• Hill Heat
  • Posts
  • Let's not pass judgment on plutocrats

Let's not pass judgment on plutocrats

Environmental justice, 100% Clean Power, boundary waters, and heat pumps

Author

Brad Johnson
May 24, 2022

PRESENTED BY DEFENSIVE BEAVERS

It’s Justice40 Week!1 The White House has released its response to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, a group of environmental justice leaders who did not pull any punches in their recommendations. The White House is willing to sort-of-try to support environmental justice, which to be fair, is a lot more than previous administrations have done.

Green New Dealers on the ballot today include Vincent Fort, running against the worrisome Rep. David Scott in Georgia’s 13th, and Jessica Cisneros, in a run-off against the execrable Rep. Henry Cuellar in Texas’s 28th.

Effectively Our President Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) is in Davos, Switzerland right now, talking up oil and gas. White House climate envoy John Kerry made some unconvincing remarks. Meanwhile, at an Evergreen Action event, Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said she is “very optimistic” Manchin (and Kyrsten Sinema) will come to a deal for an energy tax credit package, now whittled down to $325 billion from $600 billion in November.

Speaking of Evergreen Action, it looks like our premier climate lobbying team—while not officially admitting reconciliation defeat—is moving on. They’ve launched a new campaign, 100% Clean Power, which presses the Biden administration—particularly the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Energy Regulatory Administration, and Department of Energy—to take executive action for climate and the environment.2 The new site offers a tool for people to submit public comments to thank fulsomely EPA Administrator Michael Regan for the proposed “good neighbor” rule establishing a smog-pollution cap-and-trade system for manufacturers and fracked-gas pipelines. So not the most aggressive climate campaign I’ve ever seen, but it’s a step in the right direction!

Politico: We’re Objectively Bad People!

Now you can get your daily fossil-fuel propaganda as a podcast!

Busy Beavers

Members of Congress are discussing their budgetary priorities for fiscal year 2023 for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education this morning. At noon, the House Climate Crisis Committee holds a hearing on building an affordable and resilient food supply chain, with USDA-WWF-House Agriculture-Audubon’s Melinda Cep, food-waste expert Dana Gunders, San Diego advocate Elly Brown, and rendering-industry lobbist Kent Swisher. In the afternoon, House Natural Resources considers Rep. Betty McCollum’s (D-Minn.) Boundary Waters Wilderness Protection and Pollution Prevention Act, which would protect over 200,000 acres of Minnesota wilderness from sulfide-ore copper mining.

Alexander Kaufman has the details on a major new heat-pump bill coming from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

Hearings on the Hill:

Climate Action Today:

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. DMs are open—@climatebrad

1 “Justice40” is the “whole-of-government effort to ensure that Federal agencies work with states and local communities to make good on President Biden’s promise to deliver at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from Federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities.”

2 While EPA, FERC, and DOE are the traditionally understood “environmental” agencies, it’s worth the reminder that the Department of Defense is the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels, the Department of Agriculture oversees a sector responsible for 10 percent of U.S. climate pollution, and the Department of Transportation oversees a sector responsible for 27 percent.

Subscribe to Hill Heat

Climate science, policy, politics, and action

Reply

or to participate.