The Week in Climate Hearings: No War For Oil!

Every day, the Trump regime marches forward to consolidate its anti-Constitutional carbon coup, withdrawing from the 1992 climate treaty and dozens of other international agreements, supporting deadly coal plants, gutting the Federal Emergency Management Agency, starting with its core emergency-response workers, and removing sickness and death from cost-benefit analyses of environmental rules.

“In recent days his administration has slammed the door on every possible avenue of global cooperation on the environment,” Lisa Friedman writes. “At the same time, it is sending the message that it wants the world to be awash in fossil fuels sold by America, no matter the consequences.”¹

As Hill Heat noted last week, there are flickering indicators of life in the U.S. Congress. It is too soon to tell whether the passage of a war-powers resolution protesting the Venezuela takeover and support for a January 6 plaque in the U.S. Senate and of a discharge petition extending Affordable Care Act subsidies in the U.S. House are “humiliating defeats” for the Trump regime (per Aaron Rupar) or “thin gruel” (per Aaron Blake).

However, it is indubitably the case that the essential fight is between Congress’s loyalty to the Constitution and the protection of its Article I powers on one side and Republican fealty and Democratic cowardice towards Trump on the other. As the Trump regime makes it clear every day, the fate of a livable planet hangs on this battle.

This morning, the Trump-allegiant Supreme Court heard arguments in Chevron vs. Plaquemines Parish, “a case that could determine the fate of dozens of lawsuits seeking billions in damages from oil companies” for polluting Louisiana’s eroding coasts. Chevron is hoping the oily Supremes will overturn a 2025 $745 million jury verdict against the company. That lawsuit was filed in 2013.

At 6:30 pm tonight, climate hawks Gary Kohlman, Dani Hupper, Michael Greenberg, and Saul Levin are hosting a D.C. fundraiser to support William Lawrence for Congress. Will, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, is running in the hotly contested Democratic primary to unseat Republican incumbent Tom Barrett (R-Mich.) in Michigan’s seventh Congressional district.

Tuesday, January 13

At 2 pm, the House Rules Committee tees up a floor vote on the next bipartisan, bicameral appropriations minibus, the Financial Services and General Government and National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2026. The Nat Sec-State package concedes the Trump regime’s demolition of U.S. diplomacy. In better news, all of the new House riders on climate in the FSGG package have been dropped, other than the section prohibiting the Consumer Product Safety Commission from promulgating rules to “ban gas stoves.” D.C. Water and Sewer Authority is funded at the fiscal year 2025 level of $8 million, instead of the $6 million in the House version or the White House request of zero. Senator-directed earmarks include $1 million for Eastie Farm in Boston, $748,000 for the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition, $700,000 for Farm Fresh Rhode Island, $610,000 for Oregon’s North Coast Food Web, and an egregious $600,000 for the Pennsylvania fracking-AI-finance front group Catalyst Connection for “Pennsylvania Al Data Centers & Energy Future,” requested by Sens. Fetterman and McCormick.

Tuesday features several other House hearings of interest:

At 10 am, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee examines Coast Guard law enforcement efforts, which range from drug-boat interdictions to guarding against illegal fishing.

Also at 10 am, the Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s Environment Subcommittee holds an open hearing on weather satellites and national security, with Irene Parker, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Systems, NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, Col. Bryan Mundhenk, Chief, Weather Operations Division, United States Air Force, and Dr. Christopher Ekstrom, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare and Deputy Director, Oceanography & Navigation, United States Navy.

At 10:15 am, the Natural Resources Committee’s Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee holds a hearing on H.R. 5745, a bill intended to transfer liability for decommissioned offshore oil and gas platforms and pipelines to the states in the name of creating “artificial reefs.”

At the same time, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy Subcommittee holds a hearing on five bills related to electric grid, pipeline, and LNG facility security, resilience, and emergency response—which, under this regime, means an expansion of an unaccountable surveillance state, particularly against climate activists. Witnesses include longtime right-wing energy operative Alex Fitzsimmons, Acting Undersecretary of Energy and Director of the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, U.S. Department of Energy; Scott I. Aaronson, Senior Vice President, Energy Security and Industry Operations, Edison Electric Institute; Adrienne Lotto, Senior Vice President of Grid Security, Technical and Operations Services, American Public Power Association; Nathaniel J. Melby, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Dairyland Power, on behalf of National Rural Electric Cooperative Association; and Rebecca O’Neil, Research Principal, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Directorate, at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

At 2 pm, the House Natural Resources Committee’s Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee holds a hearing on hunting and fishing access with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Brian Nesvik, West Virginia wildlife resources director Paul Johansen, and hunting and fishing lobbyists.

Wednesday, January 14

Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) hearing with auto industry leaders has been indefinitely postponed because he asked Detroit’s CEOs to testify but not Tesla head Elon Musk, instead only requesting a lower Tesla deputy to appear.

At 10 am, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee holds its member day for members of Congress to testify in support of earmarks and on committee legislation.

At 2 pm, the House Natural Resources Committee’s Federal Lands Subcommittee receives testimony on wildfire mitigation, grasslands grazing, and other federal lands legislation. Witnesses include Gordon Blum, the U.S. Forest Service acting associate deputy chief for the eastern region and Colorado state forester Matthew M. McCombs.

At 2:30 pm, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, led by Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), looks at the small business agricultural economy, with banker Melissa Ann Spurgin and farm equipment manufacturer Jay Funke, both from Iowa, and food-coop manager Erbin Crowell and World Farmers founder Maria Moreira, both from Massachusetts.

1  Friedman is part of the pro-climate bloc within the New York Times, along with the likes of journalists Maxine Joselow, Hiroko Tabuchi, and opinion editor Eliza Barclay, whose recent work includes a powerful essay from David Wallace-Wells on the fossil-fueled Los Angeles wildfires. By “pro-climate,” we simply mean these journalists support free inquiry for verifiable truth and accountability for those who seek to profit from pollution.

However, the ownership and top editors of the Times are pushing an aggressively anti-climate agenda, as evidenced by such pieces as a virulently anti-climate essay from Matt Yglesias and a hit piece by Ravi Mattu in the Business section against Norwegian wealth fund manager Nicolai Tangen for daring to speak publicly about the climate and Gaza.