Heinrich, M Sen 94%
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an 1 25
U.S. Senate Democrats raised concerns Wednesday that Republicans have scheduled a hearing for one of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees before he completed the necessary paperwork and an FBI background check.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member Martin Heinrich separately criticized the decision, saying it sets a troubling precedent.
“Yesterday, the Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources noticed a hearing for Governor Doug Burgum to serve as the next secretary of the Interior, without minority consent, as has long been standard practice,” Schumer said during a floor speech. “Senate Democrats on the committee expressed reasonable objections to proceeding to this hearing, because the committee has not yet received basic information on Governor Burgum’s background.”
Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, released a written statement that he was extremely disappointed Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, chairman of the committee, scheduled the hearing for Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota.
“The Senate has a constitutional duty to advise and, if it determines, consent to the President’s nominees. This requires careful consideration of each nominee,” Heinrich wrote. “To achieve this, for decades, nominees that have come before the ENR Committee have submitted responses to a standard questionnaire and a completed financial disclosure form, approval from the Department’s ethics office, and completion of an FBI background check. Until these steps have been completed, I will not consent to notice of nomination hearings.
“Every nominee, every party, every administration should be subject to the same standards. I would urge Chairman Lee to reconsider his decision.”
A committee spokesperson said Heinrich has not yet received confirmation the FBI completed Burgum’s background check.
Heinrich also hasn’t received Burgum’s financial disclosure report, called Form 278e, or paperwork from the Office of Government Ethics saying their personnel have reviewed his financial disclosures and ethics agreements, and they believe he is in compliance with ethics laws, as required by the Ethics in Government Act, according to the spokesperson.
Lee in his own statement wrote that it was “disappointing to see Ranking Member Heinrich seeking to delay issuance of a hearing notice instead of focusing on delivering what voters demanded in November’s election: restoring American energy dominance after years of high energy prices and policy failures.”
“Governor Burgum submitted his paperwork to the Office of Government Ethics last week, and the committee has the same amount of paperwork that Energy and Natural Resources Committee Democrats had in 2009 when they noticed confirmation hearings,” Lee wrote. “I, as chairman, have made every effort to work with our Democratic colleagues, but we won’t give in to delays that undermine the American people’s mandate. It’s time to move forward and focus on solutions that will unleash America’s full energy potential, and I hope Democrats will work with us to deliver results for the American people.”
Burgum hearing anticipated next week
Burgum’s hearing is scheduled for Tuesday at 10 a.m., making it one of the first hearings for any of Trump’s nominees. Trump announced in November that he wanted Burgum, who ended his second term as North Dakota’s governor in December, to lead the Interior Department.
Burgum, 68, graduated from North Dakota State University in 1978 before going on to attend Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he received a master’s of business administration in 1980.
He worked at Great Plains Software, becoming CEO before Microsoft bought the company in 2001. Burgum then worked as senior vice president for that company until 2007. A year later, he co-founded venture capital firm Arthur Ventures.
Yahoo Finance estimated in 2002 that Burgum’s net worth was approximately $1.1 billion.
Burgum was first elected as governor of North Dakota in 2016 with 76.5% of the vote and then reelected in 2020 with 65.8%.
Other confirmation hearings scheduled for Tuesday include a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing for former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, whom Trump plans to nominate for VA secretary, and an Armed Services Committee hearing for Pete Hegseth, whom Trump wants to lead the Department of Defense.
The confirmation process is expected to continue Wednesday with hearings for Trump’s pick for Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; his selection for secretary of State, Marco Rubio of Florida, in the Foreign Relations Committee; and the pick for Office of Management and Budget director, Russ Vought, in the Homeland Security committee.
Others are likely to be scheduled in the days and weeks ahead, but the Senate cannot take floor votes on the nominees until after Trump takes the oath of office on Jan. 20.
No hearing yet for RFK Jr.
Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Bill Cassidy said during a brief interview earlier this week he didn’t know when he would begin committee hearings with Trump’s nominees for public health agencies, like the National Institutes of Health or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since they hadn’t yet completed their paperwork and background checks.
