Today’s top opinion: Wrap-up [VIMS]

• The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), an affiliate of the College of William and Mary, meets a core state need. It promotes the health of the commonwealth’s waters and their impact on its shores. As Michael Martz reported this week, the institute has been studying the consequences of rising sea levels, which are affecting Virginia’s coastal communities. Declining budgets may damage the institute’s efforts to address the challenge of higher floods and tides.

• Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine is leading a charge to defend the VIMS from cuts caused by the federal sequestration. The Navy’s installations in Hampton Roads mean that the issue has implications for national security. Kaine’s position on the Armed Services Committee gives him clout. We wish him well.

• This summer Kaine sponsored a conference at Old Dominion University that discussed rising sea levels. The participants included members of both parties. Washington itself would benefit from similar bipartisanship. Martz’s story reported that only Democrats attend a weekly congressional climate change roundtable. Republicans decline to participate. If Republicans want to influence the debate beyond saying no to everything, they ought to join a robust discussion. They should be free to challenge conventional wisdom, but their absence suggests the closed minds that seem to afflict the party’s base.

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