PRESENTED BY COUNT BINFACE

Hill Heat hasn’t had enough birds lately, since our summer schedule has been mostly U.S. Climate Politics Almanac posts. Let us replenish our store, with photos from the official Hill Heat birder, Ash Ponders.

Blue cotinga! Credit: Ash Ponders

Yesterday, Sunrise Movement co-founder William Lawrence easily won the Democratic nomination in Michigan’s 7th District (Lansing) to take on Trumpist backbencher Rep. Tom Barrett (R). Lawrence, an unapologetic climate hawk, won by committing himself to on-the-ground campaigning for months on voters’ livability concerns, but also drew clear contrasts with his better-funded opponents over Gaza, data centers, universal health care, and opposition to corporate power.

Fellow (back in the day) Green New Dealer Abdul El-Sayed and (current) Green New Dealer Donavan McKinney also won their races in Michigan—El-Sayed overcame more than $70 milion in outside spending to win the Senate primary and McKinney defeated the iconoclastic Rep. Shri Thanedar in Michigan’s 13th District (Detroit).

Carbon-corporate media outlets were churlish about progressives’ big election night, warning direly that Democratic candidates who proved they could out-organize concentrated money would do poorly in the general election. Politico, owned by neo-Nazi-curious Germans and Presented by Chevron and the American Petroleum Institute, went over the top, in a piece written by five reporters entitled “Progressives didn’t get the big election night they wanted.” My favorite line: “For some El-Sayed allies a win is a win, even if the final margins are close.” The lickspittles responsible for this farcical farrago are Alec Hernandez, Erin Doherty, and Aaron Pellish, with contributions from Andrew Howard and Will Steakin.

Downballot victories for climate hawks include Yousef Rabhi for Ann Arbor mayor and every candidate backed by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC in Washington state. Unfortunately, the great Green New Dealer Cori Bush was unable to knock out Rep. Wesley Bell (D-Mo.), whom AIPAC spent $5 million last cycle to install in her place.

The MAGA forces suffered embarrassing defeats in Kansas and Missouri, as voters crushed anti-democratic ballot initiatives.

And Democrats nominated Methodist megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton to challenge Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), inspiring the Cook Report to say the seat is (barely) in play. By contemporary Kansas standards, Hamilton is a climate hawk. In 2020, he asked his congregation, “What would Jesus say about climate change?” In the sermon, he wildly misrepresented the scientific consensus on climate pollution, but otherwise accurately described the science and came to the right conclusion:

Yellow headed caracara. Credit: Ash Ponders

In amusing Trumpworld news, the Trump loyalist and fabulously incompetent United States attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro is about to be discarded by Trump, for abandoning the specious Reflecting Pool vandalism cases against Davey Hearn and several others who were arrested by National Parks Police for touching the failed pool liner. Pirro’s prosecutors presented reams of evidence that the National Park Service knew the coating had failed catastrophically, well before they started seizing passersby to appease Trump. Now her stock with Trump is dropping faster than SpaceX’s is. Unsurprisingly, our mad king is mad, siding with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and clearly on his way to dumping Pirro, just as he did with Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi.

In less amusing Trumpworld news, Senate Republican lame ducks John Cornyn and Thom Tillis ended their sham resistance to confirming Trump hatchetman Todd Blanche as U.S. Attorney General, and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) handed her threatened Republican counterpart Susan Collins (R-Maine) a sweetheart deal to temporarily keep the U.S. government funded through the election but not through the lame duck session.

Green-and-rufous kingfisher. Credit: Ash Ponders

Bad news everybody: Spokane is burning; Portland is choking; the Rhine is disappearing; the Danube is dropping; Big Oil is profiteering; Italy is searing; Tokyo’s lions are dying; South Korea’s baseball games are killing; Puerto Rico is water-rationing; Hungary is power-rationing; and Big Balls is hiring.¹

Stick that on a bus!

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky and @climatebrad@mastodon.social.

A wildfire blazes at night on Oregon Route 207, July 23, 2026. Credit: Oregon Department of Transportation

After a quiet¹ July, the primary season heats up again in August (much as the planet is doing!). On August 4th, the first Tuesday of the month, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia, and Washington hold primaries. Tennessee holds its primary election on Thursday, August 6th, and Hawaii on Saturday, August 8th. The next Tuesday, August 11th, Minnesota, Vermont and Wisconsin votes. Finally, voters in Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming cast their ballots on Tuesday, August 18th.

Below, we’ll highlight key climate races in Michigan, Missouri, Virginia, Hawaii, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Florida.²

Tuesday, August 4th

Several Michigan Democratic primaries are being seen as referenda on the future of the Democratic Party and the power of a Sanders or AOC endorsement. There is some truth to that claim, as candidates are differentiating themselves on the Israel-Iran war, data centers, and Medicare for All. But the candidates are also campaigning differently, testing whether in-district field campaigning can overcome high-dollar ad blitzes.

Michigan—U.S. Senate

Open (Peters)
Rating: Toss-up

Sen. Gary Peters (D), one of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) reliable scapegoats when Democratic votes are needed to avoid a confrontation with the Trump regime, is retiring. The Democratic primary has become a hotly contested race between the openly leftist Abdul El-Sayed and the AIPAC-backed Haley Stevens. On the national stage, it’s seen as a contest between the party’s DSA wing (Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) and the corporatist wing (Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, AIPAC, EMILYs List, and the Congressional Black Caucus). El-Sayed wants to confront global warming as a crisis of corporate influence and health; Stevens is only mildly interested in addressing the threat, especially if it involves challenging Detroit auto manufacturers to change.

Michigan’s 7th

Incumbent: Tom Barrett (R)
Rating: Toss-up

Trump glowers as Tom Barrett talks in Milford, Mich., Monday, July 27.

Sunrise Movement co-founder Will Lawrence is hoping to carve out a progressive, anti-war victory against two well-funded military-industrial candidates, former Biden ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink (backed by Emily’s List) and former Obama military aide Matt Maasdam (backed by Defend the Vote). As previously discussed, Lawrence has emerged as the front-runner after being, by far, the most active on-the-ground campaigner for the seat and by being the only candidate willing to aggressively challenge data center construction. Incumbent Tom Barrett (R) avoids his constituents but spent Monday at a rally with President Donald Trump in the district.

Nearly $2 million in outside money has been spent attacking Lawrence, but the outside groups backing Brink and Maasdam are spending similar money smearing each other.

Michigan’s 13th

Incumbent: Shri Thanedar (D)
Rating: Solid D

Progressive Donovan McKinney is strong on climate and is backed by the Congressional Black Caucus (whose outside PAC is spending twenty times as much to take out William Lawrence in the neighboring 7th District). McKinney and Lawrence are campaigning with the El-Sayed campaign. It’s looking like the iconoclastic Rep. Shri Thanedar is on his way out.

Missouri’s 1st

Incumbent: Wesley Bell (D)
Rating: Solid D

Green New Dealer Cori Bush is running to reclaim MO-01 from the AIPAC-supported Wesley Bell. Although Bell has outspent Bush two-to-one, this is a competitive race, especially with the continuing catastrophe of the Israel-Iran war.

Virginia’s 1st

Incumbent: Robert Wittman (R)
Rating: Leans R

If this is a wave election, Democrats will win this seat. Shannon Taylor has a clear path in the primary. She took over $650,000 from Dominion Energy last year during her campaign for attorney general; she narrowly lost that primary to Jay Jones, who is a clear climate champion. Taylor’s position on data centers has hardened in the past year. The League of Conservation Voters has endorsed Taylor and is already targeting Wittman.

Virginia’s 2nd

Incumbent: Jennifer Kiggans (R)
Rating: Toss-up

As Trump drags down his party, this is is looking more like a Democratic pick-up than a toss-up race. AIPAC ally Elaine Luria is trying to take back this seat after losing it in 2022. She was a Climate Hawks Vote pick in 2018, and campaigns on PFAS contamination and sea-level rise, major issues in her coastal Naval base district.

Virginia’s 5th

Incumbent: John McGuire III (R)
Rating: Safe R

Rural progressive climate hawk Tom Perriello is pushing hard to take back this seat, which he held for one term fifteen years ago. Perriello was looking to have a relatively easy path to victory when the Virginia legislature redrew the state’s districts, but the Trumpist Virginia Supreme Court struck down the new map. Perriello has a shot in this tought district, however, as he is a tough campaigner with an impressive warchest, and McGuire is notable for defending child marriage and ignoring even his conservative constituents.

Saturday, August 8th

Hawaii’s 1st

Incumbent: Ed Case (D)
Rating: Solid D

Indivisible, Our Hawaii, and others are strongly invested in challenging the truly terrible incumbent Democrat Ed Case— perhaps most notorious for joining the “Unbreakable Nine” to obstruct Biden’s Build Back Better bill. Case had numerous challengers earlier in the cycle, but this has since emerged as a competitive head-to-head race between Case and state senator Jarrett Keohokalole, the lead sponsor of a bill empowering Hawaii's AG to sue fossil fuel companies for rising insurance costs during the 2026 session. As Civil Beat notes: “One of [Keohokalole's] signature accomplishments was passing legislation designed to stabilize the condominium insurance market after a series of disasters limited options and increased premiums for Hawaiʻi residents.” Although most climate organizations are backing Keohokalole, the League of Conservation Voters has endorsed Case for re-election.

Tuesday, August 11th

Minnesota—U.S. Senate

Open (Smith)
Rating: Likely D

The Democratic Farmer Labor (DFL) primary for retiring Senator Tina Smith’s seat had a defining moment nearly one year ago: while lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan spent the opening day of the Minnesota state fair shaking hands and enjoying cookies alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Rep. Angie Craig was at a Jackson Hole crypto conference, where she warmed up the crowd for Eric Trump.

Despite this contrast, Craig has argued that she’s the more electable statewide candidate, an assessment that is apparently shared by national Republicans. Craig’s past support from AIPAC, crypto, and Big Oil has been a major issue in the race. But nothing has defined the race quite so strongly as the fact that Craig reportedly “didn’t see” Trump’s violent authoritarian attacks on Minnesota coming when she voted for the Laken-Riley Act in January 2025.]

In addition to endorsements from Warren, Smith, and the state DFL party itself, Flanagan has won support from many nationally known progressives and Green New Dealers, including Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey, Ilhan Omar.

This primary election was highlighted in a New York Times story about Senate Democrats’ “Fight Club Caucus,” which has formed to urge Schumer to embrace candidates who will organize like Flanagan rather than accommodate corporate interests like Craig.

Minnesota’s 2nd

Open (Craig)
Rating: Likely D

The DFL endorsement in this open election for Craig’s congressional seat went to former state senator Matt Little, who is also endorsed by progressive figures such as Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and state attorney general Keith Ellison. Polling shows Little with a lead over state representative Kaela Berg, who is also running as a progressive, and state senator Matt Klein, who has sought to position himself as a more moderate successor to Craig. Klein paid a fine earlier this year after Kalshi exposed him for betting on this congressional election— seemingly in retaliation for his co-authorship of a first-in-the-nation law to ban prediction markets.

Wisconsin Governor

Open (Evers)
Rating: Toss-up

For months, the Democratic primary to succeed retiring governor Tony Evers consisted of seven seemingly viable candidates struggling to distinguish from one another. The defining issue emerged when Francesca Hong, a socialist assemblymember from Madison, became the only candidate to support a moratorium on data centers. The popularity of this stance caused Hong to break away from the rest of the field—and earlier this month, the New York Times’ profile of Hong opened with an anecdote about a Trump voter supporting Hong on the basis of her data center position.

The Republican Governors Association (RGA) is spending money on ads aimed at boosting Hong. Panicked Wisconsin Democrats attempted to rally around an alternative. When Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley dropped out of the race and endorsed lieutenant governor Sara Rodriguez, it seemed like Rodriguez was the chosen alternative. But Rodriguez’s campaign quickly imploded with a shocking campaign finance revelation. The next best option would have seemed to be former lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes. Instead of rallying behind Barnes, Evers seemingly encouraged Crowley to re-enter the race with his endorsement. Barnes has subsequently dropped out. 

Numerous polls now confirm that Hong is the overwhelming favorite to win the primary. State Navigate’s poll showed that data centers was the single biggest issue for many primary voters, and that Hong won 87% of the respondents who indicated data centers were their top priority. There isn’t much empirical data to support the apparent belief that Hong is the weakest candidate against the Republican nominee, far-right Rep. Tom Tiffany.

Wisconsin’s 3rd

Incumbent: Derrick Van Orden (R)
Rating: Toss-up

Rebecca Cooke is setting herself up to be a Blue Dog, while Emily Berge has authentic community connections and endorsements from a wider range of Wisconsin-based elected officials. But Cooke is endorsed by both Bernie Sanders and the national corporatist Democratic machine—New Dems, Emily’s List, LCV, and now the official Democratic House campaign arm, the DCCC.

