House Science Committee leaders question DoD for lack of concerns over science-based emissions reduction rule

Republican leaders of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee recently called on the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to explain its silence over a Biden administration-proposed emissions rule they denounced for alleged national security concerns.

In January, the committee released a staff memo detailing the preliminary results of an ongoing investigation into that rule, which accused the White House of conflicts of interest at the Council on Environmental Quality and inappropriate attempts to influence development of the rule. The rule would require U.S. contractors to work with foreign entities to disclose greenhouse gas emissions and set emission reduction targets.

“An investigation by this Committee found that DoD ignored national security concerns raised by industry experts and others about both the disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and the setting of science-based reduction targets with a foreign company,” the lawmakers wrote to Dr. William LaPlante, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment for DoD. “Due to DoD’s failure, Congress was forced to step in and include language in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2024 postponing enforcement of this proposed rule through the end of 2024, and outright banning enforcement of this provision for nontraditional defense contractors.”

Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK), Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Jay Obernolte (R-CA), and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Max Miller (R-OH) led the letter. They have accused the new rule of having major national security and mission readiness implications, specifically for the time and resources it would make the defense industrial base spend to quantify and disclose the amount of greenhouse gasses generated from production in their facilities and supply chains, and the potential for redesigning weapons systems to incorporate green technologies they said could be less combat-effective.

No U.S. defense company has been forced to make redesigns to a weapon over green concerns to date, but the Congressmen insisted it could happen.

With that in mind, the members called for DoD to address their concerns and share a strategy for the rule no later than March 18, 2024. They previously blasted the department for failing to explicitly say in a previous briefing if national security issues were raised during drafting of the proposed rule.

“Instead, DoD made multiple references to the use of waivers to preclude most, if not all, manufacturers from complying with the rule if finalized. If DoD believes waivers will be used often, and regularly, it only validates the national security concerns raised by experts and poses the question of why the rule was proposed in the first place.”

They also called out the Biden administration’s continued focus on global warming, and pressed DoD to state whether it felt this was a major physical threat to the country compared to ongoing overseas wars.