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The Week in Climate Hearings: DOGE Ratification

The Week in Climate Hearings: DOGE Ratification

The Trump Enabling Act; Palantir and a16z measure the drapes

Brad Johnson
June 10, 2025

U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Transition Initiatives staff picking up belongings on February 28, 2025. Credit: Brad Johnson

This week, the House of Representatives will decide whether to endorse Trump’s gross usurpation of its Constitutional power of the purse.

At 2 pm on Tuesday, the House Rules Committee meets to set up a floor vote on H.R. 4, the Rescissions Act of 2025. H.R. 4 would ratify Donald Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional DOGE chainsaw against several Congressionally authorized and appropriated programs and institutions. Upon taking office, Trump claimed the power to override Congress in several executive orders.¹ Under the direction of Elon Musk and Russell Vought, teams from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) then invaded agencies and institutions to take them over, steal their data, and shut them down.

If H.R. 4 passes, it will make permanent the shuttering of the U.S. Agency for International Development (DOGEd on February 6),² the Inter-American Foundation (DOGEd on March 4), the African Development Foundation (DOGEd on March 6), the U.S. Institute for Peace (DOGEd on March 14, but temporarily restored by a court decision which called it a “gross usurpation of power”) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (unsuccessfully DOGEd on April 28). The Rescissions Act also broadly ends funding for international institutions including the World Health Organization, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), UN peacekeeping, the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer, and the World Bank’s Clean Technology Fund, a key component of U.S. contributions to international climate finance.

Rescissions packages cannot be filibustered, so if Congressional Republicans wish to offer Trump their version of the Enabling Act, they can.

The FY2026 Budget

Tuesday, June 10

At 10 AM, Energy Secretary Chris Wright defends the Fiscal Year 2026 Department of Energy Budget before the energy subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The Trump budget fully eliminates multiple renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.

Wednesday, June 11

At 10 am, the House Appropriations Committee marks up the FY26 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Bill. The subcommittee mark, while not as extreme as Trump’s request, cuts funding for scientific research, food assistance, water grants, and green energy programs.

Also at 10 am, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who ceded most of his authority to DOGE oil operative Tyler Hassen, testifies on the FY26 Interior budget before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Also at 10 am, the nativist Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins testifies before the House Agriculture Committee and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent testifies on Trump’s mad tax plans before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Meanwhile, Trump officials testify before Senate appropriators on the FY26 budget requests for the

Department of Defense at 10 am, which includes significant increases in weapons spending; the
Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation at 10 am, which includes major cuts to habitat restoration and waterways maintenance; the
United States Forest Service at 10:30 am, which decimates conservation activities and transfers wildfire fighting to the Department of the Interior; the
Department of Housing and Urban Development at 3:30 pm, with the plan to shutter the department in favor of significantly smaller state grants; and the
Department of the Treasury at 4 pm, including the elimination of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, whose grants include climate resiliency programs.

Thursday, June 12

At 9 am, the House Appropriations Committee begins an ambitious full markup of both the FY26 Defense Bill and the FY26 Homeland Security Bill.

At 10 am, Doug Burgum returns to Congress to testify on the FY26 Interior budget before the House Natural Resources Committee.

Nominations

Palantir and Andreessen Horowitz associates are looking to move into key positions into the Trump regime.

On Tuesday at 10 am, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee interviews Jacob Helberg to be Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment; S. Paul Kapur to be Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs; Ben Black to be CEO of the United States International Development Finance Corporation; spousal abuser and Trump mega-donor Andrew Puzder to be the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, financier and Trump donor Howard Brodie to be ambassador to Finland. Helberg is a senior advisor to Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies; Kapur is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution; and Black is the son of billionaire Leon Black.

At 3 pm, the Senate Agriculture committee interviews nominee Brian Quintenz to be chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Quintenz, a former Trump CFTC commissioner, is the Global Head of Crypto Policy for Andreessen Horowitz, with at least $3.4 million in assets.

Other Climate Policy Hearings

On Tuesday at 10:15 am, the House Natural Resources federal lands subcommittee holds a legislative hearing on four bills, including H.R. 1655, to exempt the rebuilding of telecom facilities hit by wildfires from environmental regulations.

On Wednesday at 10:15 am, the House Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee holds a hearing on weakening the Clean Air Act’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards. NRDC’s John Walke is testifying against Republican officials and industry lobbyists who seek legislation that would allow air monitors to ignore smoke pollution from wildfires caused by global warming.

At 2 pm, the House science committee marks up NASA wildfire response, fog forecasting, and other legislation.

And on Thursday at 10 am, the fisheries subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee holds a hearing on unregulated international fishing.

Hill Heat’s U.S. Climate Politics Almanac is made available to the public thanks to our paid subscribers. Join their ranks today and grow the movement:

1 Including EO 14155, “Withdrawing the United States From the World Health Organization,” EO 14162, “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements,” EO 14199, “Withdrawing the United States From and Ending Funding to Certain United Nations Organizations and Reviewing United States Support to All International·Organizations,” and EO 14217, “Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.”

2 And the programs which USAID administers, such as Global Health Programs, Migration and Refugee Assistance, the Complex Crises Fund, the Democracy Fund, the Economic Support Fund, Development Assistance, Assistance for Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia, and the Transitions Initiative.

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