The Week in Climate Hearings: Reconciling the Irreconcilable

As previewed by the Canada Climate Politics Almanac, erstwhile climate finance envoy Mark Carney and the Liberals easily won yesterday’s election.

Let’s cross south through the increasingly militarized border to return to the U.S. Climate Politics Almanac.

Congress is back in session after a two-week recess. The Republican leadership intends to craft a radical “reconciliation” budget that puts the fossil-fuel industry in charge of climate policy, codifies the unconstitutional DOGE assault on the federal government, and slashes Medicaid, food stamps, and other public welfare, while extending and increasing billionaire and corporate tax cuts.

The reconciliation process cannot be filibustered. Hill Heat will be investigating whether Senate Democrats intend to raise points of order against the Republican plans; they already failed to do so with the budget resolution. But they are working in a bipartisan fashion to support crypto, NASA science privatization, fossil-fuel pipelines, and seasonal depression.

Rev. William Barber II and other religious leaders welcomed the returning Congress yesterday with a prayer in the Capitol Rotunda, “Against the conspiracy of cruelty, we plead the power of your mercy.” They were arrested by Capitol Police.

Fired federal workers are “un-welcoming” Senators this morning, meeting first at the Solidarity City encampment in front of Union Station at 8:45 am and then in the Hart atrium at 10 am. On the other side of the Capitol, activists with Free DC are “un-welcoming” House members, meeting at 8:30 am at the Spirit of Justice Park next to the House office buildings.

The ongoing events at Solidarity City include a screening on Wednesday at 8 pm of the documentary Exposing the Unspoken, about the organizing against Southern Company’s pollution and exploitation.

On Thursday, May Day, unions are leading a For the Workers, Not the Billionaires rally at Freedom Plaza.

And now, the week in Congress.

Yesterday evening, the House Rules Committee teed up floor votes on House Joint Resolutions 60, 78, 87, 88, and 89, to overturn Biden-administration rules for off-road vehicles in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, endangered-species status for Bay area smelt, California motor-vehicle pollution standards, advanced-clean-car standards, and smog pollution standards.

Tuesday, April 29

The Trump White House has illegally fired all of the scientists working on the Sixth National Climate Assessment. At 10 am, the House Science Committee responds with a markup of the bispartisan ASCEND Act (H.R. 2600), co-sponsored by Reps. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Colo.) and Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) to privatize NASA’s science satellites; the bipartisan Next Generation Pipelines Research and Development Act (H.R. 2613), cosponsored by Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) to promote fossil-fuel pipelines, and other bipartisan legislation, none of which is intended to protect federal science against Trump and Musk.

At 10:15 am, the House Natural Resources Committee’s oversight subcommittee holds a hearing on deep-sea mining, with deep-sea miners Gerard Barron and Oliver Gunasekara, MIT deep-sea mining scientist Thomas Peacock, and ocean conservationist Duncan Currie.

At 10:30 am, the Natural Resources federal lands subcommittee holds a hearing on reforestation and other federal lands legislation.

Also at 10:30 am, members of Congress will ask for agricultural earmarks from House appropriators.

At 11 am, a House Oversight subcommittee holds a hearing on American reindustrialization with robotic factory owners.

At 3 pm, the Senate Agriculture Committee votes on the nominations of Stephen Vaden to be Deputy Secretary and Tyler Clarkson to be General Counsel of the Department of Agriculture, and then holds the nomination hearing for Luke Lindberg to be Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs and Devon Westhill to be Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Civil Rights, both of Agriculture. As an official at the Ex-Im Bank in Trump’s first term, Lindberg pushed liquefied natural gas exports. Westhill runs a conservative think tank that opposes affirmative action.

At 3:30 pm, the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee gets an update on energy, installations, and environment from military officials. The U.S. military is the largest customer of fossil fuels in the world.

Wednesday, April 30

At 9:30 am, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee votes on the nominations of the aptly named fossil-fuel enthusiast Wells Griffith to be Under Secretary of Energy and Dario Gil to be Under Secretary for Science, and then holds a nomination hearing for Republican oil lobbyist Leslie Beyer to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Lands and Minerals Management; Andrea Travnicek to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Science; Ted Garrish to be Assistant Secretary of Energy, Nuclear Energy; and Republican oil policy expert Tristan Abbey to be Administrator of the Energy Information Administration. Beyer served in the Bush 2000 campaign and in the Bush White House before running the Petroleum Equipment & Services Association. Travnicek is the state director of water resources for North Dakota. Abbey, who served in the first Trump administration, led the effort to lift the oil export ban as a Republican Senate staffer.

At 10 am, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee votes on the nomination of billionaire Musk-fanboy Jared Isaacman to be NASA Administrator, and several pieces of legislation, including the Senate version of the NASA-privatizing ASCEND Act (S. 1437), co-sponsored by Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.); S. 29, the bill championed by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to make U.S. time zones permanently misaligned from the sun; S. 1492, a pro-crypto bill co-sponsored by Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.); and several other bills.

On the House side, the Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee is holding a hearing on 14 pieces of pro-fossil-fuel legislation, such as the National Coal Council Reestablishment Act, the Researching Efficient Federal Improvements for Necessary Energy Refining Act (REFINER) Act, and the Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act. Witnesses include the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s acting general counsel David Morenoff and director of energy projects Terry Turpin, and the lobbyists from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the Interstate Natural Gas Association, and the Electric Power Supply Association.

Meanwhile, the House Science energy subcommittee holds a hearing investigating the Department of Energy loan guarantee program, with Koch network witnesses attacking the program and former Obama DOE official Sam Walsh defending it.

Also at 10 am, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a hearing on water infrastructure programs with regional water utility officials, and the House Natural Resources water subcommittee holds a hearing on hydropower development and environmental protections.

At the same time, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee holds its markup of the budget reconciliation under its jurisdiction, which includes the benefit programs for federal employees. Republicans intend to raise costs to employees and cut benefits by about $25 billion, while also encouraging federal employees to be hired as at-will employees. The committee will also consider several Democratic resolutions to investigate DOGE and the Trump administration’s use of Signal.

Thursday, May 1

At 10 am, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee is holding the
nomination hearing for Paul Dabbar to be Deputy Secretary of Commerce for global trade and technology. Dabbar previously served as Trump’s Under Secretary for Science, and was a managing director at J.P. Morgan specializing in energy businesses, from fossil fuels to renewables and nuclear.