Cat Bonds and Budget Battles

PRESENTED BY RUDDY TURNSTONE

Some “cat bonds” are the relationships people form with their feline friends. Other “cat bonds” are catastrophe bonds, securities used by insurance companies to offload climate-disaster risk to the capital markets, a role traditionally held by re-insurers like Swiss Re. Catastrophe modelers like Karen Clark & Co. and Verisk Analytics are investing in cutting-edge climate models. Specialist investors, like Elementum Advisors, Fermat Capital Management, Twelve Capital, and Tenax Capital, are trying to build better climate models than their competitors to win big. As Gautam Naik reports, the industry is discovering that as fossil-fueled global warming accelerates, climate disasters are growing faster than their models are predicting, particularly wildfires and thunderstorms.

Speaking of which, thousands of Canadians are having to evacuate as wildfires spread with unprecedented speed through tar-sands country, choking the Midwest with smoke. Fossil-fueled storms ripped through the Gulf Coast with 82-mph winds, killing at least four, as record heat grips south Florida. Torrential rains are flooding Hawaii. Fourteen people were killed when a storm toppled a giant billboard in Mumbai. More storms are on the way.

PRIMARY COLORS: It’s the hottest primary season in 2,000 years. In the Maryland primary to succeed Sen. Ben Cardin, PG County Executive Angela Alsobrooks trounced millionaire Rep. David Trone, whose bid to buy the seat was unsuccessful. She will face former Gov. Larry Hogan in a costly general race. Trone’s seat will go to former Rep. John Delaney’s wife April McClain Delaney, who won that primary. And the AIPAC-backed State Sen. Sarah Elfreth beat former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn in the primary for the seat being vacated by Rep. John Sarbanes.

AIPAC money is flooding into several other key Democratic primaries, regularly backing the opponents of Green New Dealers and climate hawks. Green New Deal champion Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) is under an AIPAC barrage in favor of his opponent George Latimer. AIPAC funds are being funneled secretly to Maxine Dexter, the opponent of progressive climate hawk Susheela Jayapal in the race to succeed Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.).

In another Oregon primary race, it’s mostly local corruption—the cabal that pushed the failed Jordan Cove pipeline and LNG export terminal, including former Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-Ore.), now a corporate lobbyist, and former state Rep. Brian Clem (D-Ore.), a businessman—are financing a nasty campaign against climate hawk Doyle Canning.

At 10 am, Senate Budget chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) holds his latest climate risk hearing on national security, with the evocative title “Budgeting for the Storm.” The witnesses are former Navy vice admiral and climate official Dennis McGinn, former Navy oceanographer and rear admiral Tim Gallaudet, Center for Climate and Security’s Erin Sikorsky, and Hampton Roads official Rick Dwyer. The Republican witness is the American Enterprise Institute’s Mackenzie Eaglen.

As the United States finances multi-billion-dollar wars in Ukraine and Israel, both with profound implications for global energy politics and international diplomacy, and directs its trillion-dollar war machine towards confrontation with China while ratcheting up clean-energy tariffs, this hearing could not be more timely.

Wednesday also features numerous fiscal-year 2025 budget hearings, in which members will discuss agency priorities with administration officials:

• Sen. Angus King (I-Me.) chairs an Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee hearing on the National Park Service budget with NPS planning director Michael Caldwell at 10 am;

• Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) chairs an Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation budget with Army Corps officials Michael Connor and Scott Spellmon and Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton at 10 am;

• Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) chairs an Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency budget with administrator Michael Regan at 10 am;

• Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisc.) chairs a Natural Resources subcommittee hearing on the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service budgets at 10:15 am;

• Rep. John James (R-Mich.) chairs a Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on the $7.9 billion state and foreign operations budget for Africa with State official Molly Phee and USAID official Monde Muyangwa at 2 pm;

• Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) chairs an Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, Export-Import Bank of the United States, and Millennium Challenge Corporation with heads Scott Nathan, Reta Jo Lewis, and Alice Albright at 2 pm;

• Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) chairs an Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the $11.4 billion Department of Commerce budget, including $6.6 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with Secretary Gina Raimondo at 2:30 pm; and

• Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) chairs a Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on the Transportation Security Administration budget, which includes pipeline safety, with administrator David Pekoske, also at 2:30 pm.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: Senate Energy and Natural Resources
  National Parks
  President’s Budget Request for the National Park Service for Fiscal Year 2025 and Pending Legislation

• 10 AM: House Energy and Commerce
  Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials
  The Fiscal Year 2025 Environmental Protection Agency Budget

• 10 AM: Senate Budget
  Budgeting for the Storm: Climate Change and the Costs to National Security

• 10 AM: Senate Appropriations
  Energy and Water Development
  A Review of the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation

• 10:15 AM: House Natural Resources
  Federal Lands
  Examining the President’s FY 2025 Budget Request for the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service

• 2 PM: House Foreign Affairs
  Africa
  Examining the Fiscal Year 2025 State and Foreign Operations Budget Request for Africa

• 2 PM: Senate Appropriations
  State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
  Examining the Roles of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, Export-Import Bank of the United States, and Millennium Challenge Corporation

• 2:30 PM: Senate Appropriations
  Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies
  A Review of the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request for the Department of Commerce

• 2:30 PM: House Homeland Security
  Transportation & Maritime Security
  An Examination of the Transportation Security Administration’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@[email protected], @climatebrad on Threads, and @climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky.

Upgrading to a paid subscription would be a purr-fect way to start the day: