This week, President Obama is visiting Alaska to experience firsthand how climate change is affecting Alaska and the greater Arctic, and to meet with Alaskans across the state – in locations as diverse as Anchorage, Seward, Dillingham, and Kotzebue – who are dealing with the consequences of climate change.

In support of the President’s trip, I spent the past weekend making my own stops in Alaska to learn more about how climate change is already affecting local communities and ecosystems, and to engage with Alaskans working to tackle climate-related challenges.

I was joined on the trip by three other senior officials from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP): Tamara Dickinson, the leader of OSTP’s Environment & Energy division; Ambassador Mark Brzezinski, Executive Director of the U.S. Government’s Arctic Executive Steering Committee and former U.S. Ambassador to Sweden; and Beth Kerttula, Director of the National Ocean Council, as well as a native Alaskan and former minority leader in the Alaska state legislature. I wanted to share a few observations with you about what we saw.

On Saturday, we visited the Cold Climate Housing Research Center, a nonprofit corporation that develops sustainable, cost-effective building technologies tailored to Alaska and other polar regions. We also toured the Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility. Studies conducted at this underground laboratory (one of only two permafrost tunnels in the world!) help us better understand how climate change is accelerating permafrost thaw, and the associated impacts on communities and ecosystems.

We kicked off Sunday by hearing from participants in the Fulbright Arctic Initiative about the research that Initiative scholars from the United States and other Arctic nations are doing on critical topics like energy, water, and health and infrastructure. In the afternoon, we met with scholars who are younger, but no less impressive: students in the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program, which supports science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education for Alaska Natives from sixth grade all the way through college and graduate programs.

During our trip, we also participated in roundtable discussions with students and faculty at the University of Alaska (UAA) Fairbanks and UAA Anchorage, researchers who are working on the cutting edge of Arctic climate science. And we met with the mayors of Anchorage, Fairbanks, the Northwest Arctic Borough, and other Alaskan municipalities, as well as with officials of Federal departments and agencies with office in Alaska, to talk about their efforts to prepare for and adapt to climate change, and the ways in which the Federal government can best support them.

Alaska represents the frontlines of our fight against climate change. What my OSTP colleagues and I saw and heard over the weekend has powerfully augmented our understanding of the range of dramatic impacts that climate change is having on ecosystems and communities in the far North. I believe that the stops that President Obama is making in Alaska this week – including a historic visit to the Alaskan Arctic –will further underscore for the Nation the importance of taking strong action to combat climate change now.

So I encourage you to follow the President’s trip at http://ift.tt/1X1OnWI, and to join this Administration in working together to #ActOnClimate.

Dr. John P. Holdren is Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the Office of the Science and Technology Policy, and Chairman of the U.S. Arctic Executive Steering Committee.

Today, the President is traveling to Alaska to meet with some of the Alaskans who are on the frontlines of climate change, one of the greatest challenges facing our nation. Follow along with the President's trip at WhiteHouse.gov/Alaska.

“The state’s God-given natural treasures are all at risk.”

President Obama

But just how did this treasure trove of national resources and beauty become a part of our union? While the President is en route, let's do a quick historical recap. 

March 30, 1867
 

Secretary of State William H. Seward signed a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska for $7.2 million. Despite the bargain deal (roughly two cents an acre), the purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as “Seward’s folly,” and President Andrew Johnson’s “polar bear garden.” Nevertheless, the Senate ratified the purchase, adding a tremendous landmass (one-fifth the size of the rest of the U.S.) to America.

Despite a slow start in settlement, the discovery of gold in the late 19th century prompted thousands of Americans to migrate to the territory hoping to strike it rich. Alaska, rich in natural resources and beauty, has been contributing to American prosperity ever since.

 

September 14, 1901

From the day of his inauguration, 26th President Theodore Roosevelt was brought into discussions on then-territory Alaska, as disputes over boundary lines ensued through 1902. 

Protecting our lands and wildlife was one of the chief concerns of President “Teddy” Roosevelt. Known as our “Conservationist President,” Roosevelt used his authority to protect wildlife and public lands by creating the U.S. Forest Service and establishing 51 Federal Bird Reservations, 4 National Game Preserves, and 150 National Forests, including the Tongass and the Chugach in Alaska.

Working with longtime friend and famous preservationist John Muir, he also created five National Parks – and added land to Yosemite National Park. 
 

