The Big Brutal Bill

House Republicans are moving rapidly forward with their multi-trillion-dollar budget-reconciliation omnibus, now given the Orwellian title of the “Big Beautiful Bill Act.” After a late-night vote in the Budget Committee on Sunday at 10:37 pm, the gargantuan bill heads to the Rules Committee for an even later-night vote—the Rules markup is scheduled for Wednesday morning at 1 am, during which the committee members will decide the version of the bill going to the floor for a vote by the end of the week.

The big, brutal legislation, which effectively repeals the Inflation Reduction Act and other Biden-era initiatives while slashing federal programs for the poor and adding trillions of dollars of tax cuts, will undergo more secretive changes by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as the corporate lobbyists, white supremacists, and tech billionaires running the GOP battle out exactly how much to make the American people suffer and who exactly should profit the most. Still under contention within the GOP caucus is how quickly the IRA’s clean-energy tax credits should be phased out.

House Oversight Republicans are making their case for the Big Brutal Bill at 10 am on Tuesday, in a hearing attacking the Inflation Reduction Act's energy and health initiatives with Competitive Enterprise Institute climate denier Ben Lieberman, prescription-drug-industry defender Dr. Erin Trish, and anti-tax ideologue William McBride.

In a minor bit of good news, the energy sections of the Big Brutal Bill to mandate pipeline approvals (Sec. 41006) and to ratify DOGE cuts at the Department of Energy (Sec. 41009) have been removed, though the other climate-destroying provisions remain. Energy Innovation estimates the Big Brutal Bill’s energy and climate provisions will cost $1.1 trillion in U.S. GDP, increase electricity costs by 50 percent, and destroy hundreds of thousands of potential jobs.

On Tuesday morning, fired federal workers are holding their weekly Capitol job search, for the first time moving to the House offices. As usual, they’re first convening at the Hart atrium on the Senate side at 10 am.

The League of Conservation Voters is organizing a phone bank to call Congress on Tuesday evening before the Rules Committee markup. And on Wednesday afternoon, they’re hosting a rally on the U.S. Capitol steps to stop the clean energy bans and polluter giveaways in the Big Brutal Bill.

Appropriately, Fossil Free California is hosting a Tuesday-night conversation on climate futures and resistance in dark times with Stephen Markley, the author of The Deluge.

Trump Cabinet and the FY 2026 Budget

Meanwhile, Trump Cabinet officials continue testifying before Congress to defend Trump’s radical Fiscal Year 2026 budget.

EPA: The Environmental Protection Agency is already being dismantled by DOGE and by Administrator Lee Zeldin, whose confirmation was backed by Democrats John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona. Zeldin testifies before the House environmental committee on Tuesday and the Senate environmental committee on Wednesday. The Climate Action Campaign is mobilizing people to attend the Zeldin hearing on Wednesday morning and tell Congress to save the EPA.

INTERIOR: The budget for the Department of Interior, now run in all but name by DOGE operative Tyler Hassen, largely eliminates the Historic Preservation Fund, eliminates support for renewable energy deployment, eviscerates the U.S. Geological Survey, slashes conservation programs, and eliminates most of the National Parks system, calling for most of the parks to be transferred to the states. Figurehead Interior Secretary Doug Burgum testifies before House appropriators on Tuesday morning and Senate appropriators on Wednesday morning.

ENERGY: The Trump budget eviscerates the Department of Energy’s funding for renewable energy, energy efficiency, scientific research, and climate justice, wiping out nearly $20 billion in programs. Fracker and Energy Secretary Chris Wright presents the plan to Senate appropriators on Wednesday afternoon.

HOMELAND SECURITY: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who seeks to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency while militarizing the border and expanding DHS paramilitary secret police, testifies before the Senate on Tuesday morning. Ha Nguyen McNeill, the acting head of the Transportation Security Administration, whose remit includes pipeline security, testifies before the House on Tuesday afternoon.

STATE: On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio (whose confirmation was supported by every Democrat in the Senate) promotes the anti-democratic, anti-peacekeeping, anti-climate State Department budget before the Senate foreign relations committee in the morning and Senate appropriators in the afternoon. He appears before House appropriators on Wednesday.

CIVIL WORKS: Top officials from the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation testify before House appropriators on Wednesday morning on the plan to cut nearly $2 billion from harbor maintenance, dam safety, and habitat restoration

Legislative Hearings

Monday afternoon, the House Rules Committee set up S.J.Res. 31, which overturns a recent hazardous air pollution rule for major sources, for a floor vote.

On Wednesday morning at 10 am, the House Oversight committee marks up six anti-regulatory bills, some of which enjoy Democratic co-sponsorship from the likes of Jared Golden of Maine, Don Davis of North Carolina, and Henry Cuellar of Texas. The committee is also taking aim at Washington, D.C., with a bill to strip non-citizens of local voting rights and one to reverse policing reforms. It is likely Speaker Johnson intends to attach them as poison pills to the DC Local Funds Act.

Tuesday’s legislative hearings include witnesses testifying on:

• Using AI to develop new pesticides

• Tribal forest management

• Ocean observation, Northwest Straits conservation, and renaming the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge

• Offshore drilling, Montana coal mining, and earthquake, landslide, and volcano preparedness

Wednesday’s legislative hearings:

• Domestic mineral mining

• Tribal lands legislation

• Subsidizing data centers on federal lands, a priority of the Koch-backed “abundance” lobbyists

Also on Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee votes on several bipartisan pieces of legislation, including bills to improve the cybersecurity of the U.S. academic research fleet, to codify the National Water Center housed at the University of Alabama, and to reauthorize the National Landslide Preparedness Act.

On Thursday, the House Foreign Affairs Africa subcommittee holds a hearing on the dire crisis in Sudan.

Nominations

On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee votes on the David Fink to be Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, David Fogel to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service, Robert Gleason to be Director of the Amtrak Board of Directors, and McKinsey partner Pierre Gentin to be General Counsel of the Department of Commerce.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture Committee interviews Trump nominees Dudley Hoskins to be Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs and Scott Hutchins to be Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics at U.S.D.A. Both served in the first Trump term.

On Thursday, the HELP Committee is planning to vote on mine safety nominees Wayne Palmer and Marco Rajkovich, both of whom served in similar roles in the first Trump term, as well as several other labor and education nominees.