The nation’s capital is the epicenter of deadly heat this week, the result of the burning of hundreds of billions of tons of fossil fuels. Global oil traders are shrugging off Donald Trump’s lawless bombing of Iran, confident of the world economy’s continued dependence on the hydrocarbons that are cooking the planet.

In buildings cooled by a fossil-fueled power plant, members of Congress financed by the fossil-fuel industry will meet with fossil-fuel lobbyists to push forward on Trump’s One Big Brutal Bill (H.R. 1), Trump’s rescission package (H.R. 4), and Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget, while pontificating on the glories of extractive industry, from coal ash to mining. The Senate parliamentarian is going through the many provisions of the multi-trillion-dollar H.R. 1, as awareness of the brutality of the bill’s cuts to health, food, and climate programs reaches the American public.

Climate Hearings

Tuesday, June 24

There are several hearings of interest in the House on Tuesday morning.

At 10 am, the Small Business Committee holds a hearing promoting domestic rare-earth mining with mining executives. Also at 10 am, the Transportation railroads subcommittee holds a hearing on rail modernization with industry lobbyists and labor representative Tony Cardwell. At 10:15 am, the Natural Resources water, wildlife, and fisheries subcommittee receives testimony on four pieces of water, wildlife, and fisheries legislation, including H.R. 3857, which calls for using commercially available technologies for snowpack measurements and predictions.

Wednesday, June 25

With the heat index around 110°F, at 2:30 pm, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) chairs a Judiciary subcommittee hearing on U.S. energy policy and climate litigation with the cartoonish title “Enter the Dragon—China and the Left’s Lawfare Against American Energy Dominance.” The Republican witnesses are Attorney General Kris Kobach (R-Kan.) and professional climate denier Scott Walter. Climate hawk Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is the ranking member on the subcommittee. As Karen Zraick and Sachi Kitajima Mulkey report, oil companies are now trying to stop public climate lawsuits by claiming free-speech rights to spread climate disinformation.

Also at 2:30 pm, the Senate Armed Services Committee reviews the military energy, installations, and environment plans in the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act. The U.S. military is the world’s largest greenhouse polluter.

Thursday, June 26

There are two hearings of interest in the House on Thursday, as temperatures in D.C. cool to the upper 90s. At 10 am, the Natural Resources federal lands subcommittee holds a hearing on forest management, entitled “Fix Our Forests: Advancing Innovative Technologies to Improve Forest Management and Prevent Wildfires.” Which mostly translates to the timber industry engaging in clear-cutting.

At 10:15 am, the House Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee looks back on the last ten years of coal ash policy, with advocates arguing that the toxic byproduct of coal-fired power plants is secretly great.

DOGE Ratification

On Tuesday at 10 am, the House Oversight DOGE subcommittee holds a hearing on locking in the DOGE cuts. The Republican witnesses are Project 2025 architect David Burton, Project 2025 contributor Matthew Dickerson, and right-wing operative Dan Lips.

On Wednesday at 2:30 pm, the Senate Appropriations Committee conducts a review of the $9.4 billion rescission request, which would halt funding for the Montreal Protocol and other United Nations initatives and permanently eliminate U.S.A.I.D. and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought.

Appropriations

The House Appropriations Committee is completing its markup of the Fiscal Year 2026 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Bill Monday night; most of the work was done two weeks ago.

On Tuesday morning at 10 am, the committee holds its markup of the FY26 Homeland Security Bill, which embraces Trump’s build-up of the Department of Homeland Security’s paramilitary forces, but rejects the Trump administration’s plan to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

House appropriators had also scheduled this week for the major work of interior, environment, state, and national security spending, but postponed that at the last minute. Instead, the new appropriations bill the committee is handling this week is for the legislative branch, with the subcommittee mark up on Monday and the full committee mark on Thursday. With that bill, the MAGA-run Congress plans to radically slash the budgets of the Government Accountability Office and the Library of Congress. As Daniel Schulman writes, the House of Representatives “is poised to inflict catastrophic damage on its own institutional capacity.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi is testifying before House appropriators Monday afternoon on the Department of Justice budget proposal, which will demolish the Environment and Natural Resources division, pivoting the remaining staff to defending the Trump's polluter agenda from environmentalist lawsuits.

Nominations

On Wednesday morning, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee meets to interview Usha-Maria Turner to be Assistant Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency Office of International and Tribal Affairs and David Wright to be renominated as chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Turner is a longtime fossil-fuel-industry lobbyist, most recently for the fracking giant Chesapeake Energy. She previously worked for OGE Energy and TXU Power.

At 2:30 pm on Wednesday, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee interviews Republican campaign operative Billy Kirkland, a member of the Navajo Nation, to be Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs within the Department of the Interior.