He eventually enabled the 1906 American Antiquities Act, which gave the President authority to restrict the use of particular public lands in America. It gave the President the power to protect “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest” on federal land by designations. President Roosevelt declared Grand Canyon, Devil’s Tower, and many more national monuments during his time in office. 

With this conservation mindset, President Roosevelt knew that Alaska – a land filled with a wealth of natural resources, particularly those being discovered by gold rush enthusiasts – needed to be protected and well-managed. In a speech to the 57th Congress in 1902, President Roosevelt stated the following:

No country has a more valuable possession – in mineral wealth, in fisheries, furs, forests, and also in land available for certain kinds of farming and stock growing. The forests of Alaska should be protected and as a secondary but still important matter, the game also….Laws should be enacted to protect the Alaskan salmon fisheries against the greed which would destroy them.

President Theodore Roosevelt

At his persuasion, Congress passed a series of acts designed to regulate the harvesting of Alaskan wildlife, including the Alaska Game Act, which was strengthened by an act amending the Alaska Game Act in 1908. In 1909, President Roosevelt also first protected the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. 

August 3, 1944

In early August 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) journeyed to Alaska for a six-day inspection and fishing trip, the second President to make the trip north. While in Alaska, FDR made stops at Adak, Kodiak, and Auke Bay, visiting with soldiers as part of a trip across the Pacific during World War II. 

 

January 3, 1959

On this day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a special proclamation admitting the territory of Alaska into the Union as the 49th and largest state.

Learn more about Eisenhower's support for Alaskan statehood. 

August 31, 2015

Today, President Obama becomes the first President to visit America's Arctic, witnessing firsthand the impacts of climate change on this region on the frontlines. The President, along with Secretary of State John Kerry and foreign ministers, will discuss the challenges of how to best manage the future of this region, and the people and natural resources that reside there. 

 

Heading

Throughout our negotiations with Iran, we were clear-eyed about Iran’s status as the world’s foremost state-sponsor of terror, and we resolved not to let the regime off the hook. In fact, from sponsoring terrorist activity to human rights abuses, Iran continues to pursue destabilizing activities in the Middle East region that the U.S. and our allies continue to monitor and address.

So why did the U.S. spend nearly two years negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran? 

It’s a fair question with an important answer: As destabilizing as Iran’s regional activities are, they would be exponentially more dangerous with a nuclear weapon. And now that we’ve taken a nuclear-armed Iran off the table, we can ratchet up the pressure on its destabilizing activities—including its support for terrorism.

We are committed to countering Iran’s actions that threaten our national security interests and those of our allies, especially Israel. Here's how: 

Strengthening the Defense and Security of Israel:

The United States and Israel have forged a deep and enduring bond since the United States became the first country to recognize Israel in 1948. The close engagement—at all levels—between the two countries reflects how our histories, interests, and values are so deeply intertwined between our two peoples. President Obama knows that Israel’s national security is paramount and that is why, under his leadership, the United States has provided an unprecedented level of support to Israel since he took office. 

Under President Obama, we are helping Israel address new and complex security threats to ensure Israel maintains its Qualitative Military Edge (QME), or its ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat through superior military capability and means. Here’s what that looks like:

 

Intensifying Security Cooperation with Gulf States:

For the past 70 years, the United States has maintained a core national security interest in the security and the stability of our allies in the Gulf region – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain. We’ve long cooperated on confronting the extraordinary challenges posed by ISIL, al Qaeda, the Assad regime’s war in Syria, and Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region. 

As President Obama has said, we will continue to maintain a strong force posture in the region to deter aggression; bolster the security of our regional friends and allies; ensure the freedom of navigation of international waterways and the free flow of energy to world markets; and address nefarious actors that seek to sow the seeds of instability. Here’s what that looks like: 

In this week's address, the President spoke about his upcoming trip to Alaska, during which he will view the effects of climate change firsthand. Alaskans are already living with the impact of climate change, with glaciers melting faster, and temperatures projected to rise between six and twelve degrees by the end of the century. In his address, the President spoke to ways in which we can address these challenges, including the transition away from fossil fuels to more renewable energy sources like wind and solar, an effort in which America is already leading.

And he stressed that while our economy still has to rely on oil and gas during that transition, we should rely more on domestic production than importing from foreign counties who do not have the same environmental or safety standards as the United States. The President looked forward to his upcoming trip, and promised that while he is in office, America will lead the world to meet the threat of climate change before it’s too late.

