Climate science, policy, politics, and action
Subcommittee hearing. Rescheduled from 9 am to 10:30 am.
Witnesses:
Over the next few weeks, we’re watching the House closely as Republicans kick off voting on their budget reconciliation bill, which is chock-full of handouts to polluters and billionaires and is on track to be one of the most harmful, costly, and sweeping pieces of legislation in recent history.
On Wednesday, May 21st starting around 4pm we’re rallying at the U.S. Capitol steps to fight back against Republicans’ attempts to pass massive cuts to essential programs to provide handouts to billionaires and polluters. RSVP now.
Subcommittee hearing.
Chair John Kennedy
Witness:
| Department of Energy | ||
|---|---|---|
| Program Name | $ Change from 2025 Enacted (in millions) | Brief Description of Program and Recommended Reduction or Increase |
| Cuts, Reductions, and Consolidations | ||
| IIJA Cancellation | -15,247 | The Budget cancels over $15 billion in funds committed to build renewable energy, removing carbon dioxide from the air, and other technologies. The Budget also ends programs for electric vehicle and battery makers and cancels the Carbon Dioxide Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act. |
| Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) | -2,572 | The Budget reorients EERE programs to early-stage research and development programming, eliminating funding for Justice40. This proposal would support technologies that promote fossil-fuel and nuclear power and bioenergy. |
| Office of Science | -1,148 | The Budget reduces funding for climate change and renewable energy research. The Budget maintains priority areas such as high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, quantum information science, fusion, and critical minerals. |
| Environmental Management (EM) | -389 | The EM program performs activities at 14 active cleanup sites and operates a geologic disposal facility (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico). The EM topline is being reduced by $389 million, which reflects a reduction of about $178 million for the transfer of responsibility from the EM program to the National Nuclear Security Administration for the Savannah River site in South Carolina, where plutonium pit production capabilities would be developed. The Budget maintains the Hanford site in Washington at the 2025 enacted level but reduces funding for various cleanup activities at other sites. |
| Advanced Research Project Agency‒ Energy (ARPA-E) | -260 | The Budget reduces funding for ARPA-E, limiting support to research advancing fossil-fuel technologies and other technologies. Pollution-reducing technologies are not supported. |
| Office of Nuclear Energy | -408 | The Budget reduces funding for research on nuclear energy. Funding priorities include innovative concepts for nuclear reactors, researching advanced nuclear fuels, and maintaining the capabilities of the Idaho National Laboratory. |
| Office of Fossil Energy | -270 | The Budget restores the name and function of the Office of Fossil Energy to its original purpose, which is funding for the research of technologies that could produce an abundance of domestic fossil energy and critical minerals. |
Subcommittee hearing.
Witness:
| Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Program Name | $ Change from 2025 Enacted (in millions) | Brief Description of Program and Recommended Reduction or Increase Enacted |
| Increases | ||
| America First Opportunity (A1OF) Fund | +2,900 | Support India and Jordan; repatriations; counter China and other near-peer rivals; and fund new activities. |
| Development Finance Corporation | +2,820 | The Budget increases the U.S. International DFC. This investment includes $3 billion for a new revolving fund to allow DFC to recycle any realized returns from its initial investments without further appropriation. |
| Cuts, Reductions, and Consolidations | ||
| Economic Support Fund, Development Assistance, Democracy Fund, and Assistance for Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia | -8,326 | The Budget eliminates funding for these programs and replaces them with the single A1OF and the DFC. International Disaster Assistance, |
| Migration and Refugee Assistance, and Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA)—International Humanitarian Assistance (IHA) | -3,207 | The Budget reduces disaster assistance. The Budget provides $1.5 billion in ERMA for the President to use at his discretion and consolidates accounts into a new $2.5 billion IHA account. |
| State and USAID Operations | -2,462 | Consistent with Executive Order 14169, “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” the Budget reorganizes USAID into the Department of State. |
| International Narcotics Control & Law Enforcement (INCLE) | -1,160 | The majority of INCLE funds go to reforming criminal justice systems in foreign governments, rather than to narcotics enforcement, which is primarily undertaken by: Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); Central Intelligence Agency; Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and Department of Defense (DOD) elements. The Budget eliminates rule-of-law programs, while providing $125 million to fund programs that support counter-drug, organized crime, and border security missions. |
| Peacekeeping Missions | -1,614 | The Budget does not provide funding for United Nations (UN) and other peacekeeping missions. |
| Assessed and Voluntary Contributions to International Organizations | -1,716 | The Budget pauses most assessed and all voluntary contributions to UN and other international organizations, including for the UN Regular Budget, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and the World Health Organization. This is consistent with Executive Order 14199, “Withdrawing the United States From and Ending Funding to Certain United Nations Organizations and Reviewing United States Support to All International Organizations.” The President can choose to fund these international organizations out of the A1OF if he chooses. |
| Educational and Cultural Exchanges | -691 | |
| Transition Initiatives (TI) | -75 | TI funds short-term assistance that aims to shape political outcomes in countries. The Budget eliminates the TI account. |
| Complex Crisis Fund | -55 | The Complex Crisis Fund is a fund for nation-building projects. The Budget eliminates this account and redirects crisis funding to the IHA and ERMA accounts. |
| National Endowment for Democracy (NED) | -315 | The Budget eliminates funding for NED. |
| Global Health Programs/Family Planning | -6,233 | The United States is the largest global contributor to programs that provide family planning. The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding is preserved for any current beneficiaries. |
| Food for Peace (Title II) | -1,619 | The Food for Peace program spends $1.6 billion to ship food overseas. |
| Contribution to the Global Environmental Facility and Climate Investment Funds | -275 | The Budget proposes to eliminate contributions to the Global Environment Facility and the Climate Investment Funds. |
| Contributions to Multilateral Development Banks (African Development Bank, African Development Fund) | -555 | Consistent with Executive Order 14169, “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” the Budget proposes to eliminate contributions to the African Development Fund. The Budget also includes $3.2 billion over three years for the U.S. Government contribution to the International Development Association. |
| Other Treasury International Reductions | -86 | The Budget proposes to eliminate several of the Department of the Treasury’s international assistance programs, including the Debt Restructuring account, and contributions to the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program. |
On Wednesday, May 21, 2025, at 2:00 p.m., in room 1324 Longworth House Office Building, the Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold an oversight hearing titled “Unleashing a Golden Age: Examining the Use of Federal Lands to Power American Technological Innovation.”
