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The Week in Climate Hearings: Waking Up After The Flood
Trump's oily nominees are up in the Senate as Whitehouse gives his 300th climate floor speech
Brad Johnson
July 07, 2025
Flood damage in Texas, July 7, 2025. Credit: World Central Kitchen
As of this writing, the death toll from the fossil-fueled Texas flash floods has soared to 104, with dozens still missing. As more bodies are found and identified, Senate Republicans will push forward this week to gut climate science, install oil-industry lobbyists in key positions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy, and put Taylor “The Greatest Hoax” Jordan in charge of privatizing the National Weather Service.
Organizing Resilience, a climate resilience group run by survivors of climate disasters, is fundraising for groups helping flood survivors such as Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and United Survivors Disaster Relief.
Meanwhile, Big Oil-financed Republican politicians continue to attempt to deflect blame while they move forward to dismantle the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Weather Service, the National Science Foundation, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
When asked after a weekend of golfing if the administration needed to hire back the meteorologists eliminated by DOGE, Trump replied, “I would think not.” He continued by lying: “No one expected it, nobody saw it.”
Although most Congressional Democrats have responded with boilerplate thoughts and prayers, a few spoke from the heart about this deadly climate crime.
“As extreme weather events become more common,” Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) responded, “it’s more important than ever to ensure that disaster relief remains a priority for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.”
“The NWS budget isn’t just a number that can be slashed because Trump and DOGE feel like it,” Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) said more bluntly. “These are real services that would have saved real people. I’m just devastated.”
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) angrily posted: “The Wall Street Journal Trump/Repubs think we don’t need FEMA,NOAA,NAT’L WEATHER SVC. TOTALLY WRONG!!”
An advertisement from the House Freedom Caucus attacking renewable tax credits
Yesterday’s Hill Heat mentioned that Trump promised hardliners like Congressional Solar Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) he would accelerate the One Big Brutal Bill Act’s attacks on wind and solar. Fellow Freedom Caucus Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) announced he agreed to vote for the bill because Trump would be “terminating those Green New Scam subsidies.”
Today Trump kept his promise, with an executive order directing the Secretary of the Treasury to throttle renewable production tax credits until they are phased out. And today dozens of Roy’s constituents lie in Kerrville’s Grimes Funeral Chapels, awaiting identification.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La., no relation) gave the House the week off, but the Senate is in session as thunderstorms and flooding rains from the remnants of Chantal, which caused widespread flooding in central North Carolina, move through the region.
Satellite imagery of Tropical Depression Chantal over the Carolinas on July 6, 2025. Credit: NOAA/GOES East
Wednesday, July 9
On Wednesday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) will deliver his 300th “Time to Wake Up” speech on climate change on the Senate floor. He began weekly addresses in 2012 during the depths of President Barack Obama’s climate silence, took some time off in the first year of the Biden administration, and has delivered more speeches since.
“We’ve now entered the era of consequences of our climate negligence,” Whitehouse told climate journalist Elizabeth Kolbert. “The stuff that the scientists predicted is actually starting to happen, and now that it’s so real and immediate, we should consider how it is that we failed so badly.”
At 8:45 am, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee votes on the nominations of Usha-Maria Turner to be an Assistant Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and David Wright to be a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, where he is the current chair. Their nomination hearing was on June 25th. Turner is a longtime carbon-energy lobbyist, most recently for fracking giant Chesapeake Energy. She previously worked for OGE Energy and TXU Power.
At 9:30 am, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee interviews the nominee for Director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and three nominees to be Assistant Secretaries of Energy: Audrey Robinson for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Tim Walsh for Environmental Management, and David Eisner for International Affairs.
Audrey Robinson is an oil executive who “helped found Denver-based Franklin Mountain Energy, a since-sold natural gas fracking firm in the Permian Basin with an open investigation at EPA over recent Clean Air Act violations.” She “also sits on the board of Liberty Energy, the fracking services company led by Energy Secretary Chris Wright until his resignation in January. Earlier in her career, Robertson worked at Goldman Sachs and Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, an investment firm focused on fossil fuels.”
Tim Walsh is a Colorado real estate developer who “has donated over $2.5 million to Republican candidates and conservative causes since 2022.”
David Eisner worked in the Treasury Department in the first Trump administration and is critical of GOP election deniers, but is a devoted fan of Chris Wright. Eisner claims that Wright can’t be a climate denier because Wright parrots right-wing talking points about “energy poverty.” Wright is a climate denier.
At 10 am, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee interviews the nominees to lead NOAA: Neil Jacobs for Administrator and Taylor Jordan for Deputy Adminstrator.
In 2019, Jacobs was the acting NOAA Administrator who forced NOAA to issue a false statement in support of Donald Trump’s altered projection of Hurricane Dorian’s path, the incident known colloquially as “Sharpiegate.” Jacobs was found to have violated NOAA’s code of ethics. Jacobs is the acting NOAA Adminstrator.
Jordan was a Republican climate policy staffer for Texan climate deniers Reps. Ralph Hall and Lamar Smith while composing ambient music under the names “The Greatest Hoax” and T.R. Jordan. He worked at NOAA under Jacobs, and became a corporate lobbyist whose clients have “included artificial intelligence, weather and satellite companies, including AccuWeather; PlanetiQ, a commercial weather data company; the SmallSat Alliance, a group of small satellite manufacturers; MeetKai, an AI company; and Ideanomics, a commercial EV support company.” He will likely lead the Project 2025 plan to privatize the National Weather Service.
The committee will also be interviewing Harry Kumar to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs. Kumar is a former Trump Department of Commerce official, oil industry lobbyist, and most recently chief lobbyist for battery-recycling startup Li-Cycle, which filed for bankruptcy after failing to secure private funding to unlock a $475 million loan from the DOE Loan Programs Office. He is currently Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Thursday, July 10
At 9:30 am, the Senate Appropriations Committee conducts a marathon markup of the Commerce, Justice, Science; Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA; and Legislative Branch appropriations acts for fiscal year 2026. The markup includes the budgets for NOAA, NSF, and NASA, all of which are already having their climate programs illegally slashed by Trump.
At 10 am, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee considers the budget of the U.S. Forest Service for FY2026 with Chief Tom Schultz. The proposed budget transfers wildfire responsibilities to the Department of Interior and eviscerates conservation programs and scientific research.
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