On Friday, a congressionally mandated government report said that climate change will cost the US economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century, ranging across numerous sectors including health care and infrastructure.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says those three 2017 storms caused at least $265 billion in damage.

President Trump on Monday dismissed one of the major conclusions of his own administration's comprehensive report on climate change.

'I've seen it, I've read some of it, and it's fine, ' he added.

The analysis is an annual assessment mandated by Congress, and was compiled by government scientists.

The report noted the last few years have smashed U.S. records for damaging weather, costing almost 400 billion dollars (£312 billion) since 2015. In mid-2017, the US withdrew from the Paris climate change accord, the only country to have approved the historic accord then withdraw from it. Related: Could Oil Prices Fall To $40? In the meantime, the US is still attending worldwide climate negotiations, but at next week's critical UN COP24 Summit in Poland US officials are set to focus on promoting "clean coal" to developing nations.

"You're going to have to have China and Japan and all of Asia and all these other countries, you know, it [the report] addresses our country", he said.

He also seemed to push the blame to other nations, saying the United States is 'the cleanest we've ever been'.

'Right now we're the cleanest'.

"All the proposals I've seen so far that would address any of these issues would devastate the USA economy and have little or no benefit that is demonstrable from our standpoint", Lee said.

"So I want clean air, I want clean water, very important".

Many have raised concerns that the current administration does not take a fact-based evaluation of climate change data.

"The potential for losses in some sectors could reach hundreds of billions of dollars per year by the end of this century", the report said. Experts widely agree that man-made climate change and hotter temperatures have severely exacerbated California's years-long drought, leaving a whopping 129 million dead trees and dry brush that serve as kindling for each new spark.

All of which brings me to last Friday - 48 hours after Trump's how-can-the-world's-climate-be-changing-if-it's-cold-in-half-the-country-on-one-day tweet - and the moved-up release of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. Ben Sasse told "Fox News Sunday" the USA needs to "innovate our way into the future".

Previous research, including from USA government scientists, has also concluded that climate change could have severe economic consequences, including damage to infrastructure, water supplies and agriculture.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the newly elected USA congresswoman who's already pushing for better and more aggressive climate action, was among Democratic leaders demanding action in the wake of the report's release. So how serious is climate change's affect on the economy?

Scientists who worked on the report said it did not appear that administration officials had tried to alter or suppress its findings. "It's a moral imperative", said Hillary Clinton in a statement Monday.