Tuesday, August 18th

Florida’s 13th

Incumbent: Anna Paulina Luna (R)
Rating: Likely R
Primary: August 18

Last cycle, Dems made a late play to contest this seat with a challenger named Whitney Fox, who ran a fairly progressive campaign centered around insurance reform. Republicans aimed to strengthen their hand with a gerrymander earlier this year, but this seat remains rated Likely R. Fox, The heavy favorite would seem to Army veteran Leela Gray, endorsed by Fox, Pete Buttigieg, and EMILY’s List, though Florida Rising and Florida for Bernie have gotten behind teacher Brandt Robinson.

A gas station destroyed by a microburst storm in Washington, D.C., July 28, 2026. Credit: Martin Austermuhle

Emily Johnston uses heavy-duty clippers to break a chain on a shut-off valve for an Enbridge pipeline in Minnesota as Annette Klapstein looks on. The two women together shut down Enbridge Lines 4 and 67 on October 11, 2016. Credit: Steve Liptay

On October 11, 2016, nearly a decade ago, five climate activists simultaneously turned valves to temporarily shut off five fossil-fuel pipelines in different parts of the country as a symbolic and practical protest against the deadly product the pipelines carried. Four of the activists—Emily Johnston, Annette Klapstein, Leonard Higgins, and Ken Ward—served either minimal or no jail time. Michael Foster served one year of a three-year sentence.

On February 4, 2019, four members of the Catholic Worker Movement—Michele Naar-Obed, Allyson Polman, Brenna Cussen Anglada, and Daniel Yildirim—were arrested after informing Enbridge they planned to turn off the valves for the company’s dangerous Line 4 pipeline in Minnesota. Enbridge temporarily shut off the pipeline. In 2021, the climate activists, after being allowed a limited necessity defense, were fined a total of $75.

These nine climate activists, driven by the complete failure of elected officials to protect humanity from the existential threat of unlimited carbon pollution, have inspired millions and struck terror into carbon capitalists. And the agents of Big Oil are striking back, warping our justice system ever more in favor of criminal petrochemical producers.

Back from sharing in Argentina’s humiliation at the World Cup final, President Donald Trump published a rant Sunday evening against the National Academies of Science over climate science, specifically targeting a chapter on manmade climate change in a scientific reference manual for judges. The chapter was shamefully withdrawn in February after attacks from right-wing climate deniers, but is still available on the National Academies of Science website. Last week, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan testified before Congress, cowardly distancing herself from the work with outright climate-denier language: “The purpose of this book is not to really take positions on contested and contestable matters.”

The Necessity Valve Turners of the Catholic Worker Movement

Monday, July 20

On Monday afternoon, the House Energy and Commerce Committee began a full committee markup of electric grid, pipeline, mining, and other legislation with opening statements. The grid bills are mild responses to the data-center boom, including H.R. 9340 from Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) and the vulnerable Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) to encourage states to require large-load customers to recover the costs of upgrading the grid to serve them.

Other bills include Rep. Randy Weber’s (R-Texas) dangerously industry-friendly Pipeline Safety Authorization Act (H.R. 9338), which included a provision to expand the federal criminalization of protests against pipelines or pipeline construction to any action that “impairs” pipelines, without that term being defined. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) questioned the provision but agreed with the Republicans, “You can’t turn off the valves.”

After Democrats such as Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) criticized the provision in the wake of Trump’s felony charges against people for touching the Reflecting Pool, Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) promised to amend the bill to carefully define the term.

Tuesday, July 21

In the substitute the committee is considering on Tuesday, the provision was rewritten. Protests like those of the Valve Turners involving shutting off pipelines by “the unauthorized or unplanned turning or manipulation of a valve” are specifically criminalized, as is sabotage of pipeline components, with at most a 10 year prison term.

The votes on the bills will commence at 10 am on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the House Education and Labor Committee will mark up bills including one preventing heat workforce standards. The deliberately misnamed Heat Workforce Standards Act of 2025 (H.R. 6213) would prohibit the Secretary of Labor from finalizing, implementing, or enforcing any standard with respect to heat injury and illness prevention.

At the same time, the House Oversight DOGE subcommittee, now run by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) departure, is holding a hearing attacking the independence and academic integrity of Smithsonian's portrayal of American history, the House Natural Resources energy and mineral Resources Subcommittee hears testimony on mining fast-tracking and mapping Legislation, and the Senate Commerce science subcommittee hears from witnesses who favor moving American science towards defensive isolationism to “combat China.”

In the afternoon, another House Natural Resources subcommittee receives testimony on bills to permit killing sea lions that eat salmon, to establish voluntary protections for the North Atlantic Right Whale, to redirect resources to combat invasive screwworm, and to manage aquatic invasive species.

At 2:30 pm, the Senate Appropriations Committee interviews Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on the White House $88 billion supplemental funding request to pay for Trump’s illegal Iran war and bail out agribusiness hurt by surging fuel costs and accelerating climate disasters.

At 4:30 pm, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee national parks subcommittee receives testimony on National Parks System legislation. The most dangerous bill is S. 2498, which would extend contractor leases without competitive bidding.

Wednesday, July 22

Beyond Extreme Energy activists outside the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, July 16, 2026. Credit: Indybay

At 9:30 am, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee conducts oversight of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, interviewing the now Trump-dominated commissioners, who have become “a rubber stamp for polluters to run roughshod over our climate and communities,” in the words of the relentless Beyond Extreme Energy activists who attend and protest every public FERC meeting.

At the same time, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee votes on several key Trump nominees, including Cam Hamilton to be Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Though unqualified for the position, Hamilton was briefly acting FEMA administrator last year before being fired for publicly defending the agency’s mission. Other nominees include the racist, Republican, anti-labor operative Charlton Allen to be general counsel of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, conservative movement activist Bradford Pentony Wilson to be Archivist of the United States, anti-Constitution radical Hal Duncan to be OMB Deputy Director, and James J. Woodruff III, a prominent conservative legal activist’s son, to head the now eviscerated Merit Systems Protection Board.

At 10 am, the House Natural Resources Committee holds a rare markup of natural resources bills with bipartisan support while the House Oversight Committee marks up radical right-wing bills, including one that would require Congressional approval of any DC tax, license, permit, or fee laws (H.R. 9720); and another to abolish the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (H.R. 9725).

At 10:15 am, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee examines the priorities of the FY2027 research and technology enterprise with the DOGE and AI operative Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

At 10:30 am, Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee plans to push forward ome bipartisan legislation to improve disaster communications coordination and to authorize NOAA to buy new hurricane hunter aircraft, as well as a private-prison executive named David Cummins to run the Transportation Security Administration. Cummins is the senior vice president of the Citizen Services Business Group at Serco, a major provider of private prisons and aircraft transport. They are known as the “ICE of Europe” for their deportation infrastructure.

At 2 pm, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee plans to hold a
vote on the nomination of Kevin Lilly to be Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks for the Department of Interior, deferred from last week. Lilly holds the position in an acting role illegally, putting him in charge of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Parks Service. He is completely unqualified for the role, being a Texas wealth manager with no conservation experience.

The House and Senate are both cutting committee work short this week, avoiding hearings on Thursday (other than some required committee votes on Trump nominees to move them towards the floor) to clear space for contentious floor votes on a backlog of required work before heading for an extended August recess and the campaign trail. The legislative agenda includes a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown on September 30 and push the deadline into the lame-duck period of December, the $90 billion reconciliation package to fund Trump’s unending Iran war, and the National Defense Authorization Act. The GOP caucus is tearing itself apart as Trump’s hardline supporters are trying to attach Trump’s voter suppression legislation to every bill.

Despite choking on wildfire smoke for more than a week, Republicans in our military-occupied capital have no response other than a new round of feckless Trump tariffs on Canada, which will work out great.

Now the smoke is giving way to storms, floods, and heat, with the torrential threat of Tropical Storm Bertha in the Gulf and intense thunderstorms everywhere from North Carolina to Chicago to Boston to Utah, deadly heat in southern California and Alabama. Fittingly, the gasoline extravaganza of the Borchetta Bourbon Music City Indycar Grand Prix in Nashville was delayed by fossil-fueled storms and then cut from 300 to 225 laps because of the fossil-fueled heat.

A gas power plant being converted into an AI data center in Kiewit, Indiana County, Pa., April 2026. Credit: Kyle Ferrar, FracTracker Alliance

In our previous post, we covered the national popular revolt against the fracking-powered hyperscaler AI data-center boom, with legislators and other elected officials being forced to respond with dramatic policy shifts. Below, we look at local, state, and national races where data centers are front and center, including where the AI industry is spending tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the outcomes and maintain their grip on our politics, and where data-center backlash is creating opportunities for climate-populist candidates.

Maine-U.S. Senate

For months, Maine governor Janet Mills had struggled to gain traction in her US Senate campaign, and by April, it was clear she was trailing oyster farmer Graham Platner. The final blow for Mills came when she vetoed legislation that would have made Maine the first state to institute a data center moratorium. Mills insisted on an exemption for the town of Jay, where a data center developer called Sentinel was purportedly working to build a data center on the site of a shuttered paper mill. 

Proponents claimed Mills’ excuse was pretextual. Mills’ veto seemed a concession that she’d given up any hope of catching up to Platner, and indeed, she suspended her campaign a few days later. In June, two events transpired: first, Sentinel canceled its plans to build a data center in Jay anyhow, and former House Speaker Hannah Pingree became the Democratic nominee to replace Mills as governor. Pingree has said she would sign a data center moratorium.

Eight Democrats are vying for the Maine Democratic Party’s nod to replace Platner; at debates last night the primary topic was the ICE assassination of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddesford last week. The state party is holding its nominating convention on July 25.

Oregon—State Senate District 15

Big congrats to Myrna Muñoz on winning her primary!

— Lead Locally (@leadlocally.bsky.social)
3:25 PM • May 22, 2026

In May, voters in the city of Hillsboro, “ground zero of Oregon’s data center boom,” turned against incumbent state senator Janeen Sollman after she sponsored a bill called the Oregon JOBS Act that would have paved the way for data center construction. Myrna Muñoz, endorsed by Lead Locally, Oregon LCV, and numerous other climate and environmental organizations, organized in support of a data center moratorium, and sponsored ads attacking Sollman for her support of data centers. Muñoz won, despite getting outspent 2-to-1.

Colorado—8th Congressional

At the end of June, Democratic primary voters in Colorado’s 8th congressional district chose state representative Manny Rutinel over former state representative Shannon Bird, a Blue Dog Democrat. Rutinel, a climate activist, won significant financial backing from tech tycoons who favor safeguards on AI development and credited Rutinel for his authorship of AI regulations that were subsequently weakened. Bird had voted against those regulations, saying that they “went too far and would stifle innovation in Colorado.” Rutinel will face Republican Rep. Gabe Evans in a tossup election in November.

Minnesota—St. Louis County District 1

Residents of Hermantown, Minn. have organized strongly against a hyperscale proposal that was recently revealed to be from Google. For months, the identity of the developer was not known, due to controversial non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) signed by the county and municipal officials. (NDAs are a highly unpopular tool deployed by data center developers.)

St. Louis County (Minn.) Commissioner Annie Harala has said she regrets signing the NDA with Google, and has testified in support of state legislation to prohibit local officials from signing NDAs with hyperscalers. Nonetheless, her signing of the NDA was the key reason why she lost the DFL party endorsement to primary challenger Kris Eilers. The election is August 11th.

Still, the AI money often does still win.

Utah—1st Congressional

In the primary for Utah’s first congressional district, which became a safely Democratic district through a court order late last year, grassroots opposition to hyperscale proposals was not enough to propel a climate champ to victory. State senator Nate Blount had endorsements from numerous climate organizations, and had largely staked his campaign on his longstanding opposition to data centers. Nonetheless, former Rep. Ben McAdams, a conservative Democrat during his previous term in Congress, is set to return after easily beating Blount and several other candidates. McAdams received substantial support from Leading the Future, Open AI’s Super PAC, which staunchly opposes regulation. (Blount and other primary opponents also cried foul about McAdams’ personal stake in one Utah-based data center proposal.)

New York—12th Congressional

With backing from Marc Andreessen and other extreme AI authoritarians, Leading the Future has quickly emerged as one of the biggest spenders in congressional elections. In the open primary for New York’s 12th congressional district, Leading the Future spent heavily to elevate Micah Lasher over Assemblymember Alex Bores, who had drafted AI regulations in the state legislature. Leading the Future’s ads emphasized Bores’ background working for the surveillance state ICE collaborator Palantir— a worthy critique of Bores, until one considers that Palantir’s founder is one of Leading the Future’s top donors. 

