Letter
Letter to House Committee on Energy from Bishop Hubbard and CRS on Climate Change, May 18, 2009
Letter from Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, Chairman, Committee on International Justice and Peace and Ken Hackett, President, Catholic Relief Services to House Committee on Energy regarding Climate Change, May 18, 2009
On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, we welcome the consideration of H. R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. We also recognize the leadership of Chairmen Waxman and Markey in moving forward climate legislation in the Committee on Energy and Commerce. We are encouraged to see provisions in the legislation that protect the poor and vulnerable at home and abroad, but are quite concerned about the funding level for international adaptation. Addressing global climate change is both urgent and necessary and this legislation represents an important beginning.
For the United States Catholic bishops and for many others in the faith community, a fundamental moral measure of climate change legislation is how it affects the poor in our own country and around the world. This central priority reflects two moral requirements -- to care for creation and for "the least of these."