Zoe Lofgren

Thank you to everyone who joined my fireside chat last night in Soledad to discuss immigration, especially our young leaders from the Greenfield Youth Council who read questions from community members! #CA18 https://t.co/4zcKq96EeP

As a former immigration lawyer and law professor, I’m committed to finding solutions to make our system more efficient and reasonable. If you missed our conversation last night, don’t worry! You can watch here: https://t.co/Wx6QvzqLAu

Statement from 43 Members of Congress from California regarding Trump’s attacks on Los Angeles and San Diego: https://t.co/5Yb2WirRSD

Trump’s war spiked diesel to nearly $9 per gallon in California and now he invites Iran to "take out" LA and San Diego? He’s out of his mind.

It’s no wonder why only 26% of Americans approve of Trump’s economy. His policies are taking us backward, and House Republicans are rubber stamping his agenda. It’s time to change direction and get the country back on track.

(Washington, DC) – On Monday, Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) sent a letter to Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright demanding that he answer multiple months-overdue oversight requests from the Committee regarding DOE’s 2025 award terminations. “For more than 15 months, my colleagues and I have attempted to conduct oversight of DOE’s award termination activities,” writes Ranking Member Lofgren in her letter. “We have asked questions, requested documents, and demanded answers directly from you during official testimony. But DOE has thwarted our oversight repeatedly by refusing to provide the requested information and documents. In doing so, DOE has hindered our ability to evaluate DOE’s actions and obstructed the Committee’s ability to fulfill its constitutional role. The following oversight requests from the 119th Congress remain outstanding, and DOE must comply with them. 1. Please provide to the Committee a comprehensive list of DOE officials who participated in the “Portfolio Review Process” in 2025 and 2026. 2. Please provide to the Committee copies of the “one pagers” or “one-page summary memos” that were created for each award being reviewed as a part of the “Portfolio Review Process.” 3. Please provide to the Committee copies of the assessments that were completed for each award terminated in May 2025 and October 2025 for the purpose of evaluating whether those awards had sufficiently met the criteria utilized by DOE under the “Portfolio Review Process.” “Secretary Wright, these are straightforward requests for specific documents and information. I cannot help but believe that your ultimate goal in refusing to comply with them is to evade responsibility for your actions. Did you believe that you could arbitrarily terminate billions of dollars’ worth of awards, lie about the reasons why, and escape accountability? Now, as the political consequences of your actions mount, it appears you hope to quietly walk away from the entire issue, while Congress simply moves on without holding you accountable. That hope would be mistaken. Congressional oversight must be respected, and my oversight requests must be complied with. If DOE fails to do so, we will redouble our efforts using every available tool at our disposal. I urge DOE to comply now.” Access the letter here and below. Dear Secretary Wright, In 2025, the Trump Administration illegally began to erase all traces of federal activity that it disagreed with. At the Department of Energy (DOE), you led the charge. You targeted billions of dollars’ worth of clean energy and infrastructure investments, engaged in a politicized “review” to cast a veneer of legitimacy over your arbitrary decisions, terminated awards that you disliked in a manner that was designed to inflict maximum pain on your political opponents, and then lied continuously to the public about why you had done it. The process was a sham and a disgrace, unworthy of the oath you swore to uphold the Constitution. But now, as lawsuits accumulate, criticism mounts, and judges declare your actions illegal, you do not seem quite as proud of the decisions that were supposedly so righteous a year ago. Indeed, you appear eager to distance yourself from the award terminations of 2025 and to avoid responsibility for them. Since the early spring of 2025, I have attempted to conduct oversight of the Department’s actions to get to the bottom of what happened. DOE has evaded my oversight at every turn. This letter serves to reaffirm that my prior oversight requests from the 119th Congress pertaining to DOE’s award terminations