Super PACs funded by Open AI competitor Anthropic and the broader “effective altruism” movement spent big on behalf of Bores, but Lasher ended up winning the primary. The effective-altruist Super PACs are Public First, run by former Democratic congressman Brad Carson, and the Guardrails Alliance, run by feminist Democratic operative Shaunna Thomas. They’re backed by numerous investors who purport to support AI safety. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had an infamous falling out with Open AI CEO Sam Altman, and Amodei has sought to portray Anthropic as the industry’s responsible actor. Whether viewed from the standpoint of economics or climate policy, however, the distinctions between Altman and Amodei are fairly meaningless.

Looking ahead, there are at least two more congressional primaries where the AI buildout may loom large.

Michigan—7th Congressional

Sunrise Movement co-founder Will Lawrence has emerged as a surprise frontrunner in the primary for Michigan’s seventh congressional district, a tossup seat near Lansing. Lawrence highlighted opposition to data centers in his first ad, with The American Prospect explaining Lawrence’s view that “the data center question is really about the same dynamics of money and power that have led the public to (correctly) believe that government doesn’t listen to their concerns.” That primary will be decided on August 4.

Massachusetts—4th Congressional

Another primary where data centers might play a role is Massachusetts’ fourth congressional district, which Rep. Jake Auchincloss has represented since narrowly winning a crowded primary in 2020. Auchincloss is one of the most tech-beholden Democrats in Congress, appearing prominently at centrist “Abundance” cons, bending over backwards to deregulate crypto, and volunteering to NOTUS that he uses AI to tell his children bedtime stories. 

AI researcher Jason Poulous is challenging Auchincloss because he has “seen firsthand how rapid technological change threatens to displace millions of workers while concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few tech giants.” Poulous has used his campaign blog to attack Auchincloss’ moves in Congress to promote the interests of crypto, Big Pharma, and AIPAC. Auchincloss is also being challenged by public school teacher Chris Boyd. Given the strong wave of anti-incumbent primaries this cycle, Auchincloss could be vulnerable, especially if one of his challengers drops out before the September 1 primary. 

Kansas-Governor

Republicans are going on the attack in primaries as well. Right-wing allies of businessman Phillip Sarnecki are running ads attacking Kansas Senate president Ty Masterson’s support for data center tax credits against him in an effort to defeat Masterson—Trump’s endorsed candidate—in the August 4 open Kansas gubernatorial primary.

Wisconsin—Governor

Exhaust stacks of a data center in Gainesville, Va., 2025. Credit: Rob Pegoraro

Since Trump’s return to power, a major factor keeping the economy out of recession has been the growth of an enormous AI debt bubble, with tech giants deploying huge sums of capital to support a hyperscale data center buildout that has not yet shown it can be remotely profitable. In inflating this bubble, AI developers have made outlandish claims about the transformative potential of the technology, with Open AI CEO Sam Altman declaring that AI will unlock “astounding triumphs—fixing the climate, establishing a space colony, and the discovery of all physics.”

At the moment, AI is a long way from fixing the climate, as new industrial gas turbines are fired up and coal-fired power plants brought out of retirement to support data center demands. Projections suggest that data center energy consumption could double or even triple by 2028, comprising more than 12% of all U.S. electricity use within just a couple years. The deteriorating financial mechanics behind AI also make it far more likely to deliver economic calamity than broadly shared prosperity. Regardless of how exactly the economic fallout from the AI buildout manifests itself, it seems likely that utility rates will continue to climb, with a high risk of ratepayers footing the bill for “stranded assets” from data centers that either aren’t built or don’t get fully utilized. 

Economists are puzzled as to why a series of better-than-expected jobs reports have done nothing to bring consumer sentiment up from its record lows. There are many theories about why. One plausible explanation is that AI’s prominence in the economy explains a lot about why the “vibes” are off. Voters seem to grasp that AI is about ceding power over their future to a highly untrustworthy “wealth inequality machine.” 

On a related note, new polling shows strong opposition to data centers. A distinctly transpartisan coalition has emerged to organize against data center development in many different communities throughout the U.S. This post will explore the electoral and policy implications of what has become a dominant issue in the 2026 elections. The threat of data centers has provided new vibrancy to our endangered and moribund democracy, with highly active residents packing town halls and council meetings from Tucson, Ariz. to Box Elder County, Utah and Ames, Iowa.

Ballot initiatives, local elections, and popular mobilization

A strong pattern has emerged of hyperscale data centers causing popular revolt at the ballot box. After the city council of Festus, Mo. voted in favor of a $6 billion hyperscale proposal, voters promptly kicked out all four incumbents on the ballot in an April election. On the same day in April, voters in the Milwaukee suburb of Port Washington, Wisc. showed their irritation with a massive $15 billion hyperscale facility by overwhelmingly approving a ballot measure to restrict future hyperscale projects from receiving tax-increment financing. 

In May, supervisors in Meridian, Mich. voted to put a six-month pause on data center proposals. Meanwhile, in the Grand Rapids suburb of Lowell Township, township board members refused to adopt a data center moratorium, with the majority of the council opting to court a $1 billion proposal from Microsoft instead. Now, recall petitions are circulating against the board members who voted against a moratorium, with the chair of the effort accusing Lowell board members of “representing Microsoft more than the people who elected them.”

In June, 88% of voters in Monterey Park, Calif. voted to permanently ban data centers within city limits.

Microsoft data center in Cheyenne, Wyo., 2022. Credit: Tony Webster

Policy shifts

Ever since the calendar turned to this national election year, politicians have been reading the tea leaves. There has been a major shift in the legislative and rhetorical posture on data centers.

In her state of the state address in January, Arizona governor Katie Hobbs called for the elimination of a Data Center Tax Exemption that she herself voted for as a legislator. The state budget that ultimately passed included a three-year freeze on data center tax incentives. More governors are following Hobbs’ lead in pausing data center giveaways, including Ohio governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, and Massachusetts governor Maura Healey, a Democrat. Republican Utah governor Spencer Cox is an “Energy Superbaundance” data center booster, but even he has called for stronger standards following mass protests against the behemoth Stratos project, which would nearly double Utah’s carbon pollution.

New Jersey state senator Joseph Cryan told Heatmap that voters are “outraged over the amount of money [data center computing giant] Coreweave got,” when it absorbed half of the $500 million in the Next New Jersey tax credit program. Next New Jersey was created only two years ago, but that outrage at Coreweave prompted the General Assembly to send a repeal of the program to governor Mikie Sherrill’s desk. Legislators also sent bills to Sherrill to strengthen water and energy reporting and to create a large load tariff for electricity-hungry hyperscalers. Assuming Sherrill signs the latter bill, New Jersey will become the eighth state to legislatively mandate a separate category for data center utility customers— an increasingly common way for utility regulators to ensure that ratepayers are protected from data center load growth. 

In Illinois, governor JB Pritzker has paused data center incentives, following through on a high-profile announcement that he initially made while unveiling a data center regulatory overhaul called the POWER Act. That bill would include the strongest data center guardrails of any state to date, including strict clean energy requirements, a large load tariff, and numerous other consumer and cost-shifting protections. Although the POWER Act didn’t pass during the spring session, the legislature may act on it later this fall. 

Pritzker is not the only 2028 presidential aspirant strengthening his position on data centers. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro is now calling for stronger grid standards, following reporting that his strategy for going “all in on AI” seemingly involved special access to fast-track permitting for Amazon.

California governor Gavin Newsom stands out as an exception, continuing to tout data centers as “critical digital infrastructure.” On Silicon Valley’s home turf, lobbyists have outlined their strategy for defending data centers as essentially replicating BP’s playbook when it coined the term ‘carbon footprint.’ Hyperscale data centers are 100 times larger and consume vastly greater resources than many existing data centers and server farms, yet tech lobbyists claim that opposition to them is hypocritical from anyone who uses a smartphone.

In New Mexico, legislators from Doña Ana County insisted that governor Michelle Lujan Grisham allow a vote on the Microgrid Oversight Act before considering her final attempt to codify climate targets she had established during her first year in office. The Microgrid Oversight Act would have clarified that New Mexico’s utility regulator had power over Project Jupiter, a hyperscaler that would pollute more than New Mexico’s two largest cities combined. The Senate passed the Microgrid Oversight Act, while voting down the governor’s climate target bill (in the end, neither bill became law before the end of New Mexico’s short 2026 session).

The strong likelihood that utility ratepayers and state and local governments will be left with the bill when the bubble pops is causing many public officials to conclude that a pause is warranted. In June, New York became the second state to pass a data center moratorium. Instead of signing it, governor Kathy Hochul issued a weaker moratorium on hyperscale data centers by executive order.  Seattle became the latest big city to put a pause on data center development when its city council unanimously supported a one-year moratorium. 

The smaller city of San Marcos, Texas has effectively banned data centers as well. Elsewhere in Texas, El Paso has not gone so far as a ban, but has approved a strong set of restrictions on regulatory exemptions and incentives. The restrictions will probably slow hyperscale development around El Paso, although a project by Meta is still moving forward. Even far-right Texas governor Greg Abbott is calling for stronger regulatory oversight over grid pressures, cost increases, and tax giveaways to data centers, following the revelation that Texas is losing over $1 billion annually from data center tax incentives. 

In addition to Texas, three other states are losing out on over $1 billion annually from data center giveaways. One of them is Virginia, home to "data center alley.” Virginia’s status as a data center haven became a major sticking point in state budget negotiations this summer. Although budget negotiators from the Virginia Senate reportedly wanted to eliminate data center tax credits through 2035, governor Abigail Spanberger and House negotiators did not want to go that far. They agreed instead to a new fee on data center electricity consumption, which will be capped at $600 million annually. The budget language also includes direction to develop regulations around noise and water usage monitoring. 

In our next post, we’ll cover how the popular backlash against the data center boom is reshaping 2026 electoral politics, from state legislatures to Congressional and gubernatorial races all across the country.

Wildfire on the moor above Tintwistle, England, July 12, 2026. Credit: Isla…

The relentless heating of hundreds of billions of tons of greenhouse pollution is fueling deadly wildfires across Europe and North America, including one turning the forest of Fontainebleu to ash, and an Andalusian fire that has killed at least 12 people. Torrential deluges have killed dozens in Bangladesh and left thousands homeless. The record-shattering European heat wave in June killed as many as 14,000 people. Extreme heat is settling on southern California, New England, and the Midwest.

After bringing home the National Guard troops who assisted Trump’s military occupation of the District of Columbia, Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) has mobilized the Guard to fight wildfires in northern Minnesota. D.C. is still occupied by thousands of troops from 21 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, including 162 troops from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and 27 from Democratic Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii.

Trump’s roving bands of armed ICE thugs have assassinated two people this week, shooting down Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on his way to work in Houston, Texas, and murdering Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, leaving a three-year-old daughter.

Trump’s ongoing war with Iran (he’s claiming it’s new) has sent the price of oil skyrocketing, guaranteeing booming windfall profits for the oil industry, much as AI hyperscalers are feeding fracked gas profits. Trump announced the shrinking of the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments in Utah to permit more mining and drilling.

Congress has returned to Washington. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is still recuperating from a fall, and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) is dead. The notoriously closeted Graham, who was famous for his love of launching wars in the Middle East and attaching himself with doglike loyalty to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and then Donald Trump, was remembered fondly by many of his Democratic colleagues for his sense of humor. His sister Darline Graham Nordone was quickly sworn in to replace him.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La., no relation) shambolic House of Representatives can’t accomplish real work, so is committed to passage of an anti-science, anti-health bill (H.R. 139) to make Daylight Saving Time permanent across the country. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) noted in Monday’s Rules Committee hearing that this bill is dangerous and stupid:

House Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) then brazenly lied in his testimony before the Rules Committee in support of the bill, claiming “Everything I’ve seen in terms of the studies would indicate that it’s the switch that is the problem.”

Pallone is one of many Democrats who have joined Trump to support this attack on public health.

Smoke from the East Evans Creek Fire, Ore., July 13, 2026. Credit: JackAZ Photo

PRESENTED BY SAFETEA-LU

​At 3 PM today, join DeSmog – along with special guests Naomi Klein, Michael E. Mann and Jim Hoggan – as we look back on two decades of climate accountability wins and reflect on what we need to do to ensure that the next 20 years usher in the end of climate denial and obstruction.

Is DC okay?

This looks more like an attack than a fireworks show.

— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com)
4:31 PM • Jul 5, 2026

Trump’s semiquincentennial griftiversary on the Mall concluded with “about 851,000 fireworks” on July 5th, delayed by thunderstorms and incompetence.

As expected, a toxic plume from this bloated fireworks barrage poisoned the air around the nation’s capital. For more than twelve hours, the toxic core of the plume hung over Washington, D.C.’s Ward 8 and Prince George’s County in Maryland, the part of the region with the highest Black population. AQI readings soared to 278 and 288 in the city at 6 am, with highly hazardous pollution covering Wards 2, 6, 7, and 8, reaching into Arlington, and PG County down to Rosaryville up to Woodlawn.

