When it comes to the ocean, House Republicans are playing with fire
By Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš
The world is experiencing record-high temperatures, and people are suffering the effects, yet House Republicans are taking a scorched-earth approach to one of our most effective climate crisis-combatting tools: the ocean.
No matter where you live, the reality of a rapidly changing climate has arrived.
From devastating flooding in Vermont, to tropical storm Hilary bringing catastrophic flooding and flash floods to California and Baja California, increasingly toxic, polluted air across the Midwest – as more than 37 million acres have burned this year in the Canadian wildfires – and record setting temperatures in the Southwest, climate change is wreaking havoc across the country. While it may not be obvious, the ocean is mitigating these climate disasters, sometimes even providing a safe haven from them, as it did for the many who sat along its Maui shoreline for refuge in Lahaina, as wildfires burned.
If not for the ocean, the average global temperatures on land would be an unbearable 122°F – a temperature reached in the Mojave Desert’s aptly-named Death Valley last month. Most regions of our country could not sustain excess heat, and it is because of the ocean – which has absorbed 90 percent of the excess heat created by greenhouse gas emissions – that they do not have to.
Without the ocean, we would not survive, but it is at a tipping point – with record ocean water temperatures reaching all-time highs, threatening human health and marine life, along with the climate-regulating properties it provides.
For too long, the climate power of the ocean was not appreciated. In a few short years, that has changed. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act are providing unprecedented funding for offshore wind, clean ports, and coastal resilience. The White House is implementing the nation’s first Ocean Climate Action Plan, developing its first ever Ocean Justice Strategy, taking action for generations of frontline communities who continue to endure environmental injustices, and it is preparing a national Strategy for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. And in Congress, increased funding was allocated to agencies to prepare our communities and country for the severity of climate challenges ahead.
All of that ocean climate action progress is at risk of being undermined if House Republicans are successful in advancing their climate denial agenda – threatening the ocean, our national security, and the existence of life above and below water.
These partisan actions have severe implications for the health of our nation and ocean and climate conservation efforts, as they seek to slash budgets for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), our premier ocean and climate agency, by almost 15 percent, gut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget by 40 percent to its lowest level in 30 years, and cut climate funding from the Inflation Reduction Act by $9.4 billion, including $7.8 billion from the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund – which supports jobs and investments for communities facing social injustices and financial disadvantages.
Further, they seek to prohibit agencies from considering the societal costs of approving projects with additional greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change. And, their efforts to block research of the climate change impacts on fisheries will threaten the U.S. fishing industry, its 1.7 million jobs, and jeopardize access to protein for those who depend on the ocean for their sustenance.
And that is just a fraction of the poison pills that will burn House Republicans – if they continue to play games with the health, safety and future of people across the country and beyond.
Congress has an obligation to stop the madness. Denying funding to the agencies that are implementing policies and programs to protect communities and the environment will not make climate change go away – neither will the cruel act of prohibiting funding for environmental justice programs, which will exacerbate social and racial inequality as sea levels rise and coastal flooding and storms hit frontline communities first and worst. Mandating fossil fuel production for decades to come, as they propose, will not make climate change go away, it will only make the crisis worse.
As floods, fires, heatwaves, and droughts plague our communities, it’s time to say enough – no is the only acceptable answer the Senate and President Biden must offer to stop these extremist efforts. We urge this Administration and our nation’s leaders to put our communities first, especially those most burdened by pollution and extreme weather. There’s no better time than now to stand up for our ocean and climate – and ultimately, our humanity.
Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš is the Founder and Executive Director of Azul, an environmental justice organization that works with Latinx communities to protect the ocean and coasts. She is also a founder and steering committee member of the Ocean Justice Forum.