remain outstanding. I expect DOE to comply. If the Department does not, it should prepare to face the consequences of its obstruction. The story of DOE’s award terminations in 2025 has been told so many times by this point that it barely needs retelling. I will briefly do so merely to provide context for my oversight requests related to the issue. Upon taking office in January 2025, the Trump Administration immediately froze tens of billions of dollars’ worth of research, development, demonstration, and commercialization projects at DOE that had been awarded under the Biden Administration. In your first Secretarial Order on February 5th, 2025, released two days after you were confirmed as Secretary of Energy, you announced that DOE would “comprehensively review its R&D portfolio” without providing any additional detail. On May 15th, 2025, you initiated a new process to “conduct focused reviews of awards and other forms of financial assistance on a caseby-case basis,” while asserting that DOE possessed the discretion to “terminate [a] project based on the outcome of DOE’s evaluation.” This process, called the “Portfolio Review Process” or PRP, moved suspiciously quickly. A mere two weeks later, on May 30th, 2025, DOE announced the termination of 24 awards issued by the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) totaling more than $3.7 billion. Several months after that, on October 1st, 2025, DOE announced the termination of 321 additional awards from across the Department totaling roughly $7.56 billion. In both instances, DOE claimed that the terminations resulted from a “thorough and individualized financial review of each award,” during which the Department had concluded that the awards “were not economically viable and would not generate a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.” After the October 2025 award terminations, DOE also asserted that the awards “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs.” Finally, in April 2026, you appeared before a House Appropriations Subcommittee and testified that the PRP was complete and that no additional award terminations would be forthcoming. The repercussions of DOE’s award terminations were immense. Projects were thrown into chaos, companies were pushed to the brink of collapse, and jobs were lost. Taxpayer dollars were wasted. Major clean energy research, development, and demonstration projects – indeed, entire nascent clean energy sectors – were destabilized. Congressional energy priorities enshrined in law were thwarted. We continue to deal with the fallout of these award terminations to this day. From the beginning, as the Ranking Member of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (“the Committee”), I sought to conduct oversight of DOE’s actions in order to understand the processes and motivations that lay behind the Department’s attempt to wipe out over ten billion dollars in taxpayer-funded awards. On May 5th, 2025, I sent a letter to DOE along with a group of my Ranking Member colleagues in the House of Representatives and Senate that condemned the Department’s comprehensive freeze and review of Biden-era awards as “illegal and harmful to the public.” We asked how “DOE or any other part of the administration [is] assessing which DOE projects to cancel or continue, and under what criteria?” We did not receive a response from the Department before the PRP was announced on May 15th and $3.7 billion in awards was terminated on May 31st. After DOE terminated the first round of awards on May 31st, Department officials provided a briefing for Committee Staff. Based upon the information disclosed in that briefing, I sent another letter to DOE on September 9th, 2025, along with two other Ranking Members, expressing “serious concerns” that the PRP was “haphazard, disorganized, and politically driven,” and calling upon DOE to “cease the cancellation process and restore respect for independent, merit-based reviews.” We also requested specific documents created during the Department’s review of OCED awards related to DOE’s evaluation of those awards and its assessment of whether the awards should be terminated, as well as a comprehensive list of DOE officials who had participated in the review process. DOE never provided those requested documents. When DOE terminated more than $7.5 billion worth of awards on October 1st, 2025, the Department publicly claimed that the terminations were rooted in policy-based criteria such as economic viability, taxpayer return, and national energy priorities. You denied any political motivation behind the terminations in congressional testimony as recently as April and June 2026.3 But DOE’s cover story unraveled due to an unlikely source: its own concessions in court. Over the course of one lawsuit filed in November 2025, DOE formally stipulated that “a primary reason” for the October 2025 award terminations was “whether the grantee was located in a ‘Blue State’”; a judge ruled that DOE’s award terminations were unconstitutional and illegal in January 2026. Over the course of a second lawsuit related to the same terminations, DOE went even further and formally stipulated that the October 2025 award terminations were “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state,” and that they were not based upon “any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction, or performance-based factor.” When you testified before the Science Committee on June 10th, 2026, Science Committee Democrats confronted you about the award terminations and reiterated the oversight requests that I had previously made to DOE. One of my colleagues, Energy Subcommittee Ranking Member Deborah Ross, demanded that DOE disclose the identities of the Department officials who participated in the PRP; once again, you refused to do so. Another one of my colleagues, Environment Subcommittee Ranking Member Gabe Amo, pressed you to explain the contradiction between your denials of any political motivation in the award terminations and DOE’s formal concessions in the November 2025 lawsuit; once again, you denied that any of the October 2025 award termination decisions were made based on politics. It was July 2026, the very next month, when DOE’s formal concessions in the second lawsuit – even more sweeping – became public, even though you had surely known about them when you testified before the Science Committee. Your materially false statements to the Committee left me with no choice but to formally refer you to the Department of Justice, which I did along with Ranking Member Amo on August 4th, 2026. For more than 15 months, my colleagues and I have attempted to conduct oversight of DOE’s award termination activities. We have asked questions, requested documents, and demanded answers directly from you during official testimony. But DOE has thwarted our oversight repeatedly by refusing to provide the requested information and documents. In doing so, DOE has hindered our ability to evaluate DOE’s actions and obstructed the Committee’s ability to fulfill its constitutional role. The following oversight requests from the 119th Congress remain outstanding, and DOE must comply with them. Please provide the requested information and documents no later than 5:00 PM on Wednesday, October 14th, 2026: 1. Please provide to the Committee a comprehensive list of DOE officials who participated in the “Portfolio Review Process” in 2025 and 2026. 2. Please provide to the Committee copies of the “one pagers” or “one-page summary memos” that were created for each award being reviewed as a part of the “Portfolio Review Process.” 3. Please provide to the Committee copies of the assessments that were completed for each award terminated in May 2025 and October 2025 for the purpose of evaluating whether those awards had sufficiently met the criteria utilized by DOE under the “Portfolio Review Process.” Secretary Wright, these are straightforward requests for specific documents and information. I cannot help but believe that your ultimate goal in refusing to comply with them is to evade responsibility for your actions. Did you believe that you could arbitrarily terminate billions of dollars’ worth of awards, lie about the reasons why, and escape accountability? Now, as the political consequences of your actions mount, it appears you hope to quietly walk away from the entire issue, while Congress simply moves on without holding you accountable. That hope would be mistaken. Congressional oversight must be respected, and my oversight requests must be complied with. If DOE fails to do so, we will redouble our efforts using every available tool at our disposal. I urge DOE to comply now. Pursuant to Rule X of the House of Representatives, the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology “shall review and study on a continuing basis laws, programs, and Government activities relating to nonmilitary research and development.” The Committee possesses jurisdiction over “all energy research, development, and demonstration, and projects therefor, and all federally owned or operated nonmilitary energy laboratories, as well as the commercial application of energy technologies.” ###