Plume evolution shows the toxic core over DC's Ward 8 and PG County in Maryland, the part of the region with the highest Black population

— Brad Johnson (@climatebrad.hillheat.com)
5:54 AM • Jul 5, 2026

The particulate pollution from fireworks includes toxic organic compounds and should be considered dangerous even by the standards of a pollution event with these readings. Luckily highs were “only” into the low 90s, after several days of 100°F+ weather.

The localized fireworks pollution combined with the unhealthy haze of wildfire smoke that covers the entire nation. Cooking the planet until everything burns turns out to have consequences.

Fireworks shows have a Clean Air Act carve out that was added by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) in 2005 to SAFETEA-LU, bipartisan legislation that passed overwhelmingly in both the House and Senate.

There are federal networks (CSN, NATTS, IMPROVE) which collect air samples and text them for toxicity. There are two air toxics monitoring stations that were within the fireworks plume—one in MacMillan Reservoir in D.C., and one in Beltsville, Md., about 15 miles northeast of D.C., which peaked at 160 AQI at 7 am, so it will have results on the air toxics as well. Results will eventually be reported to the EPA’s Air Quality System. Because the samples require lab analysis (and the Trump regime has gutted federal scientific capacity) it will take weeks to months for the results to be reported.

Environmental monitors should be taking water and soil samples from the Anacostia and Oxun Run and other sites directly downwind of the toxic event.

I have no idea what's going on with Mitch McConnell, but the phrase "rigor tortoise" just popped into my brain and I had to get it out.

Thank you for your patience and my sincere apologies.

— Deb Amlen (@debamlen.bsky.social)
8:28 PM • Jul 7, 2026

Climate Action Today:

• 3 PM: DeSmog
  20 years of DeSmog: A celebration of high-impact climate journalism

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky and @climatebrad@mastodon.social.

PRESENTED BY THE RAPE AND ROT OF GRAFT

I married on the Fourth of July, during the presidency of Barack Obama. In the morning our wedding party joined the local Independence Day parade, the “longest continuously running 4th of July celebration in the State of Vermont.” Standing in the bed of a pickup truck decorated with homemade bunting, I was dressed as George Washington and my bride as Abraham Lincoln in a wedding dress. Our parents were garbed as Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross, Mark Twain, and Susan B. Anthony. We had the Statue of Liberty and a walking Declaration of Independence, as signed in 1776. Relatives from England made highly convincing Pilgrims. Friends were decked in red, white, and blue, playing bluegrass tunes on banjo and fiddle and marching to drum and fife. We won a ribbon for “most patriotic float.”

After a simple ceremony in the afternoon with our pet lizards as ringbearers, the guests went to tables designated by the lesser-known presidents; each person’s place card bore a different interesting fact about that president.¹

We danced into the night. After the grandparents went to bed, we lit fireworks and watched them sizzle into the sky. One friend brought up an absurdly large firework; it had about ten rockets. It was extravagant and exciting.

The station on the peak of Mauna Loa recorded atmospheric carbon dioxide at 388 parts per million that day, a 38 percent increase from pre-industrial levels.

On our tenth anniversary, Donald Trump was president. My wife dressed as John Brown. Atmospheric CO₂ reached 413 PPM, a 47.5% increase.

#america250

— Brad Johnson (@climatebrad.hillheat.com)
10:59 AM • Jul 4, 2026

Today, Trump is again the president. We’re at 430 PPM, 53.6% above the pre-industrial average. Temperatures will soar above 100°F in the nation’s capital for the third day in a row, after “cooling” to a sweltering 84°F at night. The heat index will be around 110°F. Relief from the deadly heat will not come until Monday.

In the Pacific Ocean, Super Typhoon Bavi is a fossil-fueled monster, a Category 5 storm with 160 mph winds. It is expected to grow stronger before it strikes Guam, Rota, and Saipan. The fossil-fueled European June heat wave killed thousands; the extraordinary heat has set Spain and Portugal ablaze.

About forty large wildfires are burning throughout the American west. The Aspen Acres Fire southwest of Denver exploded to more than 100 square miles yesterday, forcing thousands to evacuate. Hundreds of fires are burning in Canada, sending deadly plumes of smoke into the United States.

Speaking of deadly plumes of smoke, Trump’s Freedom 250 Salute To America, Sponsored By Boeing, Deloitte, Exiger, John Deere, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Oracle, Palantir, Phorm Energy, RTX, SAP, Scotts Miracle-Gro (the “exclusive agent for the marketing and distribution of Roundup”), UFC, and United Airlines, is scheduled to conclude late at night with the explosion of the “largest fireworks display in history” — 850,000 fireworks shells launched from the scummy, militarized Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Potomac River barges, and the West Potomac Park, where Trump plans to illegally install his garden of creepy statues. This planned midnight barrage (thunderstorms are expected at the same time) will create a miasmic cloud of toxic metal and soot that will poison hundreds of thousands of people already besieged by the extreme heat and humidity.² This explosive assault will have a direct cost of $10 to $20 million.

The deadly heat, the inevitable consequence of the burning of a trillion tons of fossil carbon, forced the cancellation of Washington, D.C.’s annual Independence Day parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, but the 5000 armed National Guard troops and thousands of federal paramilitary forces will continue patrolling the city, looking for residents to harass, assault, or kidnap for crimes ranging from bus fare evasion to touching the Reflecting Pool.

Thirty-three military flyovers, one every fifteen minutes for nine hours, will deafen the skies, burning about 40,000 gallons of jet fuel to produce nearly 400 metric tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of driving a passenger car one million miles.³ The flyovers will have a direct cost of $10 to $20 million.

The stage is falling apart at the rehearsal for Freedom 250's July 4th celebration.

— Aaron Parnas (@aaronparnas.bsky.social)
7:53 PM • Jul 2, 2026

Continuing a day of on-the-nose metaphors, our decadent emperor-king-baby plans to rant and ramble with a “really long speech” outside before an anemic audience of heat-exhausted, dehydrated supporters at 10 pm, before his symbolic bombing of the American capital.

Happy anniversary, us!

As ever, Langston Hughes reminds me of our unending challenge—to let America be America again.

A solitary loon on July 4th, 2026. Credit: Brad Johnson

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky and @climatebrad@mastodon.social.

Hill Heat is on a summer publishing schedule.

At 7:30 pm tonight, the Union of Concerned Scientists is hosting Danger Season Action Hour: Defend Climate Science & Resilience Policies, an online seminar.

On Wednesday in D.C., the Open Markets Institute is holding The Next American Revolution, an all-day conference featuring California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas), Becca Balint (D-Vt.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), and Congressional candidates Chris Rabb and Dan Osborn.

As previewed by the U.S. Climate Politics Almanac, June 23rd is a busy primary day, with elections in Maryland, New York, and Utah.

Europe is baking in a deadly 40°C (104°F) fossil-fueled heatwave, with temperatures reaching 44°C (111°F) in Spain and France. Dozens have drowned attempting to avoid the heat. The searing heat has shuttered schools and crippled transport in England during London Climate Week. Wednesday’s scheduled seminar on extreme heat at the Grantham Institute of the London School of Economics has been canceled due to the extreme heat. “London isn’t just calling, it’s cooking,” said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. On a happier note, Spain, France, and England are each at the top of their respective group in the FIFA World Cup, sponsored by Aramco.

Several hundred police from across the nation were deputized as federal agents to join the occupation of Washington, D.C. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on June 19th. They join the thousands of federal police and National Guardsmen roving the streets and guarding the patriotic green Reflecting Pool, which has been ruined by Trump’s no-bid contractors, from former Olympians and sarcastic frogs.

U.S. Marshals Service Deputy Director Stephanie Creasy administers the official oath to state and local law enforcement officers during a special deputation ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., June 19, 2026. The officers were sworn in as special deputies of the U.S. Marshals Service to support security operations for Unite 250–Freedom 250 events.

Without further ado, the week in climate hearings, including the dangerously unqualified Kevin Lilly, facilitating the AI data center bubble, and mineral recycling programs.

Team Algae. Via Popville.

At 2 pm today, Project Drawdown executive director Jonathan Foley holds a conversation with renowned climate scientist and communicator Katharine Hayhoe on where climate action goes from here. On Sunday, climate activists are protesting fossil-fueled sportswashing at stadiums, including the Aramco sponsorship of the World Cup, across the country.

“Although tyranny, because it needs no consent, may successfully rule over foreign peoples, it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people.” — Hannah Arendt

Here’s Hill Heat’s ballot for the D.C. primary, with the candidates generally supported by climate, labor, and social justice groups and opposed by the city’s corporate lobbyists, real-estate developers, online casinos, police unions, and crypto Republicans:

• Delegate: Robert White

• Mayor: Janeese Lewis-George

• Council At-Large (primary): Oye Owolewa

• Council At-Large (special): Elissa Silverman

• Ward One Council: Aparna Raj

• DC Democratic Party: the Free DC Slate

Also of interest: clean-energy policy expert Bridget French is running a long-shot challenge against the progressive-bloc Ward Five councillor Zachary Parker.

So D.C. folks: cast your ballot! DC has same-day registration, and permits non-citizen resident voting.

A rainbow over the Kennedy Center after record-shattering 100°F heat, June 13, 2026.

Only the Senate is in session this week; there’s a push by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to affirm election denier and climate denier Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence by unanimous consent because he’s less bad than election denier and climate denier Bill Pulte. As Hannah Arendt wrote, “those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil.”

On Wednesday, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee is marking up of S.1547, to reauthorize the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund, and then holding a hearing on the state of the U.S. Territories.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Relations Committee is marking up dozens of bills, including S.4610, the Pacific Promotion of Workable Energy Resources Act (“Pacific POWER”) Act, for Indo-Pacific geothermal deployment, S.4708, the Arctic Security and Diplomacy Act, which would require Secretary of State approval for international Arctic Ocean research, S.4392, the Energy Security Pacts Act, supporting the development of anti-China mining and energy pacts, and S.4443, the Eastern Mediterranean Gateway Act, which supports electric transmission and natural gas projects in the region.

PRESENTED BY THE ARAMCO CUP

11 AM today: Online emergency meeting on data centers!

In disappointing news, the Museum of Unnatural Disasters has been shut down a week early by the unnatural disaster of Trump’s birthday “I’m not dead yet” bash, which is metastasizing with tacky-alien excrescences on the White House South Lawn and onto the National Mall. And right after it had gotten the Hill Heat bump!

In appointing news, the genocidal climate denier Lee Raymond has died. As head of Exxon from 1993 to 2005, he oversaw the oil giant’s strategy of preventing enactment of U.S. climate policy through the takeover of the Republican Party by anti-science ideology, secretly financing a network of climate-denial front groups and harrassing scientific and environmental advocates, while building ExxonMobil into the largest private corporation in the world.

In an unusual spasm of honesty, an ExxonMobil spokesperson said: “His legacy will forever remain a pillar of this company.”

World Cup 2026

— Capitán Swing (@capitanswing.bsky.social)
6:30 AM • Jun 10, 2026

Patrick Redford attempts to answer the question, “What would Guy Debord say about the World Cup?”

Saudi Aramco is the lead sponsor of the World Cup. Climate activists across the nation are protesting this and other dirty sportswashing at oil-soaked stadia on Sunday June 21st.

Me: AI is just code, a program to regurgitate whatever response you want to hear. It's not alive. It's not an actual consciousness.

AI: That's so smart. You are incredibly attractive, and I bet you're good at sex.

Me: Except this one. It's a real person and she's my girlfriend now.

— Ray (@sireviscerate.myatproto.social)
2:22 PM • Jun 11, 2026

“An AI bubble burst could wipe out over $20 trillion in American household wealth, three trillion more than the financial crisis.” Dr. Sarah Myers West of the unfortunately named AI Now Institute is testifying at this morning’s Senate Banking Committee hearing on AI and the American Economy. None of the witnesses are focused on the insane environmental and energy footprint of the AI bubble, although the American Enterprise Institute’s Will Rinehart obliquely mentions that AI is a “capital-intensive utility” with the “recurring input costs of an industrial service.”

At 11 am, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Wala Blegay, a candidate for Rep. Steny Hoyer’s Md.-5 seat, are joining an online emergency meeting on data centers organized by Progressive Democrats of America and Food & Water Action.

Sure would be sad if Trumpie’s Octagon of Tackiness is rained out by fossil-fueled thunderstorms! A boy can dream…

Hearings on the Hill:

• 9 AM: House Appropriations Committee
     Defense Subcommittee
  Classified markup of FY27 Defense Bill

• 10 AM: Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee
  AI and the American Economy

Climate Action Today:

• 11 AM: Progressive Democrats of America
  Food & Water Action
  Emergency Meeting On Data Centers

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky and @climatebrad@mastodon.social.

