President Donald Trump is said to be nearing a decision on whether to form an expert panel to assess the potential dangers global warming has on national security.
It was first revealed in February that the White House was actively considering the formation of what would be called the Presidential Committee on Climate Security. The committee, led by National Security Council senior director William Happer, would be initiated under the president’s executive order.
Formal deliberations among White House staffers — particularly between Vice President Mike Pence’s office and the National Security Council — have ended, and insiders are “optimistic” that Trump will ultimately approve the panel in the coming two weeks, according to sources who spoke with The Daily Caller News Foundation.
If green-lighted, the Presidential Committee on Climate Security would likely serve a pushback against Democratic and progressive claims that a global-warming catastrophe is on the horizon. Happer, the expected leader of the panel, has previously touted the benefits of carbon emissions and has sat on the board of organizations that are skeptical of global warming disaster claims.
“This changes everything,” Dr. Caleb Rossiter, the executive director of the CO2 Coalition, told TheDCNF about the panel’s formation. “When we can finally have a real discussion about the [pluses and minuses] of fossil fuels, we can make policy choices about which one is more important to do. So I think this will change everything if the review gets a fair shot.”
Founded in 2015, the CO2 Coalition is a non-profit group made up of numerous scientists and experts who seek to counter criticisms levied against carbon dioxide. The Coalition has wholeheartedly endorsed Happer, its original founder, to lead the White House panel on global warming.
“We write to support the proposal by Dr. William Happer,” read a letter from the Coalition, delivered to the White House on Monday, “to establish a presidential commission to review the scientific basis for claims that our national security is being threatened by ‘climate change.’”
Their letter attacked the 30 years of “dramatic predictions” by the U.S. government regarding looming climate change disasters — predictions they argued have never come to fruition. The Coalition went on to say it was “mystified” from criticisms that claim Happer is not a climate scientist — countering that he has a Ph.D. in atomic physics, has made “seminal contributions” in subjects related to climate science, and has published a plethora of work related to the atmosphere.
Should Trump move forward with his climate change panel, the administration would undoubtedly face pushback from progressives.
During a House Oversight Hearing on Tuesday, former Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel both warned of the cataclysmic dangers of climate change and attacked the Trump administration’s environmental agenda. At one point, Kerry offered praise to Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, a proposal widely lampooned by the public.
“In proposing what she has proposed … Congresswoman [Ocasio-Cortez] has in fact offered more leadership in one day or in one week than President Trump has in his lifetime on [climate change],” Kerry said.
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