Hill Heat

Hearing page

Coverage of the issue:

• “Saving History With Sandbags: Climate Change Threatens the Smithsonian” – New York Times
• “Smithsonian says its treasures are threatened by floods, storms, and climate change – as Congress hears more alarms” – WUSA9

Witnesses

• Nancy J. Bechtol, Facilities Director, The Smithsonian Institution
• Cathy Helm, Inspector General, The Smithsonian Institution
• Phetmano Phannavong, Senior Project Manager, Atkins North America

THE COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS will meet in OPEN SESSION, HYBRID FORMAT to conduct a hearing entitled, “Disaster Recovery Assistance – Authorization of the Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery Program.”

Rescheduled from December 9th.

Witnesses:

• Michael A. Sprayberry, Senior Advisor For Emergency Management, Hagerty Consulting
• Matt Mayer, President, Opportunity Ohio

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene an executive session at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, December 15, 2021, to consider the following measures and nominations:

• S.__, Omnibus Tourism Act of 2021
• S.46, Restoring Resilient Reefs Act of 2021
• S.3196, Improving Protections for Midshipmen Act
• S.3309, Securing Semiconductor Supply Chains
• Nomination of Alan Davidson, to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, Department of Commerce (PN1321)
• Nomination of Jed David Kolko, to be Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, Department of Commerce (PN1221)
• Nomination of Viquar Ahmad, to be Assistant Secretary for Administration and Chief Financial Officer, Department of Commerce (PN1048 and PN1049)
• Nomination of Mary T. Boyle, to be a Commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (PN770)

Business meeting to vote on various nominations, most of which are from a October 26 hearing.

The World Bank has not committed to aligning its financing with limiting warming to 1.5C. And the Financial Times reports that the Trump-appointed president of the World Bank, David Malpass, pushed for the joint statement by development banks at the UN COP26 climate summit to be shortened and weakened. The Bank is governed by a 25-member Board of Directors, of which Dr. Kugler is nominated to be the U.S. member, replacing the acting U.S. director Lea Bouzis.

The State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs includes the Division for International Finance and Development.

Nominations:

• Dr. Adriana Debora Kugler, of Maryland, to be United States Executive Director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the lending arm of the World Bank, for a term of two years
• Ramin Toloui, of Iowa, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Economic and Business Affairs)
• Marc R. Stanley, of Texas, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Argentine Republic
• Rashad Hussain, of Virginia, to be Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom
• Thomas Barrett, of Wisconsin, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
• Erik D. Ramanathan, of Massachusetts, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Sweden
• Scott Miller, of Colorado, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Swiss Confederation, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Principality of Liechtenstein

8. Ms. Jamie L. Harpootlian, of South Carolina, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Slovenia

Hearing to consider the nominations of

• Enoh T. Ebong, of the District of Columbia, to be Director of the Trade and Development Agency
• Oren E. Whyche-Shaw, of Maryland, to be United States Director of the African Development Bank
• Leopoldo Martinez Nucete, of Virginia, to be United States Executive Director of the Inter-American Development Bank for a term of three years
• Maria Fabiana Jorge, of the District of Columbia, to be United States Alternate Executive Director of the Inter-American Development Bank
• Alice P. Albright, of the District of Columbia, to be Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation
• Michele Taylor, of Georgia, for the rank of Ambassador during her tenure of service as United States Representative to the UN Human Rights Council
• Christopher R. Hill, of Rhode Island, to be Ambassador to Serbia
• Joe Donnelly, of Indiana, to be Ambassador to the Vatican

The USTDA runs the Global Partnership for Climate-Smart Infrastructure. USTDA also supports international fossil-fuel projects.

The African Development Bank is allocating 40 percent of project approvals to climate finance. It also finances fossil-fuel projects.

The Inter-American Development Bank has allocated limited funding in the past to climate finance, and finances both renewable and fossil-fuel projects.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation has recently announced plans to “commit more than 50 percent of our program funding to climate-related investments over the next five years.” The Corporation has financed several electricity modernization projects around the world.

During the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26), financial institutions and governments all over the world made unprecedented pledges and commitments to reduce financed emissions and begin to address climate-related financial risk. Now that the dust has settled, the real work of implementing these commitments begins. What will this mean for the Biden administration? Will President Joe Biden’s financial regulators endeavor to reign in banks and other financial institutions that continue to fund fossil fuels and other high-carbon-emitting industries or leave the U.S. economy and financial system at risk of another crisis?

Please join the Center for American Progress and Sierra Club for the launch of important new research revealing the enormous size of carbon emissions financed by the largest banks and asset managers in the United States and a discussion of actions the Biden administration can take to curtail this problem before the carbon bubble bursts.

