There are 13 federal agencies spending billions of taxpayer dollars on duplicative global warming research programs, according to a new report released by Kentucky Republican Sen. [crscore]Rand Paul[/crscore].
Paul’s latest report on government waste shows how more than a dozen federal agencies spent over $2.7 billion researching the same issue — global warming. And that’s on top of the $18 billion the Obama administration spent on global warming mitigation, according to Paul’s office.
“No matter where you fall in the climate debate, one thing everyone should be able to agree on is paying thirteen different agencies to do the same thing is pretty darn wasteful,” Paul’s office wrote in its Monday report.
Paul’s latest waste report comes after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published its sixth account on duplicative government programs. The GAO found some 200 programs for science education, but didn’t mention the billions being spent on climate science, Paul said.
The Kentucky Republican looked back to a 2013 White House report detailing the various federal programs dedicated to fighting global warming. The White House estimated it spent more than $22 billion on global warming programs in 2013 — twice as much as the feds spent on customs and border enforcement that year.
“One would think this kind of research would be limited to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as they are the agency, charged with studying weather and the atmosphere,” Paul’s office wrote. “As it turns out, at over $360 million, NOAA is not even the largest researcher of climate change in the federal government.”
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spent $1.5 billion studying global warming, all while cutting funding for space exploration research — the very thing NASA was founded to do.
“Wonder why we haven’t gone back to the moon?” Paul’s office wrote. “Perhaps an argument could be made for one of these agencies to do this research, but both? And what of the other eleven?”
Congress has been concerned over President Barack Obama’s global warming research spending and snuck a small provision in the recently passed $1.1 trillion budget deal that requires the administration disclose how much its spending on such programs.
The budget deal requires Obama to submit “a comprehensive report to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate describing in detail all Federal agency funding, domestic and international, for climate change programs, projects, and activities in fiscal years 2015 and 2016.”
Congress wants Obama to break down “funding by agency with each agency identifying climate change programs, projects, and activities and associated costs by line item… and including citations and linkages where practicable to each strategic plan that is driving funding within each climate change program, project, and activity listed in the report.”
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