Sliding into your war-planning chat

PRESENTED BY ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS-HIPPO-DWARF

After Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg published the Trump regime’s Yemen-bombing group chat, Senate Democrats leapt to … help the Senate GOP confirm John Phelan to be Secretary of the Navy by a vote of 62-30.¹  Phelan is a crassly wealthy vulture capitalist whose qualification for the role is being a Trump fundraiser who likes to display pornographic art and look up women’s skirts.

One of Phelan’s supporters was Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who held a press conference last week with Environmental Protection Agency destroyer Lee Zeldin to push for loosening smog pollution standards in Maricopa County. Another was Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who held a hyper-high-dollar retreat with two human eggs, techno-fascist billionaire Marc Andreessen and anti-climate concern troll Matt Yglesias.

Sabrina Imbler is on a tear, interviewing an illegally fired USFWS fish biologist, an illegally fired USFWS field biologist, an illegally fired USDA sugar beet specialist, an illegally fired NOAA budget analyst, and the illegally fired NOAA Ocean Acidification Program Director Sarah Cooley.

The fossil-fueled wildfires in the Carolinas continue to rage, uncontained.

The House of Representatives is packing a week’s worth of hearings into today, as they plan to break for Rep. Raúl Grijalva’s (D-Ariz.) memorial service on Wednesday. They may have floor votes today for two bills overturning energy-efficiency standards for refrigerators and freezers (H.J. Res. 24 and H.J. Res. 75).

Members of Free DC are gathering at Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D-D.C.) office in 2136 Rayburn today to lobby House members for passage of the Local Funds for DC Act (S. 1077), which would patch the $1 billion budget hole left by the continuing resolution Schumer helped pass.

The House Oversight Committee is holding a multi-hour debate of the markup of the DOGE ratification bill H.R. 1295 from Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), DOGE oversight resolutions from Democrats, as well as legislation to force District of Columbia compliance with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement actions. Illegally fired federal workers are in attendance.

The House Transportation Committee is holding a hearing on “reforming” the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with Republican witnesses county manager Jaime Laughter from Helene-hit North Carolina and Florida emergency manager Kevin Guthrie, in the running to be Trump’s pick for the agency.

At 10 am, House Appropriations began its member day for Interior and Environment earmarks, although with the Republican attempt to transfer of appropriations authority from Congress to the White House, this is threatening to become a merely advisory exercise.

The Africa subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee examines mining in Africa from the perspective of competition for mineral resources with China.

At 10:15 am, a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee began a hearing examining the state of regional grid reliability with the chiefs of the nation’s seven regional grid operators, in the latest hearing arguing that electricity generation has to be deregulated to keep up with future demand from AI data centers.

Meanwhile, the House Natural Resources water, wildlife and fisheries subcommittee takes testimony on bills to rename the Gulf of Mexico, delist gray wolves, and weaken the Endangered Species Act. Witnesses include wolf delisting advocate Nathan Roberts, climate denier Mauricio Guardado, oil lobbyist Erik Milito, and Democratic witness Peter Kareiva, of the Aquarium of the Pacific.

There are also hearings on privatizing veterans’ mental health care and cutting the foreign service.

On the Senate side, the finance committee votes on the nomination of climate denier Mehmet Oz to be the Medicare and Medicaid Administrator, and the foreign affairs committee interviews America First and Project 2025 bigot Reed Rubenstein to be the State Department’s top lawyer, right-wing theocratic climate denier Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel, and America First’s Kevin Cabrera to be ambassador to Panama.

Classification as Colonization: The Hidden Politics of Library Catalogs. Under New Guidance, 'Sustainable' Aviation Fuel in the US Could Be Anything But.

Of the 200 people mentioned by name in Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s ecomodernist tome Abundance, 84 percent are men. It’s a Weisswurstfest!

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: House Foreign Affairs Committee
     Africa Subcommittee
  Metals, Minerals, and Mining in Africa

• 10 AM: House Appropriations Committee
     Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
  Member Day for Interior and Environment

• 10 AM: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
  Markup of DOGE Ratification, DOGE Oversight, and ICE in DC Bills

• 10 AM: House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
     Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management Subcommittee
  Reforming FEMA

• 10 AM: Senate Intelligence Committee
  Worldwide Threats

• 10:15 AM: House Energy and Commerce Committee
     Energy Subcommittee
  Examining the State of Regional Grid Reliability

• 10:15 AM: House Natural Resources Committee
     Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee
  Gulf of Mexico Renaming, Gray Wolves, Endangered Species Act Weakening, and other legislation

Climate Action Today:

• 10 AM: Free DC
  Encourage House Reps to pass the DC Local Funds Act

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

1  The Democrats who voted for Phelan: Chris Coons (Del.), Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly (Ariz.), John Hickenlooper (Colo.), Tim Kaine and Mark Warner (Va.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen (Nev.), Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), and Angus King (Maine).