The Week in Climate Hearings: Flooding the Zone

Catastrophic floods overwhelmed the Congolese capital of Kinshasa, killing at least 33 people after the Ndjili River overflowed following torrential, fossil-fueled rains.

A region of the Queensland outback larger than the state of Texas has been submerged by relentless rains, killing over 100,000 head of livestock.

The poisoned weather in the United States since Wednesday—a supercharged stormfront wielding tornadoes and flooding rains that ravaged the Mississippi basin—has killed at least 23 people, including a 9-year-old boy swept away by raging floodwaters when he walked to his school bus stop in Frankfort, Kentucky. The death toll would have been much greater if not for the forecasts and warnings from the National Weather Service employees working through increasingly dire cuts.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans took to the streets on Saturday for massive Hands Off! rallies across the nation, calling for an end to Trump’s lawless coup as global markets crashed.

Action in the Capital

On Monday, parents and students organized by Free DC lobbied hundreds of members of Congress for the rapid passage of the DC Local Funds Act (S. 1077), to restore $1 billion frozen from the DC budget by the Schumer-backed Trump continuing resolution. The bill is being held up by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La., no relation), who lives in a DC townhouse with an ultra-right preacher, owned by an ultra-right businessman. Free DC is having its next online orientation meeting tonight at 6:30 pm.

Tuesday morning, fired federal workers return to the Hart Senate Office Building for their weekly job fair, visiting senate offices. American Federation of Government Employees president Everett Kelley is speaking at the 10 am kickoff. At 11 am, ACLU DC is hosting a rally for reinstating federal workers outside the DOGE-occupied Office of Personnel Management headquarters at 1900 E Street NW. And then on Wednesday at 6 pm, Tesla Takedown is hosting a Dance Against DOGE Slumber Party outside the DOGE-occupied General Services Administration headquarters at 1800 F St NW.

On Tuesday at 7 pm, Metro DC DSA is hosting Dr. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò at the Festival Center in Adams Morgan to present on The Burning Case for a Socialist Green New Deal, and on 8 pm on Thursday CodePink holds the webinar Disarming Earth Day: The Poison of US Bases & Global Military Presence.

Climate Policy Hearings

Tuesday, April 8

At 10:15 am, the House Natural Resources water and wildlife subcommittee legislative hearing on bills to block wildlife protection on the Texas-New Mexico border, allow catfish farmers to kill cormorants, and other legislation.

Wednesday, April 9

At 10 am, Google billionaire Eric Schmidt, who last year went full universal-paperclip, is the star witness at a House Energy and Commerce hearing on the
energy, transmission, and computing infrastructure demands of data centers. The other witnesses are former Biden climate official David Turk, Micron Technology executive Manish Bhatia, and Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. Scale AI’s managing director Michael Kratsios is a DOGE staffer and Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Also at 10 am, Natural Resources holds a markup of bills to rename the Gulf of Mexico, delist gray wolves, expedite industry appeals of public lands decisions, and other issues, and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a hearing on improving future management of the Superfund Program.

Thursday, April 10

At 10 am, the Senate Commerce Committee holds a hearing on deviations from Standard Time entitled Should We Lock the Clock? On this issue, Democrats Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) hold the anti-science, anti-health position in support of permanent Daylight Saving Time, and chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) invited Dr. Karin Johnson to present the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s support for permanent Standard Time.

Nominations

The Senate GOP are looking to vote on a plethora of Trump nominees on the floor this week, including the polluter advocates David Fotouhi, Aaron Szabo, and (Catherine) Paige (Hallen) Hanson for Environmental Protection Agency positions.

Meanwhile, Democratic senators are expanding their holds on nominees. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has announced holds for the committees on which he serves—Judiciary, Homeland Security, Armed Services and Veterans' Affairs.¹

Tuesday, April 8

On Tuesday at 10 am, the Senate Agriculture Committee holds a hearing for Agriculture nominees Stephen Alexander Vaden to be Deputy Secretary and Federalist Society lawyer Tyler Clarkson to be General Counsel, both of whom served in Trump’s first term.

Wednesday, April 9

On Wednesday the Senate Commerce Committee is holding the nomination hearing for tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, an Elon Musk enthusiast with little interest in climate science, to be administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Republican telecom lobbyist Olivia Trusty to be a member of the Federal Communications Commission.

Also on Wednesday:

• The Environment and Public Works Committee is voting on nominations of wildlife-hating Brian Nesvik to be Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, oil lobbyist Jessica Kramer to be Assistant Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for water, and environmental lawyer for hire Sean Donahue to be EPA general counsel;

• The Energy and Natural Resources Committee is voting on the nominations of NextEra Energy operatives Kate MacGregor to be Deputy Secretary of the Interior and James Danly to be Deputy Secretary of Energy as well as marking up conservation and mining bills;

• The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is voting on the nominations of Andreessen Horowitz partner Scott Kupor to be director of the Office of Personnel Management and Eric Ueland to be deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget.

Thursday, April 10

On Thursday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds its nomination hearing for the aptly named pro-drilling Republican operative Wells Griffith to be Under Secretary of Energy, IBM Research director Dario Gil to be Under Secretary of Energy for Science, and the aggressive oil lobbyist and Project 2025 co-author Kathleen Sgamma to be director of the Bureau of Land Management.

The Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee holds a nomination hearing for six candidates for HUD, Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Commerce and the Senate Finance Committee holds its nomination hearing for William Kimmett to be Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade and Ken Kies to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy.

DOGE Hearings

The destruction of government effectiveness continues. Here is an efficient listing of relevant hearings:

Tuesday, April 8

• 10 AM: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
     Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee
  Reducing the Federal Real Estate Portfolio

Wednesday, April 9

• 9 AM: House Appropriations Committee
     Legislative Branch Subcommittee
  Budget Hearing for the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Government Publishing Office

• 9:45 AM: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
  Markup of Oversight Resolutions on Inspector General Firings and DOGE

• 10:30 AM: House Appropriations Committee
     Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee
  GAO's Assessment of the Costs of Deferred Maintenance Across the Federal Government

• 2:30 PM: Joint Economic Committee Committee
  DOGE, AI, and Federal Government Efficiency

Appropriations

The week has several member days for House appropriations subcommittees, where members advocate for earmarks, including Energy and Water Development on Tuesday and Homeland Security and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development on Wednesday. The Public Witness Day for Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education on Wednesday features multiple representatives for organizations whose programs have been devastated by Trump cuts, from the HIV Medicine Association to the Alliance for Biosecurity.

1  Senate holds do not block nominations from going forward, but do force cloture to be invoked, slowing the process by a few days. As the number of nominations grows, this can grind Senate business to a halt or effectively prevent Senate confirmation.