Climate Crisis Committee To Hold Hearing on The Growing Risks and Costs of Inaction

WASHINGTON - The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis will hold a hearing titled “Making the Case for Climate Action: The Growing Risks and Costs of Inaction” on Thursday, April 15, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. This hearing will take place remotely via Zoom video conferencing and will be broadcast live here.

This hearing will explore the changes we are seeing in climate, the efforts underway to study those changes, and the economic risks and impacts the climate crisis poses to labor supply, human health, and the American economy. It will also explore the disparate impacts of the climate crisis on low-income communities and communities of color.

The committee will receive testimony from:

Heather McTeer Toney, Climate Justice Liaison, Environmental Defense Fund & Senior Advisor, Moms Clean Air Force. A former Southeast Regional Administrator for President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Toney now supports a network of more than one million moms and dads united against air pollution and climate change. She was also the first female, first Black, and youngest Mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, where she served for two terms. 

Waleed Abdalati, Director, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Abdalati leads a team of more than 800 scientists who work in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to study issues related to weather and climate, changes at Earth’s poles, air quality and atmospheric chemistry, water resources, and solid Earth sciences. A professor of geography, Abdalati also works on research that uses satellites and other science-based observations to measure changes in Earth’s glaciers and ice sheets, studying the processes that contribute to sea level rise.

Michael Greenstone, Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, University of Chicago. An expert on environmental and energy economics, Greenstone served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he co-led the development of the government’s social cost of carbon. He also serves as director of the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute for Economics and the Energy Policy Institute at Chicago (EPIC).

Shawn Gillen, PhD, City Manager, Tybee Island. Gillen is in charge of daily operations in Tybee Island, a coastal city in Georgia with approximately 3,000 residents. He previously served as city manager in Doraville, Georgia; as city administrator in Grand Rapids, Minnesota; and as mayor of Monmouth, Illinois. 

Note: Additional witnesses may be added.