Posting Dr. Kevin Dayaratna’s House Oversight Subcommittee testimony on climate change policy

On September 24, 2020, the House Oversight Subcommittee on Environment held a hearing titled “Climate Change Part IV: Moving Towards a Sustainable Future.” The written statements of the four majority witnesses are posted on the Subcommittee’s Web page but not (as of 12:00 noon 9/25) the written statement of Heritage Foundation statistician and data scientist Dr. Kevin Dayaratna. I am posting it here.

Dr. Dayaratna’s written statement provides a detailed and fully documented overview of the ground-breaking work he and his colleagues have done over many years on the GIGO problems of social cost of carbon analysis, the harmful economic impacts of carbon taxes and regulatory climate policies, and the benefits of market-driven energy development.

He concludes: “Policies aimed at ‘decarbonizing’ the American economy are predicated on faulty models that are prone to user-selected manipulation. These policies will raise the cost of
energy, thus resulting in devastating economic impacts. On the other hand, policies that are aimed at taking advantage of the American oil and gas supply have tremendous potential to grow the economy. And, moreover, either policy—regulatory or deregulatory—will have negligible impact on the climate.”

A YouTube video of the Subcommittee hearing is posted here. Dr. Dayaratna’s oral presentation begins at 37:50.