See what else Trump’s wasteful spending could have been spent on: https://t.co/qTHO3VdO1k

Trump’s vanity projects are expected to cost billions of dollars. Instead of building ballrooms and retrofitting his Qatari jet, that money could’ve: 🛒 Covered 1.8 million families’ groceries for the month 👩‍🏫 Hired 27,000+ new teachers 🏡 Built 4,000+ new homes

See what else America could have if not for Trump’s backwards priorities: https://t.co/qTHO3VelQS

Did you know over $5 billion worth of America’s fruits and vegetables are grown in the Salinas Valley each year? I met recently with the @OrganicTrade Association to discuss how we can strengthen domestic organic supply chains and help #CA18 farmers thrive. https://t.co/9IB3uYXLW7

Foreign digital piracy costs the U.S. economy up to $71 billion and 560,000 jobs each year. I just introduced the bipartisan DEFEND IP Act, a smart, targeted way to fight piracy while protecting a free and open internet. I’m proud to be leading this legislation with @RepBenCline, @SenThomTillis, @ChrisCoons, @MarshaBlackburn, and @SenAdamSchiff. https://t.co/0H2kHVg5Nb

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (CA-18) and Congressman Ben Cline (VA-06) introduced bipartisan, bicameral legislation focused on combating foreign digital piracy. The Deterring Extraterritorial Foreign Exploitation of Networks Damaging Intellectual Property (DEFEND IP) Act of 2026 is being led in the Senate by Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC), Chris Coons (D-DE), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Adam Schiff (D-CA). Text for this legislation can be found here. Previous efforts to curb foreign digital piracy failed because they lacked due process, threatened free speech, and provided overly broad enforcement powers that risked harming legitimate websites and the open internet. The DEFEND IP Act instead: Respects First Amendment rights by requiring every blocking order to go through a U.S. court, requiring clear evidence, due process, and judicial oversight to ensure fair enforcement and prevent censorship. Allows for feasible tech solutions by not mandating specific technical measures for blocking like past proposals. Instead, it allows service providers to determine the best, least intrusive method(s) to comply with court orders, preserving internet stability and security. Strictly applies to large-scale, foreign-run piracy sites, ensuring that lawful U.S. platforms, mixed-use sites, and independent creators remain unaffected. Calls for ongoing monitoring, as judicial orders would be temporary and require detailed evidence showing harm before any issuance or renewal. Protects service providers from legal liability for implementing judicial orders and for actions of blocked criminal sites. “Protecting a free and open internet and standing up for American creators go hand in hand,” said Rep. Lofgren. "Foreign piracy operations exploit a loophole in our law, hurting workers and businesses in California and across the country while putting consumers at risk. I am proud to work across the aisle on this smart, targeted approach to crack down on foreign piracy while protecting Americans’ free speech and access to a free and open internet.” “Foreign piracy sites steal our Nation’s creative works, exposing creators and consumers to fraud, intellectual property theft, and financial harm,” said Rep. Cline. “The bipartisan, bicameral DEFEND IP Act would give American creators a way to pursue foreign criminals in U.S. courts while protecting free speech and an open internet. By closing this legal gap, we can strengthen IP protections, support American jobs and businesses, and give creators greater tools to defend their work.” “Foreign piracy continues to threaten American creators, putting well-paying jobs at risk, while exposing consumers to malware, identity theft, and other serious online harms,” said Sen. Tillis. “The DEFEND IP Act provides a targeted, commonsense tool to shut down these foreign, criminal operations at the source while protecting lawful speech and due process. I’m proud to lead this bipartisan effort to safeguard America’s creative economy and strengthen digital security, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to counter these threats.” “Pirating American movies, TV shows, art, and books by foreign websites steals tens of billions of dollars from the U.S. economy each year, costing our creative community hundreds of thousands of jobs,” said Sen. Coons. “This bipartisan, bicameral legislation will give American creators the tools they need to protect their intellectual