The Louisiana Republican said he hoped to begin those hearings before the end of January, but wasn’t sure if that would be possible.
“The only reason I hesitate is because, obviously, we have other hearings and I’m not sure if everything … that we need to receive, we have received. So partly, this is outside my hands,” Cassidy said.
Other committees, he said, were also waiting on paperwork and background checks from some of Trump’s nominees before scheduling hearings.
“I know other committees have had issues that they’ve not yet received everything they need to receive, in which case I don’t control that process,” Cassidy said.
The ongoing outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, also known as bird flu, or H5N1, is one reason Cassidy gave for why he wants to quickly confirm public health nominees.
“Well, H5N1 is serious, absolutely. And, of course, you want to get people in there, you want it to be the right person, on and on and on,” Cassidy said. “So I think we proceed with all due haste.”
Louisiana reported the country’s first human death related to the ongoing bird flu outbreak on Monday, shortly after Cassidy gave his comments about the confirmation process.
Cassidy met on Wednesday with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, in the senator’s Capitol Hill office, a typical part of the nomination process.
Cassidy, a physician who earned his medical degree from Louisiana State University Medical School in 1983, wrote on social media afterward that he had “a frank conversation” with Kennedy.
“We spoke about vaccines at length,” Cassidy wrote. “Looking forward to the hearings in HELP and Finance.”
*Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.
Last updated 4:13 p.m., Jan. 8, 2025
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.
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an 7 22
Just before U.S. President Joe Biden's speech at a shuttered coal plant, nine U.S. senators on Wednesday demanded that he stop weighing his options and urgently declare a climate emergency.
The call was led by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) along with Cory Booker (D-N.J.),Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
Their letter to Biden came after the White House confirmed Tuesday that an emergency declaration would not be included in the climate actions announced in his Wednesday address—leading one campaigner to charge that "in the midst of shocking and unprecedented heatwaves, wildfires, and drought in America, Europe, and across the globe, President Biden has failed to meaningfully act on climate."
The senators wrote that "while we will continue to fight for whatever climate and clean energy proposals can pass in a divided Senate, congressional action to address the climate crisis appears to have stalled."
"As a result, we urge you to put us on an emergency footing and aggressively use your executive powers to address the climate crisis, create good-paying union jobs in the United States, and liberate hard-working American families from volatile energy prices," they continued....
grid security bs coal nuke
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12062018/ferc-no-power-grid-national-security-emergency-trump-perry-coal-subsidy-energy-regulators-congress
top regulators of the nation's power grid told Congress on Tuesday that they see no immediate national security emergency to justify propping up coal and nuclear power plants with a government order, as the Trump administration is considering.
All five members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, weighed in at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a debate that has been roiling the industry and its regulators for months. It was the first time in many years that the whole commission had appeared before the committee together.
Even though most of them were appointed by President Donald Trump, they seemed ambivalent or even hostile to his repeated attempts, along with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, to require grid operators to buy power from uneconomical coal and nuclear power plants.
Trump political supporters and influential fossil fuel companies, including the coal company Murray Energy and utility FirstEnergy, have pushed for a government-ordered bailout, while a diverse mix of environmental advocates, major grid operators and some public utility companies and natural gas suppliers have argued strongly against it.
The administration wants to keep coal and nuclear generators from being driven out of business by cheaper natural gas or carbon-free wind and solar. A few months ago, FERC rebuffed Perry's attempt to subsidize plant operators who keep 90 days of fuel on hand. Now, the White House has told Perry to use his own emergency powers under two laws to bail the industry out on grounds that plant closures are presenting a national security emergency.
But the idea that the grid is currently so frail as to present an urgent military crisis has received little support, and next to none at the commission.
FERC's chairman, Kevin McIntyre,reading a formal statement aloud, spoke of the deliberative approach the commission has adopted: opening a docket to solicit the views of all parties, especially the grid operators with the fingertip control of electricity supply. To Trump and his allies, this is bureaucratese for kicking the can down the road and risks providing too little assistance too late.
