There’s been a lot said lately about the national-security implications of climate change, in the form of water shortages, mass migration, and unstable governments.
But in the view of at least one U.S. senator—Republican John Barrasso of Wyoming–those potential impacts don’t justify a “climate change center” like the one that the Central Intelligence Agency recently launched.
Mr. Barrasso–an outspoken opponent of the Obama administration’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gases–is trying to amend a huge defense-related spending bill to prohibit the CIA from using any money to fund its Center on Climate Change and National Security, which the agency launched on Sept. 25. Mr. Barrasso says the center risks stretching the CIA too thin and that existing federal agencies charged with monitoring climactic changes can supply the CIA with whatever information it needs.
“Will someone sitting in a dark room watching satellite video of northern Afghanistan now be sitting in a dark room watching polar ice caps?,” Mr. Barrasso said Tuesday in a statement. He added that the agency should be combating terrorists, not spying on sea lions.”