property rights, while ensuring the internet remains a vibrant forum for free speech.” “Tennessee’s thriving creative community must be protected from the theft of creative works by foreign criminals,” said Sen. Blackburn. “Foreign piracy operations threaten the American creative industry through phishing, identity theft, and financial fraud, and our DEFEND IP Act would protect creators by allowing them to pursue these criminals in U.S. federal courts.” “I’m proud to join my colleagues in this effort to protect creators and consumers alike from foreign criminal enterprises seeking to steal our intellectual property and exploit Americans,” said Sen. Schiff. “As Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and a steadfast advocate for the creative community, I understand that robust protections are essential for innovation and economic growth in the digital age. This commonsense approach will provide the courts with the tools they need to combat foreign piracy operations and help level the playing field for American artists and creators who deserve to be fairly compensated for their work.” This legislation is endorsed by over a dozen organizations: Motion Picture Association (MPA), Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL), American Society of Collective Rights Licensing (ASCRL), Association of American Publishers (AAP), Recording Academy, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), Songwriters Guild of America (SGA), the Copyright Alliance, Songwriters of North America (SONA), Directors Guild of America (DGA), Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), CreativeFuture, Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP), Authors Guild, American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA). "We applaud Reps. Lofgren and Cline, and Senators Tillis, Coons, Blackburn, and Schiff for their commitment to protecting the millions of Americans working in the creative industries by introducing this site-blocking legislation,” says CreativeFuture CEO Ruth Vitale. “Our film and television industry employs 2.01 million workers. The industry is composed of more than 162,000 businesses, 93% of which employ fewer than 10 people. Piracy, most of which is coming from territories beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement, threatens to undermine all of this. The overwhelming evidence from almost 60 countries around the world with site-blocking in place proves that these laws shift traffic away from illegal pirate sites toward the legal marketplace. We look forward to seeing a judicial site blocking law enacted here in the U.S.” "The DEFEND IP Act would help protect American creators from foreign actors who steal and profit from their content,” said ITIF President Daniel Castro. "The legislation provides important due process protections by entrusting website-blocking authority to the courts, while protecting Internet users by leaving the technical implementation of blocking injunctions to qualified experts rather than judges. This calibrated approach balances the need to protect America’s creative industries with the interests of Internet users.” “The Motion Picture Association commends Representatives Lofgren and Cline and Senators Tillis, Coons, Blackburn and Schiff for introducing the bipartisan, bicameral DEFEND IP Act – a bill to deliver a long-overdue judicial site-blocking framework to the United States,” said Motion Picture Association Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin. "By enacting this legislation, our country can deploy a highly effective tool to protect creators and consumers from overseas digital piracy, all while safeguarding free speech and preserving the open internet. For more than a decade, similar policies have been used to great effect by democratic allies like the United Kingdom and Australia. We look forward to working with Congress and stakeholders to enact this important measure into law.” “We are grateful to Senators Tillis, Coons, Blackburn, and Schiff and Representatives Lofgren and Cline for their bipartisan, bicameral leadership in crafting the DEFEND IP Act, which empowers US federal courts to protect consumers, rightsholders, and markets from large scale foreign piracy,” said Mitch Glazier, Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America. “Similar tools have proven effective around the world over the last ten years with no harm to speech, Internet infrastructure or security, or participation online, and we look forward to working with the sponsors to create a simple, effective judicial remedy as this bill moves forward.” ###

