Guess who tremendously impressed oil execs?

PRESENTED BY MARMOTA MONAX

I’VE GOT YOU, BABE: The Guardian’s Peter Stone has the scoop that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) last month “flew into Houston, Texas, for a fundraiser that drew dozens of fossil fuel chieftains, including Continental Resources chairman Harold Hamm and ConocoPhillips chief executive Ryan Lance.”

So I’m thinking she might be a hard vote to get on meaningful climate legislation.

The shindig was held on January 18th, a day before Sinema flew back to the Capital to kill voting rights legislation. She spoke at the River Oaks Country Club, which is today celebrating the 25th anniversary of allowing in its first black member, oil industry lawyer Rufus Cormier, after 73 years of being only for whites.

DO YOU HAVE LIFE INSURANCE? As mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter, House Democrats, including the No-Labels wing, are banding together to urge the passage of climate legislation stymied by No-Labels Democrats. Here’s a letter to Biden from Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) and 22 other representatives in vulnerable districts, including BBB opponents Josh Gottheimer, Kurt Schrader, and Abigail Spanberger, calling for passage of the Build Back Better climate provisions, noting:

For his part, Joe Manchin told reporters that Build Back Better is “dead,” but a smaller deal on climate and energy is still possible: “we believe that that basically, yes, we can do something and hopefully we do something very balanced,” and by that he means more investment in fossil fuels: “we need reliability in energy, and that means building pipelines, but we're having a very difficult time.”

E&E News’ Scott Waldman has a great dive into how Manchin has used his political power for years to protect the waste-coal company he founded in 1988.

So I’m thinking he might be a hard vote to get on meaningful climate legislation.

Every day, resembling the last, incrementally warmed.

Abigail Knauff has joined the Commodities Futures Trading Commission as Special Counsel and deputy of the CFTC’s Climate Risk Unit, which was established in March “to support the agency’s mission by focusing on the role of derivatives in understanding, pricing, and addressing climate-related risk and transitioning to a low-carbon economy.”

YEAH, SPORT, I KNOW THERE’S A BLIZZARD: Winter is coming, again, with a foot of snow coming to Illinois and Indiana and ice storms to Texas before reaching the Northeast tomorrow. Louisiana’s Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards’ Climate Initiatives Task Force has submitted a plan for net zero greenhouse pollution by 2050, real progress in the oil-dominated state. Georgia Power is planning to shut down all of its coal plants by 2035. Brown University faculty voted to block the Koch machine. Big Ag is killing everything. Arizonans with solar rooftops won a ruling in their suit against the utility SRP for charging them extra.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: House Agriculture
  Conservation and Forestry
  A 2022 Review of Farm Bill Conservation Programs

• 10 AM: Senate Environment and Public Works
  Legislative Proposals to Improve Domestic Recycling and Composting Programs

• 1:30 PM: House Climate Crisis
  Manufacturing a Clean Energy Future: Climate Solutions Made in America

When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. Tomorrow will be different from today, through the actions we take together. —@climatebrad

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