The Week in Climate Hearings: A-Plus-Plus-Plus-Plus-Plus

The United Nations Global Environmental Outlook has been “hijacked” by the United States and other petrostates, who Zoomed in at the late minute to block the report from including the scientific consensus on ending fossil fuels and plastics, according to report co-chair Robert Watson. Even so, the report notes that “the burning of coal, oil and gas, and the pollution and destruction of nature caused by industrial agriculture,” as the Guardian’s Damian Carrington reports, leads to $45 trillion a year in environmental damage. As Trump rates it, the carbon economy is A+++++ good.

Before we get to Congress’s week, some heartening news.

Yesterday, Judge Patti Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated Trump’s day-one executive order blocking wind energy projects and declared it unlawful, ruling in favor of a coalition of state attorneys general.

Solar energy and battery storage accounted for 85 percent of new U.S. electric capacity this fall.

At 3 pm on Wednesday, We Build Progress (formerly the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center), the American Federation of Teachers, and Communication Workers of America hold Resist and Reimagine, a webinar with lessons from the labor movement on fighting authoritarianism.

Flooding rains hit Washington state with more to come; the winter storm Byron devastated Greece before bringing torrential rains to Israel, two weeks after Gaza tent camps were flooded; the winter storm dubbed Bram battered Scotland, walloped Wales, and flooded England’s western coast before heading for London; a blizzard is bearing down on Minnesota.

The future is still ours to choose.

The Week on the Hill

This week, several House committees are holding “member days,” at which any member of Congress may testify on legislation under the committee’s jurisdiction. The Agriculture Member Day is Wednesday, the Foreign Affairs Member Day is Thursday, and the Energy and Commerce Member Day is Friday.

Of course, as the Trump regime extends and consolidates its usurpation of lawmaking authority from Congress, work like this is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Most of the work of this Congress is in rolling back, limiting, or subverting existing legislation; this week, the House is pushing forward bills to hobble the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act in favor of climate polluters.

Monday, December 8

On Monday afternoon, Senate Commerce ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) joined Republicans to support the nomination of billionaire SpaceX enthusiast Jared Isaacman to be the administrator of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration. Isaacman plans to gut NASA’s science programs and privatize most of its spaceflight operations. At the business meeting, several Democrats joined Republicans in support of the climate denier Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s longtime lieutenant Ryan McCormack to be Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy, and also helped advance Adm. Kevin E. Lunday to be Commandant of the United States Coast Guard and Michael Graham to be a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. Votes on four other nominees were deferred.

Tuesday, December 9

At 4 pm this afternoon, the House Rules Committee sets up floor votes this week for several bills meant to increase reliance on fossil-fueled electricity production for the promised data-center boom. The Improving Interagency Coordination for Pipeline Reviews Act (H.R. 3668) fast-tracks the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s already highly permissive pipeline permitting process; the PERMIT Act (H.R. 3898) weakens the Clean Water Act to favor construction projects; the State Planning for Reliability & Affordability Act (H.R. 3628) amends the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act with language intended to restrict renewable electricity and favor fossil fuels; and the Electric Supply Chain Act (H.R. 3638) calls for a Department of Energy report on the electric supply chain, such as gas turbines, from an office gutted by DOGE and Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s unconstitutional reshuffling of the department. The committee is also marking up the INVEST Act (H.R. 3383) to expose retail investors to high-risk private funds.

The ambitious Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act (H.R. 4776), which is designed to significantly restrict National Environmental Protection Act reviews and is a top corporate lobbyist priority, was meant to be part of this week’s package of grid bills, but was derailed by GOP hardliners who want to protect Trump’s imperial authority, as the bill includes language that would affirm that Trump’s executive orders killing wind projects and the like are illegal.

This morning, the national parks subcommittee of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee receives testimony related to 26 pieces of national park system legislation, including, among others, a bill on elementary-school Holocaust education (S. 332), upgrading major trail systems like the Appalachian Trail (S. 2708), stopping the sale of disposable plastic water bottles in the parks (S. 1926), establishing the Thurgood Marshall National Historic Site in Maryland (S. 791), establishing the Ocmulgee Mounds National Park in Georgia (S. 1131), and overriding Trump’s attempt to rename Denali as Mount McKinley (S. 573). Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) will testify, as will Mike Caldwell, Associate Director for Park Planning, Facilities, and Lands, National Park Service.

At 4:30 pm, the U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will testify before the relevant Senate Appropriations subcommittee.

Wednesday, December 10

At 10 am, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee reviews the unconstitutional Department of Energy re-organization and the effort to build a private-sector integrated AI platform using federal scientific datasets with the department’s Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil. The national labs AI initiative, dubbed the “Genesis Mission” by Trump and given a glossy website built by Ed “Big Balls” Coristine, was authorized and granted $150 million by the One Big Brutal Bill Act.

At the same time, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee votes on the nominations of Lee Beaman to be a member of the board of directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority and Douglas Weaver to be a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Beaman is a notorious Nashville-area right-wing extremist businessman and backer of the right-wing pastor Steve Berger; Berger is the roommate of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La., no relation) in a Capitol Hill house once owned by Frederick Douglass, purchased by Beaman to support Berger’s influence peddling. Weaver, a longtime nuclear regulator and industry lobbyist, has pledged to restore NRC morale after an intense campaign by the Trump White House to cripple the agency’s independence. On Monday, the Trumpist Supreme Court majority signaled their intention to bless Trump’s assumption of imperial authority over independent agencies.

At 10:15 am, the House Natural Resources Committee oversight subcommittee holds a hearing on limiting litigation on behalf of endangered species. Earthrise Law Center director Dan Rohlf will testify against opponents of the Endangered Species Act, who support rewriting the law to restrict environmental organizations from suing to protect endangered species by limiting their awards when they win cases.

At the same time, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s environment subcommittee is holding a important markup of anti-Clean Air Act legislation. The seven bills cripple new source review (H.R. 161), exempt air pollution from fossil-fueled wildfires from air quality standards (H.R. 6387), block enforcement of the air soot standard for infrastructure permits (H.R. 4214), hobble the Environmental Protection Agency’s review of federal projects (H.R. 6398), and add other air quality loopholes (H.R. 6409), including one for chip manufacturers and mining operations (H.R. 6373).

Thursday, December 11

At 10 am, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s public buildings subcommittee looks at the DOGE campaign to consolidate federal agencies and sell off public buildings. The witness are former Rep. Michael Capuano, now a member of the Public Buildings Reform Board, David Marroni, Director for Physical Infrastructure at the Government Accountability Office, and Andrew Heller, the acting Public Buildings Service Commissioner at the General Services Administration.

At 2 pm, the House Natural Resources federal lands subcommittee receives testimony on federal lands legislation, including a bill from Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) on wildfire risk evaluation that somehow manages to completely ignore climate change. The witnesses include local officials from western states and a rural broadband lobbyist.