PRESENTED BY THE REASON FOR THE SEASON

My pundit guess is that Trump popularity will pick up a few points going into Independence Day (everyone loves fireworks) and then will collapse to new lows during a summer of climate catastrophe. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La., no relation) will keep Congress from acting, sacrificing another dozen “moderate” Republicans to the Trump auto-da-fe-cum-golpe. And millions of Americans will suffer during disaster without help from a crippled and corrupted federal government, as the world’s financiers shovel trillions of dollars into the fossil-fuel furnace.

The climate movement needs to do more organizing around climate-disaster preparedness. For electoral organizers, it means celebrating the commonality between Phoenix’s Rep. Yassamin Anasari (D-Ariz.), a pioneer in urban extreme heat preparedness, and Montana’s Sam Forstag, a DOGEd Forest Service smokejumper. For anti-authoritarian organizers, it means volunteering with the local Red Cross and mutual aid groups, in line with Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has launched a major campaign to prepare for our carbon summer, aptly named Danger Season, connecting the dots between the growing fossil-fueled threat and the deadly dismantling of scientific resilience.

In Washington, D.C., the Climate Action Campaign has been ringing the alarm with the Museum of Unnatural Disasters, a pop-up effort curated by Sam Hartman, an artist and survivor of Hurricane Helene, from June 3 through June 14 on the National Mall. There’s still time to volunteer!

Gabriel Matias Castilho describes the exhibits:

The real power of the Museum of Unnatural Disasters is in its programming, with events bringing elected officials together with scientists and survivors of fossil-fueled climate disasters:

• On June 3rd, climate science Ph.D. candidate Syl Foisy visited the museum’s launch at the conclusion of his 250-mile, 12-day march from New York City to the U.S. Capitol to call attention to the Trump regime’s assault on climate science before meeting with Congressional members of the Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition.

• Also, Rep. Adeliita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) participated in a roundtable on deadly heat.

• On June 4th, Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), Sean Casten (D-Ill.), and Luz Rivas (D-Calif.) joined extreme weather survivors.

• On Monday, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) joined a rally to save NOAA with former principal deputy NOAA administrator Monica Medina and Craig McLean, former NOAA Assistant Administrator for Research.

So head down to the Mall and visit the Museum of Unnatural Disasters—or set up your own.

Last night, our team gathered with extreme weather survivors, elected officials, and other activists to mark the opening of the #MuseumofUnnaturalDisasters this week. While this museum may have a limited run, the stories displayed within it will have a lasting impression upon those who visit.

— Climate Action Campaign (@actonclimateus.bsky.social)
12:30 AM • Jun 4, 2026

It’s also a busy day in Congress for climate hearings:

• This morning, the House Science Committee met with Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to review the Department of Energy’s FY2027 plans for its science portfolio, which involve killing all renewable energy and climate research and investing heavily in AI, nuclear, and fossil-fuel energy. House appropriators have marked up a DOE science budget that diverges from the administration proposal, rejecting the proposed gutting of the Offie of Electricity, climate research, and ARPA-E, but offering even more funds for AI and fossil-fuel programs.

• The Senate oversight hearing for the U.S. Department of Agriculture with Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins is driven by the climate crisis, whether the topic is forestry, wildfires, fertilizer costs, or the collapse of the Great Plains wheat crop.

• The House Agriculture Committee invited agricultural perspectives on the future of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the Trump-negotiated successor to NAFTA. Mexico is facing extraordinary heat and drought while its subsistence farmers are threatened by the dumping of subsidized U.S. corn production.

• The rapid desertification of the West is the focus of a Senate Energy and Natural Resources hearing, with the dry euphemism of “oversight of the Colorado River Basin, including its current hydrologic conditions and ongoing negotiations regarding post-2026 operations.” Interior official Andrea Travnicek, Bureau of Reclamation official David Palumbo, American Rivers executive director Tom Kiernan, and local officials and lobbyists from Utah, Wyoming, and California are testifying about the fossil-fueled Colorado River “system crash” and failure of the negotiations of how to allocate the disappearing water supply. The senators and witnesses have been doing their best to avoid any mention of global warming.

• The hearing followed a 9:30 am markup of 33 forest, wildfire, mining, public lands, national parks, hydropower, water infrastructure, Holocaust education, and other energy and natural resource bills at 9:30 am. The bills either dance around the edges of the Western climate crisis or exacerbate it—most notably S. 140, the “Wildfire Prevention Act,” which would “prevent” wildfires by clear-cutting forests.

• House appropriators are completing the markup of the $100 billion Fiscal Year 2027 Homeland Security bill, which includes $34 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, most of which is the $28.4 billion allocated for the Disaster Relief Fund. FY26 Disaster Relief Fund expenditures were $26.4 billion.

• The House Financial Services housing subcommittee holds a hearing on local needs in disaster recovery, specifically the Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program, which is funded by Congress on an ad-hoc basis in response to major climate disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. Witnesses include state officials from Texas and North Carolina.

• The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee reviews the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget with director Brian Nesvik, who opposes fish and wildlife. The proposed budget would gut the agency, including the elimination of the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, National Wildlife Refuge Fund, Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Fund, Multinational Species Conservation Fund, and State and Tribal Wildlife Grants.

• House Natural Resources is marking up four bills, including an urban bird habitat bill and legislation to open the city of Carlsbad to fracking (H.R. 7882).

Hearings on the Hill:

• 9:30 AM: Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
  Markup of 33 Forest, Wildfire, Mining, Public Lands, National Parks, Hydropower, Water Infrastructure, Holocaust Education, and Other Energy and Natural Resource Bills

• 10 AM: Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
  Oversight of the Colorado River Basin, including Post-2026 Operations Negotiations

• 10 AM: Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Proposed Fiscal Year 2027 Budget

• 10 AM: Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee
  Oversight of the U.S. Department of Agriculture

• 10 AM: House Financial Services Committee
     Housing and Insurance Subcommittee
  Examining Local Needs in Disaster Recovery

• 10 AM: House Science, Space, and Technology Committee
  Overview of the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request

• 10 AM: House Agriculture Committee
  Agricultural Perspectives on the Future of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement

• 10 AM: House Natural Resources Committee
  Markup of Local Communities & Bird Habitat Stewardship Act, Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation Land Exchange Act, and Bills for Carlsbad Fracking and Yuma Proving Ground Expansion

• 10 AM: House Appropriations Committee
  Full Committee Markup of FY27 Homeland Security Bill, Continued

Climate Action Today:

• 9 AM: Climate Action Campaign
  Museum of Unnatural Disasters

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky and @climatebrad@mastodon.social.

PRESENTED BY CRUNCHY FLAMIN’ HOT RED 40

A warm welcome to all the Netroots Nation folks I gently encouraged¹ to subscribe! State Rep. Chris Rabb (D-Pa.) was a real star at the climate happy hour:

Instagram post

Here’s a brief look at some of what just a few more of these great people are doing:

The semiquincentennial is being marked by a nationwide mobilization for All of U.S. on June 27th, being organized by leading activists including Anthony Vidal Torres and Nicole Carty. The week before, Kendra Becenti’s BLIS Collective is organizing Reclamation Day on June 20th in New York City.

Andrew Herrera of the Chicago Workers Collaborative is fighting for the passage of House Bill 3762, to provide protections for Illinois workers from extreme heat in the workplace, an increasing danger everywhere from construction sites to restaurant kitchens.

Lauren Windsor and Lisa Graves have been exposing the seamy underbelly of the State Financial Officers Foundation, a far-right coalition of state treasurers financed by conservative dark-money groups and major banks. Windsor has uncovered widespread corruption involving Alaska’s former GOP revenue commissioner Adam Crum, who is running for governor in the nonpartisan August primary to succeed GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Crum secretly pledged $75 million of the state’s rainy day fund to the fracking-powered-AI-bubble vehicle DigitalBridge, and went on a SFOF glacier cruise paid for by fracking-powered-AI-bubble group Saige Consulting before giving a $9 million contract to Saige.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) is recruiting the next cohort of young people to be fellows for Democracy Summer, Raskin’s intensive program of teaching, training, and action for political organizing in key Congressional districts, this year in Alaska, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas. Young people anywhere in the country can also participate virtually.

South Korean soft corals are slumping towards Armageddon. Credit: Paran Ocean Citizen Science Center, via Mongabay.

It’s primary election day in Maine, North Dakota, Nevada, and South Carolina (check out the Hill Heat preview). Five Democratic incumbents and seven Republican incumbents in the House on the ballot today for re-election or higher office. This is making it even harder for the diabolical liar Mike Johnson (R-La., no relation) to manhandle his shambolic GOP majority into doing Trump’s bidding.

Winter wheat woes. Tracking Boris and Cristina. Faux Angine de Poitrine.

“I’ve put a couple kids in the hospital. But here’s the thing: I’m a pioneer.”

Hard as it is to believe, Crunchy Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Gushers, Fruit Roll-Ups, Takis Fuego, and grape-flavored liquid Kool-Aid have dangerous levels of additives and contaminants.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
     Surface Transportation, Freight, Pipelines, and Safety Subcommittee
  Technological Advances in the Transportation Industry

• 10:15 AM: House Energy and Commerce Committee
     Energy Subcommittee
  Nuclear Permitting Reform

• 11 AM: House Appropriations Committee
  Full Committee Markup of FY27 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Bill and the Fiscal Year 2027 Homeland Security Bill

Climate Action Today:

• 8 PM: Data Center Working Group
  Building Powerful Campaigns against AI Data Centers: Leveraging Research to Follow the Money

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky and @climatebrad@mastodon.social.

Data center goin’ up. Credit: Emma K. Alexandra

As Hill Heat has previously noted, data centers don’t need a livable environment nearly as much as humans do. But they do require massive amounts of energy, water, and capital. Fulfilling the Silicon Valley vision of a fully automated economy thus requires a wholesale restructuring of federal policy, including the sunsetting of environmentalism. To that end, one in four professional lobbyists in Washington, D.C. now work for the AI industry, while environmental advocacy and policy institutions are dismantled or subverted.

In the latest blow to environmental journalism, Environmental and Energy News, the Hill environmental news publication founded in 1998, is being dissolved six years after its acquisition by Politico. Some of the E&E News energy reporters will remain, in support of new newsletters on federal and state-level AI-energy policy.

Several hearings this week directly touch upon the transition to our anti-environmental techno-deployment economy.

On Tuesday, the House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee holds a hearing on accelerating the deployment of nuclear energy by reducing regulations on nuclear fuels and nuclear plants, a strong goal of the data-center industry. Nuclear industry lobbyists and nuclear engineer Kathryn Huff are planned witnesses at the hearing, which also will touch on efforts to restore some independence for nuclear regulators after a year of Trumpian takeover.

On Wednesday morning, the House Science Committee meets with Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to review the Department of Energy’s FY2027 plans for its science portfolio, which involve killing all renewable energy and climate research and investing heavily in AI, nuclear, and fossil-fuel energy. House appropriators have marked up a DOE science budget that diverges from the administration proposal, rejecting the proposed elimination of the Offie of Electricity, climate research, and ARPA-E, but offering even more funds for AI and fossil-fuel programs.

On Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee is holding a hearing on the swollen AI industry with the sycophantic title “AI and the American Dream: Promoting Innovation, Affordability, and American Dominance.” The announced witnesses are AI industry lobbyist and former Republican staffer Mike Flynn, Hudson Institute and former Trump national security staffer David Feith, and American Enterprise right-wing AI optimist Will Rinehart.

People around the world are fighting back, from Minnesota to Scotland. On Tuesday evening at 8 pm, the Data Center Working Group presents its fourth in a five-part training series on organizing to stop data centers, with a session on how to research the money trail.

Global sea surface temperatures are preliminary the warmest ever recorded for the time of year.  With the development of a likely "super El Niño" it seems probable that we'll see unprecedented global sea surface & temperature anomalies in the next 1-2 years.

— Scott Horton (@robertscotthorton.bsky.social)
2:16 PM • Jun 8, 2026

Meanwhile, we are confronting the crisis of fossil-fueled climate destabilization, even as we turn off the warning signs.

Climate economist Danny Cullenward has resigned from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, an industry-aligned initiative established in 1990 as a third-party effort to provide a neutral accounting of climate pollution. Although the effort has always accommodated industry perspectives, back-deal moves in the past year to redefine the climate impacts of the timber industry led Cullenward to file a formal protest in February before today’s resignation. As Cullen relates, “under the industry rule, recycled paper would be counted as a climate harm while cutting down an old-growth forest to produce virgin paper would be counted as a climate benefit.”

In addition to the aforementioned Department of Energy hearing, Wednesday morning has a passel of climate-disaster hearings, all at 10 am.

