Opening Statement By Rep. Mark Udall

Thank you, Chairman Gordon, for bringing this bill up for markup today.

I introduced H.R. 906, The Global Change Research and Data Management Act of 2007 with my colleague from South Carolina, Mr. Inglis, earlier this year.

Climate change is occurring – its impacts are already being felt across the country, from Alaska’s melting tundra to more intense droughts across the West.

Although we are still debating how to address this challenge at the federal level, we will have to confront climate change soon and with some mix of mitigation and adaptation. The increase in extreme weather events alone will have a very large human and economic cost.

HR 906 will set us in the right direction by expanding and improving the US Global Change Research Program to provide more user-driven research and information.

We will need economic and technical information as well as information about system responses and climate responses to different concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to design cost effective policies to achieve reductions and avoid dangerous impacts of future climate change.

The program should be the vehicle for providing this information. H.R. 906 will improve the outreach and information exchange aspects of this Program and make the information that it provides more useful.

The program has contributed significantly to our knowledge about climate change and our planet’s environment since its formation in 1990 – but we now need to expand this information and tailor it to the needs of decision makers confronted with management and mitigation challenges.

I should add that I believe that we must cut our carbon dioxide emissions as part of our response to climate change.

However, HR 906 deals with a research program – the legislation does not create a cap and trade program or any other regulations.

Before closing, I’d like to thank the staff on both sides for their hard work on this legislation. We are lucky to have such an excellent staff on the Science and Technology Committee.

Again, I thank my colleague, Rep. Inglis for working with me on H.R. 906. I ask our colleagues to support this important legislation.