Climate and Public Policy in the United States Congress

Abstract

While there is no particular expertise in the United States Congress in meteorology, several atmospheric issues are receiving much attention. These include ozone depletion, global warming, acid rain, nuclear winter, and earth system science. The status of each of these is briefly discussed.

The ability of the governments of the United States and other countries to deal with each of these issues depends on both the spatial scale of the environmental impact and the societal costs and disruptions involved in the solutions that are being proposed to deal with the problems. Ozone depletion is a much simpler problem to deal with in this regard than acid rain or global warming.