policy on this issue must evolve commensurately with the

increasing confidence we achieve in our scientific understanding. Consensus on appropriate action should be the cornerstone of our national policy on this issue.

The National Academy of Science, upon the authority of a charter granted by the Congress in 1863, has a mandate that requires it to advise our government on scientific and technical matters. The creation of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which you have referenced, the IPCC, does not, indeed, should not, extinguish the mandate of the National Academy to advise our government on scientific and technical matters.

Let me be clear, Mr. Chairman, that I am not here today to impugn the work of the scientists associated with the IPCC's third assessment. Frankly, after conferring with many of the scientists who are credentialed in the disciplines of atmospheric and ocean science, I am quite confident that much of the underlying work contained in the assessment is relatively sound. However, these same scientists who I have conferred with caution that the conclusions contained in the assessment summary, much of which have been reported by the media, are by no means certain and, at the very least, in need of scrutiny.

The computer modeling that you referenced in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, is a part of our concern. In my opinion, the President of the National Academy of Science should be tasked to review the IPCC Third Assessment conclusions, for the following

reasons:

First, The National Academy, through its operating arm, the National Research Council, has been reviewing the science of climate change for most of two decades.

Second, many of the scientists involved in the NRC research on climate change have contributed scientific analysis to the IPCC's third assessment.

And, finally, the NRC has prepared recent reports themselves, a synthesis of many other studies, that are useful guides to the state of knowledge and the requirements for the scientific path forward.

Mr. Chairman, I have reviewed the recent scientific reports, as I know you have. The NRC's "Pathways" and "Climate Modeling" reports raise some profoundly important questions. Our best policy decisions could turn on answers to any of them. Now, the "Pathways" report stated that presently available observation and modeling information-again, you have expressed that concern on climate change is useful, but cannot provide the knowledge needed to make informed decisions on the kinds of critical policies that we would direct.

The most recent National Research Council's report, "The Science of Regional and Global Change-Putting Knowledge to Work," which I and Senator Hagel and Senator Murkowski made available to all Senators in March, reaffirms the very findings and the very concerns I am expressing. Last week, I met with Charles Kennel, who co-authored that report and has chaired a NRC Committee on climate change, also heads up the Scripps Institution of Oceanography out at La Jolla. He expressed those concerns, and suggests some approaches to bringing about a better modeling system.

In addition, Mr. Chairman, the National Academy recognizes the legitimacy of our concern about the increasing use of science as an

advocacy tool for political agendas by making the following statement on page 10 of that report:

"Research on how to do more effective, credible, and helpful scientific assessment is badly needed. Of particular importance will be the development of assessment processes, that link knowledge producers and users in a dialog that builds a mutual understanding of what is needed, what can credibly be said, and how it can be said in a way that maintains both scientific credibility, and political legitimacy."

The National Academy proposes solid recommendations for implementing an effective research agenda, and I strongly endorse them.

Mr. Chairman, the National Academy is putting together and inviting all of us to a high-level, half-day forum at the Academy's headquarters that I would encourage all of us to attend. I have encouraged Paul O'Neill of the Treasury to be an attendee. He is an outspoken person on this issue. Clearly, we need to consult with our scientists, but in the process, I do believe we need to build computer models that we can rely on, and not rely on international models that do not have the sensitivity to a variety of the concerns, but most importantly, to the quality of the science involved.

Well, you have urged us to be brief, and I will conclude. There are important issues to be dealt with here, Mr. Chairman Thorough vetting by this Committee and others is critical, but I do believe we have come a long way, but I do not believe that the science today or the modeling available that brings that science together will lead us to a basis for sound policymaking. I think it is our responsibility to bring all of those tools together.

In visiting with Dr. Kennel the other day, he made it clear our science is good. The problem is, Mr. Chairman, is that the science is over here, and the modeling capability is over there, and we have not put those two together yet. We have all of those resources in our government. We have the supercomputers at the Department of Energy, and we have the brain trust that has been assembled by the National Research Council through the National Academy of Science. I think it is our responsibility to not only drive the process that helps put the proper models together and brings the resources of our federal government together that will allow us, this Committee and other committees, the kind of sound decisionmaking based on good science that the policy for this country demands.

Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Craig.
Senator Hagel.

STATEMENT OF HON. CHUCK HAGEL, U.S. SENATOR
FROM NEBRASKA

Senator HAGEL. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I, like our colleague, Senator Craig, am grateful for an opportunity to come before your Committee this morning and discuss an issue that I have been deeply involved in over the last several years. I have come across few issues, Mr. Chairman, more complex than climate change. What exactly is happening? What is the science? Are the actions of humans having a real impact on climate change? What is the future?

