A special place in hell

PRESENTED BY PICKLE ME ELMO

Congress is reaaally burning the midnight oil for Big Oil. You can smell the fire and brimstone from miles away.

The Big Brutal Bill rules hearing, which began after 1 am this morning, is going through testimony from top members of each of the committees which marked up sections. By 7 am, Oversight & Government Reform (slash federal pensions), Budget, Armed Services (increase military spending by $150 billion), Financial Services (cripple CFPB), Homeland Security (add $70 billion to militarize the border and expand secret police), Judiciary (cripple court authority over Trump), Natural Resources (fire sale for fossil fuels), and Transportation and Infrastructure (kill electric vehicles, public transit, and public infrastructure) had already testified.

The leaders of the Agriculture (take food away from hungry people), Education & Workforce (slash student loans), Energy & Commerce (slash Medicaid and repeal the IRA), and Ways & Means (billionaire and corporate tax cuts) are now testifying.

By increasing the federal deficit by over $1 trillion, the Big Brutal Bill will trigger an automatic $500 billion in cuts to Medicare and even larger across-the-board cuts in other federal programs.

And buried in the BBB are hundreds of other poisonous provisions, like a ban on AI regulation, a federal lands sell-off, and private-school vouchers.

That said, the “manager’s amendment”—the version of the bill that will go to the floor and has unknown changes—hasn’t even been released yet.

This afternoon, the League of Conservation Voters is hosting a rally on the U.S. Capitol steps to stop the clean energy bans and polluter giveaways in the Big Brutal Bill.

In the Senate today, where the feckless Democrats pushed through a bill to eliminate taxes on tips even though John Oliver spent like half an hour explaining why that’s incredibly stupid and dangerous, Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is planning to blow up Senate procedure just to kill off California’s electric cars mandate. “We are not talking about doing anything to erode the institutional character of the Senate,” Thune said yesterday about his plan to erode the institutional character of the Senate.

In theory, today’s vote will allow Democrats to shut down Senate business any time they want by jamming the calendar with Congressional Review Act resolutions, but a) they have a policy of obeisance and compliance, and b) Thune will just change the rules again whenever he wants.

But wait, there’s more!

EPA hatchetman Lee Zeldin testifies before the Senate environmental committee this morning. The Climate Action Campaign is mobilizing people to attend the Zeldin hearing and tell Congress to save the EPA. Figurehead Interior Secretary Doug Burgum testifies before Senate appropriators this morning, and fracker and Energy Secretary Chris Wright testifies before Senate appropriators in the afternoon.

The imperial Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who claims to be above the law, appears before House appropriators today.

Top officials from the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation testify before House appropriators this morning on the plan to cut nearly $2 billion from harbor maintenance, dam safety, and habitat restoration.

The House Oversight committee marks up six anti-regulatory bills, some of which enjoy Democratic co-sponsorship from the likes of Jared Golden of Maine, Don Davis of North Carolina, and Henry Cuellar of Texas. Ranking member Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) died last night. The committee is also taking aim at Washington, D.C., with a bill to strip non-citizens of local voting rights and one to reverse policing reforms. It is likely Speaker Johnson intends to attach them as poison pills to the DC Local Funds Act.

Today’s other legislative hearings include lobbyists testifying on domestic mineral mining, tribal lands legislation, and subsidizing data centers on federal lands, a priority of the Koch-backed “abundance” lobbyists. James Temple describes the destructive data-center boom already ripping up our Southwestern deserts.

Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Committee votes on several bipartisan pieces of legislation, including bills to improve the cybersecurity of the U.S. academic research fleet, to codify the National Water Center housed at the University of Alabama, and to reauthorize the National Landslide Preparedness Act.

The Senate Commerce Committee votes on the David Fink to be Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, David Fogel to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service, Robert Gleason to be Director of the Amtrak Board of Directors, and McKinsey partner Pierre Gentin to be General Counsel of the Department of Commerce. The Agriculture Committee interviews Trump nominees Dudley Hoskins to be Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs and Scott Hutchins to be Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics at U.S.D.A. Both served in the first Trump term.

Struggling National Weather Service employees are still trying to count up all the tornadoes that struck the country this week, including a burst yesterday in Alabama.

Fossil-fueled fires drove record-breaking tropical forest loss in 2024, directly causing 4.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide pollution.

The Department of Interior is opening up deep-sea mining off the shores of American Samoa. The U.S. International Trade Commission voted in favor of shutting down solar-panel imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 1 AM: House Rules Committee
  One Big Brutal Bill Act

• 10 AM: House Energy and Commerce Committee
     Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee
  Critical Mineral Supply Chains

• 10 AM: House Appropriations Committee
     Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Subcommittee
  Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Requests for the Amy Corps of Engineers (Civil Works) and Bureau of Reclamation

• 10 AM: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
  Vote on nominations for FRA, Amtrak, Commerce, and on bipartisan ocean and water research, landslide preparedness, and other bills

• 10 AM: Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Proposed Fiscal Year 2026 Budget

• 10 AM: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
  Markup of Anti-Regulatory Bills, Rollback of DC Police Reform and Voting Rights, and other legislation

• 10 AM: House Natural Resources Committee
     Indian and Insular Affairs Subcommittee
  Tribal Lands Legislation

• 10:30 AM: Senate Appropriations Committee
     Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
  Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request for the Department of the Interior

• 10:30 AM: Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee
  Nominations of Dudley Hoskins to be Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, and Scott Hutchins, to be Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics, both of the Department of Agriculture

• 2 PM: House Appropriations Committee
     National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Subcommittee
  Budget for U.S. Department of State

• 2 PM: House Natural Resources Committee
     Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee
  Subsidizing Data Centers on Federal Lands

• 2:30 PM: Senate Appropriations Committee
     Energy and Water Development Subcommittee
  Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request for the Department of Energy

Climate Action Today:

• 9:30 AM: Climate Action Campaign
  Tell Congress to Save the EPA

• 4 PM: League of Conservation Voters
  Rally at the Capitol: Stop Clean Energy Bans and Polluter Giveaways!

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