“Fusion is the future, and this bipartisan bill is a major step in capitalizing on the promise of its emission-free power,” said Ranking Member Lofgren. “I’m proud to be introducing this bill today alongside Representatives Obernolte, Beyer, Trahan, and Gallagher—and I thank them for their partnership. We are faced with a choice: lead the global race to commercialize fusion power or get left behind. We need to match the momentum we are experiencing with breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility, from the emerging fusion energy industry, and at universities and other national laboratories across the country to fortify the foundation of fusion energy in America, in both the private and public sectors. With $10 billion in direct investments for high-priority activities, the establishment of an Office of Fusion at DOE, a workforce development program, and much more—this bill will unleash a new era of fusion energy development in the United States.” “Fusion energy has the potential to be a reliable domestic source of power and strengthen America’s energy independence,” said Rep. Jay Obernolte. “The American Leadership in Fusion Act supports the research infrastructure and commercialization pathways needed to move fusion technologies toward deployment and maintain U.S. leadership in this critical field.” “Fusion energy can help deliver abundant, reliable, clean energy for decades to come, but if we want to realize its promise, we need to make greater investments in its commercialization,” said Congressman Beyer. “That’s why I’m proud to support the bipartisan American Leadership in Fusion Act, which would provide $10 billion in direct investment to accelerate fusion commercialization and establish an Office of Fusion. We must give promising fusion technologies the resources they need to reach the grid and ensure American leadership in this global race.” “At a time when families across the country are struggling with rising energy costs, fusion energy offers the promise of delivering clean, reliable, and affordable power. However, turning that promise into reality requires sustained investment and commitment,” said Congresswoman Trahan. “This legislation will help accelerate the commercialization of fusion energy and strengthen America’s position as a global leader in this critical technology. By investing in the scientists, researchers, and companies developing the next generation of energy technology here in the United States, we can advance our clean energy goals, create good-paying jobs, and strengthen our energy independence. America has always been at its best when we lead the world in innovation, and fusion is our opportunity to lead once again.” “Fusion energy represents a tremendous opportunity to strengthen American energy dominance, drive innovation, and create new opportunities for workers and businesses for the North State and across the nation," said Rep. James Gallagher (CA-01). “This bipartisan bill makes critical investments to accelerate the commercialization of fusion, grow our research capabilities, and support the next generation of American talent. We must build on the breakthroughs happening across our national laboratories, universities, and private sector to ensure America remains at the forefront of fusion energy.” "The FIA, as the unified voice of the fusion industry, applauds and commends Representatives Lofgren, Obernolte, Gallagher, Trahan, and Beyer for introducing bipartisan legislation to advance the commercialization of fusion energy,” said Andrew Holland, Chief Executive Officer, Fusion Industry Association. “The private fusion industry has attracted a record $4.5 billion in investment over the past year, but to deploy in the U.S. within the next decade, it needs a strong partner in the federal government. The American Leadership in Fusion Act provides the DOE with the necessary guidance to support commercialization, along with the government resources needed to develop the infrastructure and grow the public-private partnerships accelerating fusion's deployment." “The global race to commercialize fusion will be won by the nation that can translate scientific leadership into industrial strength,” said Ylli Bajraktari, CEO, SCSP Action Program. “The American Leadership in Fusion Actrecognizes fusion as a strategic national priority with the potential to help secure America’s energy future, strengthen its economic and national security, and ensure that the United States—not China—sets the pace for this critical technology. By investing at scale in test infrastructure, milestone-based public-private partnerships, domestic supply chains, and the fusion workforce, this bipartisan legislation translates a comprehensive national strategy into action.”