Vigilance, but No Rush to Intervene
Commissioner Neil Chatterjee, a Kentucky native and former energy advisor to pro-coal Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), was the most receptive to some kind of action, if not on an emergency basis.
"In my view, 'no action' is like driving your car without a seat belt," he said.
Other commissioners echoed Chatterjee's call for "vigilance." But while they said it was important to keep the grid resilient during storms, heat waves, cold snaps or market upheavals, they looked askance at emergency federal intervention that would favor one fuel or another.
That, said Commissioner Robert Powelson, a former member of Pennsylvania's Public Utility Commission and past president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, would be "a real step back" from the benefits that have accrued to competing fuel suppliers and to consumers alike.
It would also retreat from the climate and other environmental benefits from wind and solar, as well as from storage technologies and smart metering that are helping to clean up the grid.
Commissioners Richard Glick, a former official with energy company Iberdrola, and Cheryl LaFleur, a former executive at National Grid USA who was appointed to FERC by President Barack Obama in 2010, were most hostile to the Trump plan.
"We cannot try to stop the natural evolution of this industry by claiming that there is a national security emergency unless there is evidence that suggests that an emergency actually exists," Glick said.
GOP Senator also Skeptical of Emergency Claim
After more than an hour of testimony, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) asked the question directly:
"Do any of you believe that in the wholesale power markets we are facing an actual national security emergency at the moment?"
"I do not," said LaFleur, the most outspoken of the commission's opponents of intervention.
"Would anyone answer that with a yes?" Heinrich inquired.
Nobody did.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the committee's chairwoman, also said she was skeptical.
"As with many controversies, with so much at stake in such a heavily regulated industry such as energy, the various interests are locked in," she noted. "This is battle, this is mortal conflict for some."
Murkowski is closely aligned with the oil and gas industry. Its lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute, has joined renewable energy advocates to strongly oppose the administration's efforts on behalf of coal and nuclear.
'FERC Does Not Pick Winners and Losers'
The committee's ranking Democrat, Maria Cantwell of Washington, said she found the idea of intervening in markets "mind-boggling."
The commissioners, in more measured words, seemed to agree with her.
"FERC does not pick winners and losers in the market," Powelson said. "Instead we create an environment where the market can pick the winners and losers." He called it a "moral hazard" to do otherwise.
"We need to be wary of people using the situation or a potential situation as a way to achieve market changes that they haven't been able to achieve otherwise," Glick said.
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Eight U.S. senators called for an investigation today after a federal climate scientist filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that he had been arbitrarily reassigned by the Trump administration in what he believed was retaliation for speaking out publicly about the dangers climate change poses to Alaska Native communities.
The scientist, Joel Clement, had been working on climate adaptation in Alaska for the Department of Interior when he was moved to an obscure accounting position that deals with fossil fuel royalty payments.
The senators, all members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, asked the deputy inspector general in the Department of Interior to look into allegations that as many as 50 Senior Executive Service employees at the department have been arbitrarily reassigned.
"We believe that any reassignment of highly trained, highly competent senior executives within the department from the positions in which they may best use their training and competence to accomplish the department's mission and best serve the public interest to sinecures where their talents are wasted would constitute a serious act of mismanagement, a gross waste of public funds, and an abuse of authority," the senators wrote.
The Senior Executive Service was created to provide continuity in the management of public programs, with career experts in their subject areas serving under the political appointees. Under the law, agency heads can reassign senior executives, provided the changes are made "to best accomplish the agency's mission."
"Any suggestion that the department is reassigning SES employees to force them to resign, to silence their voices, or to punish them for the conscientious performance of their public duties is extremely troubling and calls for the closest examination," the senators wrote. No Republicans signed the letter.
The letter came just days after Clement, formerly the director of the Office of Policy Analysis in the Interior Department, filed a formal complaint about his reassignment and published an op-ed in the Washington Post describing his experience.
