The test of a scientific claim is whether it is an accurate tool for prediction. Climate scientists have predicted extended droughts and rain in unprecedented deluges.

California’s catastrophic three-year drought has been interrupted. The area around the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam north of Sacramento, which normally gets 50 inches of rain a year, saw 68 inches in the first 40 days of 2017. Some 188,000 residents were under an evacuation order for three days in February, and the spillway of the dam was damaged by a torrential overflow [“Clearing dam’s damaged spillway,” News, Feb. 27].

The billions of dollars in crop losses from California’s drought will bring higher food and federal crop insurance costs. If homes had been lost, that could affect taxes through federal disaster relief.

Who pays these costs? Exxon Mobil? No. People living in 20,000-square-foot houses and driving Maseratis? No. You and me? Bingo!

Members of Congress probably know this, but our Long Island representatives haven’t introduced legislation designed to cut these costs.

Don Matheson, East Hampton