Speakers:

• Caroline A. Crenshaw, Commissioner, U.S. Securities and Exchange
• Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)

In conversation:

• Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)
• John Podesta, Founder and Chair of the Board of Directors, Center for American Progress

Research Presentation:

• Ben Cushing, Campaign Director for Fossil-Free Finance, Sierra Club

RSVP

The climate emergency is here. Has ABC News been reporting like it?

For years, the country’s most-watched TV news outlet stayed mostly silent on climate change. And when it did break its silence, it ran lackluster, incomplete coverage.

However, ABC News recently created a dedicated climate unit and committed to tell a variety of climate stories this November as COP26 got underway. Has it been enough to undo the ignorance and confusion caused by its past silence? Is ABC News now treating the climate crisis like the biggest national and global emergency of our times?

Join our virtual public forum for a discussion on ABC News’ climate coverage. We will dive into what is needed from media organizations at the 11th hour of this climate emergency, and how we can push organizations to report on climate with more accountability, with our featured panelists:

• David Fenton, founder of Fenton: The Social Change Agency (one of the country’s leading progressive communications firms)
• Hanna E. Morris, PhD, researcher of media, culture, and the climate crisis and current postdoctoral fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
• Ben Franta, PhD, JD, researcher of climate accountability and current PhD student at Stanford
• Amy Westervelt, founder and executive producer of the Critical Frequency podcast network and the Drilled podcast, and co-host/co-author of the Hot Take podcast and newsletter

We have also invited executives and producers from ABC News and Disney (ABC News’ parent company) to our speaker line-up. We hope that they can join us and present their perspectives and plans on climate coverage.

RSVP

Fossil fuel companies learned over 50 years ago that burning fossil fuels would lead to climate change, and were soon predicting “globally catastrophic effects.” Company executives recognized that addressing climate change could require burning fewer fossil fuels — making climate action a threat to industry profits. In order to protect their bottom line, oil and gas companies masterminded a decades-long, multi-million dollar climate denial, disinformation, and deception campaign that stopped climate policy in its tracks. Join leading experts in the field of climate accountability for a deep dive into the documentation of Big Oil’s deception (from past to present). Learn how the fossil fuel industry fits into the larger picture of modern-day corporate deception and how local communities (and U.S. Congress) are using this evidence to hold the industry accountable.

RSVP

The hearing will focus on the potential of clean energy to make electricity bills and transportation costs cheaper for families across America. The hearing will also focus on how investments in the Build Back Better Act will help families avoid the volatility of natural gas and oil prices, make long-term progress to reduce energy prices across the board, and help businesses achieve their clean energy goals.

Witnesses:

• Miranda Ballentine, Chief Executive Officer, Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA). Ballentine leads a group of nearly 300 energy customers seeking to procure clean energy across the United States, including service providers, businesses, and non-profits. Previously, Ballentine served as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment, & Energy during the Obama Administration, as well as Director of Sustainability for Global Renewable Energy for Walmart.
• Uday Varadarajan, Principal, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI); Precourt Energy Scholar, Sustainable Finance Initiative at Stanford University. At RMI, Varadarajan is a Principal in the Carbon-Free Electricity Practice, where his work focuses on how to use cutting edge data and financial, policy, and regulatory analysis to help drive a just transition to clean energy. Previously, Uday served as a program examiner in the Office of Management and Budget, where he helped oversee the $2 billion budget for Department of Energy energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.
• Amy Myers Jaffe, Research Professor and Managing Director of the Climate Policy Lab, The Fletcher School at Tufts University. Jaffe is a leading expert on global energy policy, energy and sustainability, and geopolitical risk. During her career, she has led climate, energy, and sustainability programs at the Council on Foreign Relations, the University of California, Davis, and Columbia University, and she advised the Office of the Chief Investment Officer of the University California, Regents. She has also taught energy policy, business and sustainability courses at Rice University, UC Davis, and Yale University.

Hearing link

Witnesses

Panel I

• Sean O’Donnell, Inspector General & Acting Inspector General, Environmental Protection Agency & U.S. Department of Defense
• Michael J. Roark, Deputy Inspector General for Evaluations, U.S. Department of Defense
• Richard G. Kidd, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment and Energy Resilience, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Sustainment, U.S. Department of Defense
• Laura Macaluso, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Force Safety and Occupational Health, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Readiness, U.S. Department of Defense

Panel II

• Anthony M. Spaniola, Co-Chair, Great Lakes PFAS Action Network
• Andrea Amico, Co-Founder, Testing for Peace
• Mark Johnson, Deputy Director for Business and Regulatory Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, State of Ohio