DOT Stifles Report on How Climate Change Will Affect Gulf Coast Infrastructure

It wasn't exactly a secret that climate change will have drastic and often harmful impacts on the roads and causeways, chemical plants and oil/gas pipelines, and shipping facilities along the Gulf Coast. Two reports released in March had already said so.

But another report on the same subject from the Department of Transportation was buried deep in the bureaucracy - as has been the case with many reports on climate change impacts during the past eight years.

The report's co-lead author, Michael Savonis, was not allowed to talk to inquiring media; instead, questions were referred to DOT political appointees who knew little about the subject.

But those politicals did know the administration's line on the subject, emphasizing that Gulf infrastructure problems would be the result of land subsidence rather than warming-induced sea-level rise. That was quite the opposite of the thrust of the report.

• "Stealth Release of Major Federal Study of Gulf Coast Climate Change Transportation Impacts," ClimateScienceWatch, March 13, 2008.
• "Government Reports Warn Planners on Sea-Rise Threat to U.S. Coasts," New York Times, March 12, 2008, by Cornelia Dean.
• "Impacts of Climate Variability and Change on Transportation Systems and Infrastructure - Gulf Coast Study," Department of Transportation, March 2008.