Most importantly, I think we asked ourselves, what do we do? None of these questions have simple answers We do know there has been climate change since the beginning of time. In fact, very radical climate change, long before the industrial revolution or the internal combustion engine.

Climate change, Mr. Chairman, is not new. In addressing this complicated issue, I start with this premise. Debate over climate change is not a question of who is for or against the environment. We all support protecting our involvement. I have yet to meet a Senator or any public official who wants to leave dirty air, dirty water, or a degraded environment as the legacy for his or her children. There may be one, Mr. Chairman. I have not met him or her. Over the last 3 months, three scientific working groups of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, have released thousands of pages of their work for the IPCC's assessment. The summaries of those reports are written not by the scientists, Mr. Chairman, but by U.N. environmental activists. There is a reason the organization is called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The summaries are political documents drafted by government representatives after intense negotiating sessions. In some cases, the very people sent to represent their countries in writing the IPCC summaries are later working to negotiate the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, so you have the same people defining the problems who are also trying to create a solution.

The working group reports vary widely in their scientific conclusions and predictions for global warming during the next century, but the summaries tend to take very alarmist viewpoints which are then used to justify the draconian measures of the Kyoto Protocol. The IPCC summaries are not science, they are summaries. Furthermore, the predictions made by the IPCC are based on computer models, which have already been shown to be inadequate, and vary widely in their interpretations.

Just as you have noted, Mr. Chairman, as has Senator Craig, the National Research Council recently issued a report called the Science of Research nd Global Change, in that they discussed the abilities of current climate models and here is what they said,

"The United States today does not have computational and modeling capability needed to serve society's information needs for reliable environmental predictions and projections."

This is what the Clinton administration's Environmental Protection Agency has to say about computer climate models:

"Virtually all published estimates of how climate change could change in the U.S. are the result of computer models. These complicated models are still not accurate enough to provide a reliable forecast on how climate may change, and several models often yield very contradictory results."

This is from President Clinton's EPA.

We know that the earth's climate has, for thousands of years, gone through cycles of warming and cooling. Ice core samples from Greenland more than 2 miles deep, dating back more than 100,000 years, have shown dramatic fluctuations in the earth's temperature. Since the end of the Ice Age, the last Ice Age 11,000 years ago, when the earth was 12.6 degrees Fahrenheit colder than today, there have been several warming and cooling periods.

Over the last 100 years, surface temperatures have increased by approximately 1 degree Fahrenheit. However, most of that increase in surface temperature occurred before 1940, yet 80 percent of the manmade carbon dioxide was emitted after 1940. Furthermore, while temperatures on the earth's surface have risen slightly over the last two decades, satellite temperatures, which are far more accurate, have shown no warming over the last 20 years.

In fact, from 1979 to 1997, satellite temperatures showed a slight cooling trend of .04 degrees Fahrenheit. Even the scientists most associated with global warming, who we will hear from this morning, Dr. James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, issued a new analysis last year which said the emphasis on carbon dioxide emissions may be misplaced. He will obviously speak for himself, Mr. Chairman.

In 1988, Dr. Hansen testified before a Senate committee that human activities were causing global warming. In his report las August, he found that mandate emissions of carbon dioxide have already been falling. They shrank in 1998 and 1999.

In his report, he stated that other greenhouse gases such as methane, black soot, CFC's, and the compounds that create smog maybe causing more damage than carbon dioxide, and efforts to affect climate change should focus on these other gases because the technology already exists to capture many of them. The prospects for having a modest climate impact instead of disastrous one are quite good, I think, said Dr. Hansen, who was quoted as saying this in the New York Times on August 19, 2000.

Other preeminent climatologists and meteorologists have conducted studies which have offered credible alternatives for the causes of our warming trend. Dr. Sally Belinius, the director of science programs at Harvard's Center for Astrophysics has been able to closely correlate changes in the Sun's brightness with temperature changes on earth. Unlike climate models, her studies have been able to explain why most of the earth's warming in the last 100 years occurred before the significant growth in manmade greenhouse gas emissions. According to her work, solar activity may be the most direct factor in global warming.

Mr. Chairman, we know that we are far from understanding the dynamics of our climate and what stimulates the changes it undergoes. Increasing research and intensifying our scientific effort will help lead us to clear answers to the questions, what is going on, and what is causing it.

In the last Congress, Senators Murkowski, Craig, and I introduced legislation that would dramatically increase funding for research. I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman and your fellow Commerce Committee members, Senators Dorgan, Brownback, Burns, Smith, others for cosponsoring that legislation. We will be updating and reintroducing this legislation in the next few weeks. In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, what do we do about climate change? Nothing? No, I do not believe so. None of us have advocated that. That would be irresponsible. However, it would have been equally irresponsible to submit this nation to a treaty that would have had a disastrous effect on our economy without having any real impact on global emissions of greenhouse gases.