No politics...just 😎

PRESENTED BY ICHNOLOGISTS UNDER ATTACK

After Trump resegregated the Joint Chiefs of Staff and fired the military’s judge advocates general, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and 15 other Senate Democrats voted on Monday to advance the nomination of Dan Driscoll, Vice President JD Vance’s Yale Law buddy, to be Secretary of the Army. Heinrich had previously backed several of Trump’s other nominees, including Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, and Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum, all now implementing Trump’s anti-climate slash and burn across the nation’s science and conservation agencies.

Needing to unwind after his regime obeisance, Heinrich, the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, posted “No politics…just 😎”:

Heinrich linked to a New Scientist piece by Michael Le Page about new research on 22,000-year-old footprints and tracks found in White Sands National Park, New Mexico. The ichnologists involved in this very cool work are:

• David Bustos, National Park Service, White Sands National Park. Bustos is a co-author on a climate-change plan for White Sands. Roughly 1000 National Parks employees were illegally fired in the Valentine’s Day Massacre.

• Kathleen Springer and Jeffrey Pigati, U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior. Pigati studies abrupt climate change. Trump and Musk have illegally fired at least 240 people in USGS have been illegally fired, and Trump tried to illegally freeze dozens of USGS initiatives. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, backed by Heinrich and 26 other Democrats, told Fox News “we're completely embracing the DOGE effort.”

• Daniel Odess, University of Alaska Museum of the North. Odess, an archeologist, was a longtime National Park Service chief scientist for cultural resources, responding to oil spills like the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The University of Alaska Fairbanks received a $20 million National Science Foundation grant last year. The University of Alaska regents have directed the elimination of all mentions of “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion.” The University of Alaska also hosts a $11 million Alaska Climate Adaptation Center in collaboration with USGS.

• Thomas M. Urban, Department of Classics and Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory, Cornell University. Cornell is scrambling to respond to Trump’s attacks on science. The university is suing to challenge Trump’s order to radically cut NIH grants.

• Native American archaeologist Edward Jolie, Arizona State Museum and School of Anthropology, University of Arizona. The University of Arizona has deleted its “commitment to diversity and inclusion” and faces potentially devastating research cuts.

• Matthew Bennett, Sally Reynolds, and Hannah Strehlau,  Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Bournemouth University. The Trump administration is taking a “wrecking ball” to international science.

These scientists are also the co-authors of the conference paper “Ancient human footprints in White Sands National Park and their link to abrupt climate change.

On Tuesday morning, Heinrich, Hickenlooper and Bennet of Colorado, Kelly and Gallego of Arizona, Rosen and Cortez Masto of Nevada, Kaine and Warner of Virginia, Hassan and Sheehan of New Hampshire, Durbin of Illinois, Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Klobuchar of Minnesota, Peters of Michigan, and Reed of Rhode Island voted for final confirmation of Dan Driscoll, who is now Secretary of the Army.

I hate criticizing Heinrich, who sometimes cares about climate change and sometimes criticizes Trump and Musk. But recently he’s been making some bad moves.

At 11 am, the House Oversight DOGE subcommittee holds a hearing on hearing on DOGE’s assault on U.S. foreign aid workers, which was given a final go-ahead in an Orwellian ruling by Trump-appointed Judge Carl Nichols on Friday. Unsurprisingly, the Elon Musk claims about USAID—repeated ad nauseam by Republicans—have been found repeatedly to be wildly overstated, false and cartoonishly misleading.

Testimony from American Indian and Alaska Native officials continues today with morning and afternoon sessions.

Project 2025 EPA chapter author and former Trump EPA official Mandy Gunasekara falsely testified before Congress last year that Trump had nothing to do with Project 2025. She’s testifying before Congress again on Wednesday at 9:30 am with climate denier Alex Epstein and Trump “permit reform” expert Alex Herrgott in a House Oversight subcommittee hearing on America’s electricity generation policy. They will call for wiping away any limits on fossil-fueled electricity generation because of AI’s power demands.

At 10 am, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee looks at Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) implementation, and the House Natural Resources wildlife and fisheries subcommittee holds a hearing on the implementation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, all threatened without legislative action by the illegal federal layoffs.

At 10:30 am, the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee examines the Biden Administration’s climate spending in the IIJA and Inflation Reduction Act, with a representative from the office of the inspector general of the Department of Energy and the acting inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency, since the inspectors general were illegally fired.

House GOP decide that meeting their constituents is a bad idea. “Big Balls” on top of the world. South Sudan shuts schools for two weeks after students collapse due to extreme heat. Matt Yglesias is wrong again. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) begs someone to run against him for his unwillingness to oppose Trump consistently. Storms wash 🔥 wreckage onto L.A. beaches. Record heat sweeps over the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, Vietnam, and southern California. Trump announces the next phase of mass illegal federal layoffs. Setting standards for 💩.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 9:30 AM: House Appropriations Committee
     Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
  American Indian and Alaska Native Public Witness Hearing Day 2, Morning Session

• 9:30 AM: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
     Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee
  America's Electricity Generation Policy

• 10 AM: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
  Nomination of Michael Kratsios to Lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Mark Meador to Serve as a Federal Trade Commissioner

• 10 AM: Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
  Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Implementation and Case Studies

• 10 AM: House Natural Resources Committee
     Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee
  Evaluating the Implementation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act

• 10:30 AM: House Energy and Commerce Committee
     Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee
  Examining the Biden Administration’s Climate Initiatives

• 11 AM: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
     Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee
  U.S. Foreign Aid: DOGE vs. USAID

• 1:30 PM: House Appropriations Committee
     Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
  American Indian and Alaska Native Public Witness Hearing Day 2, Afternoon Session

Climate Action Today:

• 11 AM: People’s Action
  Make Polluters Pay

• 6 PM: Free DC
  Online Campaign Orientation

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—@climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky, @[email protected], and climatebrad on LinkedIn.