21 February 2011 | Tierney Smith
Climate Change, Legislation, North America

 

The U.S is set to withdraw funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a series of deep budget cuts approved by the House of Representatives (19 February).

The cuts will mean a ban on funding equating to $2.3m (£1.31m). The IPCC relies on scientists from across the world to work voluntarily.

House Representative Republican Blaine Luetkemeyer proposed the ban, claiming that as much as $13m of taxpayers money went to the IPCC. He said: “The IPCC is an entity that is fraught with waste and fraud, and engaged in dubious science which is the last thing hard-working American taxpayers should be paying for…It is time for Washington to combat this year’s record budget deficit and fast-growing national debt.”

However, Chris Field, an ecologist from Stanford University and lead author on one of the IPCC working groups clarified that last year (2010), funds given to the IPCC by the US was $3m. Reported in sciencemag.org, he said: “It’s a real tragedy that the issue is so poorly understood that it doesn’t have the support I think it deserves given how important it is.”

Also speaking to sciencemag.org, Mike MacCracken, former director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program said the House doesn't "like the message so they are killing the messenger."

Other large cuts included the Environment Protection Agency’s (EPA) budget and also more than fifteen separate measures that would block environmental programmes, including recent moves by the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would also be prevented from setting up a new climate service, and the budget in place to replace Carol Browner, US climate change advisor who recently resigned, could be scrapped.

In total the series of budget cuts proposed a £61bn (£38bn) reduction of federal spending, in the months up to September, and were seen as a victory for the Republican majority house.

They will now go before the Senate, which is controlled by the president’s Democratic party.

 

Image: Cliff1066 | flickr

 

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