Hill Heat

Opening Statements

• Chairwoman Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) of the Subcommittee on Environment
• Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX)

Witnesses

• Dr. Roxane Cohen Silver, Professor of Psychological Science, Medicine, and Public Health, University of California, Irvine
• Dr. Samantha Montano, Assistant Professor of Emergency Management, Massachusetts Maritime Academy

• Chair Spanberger Opening Statement

Witness:

• John Phipps, Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC

Panelists:

• Dr. Beverly Wright, Executive Director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
• Dr. Robert D. Bullard, Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy at Texas Southern University
• Dr. N’Taki Osborne Jelks Assistant professor in environmental and health sciences at Spelman College in Atlanta.
• Joy Semien, graduate of Dillard University (B.S.), Texas Southern University (M.A.)

The hearing will focus on ensuring a just, equitable transition to a net-zero clean energy economy that creates good-paying, high-quality jobs.

Witnesses:

• Dr. Ana Baptista, Assistant Professor of Professional Practice and Associate Director of the Tishman Environment and Design Center, The New School, on behalf of New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance and the Equitable and Just Climate Forum. Dr. Baptista’s research and professional practice focuses on environmental and climate justice. She works directly with impacted communities and coalitions to support the advancement of community-led alternatives to achieve environmental justice.
• Jason Walsh, Executive Director, BlueGreen Alliance. Walsh has more than twenty years of experience at state and federal levels in policy development and advocacy in a range of issue areas, including climate, clean energy, and economic and workforce development. He previously served in the Obama administration, as the Director of the Office of Strategic Programs in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and as a Senior Policy Advisor in the White House Domestic Policy Council, where he led the Obama administration’s efforts to align and scale up federal investments in workers and communities impacted by the shift away from coal in the power sector.
• Beth Soholt, Executive Director, Clean Grid Alliance (CGA_Midwest), on behalf of American Council on Renewable Energy and Americans for a Clean Energy Grid. Soholt has more than 15 years of experience working with the electric industry, with a focus on helping overcome the barriers to bringing wind power to market. She holds a seat on the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) Advisory Committee, representing the Environmental Sector.
• Michael Shellenberger (Minority Witness), Founder and President, Environmental Progress

Join our chair Michelle Deatrick July 22 at 7pm ET as she facilitates a conversation between actress and activist Jane Fonda, Representative Deb Haaland (D-NM), Sunrise Movement National Spokesperson Naina Agrawal-Hardin, and 350 Action’s North America Director, Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, about why Democrats need to run on climate.

Watch here.

Witnesses:

• Dr. Pamela McElwee, Associate Professor of Human Ecology, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• Dr. Richard Murray, Deputy Director & Vice President for Research, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• Dr. Heidi Steltzer, Professor of Environment and Sustainability, Fort Lewis College, Colorado
• Taryn Fransen, Senior Fellow, Global Climate Program, World Resources Institute

Republican witness:

• Michael Shellenberger, Founder and President, Environmental Progress

Witnesses

• Joshua Berger, Governor’s Maritime Sector Lead, State of Washington
• John Butler, President and Chief Executive Officer, World Shipping Council
• Dr. Lee Kindberg, Director, Environment & Sustainability, Maersk Line/Maersk Agency USA
• Peter Bryn, Technical Solutions Manager, North America, ABB Marine & Ports
• Kathy Metcalf, President and Chief Executive Officer, Chamber of Shipping of America

Around the world, climate change is driving mass migration as water dries up, farmland turns to desert, shorelines erode, coastal areas flood, permafrost melts and ecosystems can no longer support the communities they once could. And it is going to get much much worse. As far back as 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration – and we’re seeing this projection come true. The latest estimates predict as many as 200 million climate refugees by 2050.

This is a climate and human rights crisis. Climate migrants routinely face life threatening hardship, discrimination and repression in their search for safety for their families, and often those most vulnerable to changing climate and extreme weather lack the resources to migrate, so remain in harm’s way.

Even worse, many of the same banks that made billions of dollars financing the fossil fuel industry that caused the climate crisis- Black Rock, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase- are now profiting off of climate chaos by investing in the companies that are contracting with ICE to finance border wall construction and run for-profit prisons and detention centers. First they drive climate migration, and then they profit from it.

On December 6th, we’re going to shut down business-as-usual for the financial institutions that profit off of the climate crisis and immigrant detention. Meet us at 11am in Franklin Square (14th St. and I St. NW, Washington, DC 20005) for a rally featuring Jane Fonda and Fire Drill Fridays along with Saket Soni, the Executive Director of the National Guestworker Alliance, GreenFaith, the Franciscan Action Network and other climate, faith and migrant justice organizers. At 12 noon we’ll march through the streets of DC to visit the banks and financial institutions in DC that are profiting off of the climate crisis and immigrant detention.

Witnesses:

• Dr. Neil Jacobs, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction, performing the duties of Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, NOAA
• Dr. Clifford Mass, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington
• Dr. Peter P. Neilley, IBM Distinguished Engineer and Director of Weather Forecasting Sciences and Technologies, The Weather Company, An IBM Business
• Dr. Thomas Auligné, Director of the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)

Witnesses

• Vi Lyles, Mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina
• Rich Powell, Executive Director, ClearPath
• Bob Keefe, Executive Director, Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2)
• Dr. Ernest Moniz, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Energy Futures Initiative