• Whether any senator is willing to mention climate pollution, Wednesday’s 10 am Senate oversight hearing for the U.S. Department of Agriculture with Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins will be driven by the climate crisis, whether the topic is forestry, wildfires, fertilizer costs, or the collapse of the Great Plains wheat crop.

• The House Agriculture Committee is inviting agricultural perspectives on the future of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the Trump-negotiated successor to NAFTA. Mexico is facing extraordinary heat and drought while its subsistence farmers are threatened by the dumping of subsidized U.S. corn production.

• The rapid desertification of the West is the focus of a Senate Energy and Natural Resources hearing, with the dry euphemism of “oversight of the Colorado River Basin, including its current hydrologic conditions and ongoing negotiations regarding post-2026 operations.” Interior official Andrea Travnicek, Bureau of Reclamation official David Palumbo, American Rivers executive director Tom Kiernan, and local officials and lobbyists from Utah, Wyoming, and California will testify about the fossil-fueled Colorado River “system crash” and failure of the negotiations of how to allocate the disappearing water supply. The hearing follows a 9:30 am markup of 33 forest, wildfire, mining, public lands, national parks, hydropower, water infrastructure, Holocaust education, and other energy and natural resource bills at 9:30 am. The bills either dance around the edges of the Western climate crisis or exacerbate it—most notably S. 140, the “Wildfire Prevention Act,” which would “prevent” wildfires by clear-cutting forests.

• House appropriators are completing the markup of the $100 billion Fiscal Year 2027 Homeland Security bill, which includes $34 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, most of which is the $28.4 billion allocated for the Disaster Relief Fund. FY26 Disaster Relief Fund expenditures were $26.4 billion.

• The House Financial Services housing subcommittee holds a hearing on local needs in disaster recovery, specifically the Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program, which is funded by Congress on an ad-hoc basis in response to major climate disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. Witnesses include state officials from Texas and North Carolina.

• The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee reviews the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget with director Brian Nesvik, who opposes fish and wildlife. The proposed budget would gut the agency, including the elimination of the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, National Wildlife Refuge Fund, Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Fund, Multinational Species Conservation Fund, and State and Tribal Wildlife Grants.

• House Natural Resources is marking up four bills, including an urban bird habitat bill and legislation to open the city of Carlsbad to fracking (H.R. 7882).

The trillion-dollar U.S. military budget is moving inexorably forward on both the foreign (Department of War) and domestic (Department of Homeland Security) front. The U.S. House should vote on the $70 billion ICE-CBP no-restrictions funding bill this week. On Tuesday, House appropriators will mark up the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill and then move on to the $100 billion Fiscal Year 2027 Homeland Security bill, completing that markup on Wednesday. On Thursday, House appropriators are conducting a classified markup of FY27 Defense bill.

Other climate hearings of interest this week include a Tuesday 10 am Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing on technological advances in the transportation industry and a field hearing in Hot Springs, Arkansas on Friday morning on the Great American Outdoors Act and Hot Springs National Park.

PRESENTED BY CHANTAL TREMBLAY

Hill Heat is at Netroots Nation June 4 to 6 in Philadelphia. We’re co-sponsoring the Netroots Climate Happy Hour featuring state Sen.Chris Rabb (D-Pa.) on Friday at 5 pm at City Tap House. Drop us a line if you’re here—and check out our full preview of climate-related Netroots Nation events.

As I begin this post, I’m on the Amtrak to Netroots Nation, along with dday (aka David Dayen), who is on the opening panel with state Rep. Chris Rabb (D-Pa.), the Democratic candidate for the Third Congressional District. At lunch time I’m heading over to the memorial for my great friend Erin Hofteig, a brilliant and funny and relentless campaigner who recently passed away (ping me for details). I guess that’s the kind of thing that happens when the first Netroots Nation (then Yearly Kos) was twenty years ago. Such is life!

Gosh wonder why it’s so droughty

House Natural Resource Republicans are having fun with climate denial in the age of climate disaster. “Historic drought, low snowpack, and high accumulations of dry, hazardous fuels have turned federal forests into a ticking timebomb,” they warn for their hearing today on “what many are predicting to be the worst wildfire year on record” with Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz. But let us not dwell on the reasons the climate is changing! Let’s instead work on “making our forests more resilient” by cutting them down.

A similar form of rank stupidity is propelling the campaign of Spencer Pratt for mayor of Los Angeles—he’s a right-wing reality-show has-been whose home burned down in the fossil-fueled Palisades Fire. He blames the gubmint!

Have no fear, dear reader, it’s a bipartisan effort in California to address fossil-fueled wildfire by blaming firefighters and cutting down all the trees. Such is life!

This is a hoax, by the way. The mugshot is AI. In my defense, it’s a good joke!

Also this morning, the House Science environment subcommittee hears from the head of the EPA’s beleaguered science division, Dr. Maureen Gwinn, Deputy Associate Administrator for Science, Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions (OASES). OASES is what little remains of the Office of Research and Development after the EPA’s mass firings and reshufflings of its scientists, part of Russ Vought’s government-wide assault on federal scientists.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La., no relation) has lost control of the House agenda, with Democrats successfully passing a war powers resolution against Trump’s illegal Iran war last night. Senate Republicans are moving forward with the ICE-CBP reconciliation bill; now that the Trump ballroom funds have been dropped, John Thune (R-S.D.) can afford three GOP defections on issues like the Trump Arch and the $1.8 billion J6er fund and the IRS immunity for the Trump syndicate. Because the Senate GOP are cool with another $100 billion or whatever for Trump’s masked abduction police but a few do draw the line at actively endorsing Trump’s goons invading the Senate chambers. Such is life!

The Rio Grande Sierra Club has a great rundown of the local climate-hawk results in New Mexico—a lot of wins.

Google has a new and exciting plan to manage viral content.

“Arkansas has way more people locked in its prisons than working in its military industry,” writes Tim Barker in his survey of white phosphorus, but “Arkansas exports $1.5 billion in defense/aerospace output each year—which would make the state comparable to the Netherlands as a player in the international arms trade.”

i want somebody to see in me what the person who put lemons in lemonade saw... a flavor experience

— Solomon (@solomonrmissouri.com)
5:38 PM • Jun 1, 2026

As I finish posting, I’m at the convention’s opening drum line. Let’s make some lemonade and make some noise.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: House Science, Space, and Technology Committee
     Environment Subcommittee
  Advancing Environmental Protection Through Science and Technology

• 10 AM: House Agriculture Committee
  Testimony from the Secretary of Agriculture

• 10:15 AM: House Natural Resources Committee
     Federal Lands Subcommittee
  The State of Our Nation’s Federal Forests and Outlook for the 2026 Wildfire Year

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky and @climatebrad@mastodon.social.

PRESENTED BY NYCTICORAX NYCTICORAX

Hill Heat will be at Netroots Nation June 4 to 6 in Philadelphia. We’re co-sponsoring the Netroots Climate Happy Hour featuring state Sen.Chris Rabb (D-Pa.) on Friday at 5 pm at City Tap House. Drop us a line if you’re going to be there—a full preview of climate-related Netroots Nation events is below.

The second annual 50-Hour Weather and Climate Livestream to Save America’s Forecasts is in its final hours. Call Congress!

Jamelle Bouie is seeking “the reconstruction agenda the country needs,” and wonders when anyone within the Democratic Party will “articulate a broad new conception of the nation’s political order — one that will guide the way a future Democratic-led government might wield power.”

The answer is: seven years ago, with the Green New Deal.

As Bouie wrote then, “If anything can put socialism in a more positive light, it is Trump raging against it.”

It turns out that Trump vulture-capitalizing the United States is even more effective!

From my perspective, embedding this post counts as a news item:

The massive CHPE project started to send renewable power into New York City yesterday.

ABOUT 20% OF THE ENTIRE NEW YORK CITY ELECTRIC GRID WENT CLEAN!!!

Yet I don’t believe I saw a single news item about it. The clean energy world is really bad at telling its gee whiz awesome story. Kinda wild.

— Pete Sikora (@petesikora.bsky.social)
10:49 AM • Jun 3, 2026

Here are some Tuesday election updates:

• Green New Dealer Adam Hamawy won the NJ.-12th primary and will be headed to Congress next year.

• State Rep. Josh Turek is Iowa Democrats’ nominee for U.S. Senate.

• DOGEd Forest Service smokejumper and prairie populist Sam Forstag has taken the lead in the Democratic primary for Montana’s 1st.

• “Our evil propaganda worked!” laughed George Correa, who “works at an AI company he declined to name,” at a San Francisco election-night party for opponents of Proposition D, the Overpaid CEO Tax. SF’s billionaire class spent at least $6 million to defeat it. Early returns show the proposition losing.

• Zach Lahn, who has a weirdly incestuous relationship with the Koch Industries political machine, has been chosen by Iowa Republicans as their gubernatorial nominee over a Trump pick.

“Legislation that would make Louisiana the fifth state this year to buffer oil and gas companies from climate lawsuits is awaiting the governor’s signature.”

An unprecedented, but long predicted by climate scientists, fossil-fueled Western drought is “shrinking crops, drying up wells, tightening hay supplies and accelerating cattle herd liquidation across the region.” The wheat crop has collapsed. Wells are pulling air.

“Another warm, arid winter could leave Colorado River reservoirs nearly dry.”

Trump lickspittle Marco Rubio wilted in New Delhi’s fossil-fueled heat last week.

Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) in the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, 2010. Credit: Peter Roan

New York City’s population of black-crowned night herons are just one of the many birds disappearing from the world right now, thanks to industrial pollution from pesticides to fossil-fueled sea level rise. More than 110 species of US birds have lost more than 50 percent of their populations during the last half-century. Last year, the annual NYC heron count “was canceled because of bird flu. And on the first day of visits this year, the temperature soared to nearly 90 degrees — almost 20 degrees above typical high temperatures for late May.”

It’s a Netroots Nation Climate Preview!

Friday, June 5

• 9:15 am: No Followers, No Problem: How to Nationalize Any Campaign, with campaigners including the Sunrise Movement’s Aru Shiney-Ajay.

• 12:15 pm: Climate Caucus, room 123.

• 12:30 pm: Fighting Fascism: an Exchange Between the US and EU, with speakers including Benedetta Scuderi, Italian Green member of the European Parliament.

• 1:30 pm: America’s 250th: Harnessing the Anniversary for National Reckoning, with speakers including climate-justice campaigners Anthony Vidal Torres and Jade Begay in 122B.

• 3 pm: Building Long-Term Narrative Power in a Short-Term World, with communicators and strategists including the Climate Solutions’s Kimberly Larson.

• 5 pm: All the happy hours! The Netroots Climate Happy Hour, co-sponsored by Hill Heat, with state Rep. Chris Rabb at City Tap House, the Democracy Revival Center happy hour at Love City Brewing, the Swayable/Human Rights Campaign/Way to Win happy hour at Victory Brewing.

Saturday, June 6

• At 11:30 am: Flipping the Script: Why We Must Talk About Climate to Win Elections, featuring Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), with Climate Hawks Vote’s RL Miller, Michelle Deatrick, DNC Climate and Environmental Caucus, and Ryan O’Donnell, Executive Director, Data For Progress, in 118B.

• At 2:30 pm: Our Political System is Broken. What Can We Do About It?, with veterans of the climate movement, including the Lauren Maunus and Kunoor Ojha of the Democracy Revival Center, the Sunrise Movement’s Aru Shiney-Ajay, John-Paul Mejia of Big Country, Kaniela Ing, Our Hawaii, and Maxwell Love, Hold the Line, in 118A.

it could be worser

— 🅿️rofessor Kiosk 💊 (@professorkiosk.wtf)
12:57 AM • Jun 3, 2026

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
  The Federal Highway Administration’s Proposed Fiscal Year 2027 Budget

• 10 AM: House Appropriations Committee
  Full Committee Markup of FY27 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Bill and FY27 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Bill

• 2 PM: House Energy and Commerce Committee
     Environment Subcommittee
  Examining Legislation to Weaken the Clean Air Act's Mobile Source Requirements

• 2 PM: House Natural Resources Committee
     Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee
  Testimony on Water, Offshore Leasing, and Fisheries Bills, including expanding state-level authority over Gulf of Mexico waters

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky and @climatebrad@mastodon.social.

PRESENTED BY DUMBOS AND PURPLE HAGS

A dumbo octopus sits atop a lobate flow at the summit of Axial Volcano – water depth ~ 1500 m. VISIONS ’13. Credit: Ocean Observatories Initiative, being killed by Russ Vought.

You ever feel annoyed at yourself for not getting ahead of the work, not being on top of everything? That’s where I’m at.

First off, I’m annoyed that The New York Times’s Eric Niiler got the story that the Ocean Observations Initiative, a critical network of five underwater arrays managed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute since 2016, is being shut down by the Trump regime’s National Science Foundation. The “descoping” of the buoys, gliders, fiber-optic cables, was announced by OOI on its website on May 21, just waiting to be noticed. Did I? No!

