Sen. Angus King gave Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, a proper grilling at a recent Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. The thrust of his questioning: the DNI’s abrupt and absurd reversal on the practice of detailing the real and present security threat posed by climate change.

“Every single one of these reports that we have had has mentioned global climate change as a significant national security threat, except this one,” King said, referencing the annual U.S. threat assessment, which has referenced climate change in some capacity since the 2008 edition, which found that “climate change will have wide-ranging implications for U.S. national security interests over the next 20 years.”

This 2008 assessment was not compiled by environmentalists or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or any of the usual punching bags for climate deniers. It was compiled by the nation’s top intelligence officers, officials serving in the administration of President George W. Bush.

“Has something happened?” King posed to Gabbard. “Has global climate change been solved?”

Obviously, global climate change was not kept out of the assessment because it’s been solved — and the senator is right to be incensed by the arbitrary, politics-driven omission. Ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away. Climate change, in particular, is a threat multiplier, one that can exacerbate already devastating conditions with the potential to upend U.S. safety and security — and not just in faraway places.

The threats are very present in the U.S. — and have been for decades.

Back in 1991, Republican President George H.W. Bush warned that naval operations could be “drastically impacted” by climate change. Today, we are seeing evidence of this at some of the most iconic U.S. military institutions. The sea level at the U.S. Naval Academy is 1 foot higher now than in 1929 and expected to increase another foot by 2065. A $37 million seawall was recently finished to help keep out the rising tides that flood the area 30 to 40 times a year. But the cost of the Naval Academy seawall is peanuts compared to the $2.6 billion infrastructure project needed to protect Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, the largest naval base in the world. “The alternative is to wait for the hurricane to hit us and then billions of dollars to get dumped in the community to fix it. That’s the old model,” said Kyle Spencer, Norfolk’s chief resilience officer. “The new model is trying to get it done pre-disaster.”

Likewise, here in Maine, Russ Gagner, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard’s (PNSY) director of the infrastructure optimization program, notes that “Climate readiness equals mission readiness …They’re not two separate items.” Climate impacts at PNSY include not only loss of land from sea level rise but damage to military infrastructure and equipment.

Infrastructure isn’t all that is at risk. Demand for military resources is on the rise. This isn’t an issue easily solved by the administration’s bend toward isolationism; the call is coming from in the house, with the National Guard more and more frequently being called upon to fight wildfires and distribute much-needed aid after devastating hurricanes. Resource scarcity makes unstable areas of the world even more volatile, and climate-induced conditions will affect 143 million people in the Global South by 2050, leading to both voluntary and forced migration.

Gabbard insists she is focused on “direct threats to Americans’ safety, well-being and security.” Yet the threats are real. The threats are direct. They are costly. And it is critical that we take them seriously. Maine is fortunate to have a senator on the Intelligence Committee who understands precisely what is at stake.