When life gives you lemons...

PRESENTED BY CHANTAL TREMBLAY

Hill Heat is at Netroots Nation June 4 to 6 in Philadelphia. We’re co-sponsoring the Netroots Climate Happy Hour featuring state Sen.Chris Rabb (D-Pa.) on Friday at 5 pm at City Tap House. Drop us a line if you’re here—and check out our full preview of climate-related Netroots Nation events.

As I begin this post, I’m on the Amtrak to Netroots Nation, along with dday (aka David Dayen), who is on the opening panel with state Rep. Chris Rabb (D-Pa.), the Democratic candidate for the Third Congressional District. At lunch time I’m heading over to the memorial for my great friend Erin Hofteig, a brilliant and funny and relentless campaigner who recently passed away (ping me for details). I guess that’s the kind of thing that happens when the first Netroots Nation (then Yearly Kos) was twenty years ago. Such is life!

House Natural Resource Republicans are having fun with climate denial in the age of climate disaster. “Historic drought, low snowpack, and high accumulations of dry, hazardous fuels have turned federal forests into a ticking timebomb,” they warn for their hearing today on “what many are predicting to be the worst wildfire year on record” with Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz. But let us not dwell on the reasons the climate is changing! Let’s instead work on “making our forests more resilient” by cutting them down.

A similar form of rank stupidity is propelling the campaign of Spencer Pratt for mayor of Los Angeles—he’s a right-wing reality-show has-been whose home burned down in the fossil-fueled Palisades Fire. He blames the gubmint!

Have no fear, dear reader, it’s a bipartisan effort in California to address fossil-fueled wildfire by blaming firefighters and cutting down all the trees. Such is life!

Also this morning, the House Science environment subcommittee hears from the head of the EPA’s beleaguered science division, Dr. Maureen Gwinn, Deputy Associate Administrator for Science, Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions (OASES). OASES is what little remains of the Office of Research and Development after the EPA’s mass firings and reshufflings of its scientists, part of Russ Vought’s government-wide assault on federal scientists.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La., no relation) has lost control of the House agenda, with Democrats successfully passing a war powers resolution against Trump’s illegal Iran war last night. Senate Republicans are moving forward with the ICE-CBP reconciliation bill; now that the Trump ballroom funds have been dropped, John Thune (R-S.D.) can afford three GOP defections on issues like the Trump Arch and the $1.8 billion J6er fund and the IRS immunity for the Trump syndicate. Because the Senate GOP are cool with another $100 billion or whatever for Trump’s masked abduction police but a few do draw the line at actively endorsing Trump’s goons invading the Senate chambers. Such is life!

The Rio Grande Sierra Club has a great rundown of the local climate-hawk results in New Mexico—a lot of wins.

Google has a new and exciting plan to manage viral content.

“Arkansas has way more people locked in its prisons than working in its military industry,” writes Tim Barker in his survey of white phosphorus, but “Arkansas exports $1.5 billion in defense/aerospace output each year—which would make the state comparable to the Netherlands as a player in the international arms trade.”

As I finish posting, I’m at the convention’s opening drum line. Let’s make some lemonade and make some noise.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: House Science, Space, and Technology Committee
     Environment Subcommittee
  Advancing Environmental Protection Through Science and Technology

• 10 AM: House Agriculture Committee
  Testimony from the Secretary of Agriculture

• 10:15 AM: House Natural Resources Committee
     Federal Lands Subcommittee
  The State of Our Nation’s Federal Forests and Outlook for the 2026 Wildfire Year

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