Texas 2017 - 85th Regular

Texas House Bill HCR127 Compare Versions

Only one version of the bill is available at this time.

Old	New	Differences
1	1	85R20032 BPG-D
2	2	By: Raymond H.C.R. No. 127
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5	5	CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
6	6	WHEREAS, Climate change is a complex issue with important
7	7	implications for economic stability, national security, and public
8	8	health for future generations of Texans; and
9	9	WHEREAS, United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in
10	10	his confirmation hearing, acknowledged the "complex issue" of
11	11	climate change; he stated: "I came to my personal position over
12	12	about 20 years as an engineer and a scientist, [and] understanding
13	13	the evolution of the science, came to the conclusion a few years ago
14	14	the risk of climate change does exist, and that the consequences
15	15	could be serious enough that action should be taken"; and
16	16	WHEREAS, In February 2017, the Climate Leadership Council
17	17	released a compelling report outlining the conservative case for
18	18	addressing climate change; the international research and advocacy
19	19	group's members include one of the Lone Star State's most respected
20	20	native sons, former U.S. secretary of state James Baker, as well as
21	21	members of the Ronald Reagan administration and both Bush
22	22	administrations, namely Martin Feldstein and N. Gregory Mankiw,
23	23	former chairs of the President's Council of Economic Advisers,
24	24	Henry M. Paulson Jr., former secretary of the treasury, George P.
25	25	Shultz, former secretary of state, and Thomas Stephenson, former
26	26	ambassador to Portugal and now a partner at Sequoia Capital; the
27	27	organization's other members are Rob Walton, longtime chair of
28	28	Walmart, and Ted Halstead, founder, president, and CEO of the
29	29	Climate Leadership Council and founder of the New America think
30	30	tank; and
31	31	WHEREAS, The council's report states that evidence of climate
32	32	change is too powerful to ignore; although the extent of human
33	33	influence on climate is debated, the risks posed are such that the
34	34	world needs a kind of "insurance policy," the authors warn; climate
35	35	solutions based on sound economic analysis would build prosperity,
36	36	benefit working Americans, reduce regulations, and protect our
37	37	natural heritage; and
38	38	WHEREAS, In the Reagan era, economists conducted a
39	39	cost-benefit analysis to assess the risks of the growing hole in the
40	40	ozone layer, and the president then threw his weight behind a
41	41	landmark treaty, the Montreal Protocol, which implemented a
42	42	pragmatic, market-based solution to the environmental problem;
43	43	Mr. Baker, Mr. Shultz, and the other members of the Climate
44	44	Leadership Council support a similar conservative,
45	45	limited-government approach to climate change, and economists of
46	46	diverse viewpoints today concur that the economic benefits of
47	47	grappling with climate change greatly outweigh the costs; for
48	48	instance, while no single natural disaster can be attributed to
49	49	climate change, it has increased the risk of catastrophic events
50	50	such as Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Ike, Hurricane Rita, and
51	51	Hurricane Katrina, which affected the entire Gulf Coast region; in
52	52	2016, the National Centers for Environmental Information recorded
53	53	15 weather and climate disaster events that each exceeded $1
54	54	billion in costs, the largest being the Louisiana flooding and
55	55	Hurricane Matthew, which both inflicted an estimated $10 billion in
56	56	damage; and
57	57	WHEREAS, Many of the nation's leaders have spoken out about
58	58	the need to address climate change, including former vice president
59	59	Al Gore, who said, "Solutions to the climate crisis are within
60	60	reach, but in order to capture them we must take urgent action today
61	61	across every level of society"; former president Barack Obama
62	62	stated that "the shift to a cleaner energy economy won't happen
63	63	overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the
64	64	debate is settled. Climate change is a fact. And when our
65	65	children's children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could
66	66	to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of
67	67	energy, I want us to be able to say yes, we did"; another former
68	68	president, Bill Clinton, explained that "climate change is more
69	69	remote than terror but a more profound threat to the future of the
70	70	children and the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren I hope
71	71	all of you have. . . . It's the only thing we face today that has
72	72	the power to remove the preconditions of civilized society"; and
73	73	WHEREAS, Climate change will negatively impact agriculture,
74	74	coastal cities, and political stability in already-volatile
75	75	regions of the world, and such developments could imperil our
76	76	American way of life; leaders in Washington, D.C., should
77	77	investigate how best to mitigate the dangers to ensure a stable,
78	78	prosperous future for the generations to come, for as the current
79	79	U.S. secretary of defense, General James Mattis, declared, "Climate
80	80	change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops
81	81	are operating today"; now, therefore, be it
82	82	RESOLVED, That the 85th Legislature of the State of Texas
83	83	hereby respectfully urge the United States Congress to conduct a
84	84	cost-benefit analysis regarding the risks of climate change and
85	85	appropriate measures to address those risks; and, be it further
86	86	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
87	87	copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
88	88	the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
89	89	Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
90	90	members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
91	91	this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a
92	92	memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.