The Week in Climate Hearings: Musk Rat-ification

Returning from an authoritarian triumph over Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) (and Trump’s domination of his brother’s law firm Paul, Weiss), the Republicans running Congress are moving forward to ratify Elon Musk’s ongoing unconstitutional demolition of the federal government.

The top priority on the GOP side is crafting the budget reconciliation package, an omnibus platform that will allow them to restructure the government to slash Medicaid and make the Trump billionaire tax cuts permanent with simple majorities.¹ Ostensibly, the budget reconciliation process cannot be used to affect Social Security, although that hinges upon the Senate majority’s deference to the Senate parliamentarian, who can be overruled or replaced by the Senate majority.

Tuesday, March 25

On Tuesday morning, the House Oversight Committee is holding a markup of DOGE ratification bills from Republicans and DOGE oversight resolutions from Democrats, as well as legislation to force District of Columbia compliance with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement actions. Illegally fired federal workers are planning to attend.

The House Transportation Committee is holding a hearing on “reforming” the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with Republican witnesses county manager Jaime Laughter from Helene-hit North Carolina and Florida emergency manager Kevin Guthrie, in the running to be Trump’s pick for the agency.

There are also hearings on privatizing veterans’ mental health care and cutting the foreign service planned.

The House of Representatives has a minimal work week, as they plan to end business after Wednesday morning to allow members to attend the funeral of climate justice champion Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.). They may have floor votes on Tuesday for two bills overturning energy-efficiency standards for refrigerators and freezers (H.J. Res. 24 and H.J. Res. 75)—the Rules Committee hearing is this afternoon.

Members of Free DC are gathering at Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D-D.C.) office in 2136 Rayburn on Tuesday to lobby House members for passage of the Local Funds for DC Act (S. 1077), which would patch the $1 billion budget hole left by the continuing resolution Schumer helped pass.

In addition to the DOGE-friendly hearings mentioned earlier, there are several climate hearings of interest. At 10 am, House Appropriations has its member day for Interior and Environment earmarks, although with the Republican attempt to transfer of appropriations authority from Congress to the White House, this is threatening to become a merely advisory exercise.

Also 10 am, the Africa subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee examines mining in Africa from the perspective of competition for mineral resources with China.

At 10:15 am, a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee examines the state of regional grid reliability with the chiefs of the nation’s seven regional grid operators, in the latest hearing arguing that electricity generation has to be deregulated to keep up with future demand from AI data centers.

Also at 10:15 am, the House Natural Resources water, wildlife and fisheries subcommittee takes testimony on bills to rename the Gulf of Mexico, delist gray wolves, and weaken the Endangered Species Act. Witnesses include wolf delisting advocate Nathan Roberts, climate denier Mauricio Guardado, oil lobbyist Erik Milito, and Democratic witness Peter Kareiva, of the Aquarium of the Pacific.

On the Senate side, the finance committee votes on the nomination of climate denier Mehmet Oz to be the Medicare and Medicaid Administrator, and the foreign affairs committee interviews America First and Project 2025 bigot Reed Rubenstein to be the State Department’s top lawyer, right-wing theocratic climate denier Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel, and America First’s Kevin Cabrera to be ambassador to Panama.

The worldwide threats hearing at 10 am led by Senate GOP climate deniers on the intelligence [sic] committee interviewing Trump climate deniers will be quite the affair, given the revelation of the open group chat to plan the Yemen bombings that included DNI Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, and others. The chat also included the feckless climate denier Pete Hegseth, who isn’t scheduled to testify.

Wednesday, March 26

Most of the House’s Wednesday hearings have been officially postponed. As of publication, there is still scheduled to be a 9:30 am appropriations’ transportation subcommittee hearing for oversight of the National Transportation Safety Board with NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy, and a 10 am science subcommittee hearing on the “blue economy”—i.e., oceanic commercial development—with offshore drilling technology executive Earl Childress, former NOAA official and now NOAA contractor Shepard Smith, NOAA contractor Tim Janssen, and Scripps director Dr. Margaret Leinen.

Also at 10 am, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will interview several Trump nominees, including 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 high-powered environmental lawyer for hire Sean Donahue to be EPA general counsel.

Thursday, March 27

At 10 am, the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee holds a nomination hearing of climate denier Paul Atkins to be a Securities and Exchange Commissioner, crypto lawyer Jonathan Gould to be Comptroller of the Currency, Luke Pettit—a top advisor to the pro-crypto Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.)—to be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and climate denier Marc Molinaro to be Federal Transit Administrator.

1  Although Republicans also now have confirmation that, as long as Schumer is in charge, Senate Democrats have no interest in using the filibuster power to stop legislative vehicles for the Trump-Musk coup.