House GOP hits shift of spy funds to study climate

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Senior House Republicans are complaining about Democrats' plans to divert "scarce" intelligence funds to study global warming.

The House next week will consider the Democrat-crafted Intelligence Authorization bill, which includes a provision directing an assessment of the effects that climate change has on national security.

"Our job is to steal secrets," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

"There are all kinds of people analyzing global warming, the Democrats even have a special committee on this," he told The Washington Times. "There's no value added by the intelligence community here; they have no special expertise, and this takes money and resources away from other threats."

Democrats, who outnumber Republicans on the committee, blocked the minority from stripping the warming language from the bill.

Intelligence panel Chairman Silvestre Reyes, Texas Democrat, said the climate-change study is one of several shifts his party has made to intelligence policy.

"We're concerned that global warming might impact our ability to maintain national security," he told The Times, describing the idea as "cutting edge."

"We want to get feedback from the intelligence community to understand if there are possible global issues," Mr. Reyes said, noting the change was on the advice of "several former military commanders."

The panel voted 11-9 to keep the provision that directs a National Intelligence Estimate "on the anticipated geopolitical effects of global climate change and the implications of such effects on the national security of the United States," according to a Republican staffer familiar with the bill.

The study, which so far has an undetermined cost, would examine the science of climate change, among other things. Few details about its method were available, but the staffer said it would "divert already scarce resources to study the climate."