The Week in Climate Hearings: Joint Explanatory Statements

On Monday, the U.S. Congress came to a bipartisan, bicameral agreement that climate change is still real. Showing that constitutional democracy is not yet dead, appropriators completed several of the required Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations packages before the January 30th deadline set by the November continuing resolution. Rejecting the Trump regime’s fossil-fueled nihilism and imperial disdain for Congressional authority, the not-quite-an-omnibus agreement provides funding and instructions for Commerce, Justice, and Science; Interior and Environment; and Energy and Water Development—the meat of Hill Heat’s diet.¹ It’s an oversized, hybrid “minibus”—a partly green, partly polluter-powered vehicle. Unfortunately, a criminal oil cartel will remain at the wheel.

The top Democratic appropriators, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), are celebrating the deal for defeating the “heartless cuts” demanded by the Trump regime and every single “Republican poison pill” which had been in earlier House or Senate GOP versions. The deal represents a bipartisan rebuke of Trump’s demands of Congress and of Trump’s anti-human climate denial. Funding levels for major science, energy, environmental, and public health initiatives remain largely flat or with modest cuts, though with 2025’s three-percent inflation, even flat funding represents a real-world cut. A few highlights:

• The House Republican pesticide liability shield language is among the over 100 GOP poison pills that were dropped.

• NASA is funded at $24.4 billion, a little below 2025 levels but much higher than the Trump request.

• The FY2024 EPA budget was $9.16 billion; FY25 EPA enacted was $9.13 billion. Trump requested a 55% cut. Instead, the FY26 EPA budget will be $8.8 billion, a 4% reduction; it includes $501 million in funding for enforcement and compliance activities, an increase over the FY25 budget.

• Trump regime requested a 90% demolition of both the $1.6 billion Clean Water State Revolving Fund and the $1.3 billion Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. Both are fully funded at FY2025 levels.

• The Weatherization Assistance Program is increased to $329 million to keep up with inflation, instead of Trump’s requested elimination.

• The Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which the Trump regime has illegally eliminated, is still largely funded, with a 10 percent cut, but with the instructions to prioritize “hydrogen energy and fuel cell technologies” and “research and development on geothermal activities.”

• ARPA-E is funded at $350 million, a 25% cut, instead of the Trump-requested 57% slashing. The Trump regime’s killing of solar, wind, and battery research is accepted.

• NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research is funded at FY25 levels, including $224 million for climate research, instead of Trump’s requested elimination.

• The offshore wind program of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is slashed by 50% from $41 million in FY25 to $20 million for FY26, instead of the Trump request of zeroing it out.

The minibus also is packed with legislative earmarks, including $461 million for Everglades restoration, $70 million for a University of Louisville Center for Bioscience, $50 million for a Washington State University Science Research Center, an thousands of smaller projects, ranging from funding for new cop cars to two $1 million climate-justice earmarks for Boston—the Eastie Farm Climate Corps fellowship for about a dozen people and flood mitigation for affordable housing.

Congress is moving expeditiously to pass the nearly 1000-page text, including the 414-page bill text and the 524 pages of instructions, known officially as the Joint Explanatory Statements, which extend (and in some cases override) the 1274 pages of committee reports.²

Given Trump’s, Russ Vought’s, and John Roberts’s mockery of the authority of Congress—and the looming threat of another round of partisan rescissions rubber-stamping the White House’s disregard of the law—these budget numbers mentioned above can only be considered advisory. The United States has moved rapidly from a (flawed) Constitutional republic to a mostly imperial system.

In Hill Heat’s view, the language in the committee reports and joint explanatory statements either pushing back or accepting the administration’s unconstitutional actions represents the real indicator of whether members of Congress—whether Republican or Democratic—will fight to protect the U.S. Constitution and the lawmaking authority of their body, or whether they will acquiesce to Trump’s dictate, in which case the cheers from Murray and DeLauro will ring hollowly in the catacombs of U.S. democracy.

The joint explanatory statements begin with the reminder that the members of Congress still believe the executive has to obey their words:

As loyal Hill Heat subscribers know, we have been documenting the many crimes of the Trump regime’s first year. Below is a selected look at how Congress is responding to specific cases of the regime acting in violation of the law to attack appropriated agencies and programs.

There is a strong rebuke of Trump’s efforts to kill the WaterSMART program:

The scientists of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who were illegally evicted from their Manhattan headquarters in May, are strongly defended:

The response to the illegal Trump plan to kill the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. is weak, calling only for “briefing” within 30 days and a “report” within 180 days.

The language on the illegal plans to close NASA headquarters and the ongoing illegal demolition of the Goddard Space Flight Center is, in Hill Heat’s view, insufficient. While it tells NASA “to preserve all the technical and scientific world-class capabilities,” it fails to challenge the legitimacy of the closures, which makes that preservation impossible. At some point a report will be produced on what was done, though.

The Trump regime’s illegal dismantling of the EPA Office of Research and Development is acknowledged with a mere “please ask permission next time.”

Hill Heat wants to reiterate that the overall appropriations package is a stern legislative rebuke of Trumpian anti-science, anti-human, anti-environmental nihilism, and for that deserves sincere appreciation. Although it won’t put out the fires being set by the arsonists of carbon fascism, this mega-bill rejects eliminating all the nation’s firefighters.³

Of course, House Republicans made it clear that they seek to realize Trump’s dream; the House Rules meeting on Tuesday that sent the appropriations minibus to the floor also moved forward deliberately stupid bills to kill showerhead water efficiency rules and prefab-home energy efficiency rules.

Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled Congress continues hearings pushing the fossil-fueled agenda.

Wednesday, January 7

At 10 am, the House Small Business Committee interviews Casey Mulligan, the Chief Counsel for the Office of Advocacy at the U.S. Small Business Administration, for a hearing on the SBA Office of Advocacy and federal regulations, such as the Occupational Safety & Health Administration’s rules on worker protections from extreme outdoor heat.

At 10:15 am, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy Subcommittee holds an openly promotional hearing on developments in the nuclear industry with industry lobbyists and Idaho National Laboratory director John Wagner. Nuclear lobbyist Judi Greenwald is testifying in support of an independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Thursday, January 8

At 10 am, the House Natural Resources Committee Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee holds yet another hearing promoting Senate passage of the Orwellian Fix Our Forests Act, the timber-industry wishlist sold as a response to the ever-increasing fossil-fueled wildfires, droughts, and infestations threatening our forests (if you cut down the forests, the forest health problems go away). The House already passed the bill. The announced witnesses are Colorado Springs Utilities CEO Travas Deal, Northern California Power Agency general manager Randy Howard, and Family Farm Alliance director Ea’mon O’Toole.

Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) are expected to introduce the companion to Rep. Jared Huffman’s (D-Calif.) Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act, an ecologically responsible forest management bill, later this week.

Also at 10 am, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee holds a hearing on regulatory policy for chemical management. Joining lobbyists from the American Chemistry Council, Boeing, and Lubrizol is Dr. Stan Meiburg, a former career U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official who recently retired as director of graduate studies in sustainability at Wake Forest University and remains a senior advisor to the Water Institute.

1  The appropriations packages still to be negotiated are Defense, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education, State-Foreign Operations, and Transportation-HUD.

2  The Senate did not pass its version of the Energy-Water package, so only the instructions from the House report and the joint statement have force.

3  On Monday, the board of the Trump-defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting dissolved the organization to prevent it from being used by the arsonists for “future political manipulation or misuse.”