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The Week in Climate Hearings: We forget very quickly
It's election day in Washington, D.C.; Jay Clayton on the fast track
Brad Johnson
June 16, 2026
At 2 pm today, Project Drawdown executive director Jonathan Foley holds a conversation with renowned climate scientist and communicator Katharine Hayhoe on where climate action goes from here. On Sunday, climate activists are protesting fossil-fueled sportswashing at stadiums, including the Aramco sponsorship of the World Cup, across the country.
It’s election day in occupied Washington, D.C., where armed gangs rove the city at the direction of Stephen Miller. Low-flying helicopters and fighter jets deafen the air at all hours. An alphabet soup of divorced men, garbed in their paramilitary ATF-CBP-DEA-DSS-HSI-ICE-IRS-NPP-USM tactical gear, trail local police on traffic stops, picking up bonuses in wraparound shades. Thousands of National Guard troops, flown in from Arkansas and Alabama, conduct “presence patrols” in quiet neighborhoods, which consist of them walking slowly down city blocks, standing on street corners watching playgrounds, and harassing teenagers. Illiterate bigots pummel themselves bloody on the White House lawn for a corpulent octogenarian and his court of oligarchs and jesters. The emperor-lich’s name has been taken down from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, thanks to the efforts of board member Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio).
Elsewhere, Texas is flooding from a tropical-storm-grade system spilling off the superheated Gulf, tornadic storms are strafing the Midwest, and the Northwest is sweltering in a deadly heatwave. The Department of Justice is arguing in court that the trillionaire space Nazi’s gas-powered AI data centers must stay on to keep powering the Department of War, opposing the NAACP’s suit to limit their pollution.
Here’s Hill Heat’s ballot for the D.C. primary, with the candidates generally supported by climate, labor, and social justice groups and opposed by the city’s corporate lobbyists, real-estate developers, online casinos, police unions, and crypto Republicans:
Delegate: Robert White
Mayor: Janeese Lewis-George
Council At-Large (primary): Oye Owolewa
Council At-Large (special): Elissa Silverman
Ward One Council: Aparna Raj
DC Democratic Party: the Free DC Slate
Also of interest: clean-energy policy expert Bridget French is running a long-shot challenge against the progressive-bloc Ward Five councillor Zachary Parker.
So D.C. folks: cast your ballot! DC has same-day registration, and permits non-citizen resident voting.
A rainbow over the Kennedy Center after record-shattering 100°F heat, June 13, 2026.
Only the Senate is in session this week; there’s a push by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to affirm election denier and climate denier Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence by unanimous consent because he’s less bad than election denier and climate denier Bill Pulte. As Hannah Arendt wrote, “those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil.”
On Wednesday, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee is marking up of S.1547, to reauthorize the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund, and then holding a hearing on the state of the U.S. Territories.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Relations Committee is marking up dozens of bills, including S.4610, the Pacific Promotion of Workable Energy Resources Act (“Pacific POWER”) Act, for Indo-Pacific geothermal deployment, S.4708, the Arctic Security and Diplomacy Act, which would require Secretary of State approval for international Arctic Ocean research, S.4392, the Energy Security Pacts Act, supporting the development of anti-China mining and energy pacts, and S.4443, the Eastern Mediterranean Gateway Act, which supports electric transmission and natural gas projects in the region.
Hill Heat’s U.S. Climate Politics Almanac is made available to the public thanks to our paid subscribers. Join their ranks today and grow the movement:
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