Hill Heat

Subcommittee hearing.

Witness:

• Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy

Budget request

The Budget requests $53.9 billion in discretionary budget authority for DOE, a $4.8 billion or nearly 10-percent increase from the 2026 enacted level excluding the Working Families Tax Cut Act (WFTC) funding. Within the requested amount, $32.8 billion is allocated to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a $3.6 billion or 12-percent increase from the 2026 enacted level (including WFTC funding). The remaining $21.1 billion refects a $2.7 billion or 11-percent reduction from the 2026 enacted level.

IIJA funds redirected to $3.5 billion to “deploy firm baseload power” and $1.2 billion for AI to support seven AI supercomputers at the Argonne and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

The Budget reproposes the cancellation of $15.2 billion in IIJA funding.

DOE abolished the EERE office in 2026.

Office of Science (–$1.1 billion): The Budget eliminates funding for climate change research.

Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) (–$150 million).

The Budget prohibits the use of Federal funds for expensive subscriptions to academic journals unless required by Federal statute or approved in advance by a Federal agency

Subcommittee hearing.

Hearing memo

Witnesses:

• Jason Grebe, Senior Vice President Corporate Planning, Intel
• Jason Oxman, President and CEO, Information Technology Industry Council Witness Testimony
• Dr. Charles Wessner, Nonresident Senior Advisor, Renewing American Innovation Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
• Asad Ramzanali, Director of AI and Technology Policy, Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, Vanderbilt University

The U.S. global market share in semiconductor manufacturing capacity is in decline. In 1990, the U.S. had a 37 percent share of global manufacturing capacity, but by 2022, the U.S. held just 10 percent.

Join Democrats Abroad Environment & Climate Crisis Council for a special Earth Month virtual panel discussion with the filmmakers behind the acclaimed documentary The White House Effect.

This powerful film examines how the United States, once poised to lead the world on climate action, became entangled in decades of political struggle, industry influence, and missed opportunities that shaped today’s climate crisis. Through archival footage and behind-the-scenes accounts from key figures in U.S. climate policy, The White House Effect reveals the political decisions that altered the course of global climate action.

Joining us for the live conversation on April 15th at 12:00 pm ET / 6:00 pm CET are the documentary’s directors and producers, Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, alongside Michelle Deatrick, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, Environment and Climate Crisis Council. The panel will explore the film’s revelations, the political forces that shaped U.S. climate policy, and what lessons they hold for the fight against the climate crisis today.

As part of this Earth Month event, Democrats Abroad will provide free streaming access to the documentary from April 6 to April 20, giving viewers the opportunity to watch the film ahead of the discussion and revisit the site for a few days afterwards.

RSVP for the Zoom link to the event and a link to watch the film. Your country committee may also be having a viewing

Meet the Directors & Producers:

Bonni Cohen is an American documentary film producer and director. She is the co-founder of Actual Films and has produced and directed an array of award-winning films. In addition to the recent film, The White House Effect, now streaming on Netflix, she produced the Oscar-nominated film Lead Me Home, which premiered at the 2021 Telluride Film Festival and is a Netflix Original.[5] She also co-directed Athlete A, which won an Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Documentary[6] and received four nominations from the Critics’ Choice Awards.[7] She is the co-founder of Actual Films, the production company of the documentaries An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, Audrie & Daisy, 3.5 Minutes, The Island President, Lost Boys of Sudan and The Rape of Europa.[8] Cohen is the co-founder of the Catapult Film Fund.

Jon Shenk is an Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated documentary film director and director of photography, known for his films Lead Me Home Athlete A, An Inconvenient Sequel, Audrie & Daisy,The Island President, Lost Boys of Sudan. He is the co-founder, with his wife Bonni Cohen, of Actual Films, a documentary film company based in San Francisco, CA. He co-directed (with Pedro Kos) and photographed Lead Me Home which premiered in 2021 at the Telluride Film Festival, was acquired by Netflix, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in 2022.

Michelle Regalado Deatrick is the Founder and National Chair of the first-ever DNC Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis. She is a battleground state organizer, a labor advocate, a policy analyst and a national environmental leader. Michelle serves on the National Advisory Boards for Climate Power and OnePointFive Climate Pledge, and on the boards of the Ecology Center and the Huron Valley Workers’ Organizing and Research Center. She chairs her County’s Environmental Council, which she founded. A recent county commissioner who flipped a rural multi-term red seat to blue, and a former Peace Corps Volunteer, Michelle is the Michigan Chair of the National Writers Union and a member of UAW Local 2320. She is also an internationally recognized poet and winner of the Chautauqua Poetry Award.

RSVP

Full committee hearing.

Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request

• Full Budget
• Appendix: Detailed Budget Estimates by Agency
• Analytical Perspectives
• Historical Tables
• Public Budget Database

Witness:

• Russell Vought, Director, Office of Management and Budget

Individuals or organizations not scheduled for an oral appearance may submit a written statement for consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record of the hearing. Any person(s) or organization(s) can submit written comments for the hearing record here: [email protected].