In an interview with InsideClimate News, Clement said he thought it was "fishy" when he was reassigned, and that those suspicions were quickly confirmed. "When [Interior Secretary Ryan] Zinke testified the next week that they were going to use reassignments to trim the workforce, then you could really smell a rat," Clement said.
The day after Clement spoke out, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) raised concerns about the reassignments at a Congressional hearing. "It's a lot of confusion and, in my sense, a lot of undermining science," she said. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also told E&E News that she planned to speak with Zinke about Clement's case.
Cantwell was joined in the request for an investigation by seven colleagues on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee: Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Al Franken (D-Minn.),Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.). They asked Interior Department Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall to report back to them, as well as to Secretary Zinke and the appropriate committees in Congress.
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https://www.ecowatch.com/house-senate-committees-environmental-laws-2490244316.html
House, Senate Committees Attack Environmental Laws Using Wildfires as Pretext
Two congressional committees will hold coordinated hearings Wednesday to push partisan legislation designed to weaken environmental laws on public lands.
The House Natural Resources Committee will use the pretext of "catastrophic" wildfires to build support for legislation by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) that would curtail protections for endangered species and limit science-based review of environmental harms to expedite logging projects.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will consider three bills designed to limit environmental reviews on a variety of logging and forest-management projects on public lands.
"Timber companies would be the only winners if these terrible bills pass," said Brett Hartl, government affairs director with the Center for Biological Diversity. "No matter what issue our public lands face, the knee-jerk response from congressional Republicans is an effort to gut our environmental laws. They're willing to sacrifice our wildlife, healthy streams and rivers, and vibrant public lands on the altar of private profit."
The Senate committee will consider three bills:
- S. 605 by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.)would eliminate consultations required under the Endangered Species Act when a new species is added to the endangered species list or when critical habitat for a listed species is revised for Forest Service lands where a land management plan is already in place. Only when that plan is revised—usually every 15-20 years—would the Forest Service be required to review it at the landscape level.
- S. 1417 by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.)would severely limit science-based review of potential harms under the National Environmental Policy Act for juniper-tree control projects on public lands if those projects are designed to benefit either mule deer or sage grouse populations. While Juniper control may be appropriate in some ecosystems, many juniper-removal projects use destructive chaining, plant non-native seeds and spray herbicides that could actually harm sage grouse and other species. That potential harm needs to be evaluated and disclosed.
- S. 1731 by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) would exempt many types of logging and forest-management activities up to 10,000 acres—approximately 15 square miles—from environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act. The legislation includes provisions that would also limit judicial review of Forest Service logging activities and force citizens to use binding arbitration if they want to challenge a poorly conceived logging project.
The House committee will consider Westerman's bill, which would eliminate Endangered Species Act requirements that the Forest Service ensure logging projects do not harm endangered wildlife and plants. It also would rush through large-scale logging projects—up to 46 square miles—without meaningful public involvement or scientific evaluation by excluding such projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act.
"Republicans have repeatedly cut resources to the Forest Service, making it harder for agency workers to do their jobs," Hartl said. "Then the GOP scapegoats environmental laws for the problems that these funding cuts have caused. It's an incredibly cynical and dangerous strategy."
When properly funded, the Forest Service can meet its legal obligations and protect endangered species and natural resources. For example, in June the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service completed an important consultation process under the Endangered Species Act in just 10 days, covering nine national forests in the Sierra Nevada region, following the designation of critical habitat for the Yosemite toad and Sierra Nevada and mountain yellow-legged frogs. This type of consultation would be eliminated under the Daines-Tester legislation.
"Daines and Tester are wrong. Weakening the Endangered Species Act doesn't improve forest management—it only makes timber companies richer," said Hartl. "The main reasons forest projects are delayed is because Republicans in Congress have been starving the agencies of funding."
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2. Running Clean Works:NRDC Action Fund research :{:{has confirmed that candidates who campaign on clean energy and climate action from the beginning win—including Senators Jon Tester (D-MT) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) in 2012 to Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) in 2014. Clean energy provides a positive, solutions-based narrative to talk about issues that matter most to Americans: jobs, the economy and the health of their families.