Congress Adapts to Calamity: The FY 2018 NDAA’s Climate Change Provisions

Dec 11, 2017 | Jordan Brunner
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President Donald Trump is expected to sign the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2018 into law in the next few days. As Scott Anderson pointed out in his summary of the NDAA’s most interesting provisions, the bill continues in the tradition of prior NDAAs by creating “sprawling documents that contain provisions on a diverse range of subjects, any of which can have a substantial bearing on U.S. national security.” One such provision that Scott highlighted is Section 335, which provides some guidance to the military on how it should deal with climate change, given that it is, as the provision declares, “a direct threat to the national security of the United States.”

Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) introduced the climate change amendment to the NDAA  to highlight that, as Langevin put it, “climate change is real, and it will have a devastating effect on the readiness of our armed forces.” Another amendment from Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) challenged the Langevin amendment almost immediately, seeking to remove Langevin’s provision from the bill. The Perry amendment was ultimately defeated in the House by a 185-234 vote (including 46 Republicans who opposed the deal), and Langevin’s amendment survived.