Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been rolling out sound, substantive policy proposals at an amazing clip during her presidential run. Her latest is also going to be introduced legislatively, and it's a new policy area for her, one that demonstrates she's been thinking about becoming commander in chief. Her Defense Climate Resiliency and Readiness Act would "harden the U.S. military against the threat posed by climate change, and to leverage its huge energy footprint as part of our climate solution."
"In short," Warren writes, "climate change is real, it is worsening by the day, and it is undermining our military readiness. And instead of meeting this threat head-on, Washington is ignoring it— and making it worse." She talks about the direct threats to military readiness: the destruction of bases we've already seen due to hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes, as well as the "threat multiplier" effect of climate change globally as resource scarcity, infectious diseases, and more environmental refugees will increase conflict and political strife.
Additionally, Warren points out that the U.S. military is "the single largest government consumer of energy, and it’s dependent on fossil fuels." It "spends about $4 billion a year to power its bases at fixed locations and consumes tens of billions of barrels of fuel per year." To that end, the bill has "an ambitious goal: consistent with the objectives of the Green New Deal, the Pentagon should achieve net zero carbon emissions for all its non-combat bases and infrastructure by 2030." That's to curb the Pentagon's contribution to climate change.
To ensure the military's readiness, she proposes a dedicated fund in the defense budget for adapting all of the bases at home and abroad to withstand the storms of the future, "budgeting for climate change on the front end, so that the Pentagon doesn’t have to ask for more only after a base is flooded or equipment damaged when natural disasters strike." One source of funding would be the hundreds of billions in contracts awarded annually. Any contract that hasn't achieved net zero carbon emissions would pay a "small fee—one percent of the total value of the contract" and that money would be used "directly in making our military infrastructure more resilient." She would also "direct the Secretary of Defense to appoint a senior official within the Defense Department and each of the military services to ensure that, top to bottom, our military is prioritizing the climate threat."
Noting the role the Defense Department has played in "countless technological breakthroughs, working together with colleges and universities, our national labs, local governments, and private companies," she would invest in "a new, ten-year research and development program at the Defense Department focused on microgrids and advanced energy storage." This initiative, she says, would "improve our security by allowing military bases to remain operational when traditional power sources fail, and save taxpayers money through lower overall energy consumption."
"We don’t have to choose between a green military and an effective one," she concludes. A companion bill to her legislation is being introduced in the House by Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas, with co-sponsorship from Reps. Gil Cisneros and Katie Hill of California, Deb Haaland of New Mexico, and Ruben Gallego of Arizona.