Transcript | mp4 | mp3

On June 24, 2015, President Obama approved Presidential Policy Directive 30, U.S. Nationals Taken Hostage Abroad and Personnel Recovery Efforts, and signed an Executive Order on the recovery of U.S. hostages taken abroad. These steps directed key organizational changes to ensure that the U.S. Government is doing all it can to safely recover Americans taken hostage overseas and is responsive to the needs of their families. Among the changes the President announced was the need to enhance our focus on diplomatic efforts to ensure the safe return of American hostages to their families.

In signing the Executive Order, the President outlined our whole of government approach to hostage recovery and announced that a new Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs would engage at the highest levels of foreign governments to secure the safe return of U.S. hostages. Today, the President has appointed Jim O’Brien to serve as the first Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. In this role, Mr. O’Brien will report to the Secretary of State and will work closely with the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell also established under the Executive Order and the rest of the U.S. Government to synchronize diplomatic efforts in support of comprehensive strategies to bring home American hostages. He will also work directly with the families of hostages as part of the U.S. Government team dedicated to securing the safe return of their loved ones.

Mr. O’Brien is uniquely qualified to serve in this position given his extensive background in diplomacy and international negotiations.  He brings years of diplomatic experience having served as the Special Presidential Envoy for the Balkans, Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and Principal Deputy Director of Policy Planning at the Department of State. As Secretary of State John Kerry has said, “Jim is exactly the right person for a job that demands a high level of diplomatic experience and the ability to analyze and find effective remedies to complex problems.”

The appointment of Jim O’Brien is an important milestone in the President’s enhancements of the United States’ response to hostage events and to implement the findings and recommendations of the review ordered by the President.

Lisa Monaco is the President's Advisor on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

In September 2009, the President announced that — for the first time in history — White House visitor records would be made available to the public on an ongoing basis. Today, the White House releases visitor records that were generated in May 2015. This release brings the total number of records made public by this White House to more than 4.75 million — all of which can be viewed in our Disclosures section.

This blog post will be updated throughout the day as the President travels to New Orleans to meet with the Mayor and residents who have rebuilt their lives since the storm. Stay tuned here for updates on the trip and to watch his remarks at 4:55 p.m. EDT.

Today's Schedule:

EDT

10:45AM        The President departs the White House en route to Joint Base Andrews
11:00AM        The President departs Joint Base Andrews en route to New Orleans, Louisiana

CDT

12:20PM         The President arrives in New Orleans, Louisiana
12:45PM         The President meets with residents and youth, New Orleans, Louisiana
2:55PM           The President participates in a resilience roundtable, Andrew P. Sanchez Community Center, New Orleans, LA
3:55PM           The President delivers remarks, Andrew P. Sanchez Community Center, New Orleans, LA
5:00PM           The President departs New Orleans en route to Washington, DC

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Since taking office, President Obama has made it a key priority to continue and expedite the recovery and rebuilding efforts since Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, by:

• Supporting the needs of survivors
• Bolstering the recovery efforts already underway by state, local, and federal officials by cutting red tape to deploy important resources quickly
• Investing in hard-hit communities
• Ensuring that affected communities build back stronger and more resilient
• The President has directed his Administration to take an all-of-nation approach — to work closely with and support the work of all of our partners, including state and local governments, tribal and volunteer organizations, the private sector, and families

10 years after Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf Coast is building back stronger and more resilient:

98% of families displaced by Katrina are back in their homes.

We've provided more than $5.2 billion since 2009 for rebuilding schools, hospitals, roads, police and fire stations, and historic museums and buildings.

Read more on the Administration's post-Katrina recovery efforts.

See what community-building programs are already at work in your area with this interactive map.

Share how you’ve seen these programs at work in your community. If you’ve got a photo, share that with us, too.

More on Resilience Planning

President Obama is making the biggest commitment in American history to reduce carbon emissions and slow the impacts of climate change.

Real GDP growth in the second quarter was revised markedly upward, as consumers spent more and businesses invested more than previously estimated. The economy grew at a much faster pace in the second quarter than in the first, with strong personal consumption leading the rebound. To continue these strong underlying trends, the President is committed to: pushing Congress to increase investments in infrastructure as part of a long-term transportation reauthorization; opening our exports to new markets with new high-standards free trade agreements; and ensuring that neither fiscal brinksmanship nor the sequester returns in the next fiscal year, as outlined in the President’s FY2016 Budget.

