The Week in Climate Hearings: Salt River Project Climate Champs

At 7 pm on Wednesday, Jane Fonda is rallying climate hawks to make calls for the clean-energy slate for Phoenix, Ariz.’s publicly owned utility, the Salt River Project Board. Early voting has begun for this April 7th race, with the climate candidates—Sandra Kennedy and current board members Randy Miller, Casey Clowes, Krista O’Brien and Kathy Mohr-Almeida—running against a fossil-fuel team backed by Turning Point USA and the data-center industry. In a deeply anti-democratic throwback, only property owners are allowed to vote.

Wednesday’s phonebank for Salt River Project Climate Champs is supported by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, Lead Locally, Third Act’s Gray PAC, and the DNC Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), an oil-backed climate denier who profited from inside knowledge of Trump’s plans to attack Venezuela, is now the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, thanks to the support of Senate Republicans, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), and Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.).

Heinrich has also backed climate denier Marco Rubio for State, climate denier Chris Wright for Energy, climate denier Doug Burgum for Interior, climate denier Jared Isaacman for NASA, and other fossil-fuel functionaries such as Kyle Haustveit and Leslie Beyer.

“I consider Markwayne Mullin a friend,” Heinrich explained. Heinrich’s state is home to three ICE concentration camps—the Otero County Processing Center, and CoreCivic’s Torrance County Detention Facility and Cibola County Detention Center.

The Senate is looking to end the DHS funding showdown this week, with a bipartisan deal in the offing to fund all of DHS except for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ICE-ERO). The all-but-agreed-upon bipartisan plan includes funding for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI). The deal does not include an end to masked secret police or the concentration camps or any clawback of the One Big Brutal Bill Act’s ICE-CBP slush funds. Senate Republicans are trying to explain to the White House and House Republicans why they’re not eliminating mail-in-voting, while Senate Democrats are deciding which ten or so will have to vote for the deal so the rest can participate in a No Kings rally on March 28th.

Oklahoma fossil-fuel executive Alan Armstrong, chairman and former CEO of the fracked-gas pipeline giant Williams Companies, has been appointed U.S. Senator to replace Markwayne Mullin and is being sworn in today, maintaining the seat’s alliteration. Williams stock has tripled in the last five years on the boom in LNG exports and the fracking-powered AI data-center bubble, which Hill Heat has previously discussed.

Climate Hearings

Tuesday, March 24

At 4 pm, the House Rules Committee sets up the floor debate rules for several bills, including , a vehicle for funding the Department of Homeland Security (H.R. 8029) and a bill to establish a federal “parks” commission to further strip Washington D.C. of home rule (H.R. 5103).

Wednesday, March 25

At 9:30 am, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee looks at the state of the bulk power system, the backbone of the electric grid, with electric power supply lobbyist Todd Snitchler, climate denier Travis Fisher, and Liza Reed, an electric policy expert at the “abundance”-aligned center-right Niskanen Center. Fisher was the temporary Department of Energy appointee brought on to manage the failed climate-denial report that was abandoned as a justification for the Trump administration’s revocation of the greenhouse pollution endangerment finding.

At 10 am, the House Homeland Security Committee looks at the impacts of the DHS funding lapse on the department’s agencies other than ICE and CBP. The witnesses are U.S. Coast Guard vice commandant Thomas Allan, the acting Transportation Security Administration head Ha Nguyen McNeill, the acting Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency head Nicholas Andersen, and Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Office of Response and Recovery Associate Administrator Gregg Phillips, the QAnon conspiracy theorist, race war advocate, and self-proclaimed teleporter.

At the same time, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee marks up several bills, including reauthorization of NOAA’s Regional Ocean Partnerships.

House Natural Resources Committee subcommittees are holding a pair of hearings on speeding up domestic mining. At 10:15 am, the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee hears witnesses on bills for fast-tracking mining and renewable projects, coal-mining subsidies, and fracking Carlsbad, N.M. Bureau of Land Management mining official Mitchell Leverette will testify, as will climate advocates Adam Met and Dr. Barbara Vasquez and some fossil-fuel lobbyists.

Then at 2 pm, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee holds a hearing on domestic mining for non-fuel “critical” minerals with mining advocates and the Project of Government Oversight’s Faith Williams.

The United States now considers 60 minerals to be “critical” and thus deserving of fast-track approval; in November, boron, copper, lead, metallurgical coal, phosphate, potash, rhenium, silicon, silver, and uranium were added to the official U.S.G.S. list. In February, the Trump White House announced “Project Vault” to spend billions to build a government stockpile of these minerals.

Thursday, March 26

At 10 am, the House Natural Resources Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee hears testimony on four bills, including one to support Alaska native ivory handicrafts and traditional hunting, from NOAA Deputy Administrator Tim Petty and state and tribal officials. Virginia Tech’s Kevin McGuire will testify on a poorly written bill (H.R. 7889) that would insert “the growing artificial industry” specifically as a matter of interest in researching how to reclaim waste water.

Then at 2 pm, the committee’s Federal Lands Subcommittee will hear testimony on a different quartet of bills. One (H.R. 6778) would authorize speed cameras in the National Park System to raise fees for parkway maintenance, which could inadvertently help automate ICE deportations on the parkways. A much worse bill (H.R. 7951) would double the maximum length of “Good Neighbor Authority” deals for private logging on federal lands to twenty years. And H.R. 7979 would establish that roads and trails on federal land are presumed to be open to motorized use unless explicitly restricted.

Also at 2 pm, the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on security in the rapidly melting Arctic with melting-Arctic wargamers Bryan Clark, Heather Conley, and Marisol Maddox.

Friday, March 27

At 11 am, a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee holds a hearing on Latin America After the fall of Maduro with State official Michael Kozak, a diplomat whose career began in the 1970s.

Appropriations Hearings

Even though the FY26 appropriations are still being negotiated, appropriations season has begun for fiscal year 2027. The work begins with oversight hearings with agency and department heads and member days for members of Congress to submit earmark requests.

Wednesday’s oversight hearings include, at 10 am, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s Scott Kupor, a primary agent of the Russ Vought-DOGE devastation of the civil service; and at 11 am, the National Weather Service’s Taylor Jordan. Jordan is a Republican Congressional staffer and corporate lobbyist whose clients have included artificial intelligence, weather and satellite companies. He composes ambient music under the name "The Greatest Hoax."

On Thursday, Appropriations will hold an oversight hearing on the Government Accountability Office’s Assessment of the Federal Buildings Fund with GAO official David Morroni. The Trump regime has pushed hard to sell off huge swathes of federal real estate. Though the most extreme DOGE assault was stalled, plans have been moving forward quietly.

Wednesday’s member days include Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Energy and Water Development. The deadline for members to submit energy and water development earmark requests has passed, but Transportation-HUD community project funding requests—such as those for public transit infrastructure—can be submitted by members of Congress through Friday.

Thursday’s member days are for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies earmarks in the morning and Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies earmarks in the afternoon.