Deny this regime your compliance

PRESENTED BY CHEX QUEST

Before anything else, let’s start with today’s POLITICO Playbook:

Oops, that was from Today in Tabs by Rusty Foster. My bad.

I’ll get to the regime (TL;DR: it’s Nazism), but here’s some good news first. Via Jim Morrison, the Virginia General Assembly has a flood of bills for dealing with the growing climate crisis, including:

• Senate Bill 1123 by Sen. Jennifer Boysko (D-Fairfax County), to “establish the Extreme Weather Relief Program administered by the Department of Conservation and Recreation which would hold fossil fuel companies liable to pay for relief projects stemming from extreme weather”

• House Bill 1949 by Del. Phil Hernandez (D-Norfolk), and House Bill HJ 434 by Del. Michael Feggans (D-Virginia Beach), to “create a methodology and criteria for state contributions to the local share of federal coastal storm risk management projects”

• House Bill 2030 by Del. Bonita D. Anthony (D-Norfolk), to “establish an Environmental Justice Task Force including representatives from numerous state agencies ranging from housing to health to conservation”

• House Bill 2034 by Del. Shelly Simonds (D-Newport News), to “create a task force to develop a statewide wetlands strategy to restore, create, and plan for their migration as sea level rises”

• House Bills 1950 and 2453, introduced by Hernandez and Del. Keith Hodges, (R-Middlesex), to “create a Living Shoreline Grant Fund for local governments or tribes for the construction, renovation, or improvement of living shorelines greater than 1.5 miles”

• House Bill 2630 by Del. Rodney Willett (D-Tuckahoe), to “allow localities to collect fees from developers who cannot meet tree requirements where a project is sited and use the funds to plant trees”

• House Bill 2638 by Del. Patrick Hope (D-Arlington) to “allow localities to increase tree canopy in developments.”

In DC, local environmental activists are pushing for the passage of the first new plastic bottle deposit bill in 20 years.

And Biden Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland is running for Governor of New Mexico.

I love seeing wonks roam free in their natural habitat. We need to do more to protect them. Contribute today.

Okay, I can’t stall any longer, here’s the regime. Trump’s illegal government freeze was blocked by a federal judge, but widespread damage was already done as dozens of agencies rushed to turn off services and grants yesterday, including the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy.

Galvanized against Trump’s brazen action to disregard Congress’s Constitutional appropriations authority, the U.S. Senate barely confirmed bigot and climate denier Sean Duffy as Secretary of Transportation by an overwhelming, bipartisan vote of 77-22. Confirmation hearings for anti-government billionaire Howard Lutnick to be Secretary of Commerce and brain-wormed conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services begin at 10 am. Make polio great again!

Technofascist billionaire Elon Musk has sent in his lackeys to take over the formerly obscure United States Office of Personnel Management, the centralized human resources services agency for federal employees. The OPM, whose director is supposed to be confirmed by the Senate, has had an acting director since May 2024; Trump (or more likely, Musk) installed OPM’s data chief Charles Ezell as the acting (figure)head. Musk xAI employee Amanda Scales is now chief of staff, sending out deranged memos.

The OPM is churning out memos secretly written by Project 2025 conspirators like white-nationalist lawyer Noah Peters, who penned the return-to-office memo, and fed-firing James Sherk, who wrote the Schedule F memo.

Musk dropped by OPM offices on Friday to see how his operation to fuck over the federal government is going. I’ve gotten reports that everyone laughed at his jokes, because they were so funny.

Meanwhile, polluting industry is taking over the Environmental Protection Agency. The list includes pro-mesothelioma lawyer David Fotouhi as deputy administrator (to be confirmed); American Chemistry Council (ACC), American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) and American Petroleum Institute (API) lobbyist Aaaron Szabo as senior advisor; in the Office of Air and Radiation, Americans for Prosperity operative and Marathon Petroleum Corporation and AFPM lobbyist Abigale Tardif as principal deputy assistant administrator and API lobbyist Alex Dominguez as deputy assistant administrator for mobile sources (aka tailpipe pollution); ACC executive Nancy Beck as senior advisor for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention; and DuPont scientist Lynn Ann Dekleva as deputy assistant administrator for new chemicals.

Charles Koch’s network launches $20 million campaign backing Trump tax breaks. Did you notice “Americans for Prosperity” in the preceding paragraph? That’s them!

“Load growth is good,” claims Google’s Caroline Golin, an economist on Team Fracking For Universal Paperclips (Presented by Chevron), which is having a sad because of a cheap Chinese knockoff.

Extinction Rebellion’s Roger Hallam is a political prisoner. Somerset is flooding. The Mafia is profiting from wildfire. Republicans like lead pipes.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
  Nomination of Billionaire Howard Lutnick to be Secretary of Commerce

• 10 AM: Senate Finance Committee
  Nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services

DNC Action Today:

• 6 PM: Democratic National Committee
  DNC Winter Meeting Opening Reception

Thanks for being part of my nietzche audience. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@[email protected] and @climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky.