The Week in Climate Hearings: When Republicans Attack

After a freak fossil-fueled tornado struck freakishly warm Wisconsin on Friday, the U.S. Senate pressed forward this weekend to approve a $95.3 billion military-aid bill—$61 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, and a rounding-error $5 billion for Taiwan—cutting into its planned two-week break. The senators met yesterday—on Super Bowl Sunday, horrors—to vote 67-27 to limit debate on the legislative package, setting up a final vote this week. Notably, the bill forbids any support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, the main aid group in Gaza, which also operates in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

After that, the U.S. Senate is hoping to go on holiday, though the mega-storm sweeping up the coast may interrupt their flights. When the senators return on February 23rd, there will be only a week left to put together a spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown on March 1st.

The House of Representatives, under the putative leadership of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La., no relation) is in session this week. Don’t fret—Republicans have a full-throttle extractive-industry week planned, with attacks on environmental protections and clean technology. Burn baby burn!

Tuesday, February 13

At 4 pm, the House Rules Committee will set the floor debate rules for the Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act of 2024, a provision to limit restrictions on liquefied natural gas imports Republicans have been trying to pass all session, given new legs by President Joe Biden’s limited pause on new LNG export construction.

Wednesday, February 14

At 2 pm in the afternoon, the Rural Climate Partnership, a new grantmaking organization backed by the Wallace Global Fund, McKnight Foundation, and Stolte Family Foundation, is hosting a webinar on new communications research on rural renewable energy siting, which is a hotly contentious issue, with local communities trying to ban solar and wind farms across the nation.

In the House, Republicans are going after environmental policies on multiple fronts:

• At 10 am, the Small Business Committee has a hearing on how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is destroying small business, particularly Texas oil and gas drillers.

• At 10:30 am, Energy and Commerce has a hearing with state utility regulators on grid reliability, with Republican officials from Indiana and Arizona complaining about being forced to shut down coal plants.

• Most importantly, at 10:15 am, the Natural Resources wildlife subcommittee holds a legislative hearing on bills to weaken protections for endangered species and against illegal logging on behalf of the timber industry. Logging and wood products executives will testify in favor of Rep. Pete Stauber’s (R-Minn.) Endangered Species Act Flexibility Act (H.R. 6784), written in particular to allow logging of the endangered Northern Long-Eared Bat’s habitat; and the so-called Strengthen Wood Product Supply Chains Act (H.R. 7157), cosponsored by Reps. John Duarte (R-Calif.) and Jim Costa (D-Calif.), which would severely curtail Lacey Act restrictions on importing illegal timber or wildlife. Alexander von Bismark, executive director of the Environmental Investigation Agency, will testify on the importance of not destroying complex ecosystems.

Also at 10 am, Agriculture holds a hearing with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Budget holds a hearing with Congressional Budget Office director Phill Swagel, and Transportation’s emergency management subcommittee interrogates FEMA head Deanne Criswell about the propriety of FEMA being engaged with emergency management other than climate disasters, such as the Covid and border crises, and supporting the resettlement of Afghan refugees.

Thursday, February 15

The monthly open meeting of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, now dominated by a pro-fracking majority, begins at 1 pm, and will be held at Howard University School of Law. Among the agenda items is the Saguaro Connector Pipeline, intended to carry nearly 3 billion cubic feet of natural gas from Texas’s Permian Basin across the Mexican border for export across the Pacific.

In the House, Republicans are going after environmental policies on multiple fronts:

• At 10 am, the Homeland Security subcommittee chaired by Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) will investigate the fire threat of lithium-ion batteries, instead of, say, the fire threat of gasoline, natural gas, oil, and other combustible fossil fuels.

• At 2 pm, the Natural Resources oversight subcommittee attacks the Biden administration’s land management policies, which incorporate environmental considerations into land use decisions through natural capital accounting. Republicans are aghast that the Biden administration wants to “fight the climate crisis, build a strong and sustainable economy, and advance economic equity.” The witness is Bureau of Land Management advisor Henry Wykowski, a former staffer for Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.).

• The primary anti-environmental hearing of the day is the Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee’s 10:30 am hearing about constraining EPA’s ability to regulate soot pollution with new legislation that would completely gut the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, in response to the EPA’s long-awaited strengthening of soot standards last week.

Also, the Science Committee hosts top federal science officials for a hearing on securing the U.S. science and technology enterprise at 10 am, and Foreign Affairs discusses the Russian nuclear energy sector at 2 pm.