This week, the House will vote on the GOP billionaire-tax-cut budget and vote to rescind two Biden administration climate rules: the EPA’s methane pollution fee, which was mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act (H.J. Res. 35), and Department of Energy efficiency standards for gas-fired water heaters (H.J. Res. 20).

On Wednesday 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.

The USAID Memorial Wall is a wall of plaques with the names of 99 humanitarian workers killed in the line of duty in the lobby of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Musk’s DOGE hackers defaced it and tried to tear it down as part of their dishonorable, unconstitutional effort to destroy USAID.

Humanitarian aid worker Shawn Siochain isn’t ever going to forget:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is being sued for shutting down climate information for farmers. The lawsuit by Earthjustice and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University on behalf of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Environmental Working Group reports:

Hill Heat has sought comment from Mr. Rhee on whether he was simply following orders.

The Week in Protests and Rallies

Hill Heat has learned that there are protesters in front of the Heritage Foundation every day.

Friday night’s Federal Unionist Network happy hour was a rousing success. The many federal workers living in Washington, D.C. were encouraged to join Free DC, which is holding an orientation call this Wednesday.

Saturday night’s house party in downtown DC for for DOGE hackers, thrown by Conservative Political Action Conference attendees and the techno-nihilist billionaire Peter Thiel-backed Sovereign House, was met by a raucous street protest. As Amanda Moore repored, attendees included James O’Keefe, Trump hatchetman Paul Ingrassia and Yankees part-owner Patrick Bet-David, who confronted the protesters.

Also on Saturday night, former Vice President Kamala Harris told the National Association for Colored People:

On Sunday night, climate activist Jane Fonda reminded the Screen Actors Guild that “being ‘woke’ means giving a damn about other people.”

Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, who Trump is trying to illegally fire, has found that Trump's attempts to fire probationers are illegal. If the Merit Systems Protection Board does not rule within three days against Dellinger’s finding, it goes into effect. Trump has also tried to illegally fire Cathy Harris, the chair of MSPB. Illegally fired federal workers are gathering each morning at the Hart cafeteria at 10 am this week to work on their job search.

On Tuesday morning, Axel-Springer-owned Politico hosts an event on Trump’s energy policy sponsored by the fossil-fuel-dominated National Rural Electric Cooperatives Association with the all-white-male panel of Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), and Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas), followed by NRECA CEO Jim Matheson. The event, at Hotel Washignton, begins at 8:15 am. Doors open at 7:45 am.

On Tuesday at 1:30 pm, the Labor for Higher Education coalition is holding a mass rally at the Health and Human Services headquarters to protest Trump’s assault on healthcare research. The rally will be livestreamed, with opportunities for participants to organize against the regime.

The Week in Hearings

There are two-and-a-half days of testimony from American Indian and Alaska Native officials this week. Each of the five sessions—Tuesday morning and afternoon, Wednesday morning and afternoon, and Thursday morning—include dozens of witnesses. Additionally, at 2 pm on Tuesday, a House Natural Resources subcommittee is holding a hearing on federal Indian trust asset management.

Republicans are using many committee hearings this week to attack the Biden administration’s record of climate accomplishment in order to dismantle the last fifty years of environmental legislation.

Tuesday, February 25

On Tuesday morning, the House Energy and Commerce Committee marks up on its oversight plan, which recapitulates Project 2025 priorities on everything from pandemic conspiracy theories to Medicare cuts, from offering free rein for climate polluters to giving Trump and Musk control over the Internet and news media.

Also on Tuesday, the House Natural Resources oversight subcommittee is holding a hearing at 10:15 am on space mining and terrestrial mining, with the bizarrely inane argument that mining on Earth is over-regulated compared to the lack of rules for entirely theoretical asteroid and lunar mining; and an Appropriation subcommittee grills U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials on civil works programs.

Wednesday, February 26

In addition to the aforementioned DOGE vs. USAID hearing, Wednesday will feature a cavalcade of fossil-fuel industry-backed climate deniers seeking to dismantle our nation’s climate and environmental laws.

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 inspectors general of the Department of Energy and the acting inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency, since the inspectors general were illegally fired.

The Week in Nominations

Tuesday, February 25

• 9:30 AM: Senate Armed Services Committee
  Nomination of Stephen Feinberg to be Deputy Secretary of Defense
  Billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg is the co-chief executive of Cerberus Capital Management LP, a private equity firm that invests in defense contractors. He served on a Trump intelligence advisory board.

• 9:30 AM: Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
  Nominations of Troy Edgar to be Deputy Secretary, DHS, and Dan Bishop to be Deputy Director, OMB
  This hearing was rescheduled from last week. Edgar, the former mayor of Los Alamitos, “led his city to defy California’s sanctuary law.” Bishop is the North Carolina legislator who was the author of the notorious anti-transgender “bathroom bill.”

Wednesday, February 26

• 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
  Kratsios, 38, who met with Elon Musk in December, was a Trump technology advisor and is now managing director at Scale AI, which specializes in training data for AI. Scale AI won a Pentagon contract last year. Kratsios graduated from Princeton with a bachelor’s degree in politics. He has no other degrees. While in college, he was an intern for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). After school, he worked at an investment fund run by Peter Thiel.

  Meador’s confirmation would give the FTC a Republican majority.

Thursday, February 27

• 9:30 AM: Senate Armed Services Committee
  Nomination of John Phelan to be Secretary of the Navy
  Last week, Trump fired Navy Adm. Lisa Franchetti from the Joint Chiefs. His nominee to be Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan is a crassly wealthy financier whose qualification for the role is being a Trump fundraiser who likes to display pornographic art and look up women’s skirts.

• 9:30 AM: Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
  Vote on nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer, to be Secretary of Labor
  Her nomination hearing was held on February 19th; because of past support for labor legislation, she may need Democratic support to advance.

• 10 AM: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
  Vote on nomination of Steven Bradbury to be Deputy Secretary of Transportation
  Bradbury, the author of memos supporting the use of torture during the George W. Bush presidency, was narrowly confirmed as general counsel for the Department of Transportation in Trump’s first term.

• 10 AM: Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee
  Nomination of Stephen Miran to be Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Jeffrey Kessler to be Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, William Pulte to be FHFA Director, and Jonathan McKernan to be CFPB Director
  Stephen Miran is a private banker and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who served in Treasury in Trump’s first term. Jeffrey I. Kessler is a WilmerHale lobbyist and was a top Trump tariff negotiator.

• 10 AM: Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
  Nomination of Keith Sonderling to serve as Deputy Secretary of Labor
  Sonderling is a union-busting lawyer who was appointed by Trump to the EEOC.

As Musk tweets out deranged commands to every federal worker to answer his emails, let M. Gessen’s words be a guide: