Texas 2019 - 86th Regular

Texas House Bill HCR15 Compare Versions

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

Old	New	Differences
1	1	86R615 KSM-D
2	2	By: Raymond H.C.R. No. 15
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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, In February 2017, the Climate Leadership Council
10	10	released a compelling report outlining the conservative case for
11	11	addressing climate change; the international research and advocacy
12	12	group's members include one of the Lone Star State's most respected
13	13	native sons, former U.S. secretary of state James Baker, as well as
14	14	members of the Ronald Reagan administration and both Bush
15	15	administrations, namely Martin Feldstein and N. Gregory Mankiw,
16	16	former chairs of the President's Council of Economic Advisers,
17	17	Henry M. Paulson Jr., former secretary of the treasury, George
18	18	P. Shultz, former secretary of state, and Thomas Stephenson, former
19	19	ambassador to Portugal and now a partner at Sequoia Capital; the
20	20	organization's other members are Rob Walton, longtime chair of
21	21	Walmart, and Ted Halstead, founder, president, and CEO of the
22	22	Climate Leadership Council and founder of the New America think
23	23	tank; and
24	24	WHEREAS, The council's report states that evidence of climate
25	25	change is too powerful to ignore; although the extent of human
26	26	influence on climate is debated, the risks posed are such that the
27	27	world needs a kind of "insurance policy," the authors warn; climate
28	28	solutions based on sound economic analysis would build prosperity,
29	29	benefit working Americans, reduce regulations, and protect our
30	30	natural heritage; and
31	31	WHEREAS, In the Reagan era, economists conducted a
32	32	cost-benefit analysis to assess the risks of the growing hole in the
33	33	ozone layer, and the president then threw his weight behind a
34	34	landmark treaty, the Montreal Protocol, which implemented a
35	35	pragmatic, market-based solution to the environmental problem;
36	36	Mr. Baker, Mr. Shultz, and the other members of the Climate
37	37	Leadership Council support a similar conservative,
38	38	limited-government approach to climate change, and economists of
39	39	diverse viewpoints today concur that the economic benefits of
40	40	grappling with climate change greatly outweigh the costs; for
41	41	instance, while no single natural disaster can be attributed to
42	42	climate change, it has increased the risk of catastrophic events
43	43	such as Superstorm Sandy and Hurricanes Ike, Rita, Katrina, and
44	44	Harvey; in 2017, the National Centers for Environmental Information
45	45	recorded 16 weather and climate disaster events that each exceeded
46	46	$1 billion in costs, with a cumulative cost of more than $300
47	47	billion; and
48	48	WHEREAS, Many of the nation's leaders have spoken out about
49	49	the need to address climate change, including former vice president
50	50	Al Gore, who said, "Solutions to the climate crisis are within
51	51	reach, but in order to capture them we must take urgent action today
52	52	across every level of society"; former president Barack Obama
53	53	stated that "the shift to a cleaner energy economy won't happen
54	54	overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the
55	55	debate is settled. Climate change is a fact. And when our children's
56	56	children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave
57	57	them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, I want
58	58	us to be able to say yes, we did"; another former president, Bill
59	59	Clinton, explained that "climate change is more remote than terror
60	60	but a more profound threat to the future of the children and the
61	61	grandchildren and the great-grandchildren I hope all of you
62	62	have. . . . It's the only thing we face today that has the power to
63	63	remove the preconditions of civilized society"; and
64	64	WHEREAS, Climate change will negatively impact agriculture,
65	65	coastal cities, and political stability in already-volatile
66	66	regions of the world, and such developments could imperil our
67	67	American way of life; leaders in Washington, D.C., should
68	68	investigate how best to mitigate the dangers to ensure a stable,
69	69	prosperous future for the generations to come, for as the current
70	70	U.S. secretary of defense, General James Mattis, declared,
71	71	"Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where
72	72	our troops are operating today"; now, therefore, be it
73	73	RESOLVED, That the 86th Legislature of the State of Texas
74	74	hereby respectfully urge the United States Congress to conduct a
75	75	cost-benefit analysis regarding the risks of climate change and
76	76	appropriate measures to address those risks; and, be it further
77	77	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
78	78	copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
79	79	the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
80	80	Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
81	81	members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
82	82	this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a
83	83	memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.