Please ATTACH your submission as a Microsoft Word document in compliance with the formatting requirements listed below by the close of business on Friday, April 17th.

All submissions and supplementary materials must be submitted in a single document via email, provided in Word format and must not exceed a total of 10 pages. Please indicate the title of the hearing as the subject line in your submission. Witnesses and submitters are advised that the Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record.

All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons and/or organizations on whose behalf the witness appears. The name, company, address, telephone, and fax numbers of each witness must be included in the body of the email.

Subcommittee hearing.

Witnesses:

• Carl Maxwell, Senior Vice President, Public Policy, Association of American Publishers
• Kate Travis, Managing Editor, Retraction Watch
• Dr. Jason Owen-Smith, Executive Director, Institute for Research on Innovation & Science, University of Michigan

Full committee hearing to examine restoration efforts in the Great Lakes region.

Witnesses:

• Mary Mertz, Director, Ohio Department of Natural Resources
• Christopher Winslow, PhD, Director, Ohio Sea Grant Program and Stone Laboratory at the Ohio State University College of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences’ School of Environment and Natural Resources
• Holly Bamford, PhD, Chief Conservation Officer, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

Full committee hearing.

Witnesses:

• Mike Waltz, Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, U.S. Department of State
• Jeff Bartos, Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations for U.N. Management and Reform, U.S. Department of State

The Committee on Rules will meet Tuesday, April 14, 2026 at 4:00 PM ET in H-313, The Capitol on the following measures:

• H.R. 6387 – FIRE Act (Text, Committee report)
• H.R. 6398 – RED Tape Act (Text, Report)
• H.R. 6409 – FENCES Act (Text, Report)
• H. Res. 1156 – Expressing support for tax policies that support working families.
• H.R. 8035 – To amend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to extend the authorities of title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 through October 20, 2027, and for other purposes.

Energy and Commerce Committee markup on January 21.

H.R. 6387, Fire Improvement and Reforming Exceptional Events (FIRE) Act (Rep. Evans)

This legislation amends section 319(b) to limit how emissions from wildfires, prescribed burns and exceptional events from the air monitoring data can be used to determine whether an area is attaining a NAAQS and to require increased coordination between EPA and affected states regarding exceptional event determinations. On Wednesday, December 10, 2025, the Subcommittee on Environment forwarded the bill to the full committee, without amendment, by a roll call vote of 13 yeas and 10 nays.

H.R. 6398, Reducing and Eliminating Duplicative Environmental Regulations (RED Tape) Act (Rep. Joyce)

This legislation amends section 309 to eliminate the requirement for EPA review and provide written comments on federal construction projects or other actions by a federal agency that are already subject to environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act. On Wednesday, December 10, 2025, the Subcommittee on Environment forwarded the bill to the full committee, without amendment, by a roll call vote of 12 yeas and 10 nays.

H.R. 6409, Foreign Emissions and Nonattainment Clarification for Economic Stability (FENCES) Act (Rep. Pfluger)

This legislation amends Section 179B of the Clean Air Act to exclude emissions emanating from outside the United States from being used to determine whether an area is attaining a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS). On Wednesday, December 10, 2025, the Subcommittee on Environment forwarded the bill to the full committee, without amendment, by a roll call vote of 14 yeas and 11 nays.

Day One | Day Two

Location: Hotel Washington
515 15th St NW
Washington, DC 20004

James Taylor appears 5 times. Lois Perry, Chris Martz, Rob Bradley, and Cameron Sholty appear twice.

Mortara Center for International Studies (and on Zoom)

Thea Riofrancos is an associate professor of political science at Providence College, a strategic co-director of the Climate and Community Institute, and a fellow at the Transnational Institute. Her research focuses on resource extraction, renewable energy, climate change, the global lithium sector, green technologies, social movements, and the Latin American left. She is the author of Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism (W.W. Norton, 2025) and Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador (Duke University Press, 2020), and the coauthor of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso Books, 2019). Her publications have appeared in scholarly journals such as Global Environmental Politics, World Politics, and Perspectives on Politics, as well as in media outlets including The New York Times, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, n+1, Dissent, and more.

In this year’s lecture, “Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism,” Thea Riofrancos explores whether “green capitalism” will save us from the climate crisis. Clean technologies and renewable energy are certainly growing sites of capitalist investment, with government policies playing a key role in making these sectors profitable. But the supply chains that produce the technologies pose vexing dilemmas for the energy transition. These dilemmas are most dramatic at the extractive frontiers of green capitalism: where the natural resources needed to manufacture electric vehicles and build windmills are extracted. In this talk, we will unpack these challenges through the lens of lithium, a so-called “critical mineral” essential for its role in decarbonizing one of the most polluting sectors: transportation.

RSVP