An Ocean Observations Initiative glider for a trip to the Irminger Sea Array taking precautions during Covid pandemic. Credit: Ocean Observatories Initiative, being killed by Russ Vought.

Late last year, Trump vizier Russ Vought took control of the NSF and has been wielding it to exact retribution against political opponents and his greatest enemy: “climate alarmism.” This is another part of his campaign to burn down the American scientific enterprise and salt the earth to prevent it from ever rising again.

The network, which cost $48 million a year to run, is being killed for no reason, or, in the garbage words of the pathetic NSF flack Michael England, because it “aligns with NSF’s wider strategy to have a nimbler approach to prioritizing support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies as well as a deliberate approach to smart life cycle management within its portfolio of research infrastructure.”

Before the development of LLMs, this bilge was not easy to produce. England got a certificate in “Leading Through the Changing Media Landscape” from the Harvard Kennedy School and it only cost $4900!

The Ocean Observations Initiative is part of a broader ocean observation effort run by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which is Vought’s primary target. This project to know what the hell is happening to our oceans has been driven by the Coordinated Ocean Observations and Research Act, signed into law by Trump in December 2020.

In more bad news, the Times has an opening for another climate policy reporter, which means they might get even more stories about Vought’s war on climate science before I do.

I’m also behind the story that National Public Radio shut down its ten-journalist climate desk last week. Among those fired were the brilliant Neela Bannerjee, one of the country’s most experienced and principled climate journalists.

Today’s vibes

And I had wanted to get out a comprehensive, well-written preview of local climate candidates before today’s primaries to accompany my preview of today’s Congressional primaries. Did I? No!

Instead, you get only this hasty overview of today’s candidates in California, New Jersey, and New Mexico endorsed by climate groups like Jane Fonda Climate PAC, Lead Locally, Climate Cabinet, Climate Action California, and Food and Water Watch. As a bare list of candidates, it’s pretty tiresome!

California

State-wide

• Governor: Tom Steyer, better known as Kat Taylor’s husband

• Insurance Commissioner: Ben Allen

• Secretary of State: Shirley Weber

• Controller: Malia Cohen

• Attorney General: Rob Bonta

Senate

• SD 2: Damon Connolly

Assembly

• AD 30: Dawn Addis

• AD 42: Deborah Klein Lopez, a fierce climate hawk

• AD 44: Nick Schultz

• AD 50: Robert Garcia

• AD 65: Fatima Iqbal-Zubair

• AD 72: Chris Kluwe

Los Angeles

• LA County City Attorney: Marissa Roy

• LA County Board of Supervisors, District 3: Lindsey Horvath

• City Council, District 9: Estuardo Mazariegos

• City Council, District 11: Faizah Malik

California Climate Action has a longer list for the California legislature, including endorsements for multiple candidates in some districts, as strong on climate. This is important, because a large bloc of California Democrats are aligned with Big Oil.

• SD 4: Jaron Brandon

• SD 6: Sean Frame

• SD 10: David Cohen and Scott Sakikihara

• SD 18: Steve Padilla

• SD 20: Caroline Menjivar

• SD 24: John Erickson

• SD 26: Wendy Carrillo

• SD 36: Chris Duncan

• SD 38: Catherine Blakespear

• AD 2: Chris Rogers

• AD 5: Neva Parker

• AD 12: Eli Beckman, Holli Thier, and Jackie Elward

• AD 16: Rebecca Bauer-Kahan

• AD 23: Marc Berman

• AD 24: Alex Lee

• AD 25: Ash Kalra

• AD 28: Gail Pellerin

• AD 37: Gregg Hart

• AD 38: Steve Bennett

• AD 40: Pilar Schiavo

• AD 43: Celeste Rodriguez

• AD 51: Rick Chavez Zbur

• AD 55: Isaac Bryan

• AD 57: Sade Elhawary

• AD 58: Jessie Lopez

• AD 73: Cottie Petrie-Norris

• AD 74: Sergio Farias

• AD 77: Tasha Boerner

• AD 78: Chris Ward

New Jersey

The mostly shuttered Primary School newsletter has a special edition for today’s New Jersey primaries. Food and Water Watch has endorsed in two county races:

• Hudson County Commissioner: Ron Bautista

• Passaic County Commissioner: Ali Aljarrah

New Mexico

As a rapidly warming, increasingly populated, immigrant-heavy state with robust oil and gas reserves, New Mexico is a hotly contested battleground of American climate politics. Lead Locally and JanePAC are working to help local climate activists build their needed political power. “The nation’s second largest producer of crude oil, New Mexico needs stronger policies to protect communities from the oil and gas industry and to transition to clean energy,” Lead Locally writes. “A major climate bill that would have codified the governor’s net-zero by 2050 goals was recently defeated by four votes in the State Senate.”

State-wide

• Land Commissioner: Juan Sanchez

N.M. House of Representatives

• HD-4: Joseph Hernandez

• HD-13: Patricia Roybal Caballero

• HD-16: Yanira Gurrola

• HD-21: Debbie Sariñana

• HD-26: Eleanor Chavez

• HD-35: Angelica Rubio

• HD-37: Lori Martinez

• HD-41: Yolanda Jaramillo

• HD-44: Kathleen Cates

• HD-68: Charlotte Little

• HD-69: Michelle Paulene Abeyta

• HD-70: Anita Gonzales

County

• Bernalillo County Commission District 5: Eric Olivas

In 2014, the ROV ROPOS images a striking, purple hagfish slithering across the seafloor (~ 800 m water depth) in a nursery of Neptunea snails that perch above yellow stalks holding snail eggs. Credit: Ocean Observatories Initiative, being killed by Russ Vought.

Before I go, a little more catching up:

• Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) did a roundtable last week at Whitney Library on Nevada's broiling heat: “It’s so important to recognize extreme heat as a national disaster, and it’s getting worse. As climate change comes, this is not going away, it’s going to get worse.”

• Tropical Storm Jangmi is battering Japan.

• The post-human economy is going green.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
     Coast Guard, Maritime, and Fisheries Subcommittee
  Alaskan Fisheries and Other Coastal Economies

• 10 AM: Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee
  Oversight of the United States Forest Service

• 4 PM: House Rules Committee
  H.R. 8646, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agency Appropriations Act, 2027, and Other Bills

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky and @climatebrad@mastodon.social.

Hill Heat will be at Netroots Nation June 4 to 6 in Philadelphia. We’re co-sponsoring the Netroots Climate Happy Hour featuring state Sen.Chris Rabb (D-Pa.) on Friday at 5 pm at City Tap House. Drop us a line if you’re going to be there.

In breaking news: a judge has enjoined Russ Vought and the National Science Foundation (NSF) from dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Judge R. Brooke Jackson found for the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), the consortium which has run this flagship of climate science since 1960, which now includes the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC). She did not mince words:

The National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Boulder headquarters, saved for now. Credit: trickofthelight

The United States has a fundamental political tension of being a petrostate that is also a liberal democracy—it is a house divided against itself. Global warming presents the hard fact that the tension must be resolved. As Abraham Lincoln said in 1858 about the nation’s previous morally untenable economy, the union “will become all one thing or all the other.”

The Republican Party is simply a political arm of the fossil-fuel industry, while the Democratic Party is a coalition of extractive interests and democratic ones. Thus, Republican political stance on climate change is outright denial or Garrett Hardin-style white nationalism; whereas the Democratic Party vacillates between strong advocacy for action and fallow periods of uncomfortable silence.

As previously noted, we are now in one of those fallow periods. The term of art right now to describe advocacy of climate silence by members of the Democratic coalition is “climate hushing.”¹ Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is the lead champion on the Hill against this censorious wing of the Democratic Party. In an interview with Elizabeth Kolbert, Whitehouse notes the absurdity of the claim that climate silence is smart politics:

And that leads us to the week in climate hearings, featuring the machinations of many of these dark-money-backed mustache twirlers.

A 1924 depiction of the Teapot Dome scandal.

Tuesday, June 2

It’s primary day in California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, and New Mexico, so the House isn’t in session until Wednesday. The House schedule under Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La., no relation) is in shambles, as the Trump regime has no interest in a functioning Congress and is unconcerned by the unpopularity of their fascist consolidation of power. Democrats are expected to force a successful war-powers vote against Trump’s Iran war. The Senate is still crippled by the GOP need to pass the ICE-CBP reconciliation bill and the anger over Trump’s IRS-immunity J6er slush fund.

At 10 am, the logging-friendly Tom Schultz, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, testifies before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee as our now year-round wildfire season intensifies.

Also at 10 am, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) leads a Senate Commerce fisheries subcommittee hearing on Alaskan fisheries and other coastal economies.

At 4 pm, the House Rules Committee meets to schedule floor votes on H.R. 8646, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agency Appropriations Act, 2027, and other bills.

Wednesday, June 3

At 10 am, the House Appropriations Committee holds a full committee markup of the FY27 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Bill and FY27 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Bill. The Interior-Environment bill includes a rider banning the use of the social cost of carbon, while also requiring all power generated from wood incineration to be considered carbon neutral.

At the same time, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee considers the Federal Highway Administration’s proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget with FHA Administrator Sean McMaster. We can expect Democrats to advocate for a gas tax holiday to transfer even more wealth to the oil industry.

In the afternoon, the House Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee
examines nine bills to weaken the Clean Air Act's Mobile Source Requirements; that is, legislation to permit more pollution from cars and trucks.

At the same time, the House Natural Resources fisheries subcommittee receives testimony on legislation including a bill that would state-level authority over Gulf of Mexico waters for fisheries and offshore drilling from three nautical miles to nine.

Thursday, June 4

At 10 am, the House Science environment subcommittee discusses
environmental protection technology with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Maureen Gwinn, Deputy Associate Administrator for Science, Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions (OASES), and the House Agriculture Committee
receives testimony from the Secretary of Agriculture, climate denier and white Christian nationalist Brooke Rollins.

At 10:15 am, the House Natural Resources federal lands subcommittee looks at the state of our federal forests and the outlook for the 2026 wildfire year, which, as mentioned, is already well underway.

Friday, June 5

At 8 am, House Appropriators mark up the FY27 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Bill and the Fiscal Year 2027 Homeland Security Bill, even while the immigration-enforcement arm of DHS remains unfunded and in unconstitutional operation.

Hill Heat will be at Netroots Nation June 4 to 6 in Philadelphia. We’re co-sponsoring the Netroots Climate Happy Hour on Friday at 5 pm at City Tap House. Drop us a line if you’re coming to Netroots Nation!

In this post, we continue our look at the June Congressional climate primaries, starting with Tuesday, June 16th with the District of Columbia and the special-election primary for California’s 14th. The next week has Maryland, New York, and Utah. Colorado’s primaries are on the 30th. (Here’s our post on the first two weeks of June.)

June 16th

California’s 14th

Open (Swalwell)
Rating: Safe D

This is the seat that Rep. Eric Swalwell recently resigned, and there’s a special-election primary on June 16. State senator Aisha Wahab appears to be the frontrunner, having won the endorsement of the California Democratic Party and the Progressive Caucus. Eco Voters CA ran a direct mail campaign against Wahab for blocking a bill to compel fossil fuel polluters to pay for rising insurance costs last year. This year, she was conspicuously absent from the Senate Judiciary Committee vote, and from the negotiations that briefly convinced several corporate Democrats to let the bill advance this year. BART board member Melissa Hernandez is probably Wahab’s most formidable opponent. Hernandez is endorsed by many unions and by the New Democrats.

District of Columbia

Open (Norton)
Rating: It could not be safer D

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton will turn 89 the weekend before this primary, and is retiring after showing signs of rapid decline in office. D.C. Councilmember Robert White, who previously ran for mayor and had been considered the frontrunner for that race, is the obvious Green New Dealer favorite against the corporate-and-police-backed Brooke Pinto, a fellow councilmember, who is effectively the Republican in the race.

June 23rd

Maryland’s 5th

Open (Hoyer)
Rating: Safe D

The relentless party operator Steny Hoyer, who will turn 87 a week before the primary, has anointed his former campaign manager, State Del. Adrian Boafo, his preferred successor in the absurdly crowded field (22 Democratic candidates on the ballot, with nine running a serious campaign). Boafo was a lead co-sponsor of the Maryland Climate Superfund bill but is also a crypto-backed Oracle lobbyist. Millionaire businesswoman Quincy Bareebe is the top spender, while former U.S. Capitol police officer Harry Dunn has raised a national profile and is endorsed by the Working Families Party, but does not reside in the district. Prince George’s County Council Member Wala Blegay is the most viable climate progressive in the race, a former Bernie Sanders delegate endorsed by Our Revolution.

Maryland’s 6th

Incumbent: April McLean Delaney (D)
Rating: Safe D

Current Rep. April McLean Delaney and former Rep. David Trone are at it again, using their millions to beat each other up. Meanwhile, DOGEd Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staffer Alexis Goldstein is running a quixotic campaign as the principled choice.

New York’s 7th

Open (Velázquez)
Rating: Safe D

Rep. Nydia Velázquez objected to Mamdani siding with Assemblymember and labor organizer Claire Valdez for her congressional seat over her preferred candidate, Antonio Reynoso. Valdez has been endorsed by the Sunrise Movement.

New York’s 10th

Incumbent: Daniel Goldman (D)
Rating: Safe D

Climate hawk Brad Lander, the NYC Comptroller who ran for mayor and eventually made a ranked-choice-voting alliance with Mamdani to defeat Andrew Cuomo, would be a major improvement over incumbent Daniel Goldman. Lander has been endorsed by the Sunrise Movement and Mamdani. As comptroller, Lander challenged BlackRock, which manages $42 billion in NYC pension funds, for violating NYC’s fossil-fuel investment restrictions, but failed to achieve more than a sternly worded letter.

New York’s 13th

Incumbent: Adriano Espaillat (D)
Rating: Safe D

Democratic socialist and Sunrise ally Darializa Avila Chevalier has picked up Mamdani’s endorsement against Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the 71-year-old chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

New York’s 15th

Incumbent: Ritchie Torres (D)
Rating: Safe D

The soulless AIPAC automaton Ritchie Torres definitely deserves to lose, but the possibility is remote. Of his two remaining challengers, Dalourney Nemorin emphasizes a “Green New Deal for the Bronx.”

Utah’s 1st

Utah state Sen. Nate Blouin, during the Sanders-AOC “Fighting the Oligarchy” tour in 2025.

Open (Moore)
Rating: Safe D flip

Utah’s First is now a safe Dem seat. Utah state Senator Nate Blouin is a clean energy champion backed by Bernie Sanders, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the local Sunrise chapter. Blouin has been leading the charge against a proposed hyperscale data center that would generate more fossil fuel pollution than the entire state of Utah. Blouin is one of several progressive challengers trying to prevent former Rep. Ben McAdams, a New Democrat who lost re-election in 2020, from winning back his former seat. In a recent call for progressive consolidation to stop McAdams from returning to Congress, Blouin highlighted how McAdams “voted against abortion rights and against the PRO Act during his time in Congress, and was ranked the most conservative Democrat in the House.”

June 30th

Colorado Senate

Incumbent: John Hickenlooper (D)
Rating: Safe D

Colorado state senator Julie Gonzales would be a tremendous improvement over the Frackenlooper, but Hick is expected to sail through. We’re not sure his pro-crypto votes and blocking of a climate hawk to be a top Biden financial regulator are as salient as we would like them to be! Hick's first Senate chief of staff was a Robinhood lobbyist, and his current chief of staff was previously Joe Manchin’s. Maybe Hick failing to save the National Center for Atmospheric Research is galvanizing to Colorado voters in a way that voting for the GENIUS Act isn’t? Despite the long odds, Gonzales has a solid base and is well-liked among her constituency of Denver progressives, so it might be a decent test case of just how much dynamics have shifted since 2020, when Hickenlooper got Elizabeth Warren to rally around him in his primary.

Colorado’s 1st

Incumbent: Diane DeGette
Rating: Safe D

Justice Democrats and Sunrise Denver have endorsed Melat Kiros, a young corporate lawyer fired for her support for Palestinian rights, over incumbent Diana DeGette.

Colorado’s 8th

Incumbent: Gabe Evans (R)
Rating: Toss-up

JanePAC is backing state Rep. Manny Rutinel, a former climate and animal-rights activist, against the corporate-aligned Shannon Bird, who resigned from the Colorado legislature to run.

Hill Heat will be at Netroots Nation June 4 to 6 in Philadelphia. We’re co-sponsoring the Netroots Climate Happy Hour on Friday at 5 pm at City Tap House. Drop us a line if you’re going to be there.

As tennis players faint from heat exhaustion at the French Open, drought deepens across the country, and resistance to the big brutal boxes of data centers and detention centers builds, the primary season is now in full swing.

There are 140 House primaries, nine Senate primaries, and six House runoffs in June.

Tuesday, June 2nd is something of a Super Tuesday of primaries (79), with California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. The next Tuesday, June 9th, sees primaries in Maine, North Dakota, Nevada, and South Carolina. Oklahoma’s and the District of Columbia’s primaries, the Georgia and Alabama runoffs, and the special primary for California’s 14th are June 16th. Maryland and New York primaries are Tuesday, June 23rd, and Colorado holds its primaries on June 30th.

State-by-State Overview for all of June

June 2nd

• California is Jane Fonda Climate PAC’s (JanePAC) home territory. They’re investing in several of California’s jungle primaries, but are especially concerned with California’s 22nd, where climate hawk Randy Villegas is up against corporatist Democrat Jasmeet Bains, who is backed by the official campaign arm of the House Democrats, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

• Three of Iowa’s four Republican House members are potentially vulnerable; none of the expected Democratic challengers are progressives. State Rep. Josh Turek is considered the better general-election candidate to fill the open Senate seat.

• Montana’s 1st will go to Democrats in a wave election; Sam Forstag is the progressive choice in the primary, and could be a surprise climate hawk.

• The most interesting race in New Jersey’s primaries is the 12th, where progressive Adam Hamawy is vying to succeed the retiring Bonnie Watson Coleman; the Democratic primary to challenge the self-abducted Tom Kean Jr. in the 7th is being roiled by a GOP dark-money operation.

• New Mexico’s primaries are unexciting, but incumbent Melanie Stansbury (N.M.-1st) has been a climate-hawk standout. South Dakota is solidly Republican.

June 9

• Maine features the Graham Platner challenge to incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, of course, but also a competitive primary in the 2nd District, a Trump-friendly district held by retiring conserva-Dem Jared Golden.

• North Dakota is fully controlled by fossil fascists.

• Nevada’s 1st has a crowded field of anti-data-center, anti-AIPAC Democrats hoping for a blue wave to flip a very red seat.

• South Carolina’s gerrymandered districts are not getting even more gerrymandered. Navy admiral Nancy Lacore has a long-shot chance at flipping the open 1st District.

June 16

Several states, but only a few seats; like North Dakota, Oklahoma is solidly controlled by fossil fascists. In the District of Columbia race to succeed Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the progressive Robert White is expected to easily beat the pseudo-Republican Brooke Pinto. Republicans will almost definitely easily defeat the winners of the Democratic runoffs in Alabama and Georgia. The special-election jungle primary for Eric Swalwell’s seat (Calif.-16) is likely to be won by the anti-climate progressive Aisha Wahab.

June 23

• In Maryland, there is a very crowded field to succeed Steny Hoyer in the 5th District, though his former campaign manager and a reliable climate ally, Del. Adrian Boafo, is the frontrunner.

• New York’s Republican and Democratic incumbents are vulnerable from the left this cycle. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has avoided supporting progressive challenges against most of New York’s powerbrokers, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, AIPAC frontman Ritchie Torres, and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. He is, however, supporting his ally Brad Lander against Dan Goldman in N.Y.’s 11th and Darializa Avila Chevalier against Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in N.Y.’s 13th, both of whom are backed by the Sunrise Movement. He is also backing Claire Valdez over Rep. Nydia Velásquez’s preferred successor in N.Y.’s 7th.

June 30

• The former fracking engineer Sen. John Hickenlooper (D) is unfortunately expected to beat back his progressive challenger. If November turns out to be a Democratic wave, some of Colorado’s Republicans may go down. Former climate activist Manny Rutinel in Colorado’s 8th is the only viable progressive in those districts.

Detailed Race Preview for June 2nd and 9th

June 2nd

California’s 3rd

Open (Kiley)
Rating: Safe D flip

Heidi Hall, endorsed by JanePAC, would be an upgrade from Rep. Ami Bera (Calif.-6) who is hoping to represent the redrawn district. At their convention, California Dems made no endorsement in the race, a sign of trouble for Bera.

California’s 7th

Incumbent: Doris Matsui
Rating: Safe D

Rep. Doris Matsui will be 82 this fall, but has a pretty good voting record. Nonetheless, WFP, Our Revolution, ACCE, etc. have endorsed Mai Vang and she’s raised enough money to be viable. 

California’s 11th

Open (Pelosi)
Rating: Safe D

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi is retiring from this San Francisco district. The race to fill her seat is hotly competitive, with the Working Families Party-backed progressive San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, the moderate (by the district’s standards) state Sen. Scott Wiener, and the tech millionaire and former Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti. Sen. Wiener is a prominent climate hawk who successfully passed the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act in 2023. Chakrabarti is touting his credentials for helping author the Green New Deal, and has picked up a Sunrise endorsement. Chakrabarti’s campaign is being run by his friend and former Sanders staffer Zack Exley, a longtime progressive techno-optimist. Together, they run the AI-assisted “think tank” New Consensus, which envisions an effective-altruist, nuclear-abundant, fossil-free future.

California’s 22nd

Incumbent: David Valadao (R)
Rating: Toss-up

Randy Villegas reading The Lorax.

This race features a progressive climate hawk, Randy Villegas, against a corporatist Democrat. Jasmeet Bains is one of California’s most notorious Oil Dems. And yet she’s endorsed by the “climate” PAC 314 Action! It’s almost like they don’t actually care about the climate. The California Democratic Party state convention was split on their race. In one of their most egregious moves, the DCCC decided to put their weight behind the oily Bains, who is also backed by heavy spending from DMFI, the oil-Israel superPAC aligned with AIPAC.

Iowa Senate

Open (Ernst)
Rating: Likely R

This is a major potential Democratic pickup with two strong Democratic candidates. State Rep. Josh Turek hosted a climate-and-insurance roundtable with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) in April. However, State Sen. Zack Wahls has, frankly, similar positions.

Montana’s 1st

Open (Zinke)
Cook Report Rating: Likely R

This congressional district has potential between the terrible record of Ryan Zinke and the inclusion of several college towns. Monica Tranel had some vaguely pro-climate messaging in her previous two runs, but 2022 and 2024 weren't the sort of cycles where this district can be in play. Sam Forstag is a smokejumper who was DOGEd from the U.S. Forest Service. He opposes logging-first forest management (though be on the lookout for his upcoming interview with the Our Public Lands Podcast for more details) and has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

New Jersey’s 7th

Incumbent: Tom Kean Jr. (R)
Rating: Toss-up (and trending D)

An Republican front group is attacking Navy veteran Rebecca Bennett in her primary to take on vulnerable Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr., who has not appeared in public in months. New Dems and the sham science advocacy org 314 Action are supporting Dr. Tina Shah, while more progressive organizations seem to favor Brian Varela. Numerous Biden administration officials who pushed progressive climate and economic policies have endorsed Michael Roth.

New Jersey’s 12th

Open (Coleman)
Rating: Safe D

In the crowded field to replace retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Sue Altman, the former state director of Working Families Party, is not the preferred candidate of the left and climate movement. Various Super PACs are making a late push to back the “pro-Israel” Altman over Adam Hamawy, a doctor backed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, AOC, Bernie Sanders, and many others. Hamawy has received assistance from a pro-Palestinian Super PAC intended to counter AIPAC’s impact in congressional primaries.

June 9th

Maine Senate

Incumbent: Susan Collins (R)
Rating: Toss-up

Collins continues to be “concerned” about her decades of loyalty to Team Fascist Climate Destruction. Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee after Chuck Schumer’s recruit, the unloved Gov. Janet Mills, bowed out, recently released an energy-climate plan that combines smart policies (oil windfall profits taxes that finance national clean-energy infrastructure) with dangerously stupid ones (ending gas taxes). Shay Stewart-Bouley has an extended essay on Platner engaging with Black Mainers that’s worth reading.

Maine’s 2nd

Open (Golden)
Rating: Likely R flip

Maine’s 2nd District is one of the most Trump-friendly with a Democratic incumbent (Trump +10). Unsurprisingly, Jared Golden is bowing out. The former Gov. Paul LePage, a Trump wannabe, will be the Republican candidate. The Democratic primary features state auditor Matt Dunlap (backed by Our Revolution and Rep. Ro Khanna), the DCCC’s pick, state Sen. Joe Baldacci, and former Congressional staffer Jordan Wood of the notorious scam-PAC spam-text Mothership Strategies. Wood has raised an eye-popping $5 million but Dunlap and Baldacci are the frontrunners. One of the major issues in Maine is skyrocketing utility rates, which led to the failed attempt to pass the Pine Tree Power initiative several years ago. Baldacci allowed the Pine Tree Power initiative to go to the ballot, although his brother, former governor John Baldacci, has ties to Maine’s monopoly utility. 

A detailed preview of the June 26th, June 23rd, and June 30th primaries is next.