FIVE KEY POINTS IN TODAY'S REPORT FROM THE BUREAU OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS (BEA)

1. Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose 3.7 percent at an annual rate in the second quarter according to the BEA’s latest estimate, well above the first quarter’s 0.6 percent pace and the BEA’s initial second-quarter estimate of 2.3 percent growth. In the second quarter, the increase in GDP growth was led by a faster pace of personal consumption growth than in the first quarter and a shift from negative to positive net export growth. Structures investment, which declined sharply in the first quarter and was previously thought to have declined in the second, is now estimated to have grown. Overall, real GDP has now risen 2.7 percent over the past four quarters. Gross Domestic Output (GDO)—an alternative gauge of economic output that is potentially more accurate (though not predictably stronger or weaker) over the long term, which BEA calls “the average of GDP and Gross Domestic Income (GDI)”—has risen 2.5 percent over the past four quarters.

2. The 1.4 percentage point upward revision to real second-quarter GDP was spread across many components of economic output. Business fixed investment accounted for a little more than a third of the overall revision, as investment in structures, equipment, and intellectual property were all higher than previously estimated. Indeed, business investment—weighed down by reduced oil-related investment in the wake of oil price declines and previously thought to have fallen—is now estimated to have grown in the second quarter. State and local government purchases also accounted for 0.3 percentage point of the overall revision, as did inventory investment. Personal consumption, net exports, and federal government spending also each saw small positive upward revisions. Notably, this was an especially broad-based revision without any downward revisions in major components of GDP.

3. Initial estimates of Gross Domestic Output (GDO) growth over the long term tend to predict subsequent revisions to GDP growth. GDO is the Council of Economic Advisers’ term for the average of GDP and Gross Domestic Income (GDI)—two measures that should conceptually be identical but differ due to measurement error. While not systematically stronger or weaker than GDP over time, GDO can provide a more accurate picture of economic output, in part because independent errors to GDP and GDI tend partially to cancel out when the two are added. In addition, early GDO estimates appear to provide information about the extent to which GDP will eventually be revised. When GDO is estimated to grow faster than GDP, GDP tends to be revised up, and vice versa. The chart below shows the association between revisions to GDP growth incorporating all annual revisions to date (the “years later” measure) and the gap between initially estimated GDP and GDO. Of course—as with virtually all economic data when there are noisy statistics—it is important to focus on longer-term trends. Our analysis here is based on four-quarter growth rates of GDP and GDO, and we caution against focusing too much on the quarterly gap.

4. A slowdown in business investment during the recovery has been led by oil-driven declines in structures and equipment spending, while intellectual property investment — including research and development—has accelerated throughout the recovery. Structures and equipment investment grew markedly more slowly over the first half of 2015 than they had earlier in the recovery, largely reflecting reduced oil investment in the low-price environment. These components have restrained overall business investment growth. But at the same time, investment in intellectual property, which chiefly comprises research and development and software, has grown progressively faster. In fact, research and development investment has grown 7.9 percent over the past four quarters, the fastest pace since 2007 and three times faster than overall economic growth. The acceleration in overall IP spending has been relatively steady throughout the recovery, while equipment and structures investment have introduced considerable volatility. Many economists view IP investment — and research and development in particular—as an important source of productivity growth.

5. Real private domestic final purchases (PDFP)—the sum of consumption and fixed investment—rose 3.3 percent at an annual rate in the second quarter, and is growing at a faster year-over-year pace than overall GDP. Real PDFP—which excludes noisy components like net exports, inventories, and government spending—is generally a more reliable measure of next-quarter GDP growth than current GDP. While GDO aims to measure output growth more accurately in a given quarter by reducing measurement error, PDFP aims to measure signals of future economic growth by eliminating some of the noise in GDP. Over the past four quarters, PDFP grew by 3.4 percent, a faster rate than overall GDP growth. In analogy to the relationship between GDP and PDFP, the sum of wages and corporate profits is an especially important component of Gross Domestic Income (GDI), the income-side output measure that is combined with GDP to produce GDO. In fact, while PDFP tends to predict next-quarter GDP especially well, wages and profits tend to predict GDP over the next four quarters especially well—despite being more volatile than PDFP. Real wages and profits have grown 2.6 percent over the past four quarters, roughly in line with current trends in GDP and GDO.

As the Administration stresses every quarter, GDP figures can be volatile and are subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one single report, and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.