Witnesses:
Foundation for American Innovation brief
Subcommittee hearing.
Chair Lisa Murkowski
Witness:
| Department of the Interior (DOI) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Program Name | $ Change from 2025 Enacted (in millions) | Brief Description of Program and Recommended Reduction or Increase |
| Bureau of Reclamation and the Central Utah Project | -609 | The Budget provides $1.2 billion for the Bureau of Reclamation and the Central Utah Project. |
| Operation of the National Park System | -900 | The Budget would transfer most properties to State-level management. Achieving a $900 million cut to operations would require eliminating funding for roughly 350 park sites, 75 percent of the total. |
| NPS Historic Preservation Fund | -158 | The Budget eliminates almost all funding except for projects in partnership with HBCUs. |
| NPS Construction | -73 | This reduction complements the Administration’s goals transferring most parks to State and tribal governments. |
| NPS National Recreation and Preservation | -77 | |
| Bureau of Indian Affairs Programs that Support Tribal Self-Governance and Tribal Communities | -617 | The Budget eliminates the Indian Guaranteed Loan program for tribal business development. The Budget also terminates the Indian Land Consolidation Program. In addition, the Budget also reduces funding for programs that directly fund tribal operations such as roads, housing, and social services. |
| Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Public Safety and Justice | -107 | The Budget cuts the tribal law enforcement program by 20 percent. |
| Bureau of Indian Education Construction | -187 | The Budget eliminates funding for construction of tribal schools. |
| U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Surveys, Investigations, and Research programs | -564 | USGS provides science information on natural hazards, ecosystems, water, energy and mineral resources, and mapping of Earth’s features. The Budget eliminates programs that provide grants to universities and crucial climate science initiatives and instead focuses on support for minerals and fossil fuel extraction. |
| Bureau of Land Management Conservation Programs | -198 | The Budget proposes deep reductions. The Budget also reduces the Wildlife and Aquatic Habitat Management program. |
| U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) State, Tribal, and NGO Conservation Grant Programs | -170 | The Budget eliminates USFWS grant programs that fund conservation of species managed by States, Tribes, and other nations. |
| Renewable Energy Programs | -80 | The Budget proposes to eliminate support for renewable energy deployment. |
| USFWS Ecological Services | -37 | USFWS’ Ecological Services program and NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service Office of Protected Resources are jointly responsible for administering the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The Budget consolidates these two programs into a single program housed within DOI with significantly reduced funding. |
| Federal Wildland Fire Service (consolidation of USDA and DOI Wildland Fire Management programs under a unified agency within DOI) | -- | Federal wildfire risk mitigation and suppression responsibilities currently are split across five agencies in two departments: the U.S. Forest Service in USDA and BIA, Bureau of Land Management, USFWS, and NPS in DOI. The Budget consolidates the Federal wildland fire responsibilities into a single new Federal Wildland Fire Service at DOI, including transferring USDA’s current wildland fire management responsibilities. |
Full committee hearing.
Nominees:
Hoskins is a Republican staffer for the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry. Before serving as chief of staff to USDA’s undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs in Trump’s first term, Hoskins worked as public policy counsel at National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, manager of regulatory policy at CropLife America-RISE, and director of health and regulatory affairs at the American Horse Council.
Dr. Scott Hutchins was the deputy under secretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Research, Education and Economics mission area, which is comprised of the Agricultural Research Service, Economic Research Service, National Agricultural Statistics Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture during Trump’s first term. Hutchins retired from Corteva AgriScience after almost 32 years, where he held many roles in Program Management, Human Resources, Six Sigma, R&D Portfolio Management and Global Administration.
Subcommittee hearing entitled “Examining Ways to Enhance Our Critical Mineral Supply Chains.”
Witnesses:
Subcommittee hearing.
Witnesses:
| Program Name Enacted | $ Change from 2025 (in millions) | Brief Description of Program and Recommended Reduction or Increase |
|---|---|---|
| Corps of Engineers—Civil Works (Corps) | ||
| Cuts, Reductions, and Consolidations | ||
| Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF) Surplus | -1,071 | The HMTF, whose funding is subject to annual appropriations, finances operation and maintenance projects for the Nation’s water channels. The Budget reduces funding for HMTF. |
| Corps WIFIA program | -7 | The Corps WIFIA program provides direct loans and loan guarantees for non-Federal dam safety projects. The Budget eliminates this program. |
| Department of the Interior (DOI) | ||
| Cuts, Reductions, and Consolidations | ||
| Bureau of Reclamation and the Central Utah Project | -609 | The Budget provides $1.2 billion for the Bureau of Reclamation and the Central Utah Project, eliminating funds for habitat restoration. |
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene a full committee executive session on Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. ET to consider the following legislation and nominations.
Nominations:
Their nomination hearing was on May 13th.
Coast Guard Promotions
Legislation: