In the News
NOAA, Dems push back on Republican rigs-to-reef bill
by Rebekah Alvey
Members of a House Natural Resources subcommittee were at odds Thursday about legislation that aims to boost national rigs-to-reefs conversions. During a hearing, the Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries heard from witnesses about four bills, including H.R. 6814, the “Marine Fisheries Habitat Protection Act.” The bill, sponsored by Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), would require NOAA to review more offshore oil and gas platforms as potential artificial reefs. Subcommittee ranking member … Continue Reading
March 21, 2024
Corporate Accountability Lab, AP, Outlaw Ocean reports allege forced labor, antibiotics used in Indian shrimp production
by Cliff White
Separate reports from the Corporate Accountability Lab, the Associated Press, and the Outlaw Ocean Project published on 20 March have painted a grim portrait of India’s shrimp industry. The report from the Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL), a nongovernmental organization dedicated to addressing “the failure of domestic and international legal regimes to hold companies accountable for abuses in their global supply chains,” presents evidence of forced labor, child labor, and environmental … Continue Reading
March 21, 2024
Republicans question offshore wind’s reliability, impacts
by Heather Richards
House Natural Resources Republicans harangued an Interior Department official Wednesday over whether offshore wind is a reliable source of energy off the nation's coasts. One of several hearings on the House GOP's “energy week” agenda, the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee meeting explored a wide range of complaints about the Biden administration’s push for offshore wind power — and that industry's environmental impacts — while also lambasting the White House for not understanding the … Continue Reading
March 21, 2024
House approves Republican fracking, drilling bills
by Kelsey Brugger
The House on Wednesday passed two bills promoting oil and gas drilling: one that would support fracking and another that would lower costs to drill on public lands. The bills are a part of the GOP's "energy week." While Republicans said the effort was meant to highlight "the value of American energy," most Democrats dismissed the proceedings as unserious. The House passed H.R. 1121, the “Protecting American Energy Production Act,” from senior Energy and Commerce Republican Jeff Duncan of … Continue Reading
March 18, 2024
‘Help our kelp’: Lawmakers promote aid for underwater forests
by Rob Hotakainen
Seaweed could get a boost on Capitol Hill this week when a panel of the House Natural Resources Committee considers legislation that would provide more federal aid for underwater kelp forest ecosystems. H.R. 5487, the “Help Our Kelp Act,” is one of four set for a hearing Thursday before the Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries. When Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) introduced the bill last September, he said that the changing climate, overfishing and poor water quality had damaged … Continue Reading
March 18, 2024
Biden Promised Not to Finance Fossil Fuels. So Why Is the US Backing a Huge Gas Project?
by Russ Choma
At a Glasgow climate summit in 2021, the Biden administration offered a commitment to the world: The United States would stop the public financing of oil and gas projects. There would be no more American tax dollars for new natural gas pipelines or wells, the White House said The pledge drew praise from climate change activists. But there was one big problem—it was an empty promise. In the years since Glasgow, the US has continued to finance fossil fuel projects around the world. The latest … Continue Reading
March 15, 2024
Congressional Democrats, industry group seek Biden administration boost in plastics treaty talks
by Jordan Wolman
Democratic lawmakers and the American Chemistry Council sent dueling letters Friday urging the Biden administration to take up their plastics treaty priorities as international negotiations near a critical juncture. What happened: The letters, written independently of each other, spell out the competing domestic policy pressures complicating U.S. efforts to help hammer out a U.N. treaty to address plastic pollution by the end of this year. Democrats' letter: Senate and House members implored … Continue Reading
March 14, 2024
Lawmakers warn Export-Import Bank against fueling ‘climate chaos’
by Sara Schonhardt
Six lawmakers expressed opposition to potential U.S. investments in a Bahrain oil and gas project that they say would harm the climate and undermine a pledge by President Joe Biden to end public financing of overseas fossil fuel developments. In a letter led by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and sent to the board of directors of the U.S. Export-Import Bank on Wednesday, the officials urged the agency not to move forward with financing the project “because of its negative impacts on the … Continue Reading
March 12, 2024
Bipartisan group of lawmakers push Biden to do more on IUU fishing
by Chris Chase
A bipartisan group of lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives has sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden urging him and the administration to take increased action against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The letter, sent by House Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries Subcommittee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-California) and House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Arizona), was signed by 26 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. … Continue Reading
March 07, 2024
Huffman: Funding package includes money for Coyote Dam feasibility study
This week the U.S. House of Representatives passed the first six Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations bills, which Rep. Jared Huffman (D - San Rafael) described as including “significant victories for California’s Second Congressional District (and) over $9 million in federal funding for projects that (Huffman) nominated as part of the Community Project Funding process.” Huffman also noted in a press release that the spending bills include “historic funding for Native American Housing Assistance … Continue Reading
March 07, 2024
Reps. Mike Thompson and Jared Huffman’s State of the Union guests highlight gun violence and extremism
by Marisa Endicott
U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, and Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, sought to highlight the specters of gun violence and religious extremism respectively in their choice of guests for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech. Thompson’s pick, Liz Russell, is the former manager of The Pathway Home in Yountville, where on March 9, 2018, an Army veteran suffering from serious mental health issues and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder showed up at the residential treatment center with an … Continue Reading
March 07, 2024
Interior official speaks out against Republican wildlife bill
by Michael Doyle
A Republican-authored wildlife conservation bill that would rearrange the Endangered Species Act elicited sharply conflicting assessments and a few hints of potential accord Wednesday. Introduced as an alternative to the bipartisan but long-stalled "Recovering America's Wildlife Act," the new measure is dubbed the "America's Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act." The two plans share certain broad goals as well as the name "wildlife," but differ in dramatic ways. The new bill would authorize … Continue Reading
March 05, 2024
Freethought Caucus’ Huffman invites Christian nationalism critic to State of the Union
by Jack Jenkins
Amanda Tyler, lead organizer of Christians Against Christian Nationalism, will attend the State of the Union address Thursday (March 7) as a guest of U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, co-founder of the Congressional Freethought Caucus. Tyler has become one of the loudest voices in Washington and in the country speaking against the Christian nationalist movement, a decentralized but insistent collection of preachers, politicians and self-appointed champions of ideas that fuse church and state, with … Continue Reading
March 04, 2024
Rep. Jared Huffman says Bolinas will reopen post office after one year
It’s been a year since the Post office was closed in the Marin County town of Bolinas. Since then, residents have had to make a twenty three mile round-trip along narrow, windy roads to pick up their mail from other postal facilities. Today, community members met with their Congressional representative, who promised a new post office will be built. For full interview: … Continue Reading
March 04, 2024
Hearing will focus heat and light on new GOP wildlife bill
by Michael Doyle
A new Republican-authored habitat conservation bill that recasts the Endangered Species Act will be batted around by a House panel this week. Introduced by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), the “America's Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act," veers away from the bipartisan “Recovering America’s Wildlife Act” that lawmakers have championed since 2016. H.R. 7408 had 21 GOP co-sponsors as of Friday afternoon. It offers a lot less money to states than RAWA, as the latter bill is commonly known. The … Continue Reading
March 01, 2024
House Republicans trumpet ESA changes in wildlife bill
by Michael Doyle
House Republicans on Thursday promoted their new wildlife conservation proposal that so far lacks the bipartisan support once enjoyed by its predecessor legislation. Democrats, however, seethed at the new bill, with one prominent House lawmaker calling it "toxic." Dubbed the "America's Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act," the GOP-authored measure would authorize but not mandate hundreds of millions of dollars for state-run wildlife conservation programs. It would also rearrange the … Continue Reading
February 21, 2024
Marin congressman tours Bolinas Road storm damage
by Cameron MacDonald
Local and county leaders joined U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman on a tour this week of a rural road ravaged by winter storms. Several parts of Bolinas Road damaged during last year’s winter storms will require an estimated $30.29 million to repair along a 6.5-mile stretch of the country road. “You add up the critical infrastructure, the high recreational traffic demand, the local community — what a vital lifeline this is,” Huffman said on Wednesday. “This is more than just another road … Continue Reading
February 20, 2024
Education Department says FAFSA fix is coming for Social Security issue
by Medora Lee
A fix is on its way for students who haven't been able to complete the new federal financial aid application because their parents don't have Social Security numbers, the Department of Education said Tuesday. The Education Department said a permanent fix will come in the first half of March, but in the meantime, there's a workaround. Students should complete the steps for the workaround only if they must meet "critical state, institutional or other scholarship organization aid deadlines" by … Continue Reading
February 16, 2024
US lawmakers call on Biden administration to impose Magnitsky sanctions against Chinese companies
by Chris Chase
A group of U.S. lawmakers has called on U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen to impose Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (GloMag) sanctions on Chinese companies named in the October 2023 Outlaw Ocean Project report on forced labor in Chinese processing facilities. U.S. representatives Jared Huffman, Mike Gallagher, Raul Grijalva, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Betty McCollum, James Moylan, Josh Gottheimer, Jill Tokuda, Marry Peltola, … Continue Reading
February 15, 2024
House lawmakers air deep-seated differences on ESA
by Michael Doyle
House members alternately bashed and defended the Endangered Species Act on Wednesday in a hearing that highlighted partisan differences galore but showed no room for compromise on updating a key component of the landmark 1973 law. The hearing before the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries dealt with but one ESA-related bill, H.R. 6784, that itself addressed only one specific part of the law. Still, lawmakers used the occasion to launch broader salvos. "While … Continue Reading