Warren, Sanders want climate change considered in selection of homeland security adviser

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are calling on the Trump administration to consider the effects of climate change when selecting President Trump’s next homeland security adviser.

In a letter to Trump, the two senators urge the president to select an individual who “takes seriously” severe weather patterns and storms caused by a changing climate.

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“The Homeland Security Advisor regularly attends meetings of the National Security Council and is responsible for overseeing the Administration’s response to natural disasters, including hurricanes,” reads a statement from Warren’s office.

“[Tom] Bossert, who served as Homeland Security Advisor since January 2017 until his resignation last month, had refused to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific consensus that human-induced climate change contributes to severe weather events.”

Bossert resigned in April, after John Bolton joined the White House as national security adviser and sought to shake up the team. A replacement for the homeland security adviser has not yet been announced.

“Without a dedicated federal effort to reduce the quantity of greenhouse gasses that human activity releases into the atmosphere, climate change will continue to worsen and cause increasingly severe weather events, including hurricanes,” the two senators wrote in the letter. “Climate change is having and will have a tangible and harmful impact on our national security and disaster readiness.”

The Trump administration has moved to strip fighting climate change from government websites and policies. The president announced last year that the U.S. would exit the Paris climate accord, a global agreement aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.