It was a pleasure to visit @HartnellCollege’s Child Development Center in Salinas to celebrate the $250,000 I secured to help renovate their outdoor learning environment. Thank you for such a warm welcome, and I can’t wait for the kids to enjoy this new space! https://t.co/eyX9d1O5q9

Great to meet with @SantaCruzMETRO to discuss their work to get folks where they need to go safely and efficiently. I voted for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that funded many of these projects, and I’ll continue to support investments that improve mass transportation. https://t.co/3mL8JyKHfS

(Washington, DC) – Yesterday, Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) sent a letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP) Director, Michael Kratsios, urging him to remove Dr. Matthew Wielicki from his position as leader of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The USGCRP was established by law in 1990 to develop and coordinate a comprehensive research program to address climate change. Dr. Wielicki is a climate science denier who has built a career around belittling scientists’ calls to action on climate despite his own lack of training in the field. “For the last 20 months, the Trump Administration has systematically attacked our nation’s scientific enterprise, handing the keys to discovery and innovation to our greatest adversaries,” Ranking Member Lofgren wrote in her letter. “Climate science has been one of its most relentless targets. But it now appears that erasing the Federal Government’s support for climate science is not enough for this Administration, and that climate science is to be weaponized against the American people as well. Earlier this summer, press reports indicated that the White House had appointed Dr. Matthew Wielicki to lead the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP) decision to select a leader of USGCRP who has demonstrated an aggressive unwillingness to collaborate with other scientists is unacceptable. In addition, the law governing the USGCRP requires that its members be permanent employees of certain federal agencies or departments, which Dr. Wielicki is not. Therefore, his appointment appears to violate the law. I urge you to remove Dr. Wielicki from his position and appoint a leader who has the technical expertise, scientific credibility, and legally required qualifications to do the job in a manner worthy of the Government of the United States.” Ms. Lofgren details the importance of the USGCRP’s work and how the Trump administration’s targeting of the Program, rooted in climate denialism, puts Americans in danger and is a massive waste of taxpayer dollars: “Last April, carrying out changes proposed by now-Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought in Project 2025, the Trump Administration dismantled the USGCRP. Federal employees were removed from the program and sent back to their home agencies. Government contracts that would have supported the sixth NCA were abruptly canceled without any valid basis. Authors for the sixth NCA, who had been selected based on their scientific expertise and merit, were summarily dismissed. This sudden move laid years of effort and taxpayer dollars to waste. To be clear, USGCRP was not targeted because it was a failure, but rather because it was a success. The program achieved its congressional mandate and became a global leader in understanding the impacts of climate change for human society.” The letter can be found here and below. Dear Director Kratsios, For the last 20 months, the Trump Administration has systematically attacked our nation’s scientific enterprise, handing the keys to discovery and innovation to our greatest adversaries. Climate science has been one of its most relentless targets. But it now appears that erasing the Federal Government’s support for climate science is not enough for this Administration, and that climate science is to be weaponized against the American people as well. Earlier this summer, press reports indicated that the White House had appointed Dr. Matthew Wielicki to lead the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP) decision to select a leader of USGCRP who has demonstrated an aggressive unwillingness to collaborate with other scientists is unacceptable. In addition, the law governing the USGCRP requires that its members be permanent employees of certain federal agencies or departments, which Dr. Wielicki is not. Therefore, his appointment appears to violate the law. I urge you to remove Dr. Wielicki from his position and appoint a leader who has the technical expertise, scientific credibility, and legally required qualifications to do the job in a manner worthy of the Government of the United States. The need for a robust national climate program was well established even before Congress created the USGCRP. In 1988, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly identified climate change as an urgent issue and resolved to negotiate a framework to combat it. In 2025, nearly 40 years later, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a consensus study report that concluded, “[T]he evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused greenhouse gases is beyond scientific dispute.” In the decades between those warnings to policymakers, global greenhouse gas emissions increased by more than 40%. Also in that time, Congress enacted the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606) to establish the USGCRP. Congress intended the USGCRP to “provide for the development and coordination of a comprehensive and integrated United States research program which will assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.” During its long history, the program accomplished just that. Over 35 years, the USGCRP conducted five analyses of the best available climate science and published these as authoritative National Climate Assessments (NCA). In the NCAs, USGCRP affirmed the general scientific consensus that climate change could lead to disastrous economic and social consequences. For instance, in the most recent Fifth NCA, scientists wrote, “Even if greenhouse gas emissions fall substantially, the impacts of climate change will continue to intensify over the next decade…and all U.S. regions are already experiencing increasingly harmful impacts.” Sadly, but not surprisingly, the rigorous and high-quality climate science overseen by the USGCRP made it a target of the Trump Administration. Last April, carrying out changes proposed by now-Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russell Vought in Project 2025, the Trump Administration dismantled the USGCRP. Federal employees were removed from the program and sent back to their home agencies. Government contracts that would have supported the sixth NCA were abruptly canceled without any valid basis. Authors for the sixth NCA, who had been selected based on their scientific expertise and merit, were summarily dismissed. This sudden move laid years of effort and taxpayer dollars to waste. To be clear, USGCRP was not targeted because it was a failure, but rather because it was a success. The program achieved its congressional mandate and became a global leader in understanding the impacts of climate change for human society. By contrast, the Trump Administration shutting down the USGCRP puts American lives and livelihoods at risk. The alarming conclusions within the NCAs and other consensus studies are not conjecture; the evidence is all around us. Between 1980 and March 2026, the U.S. sustained 431 billion-dollar disasters, with a total cost exceeding $3.1 trillion dollars. Hindering communication between scientists and policymakers has put U.S. communities on a back foot as they wrestle with how to confront the climate-related problems they now encounter daily: failed infrastructure, losses in jobs, family homes and histories destroyed by intense fires, floods, storms, and more. Unsatisfied with the mere destruction of the USGCRP, it appears the Administration now has further designs to twist the program into a distorted mirror image of itself. Press reports in July indicated that the White House sought to revive and weaponize the USGCRP by appointing Dr. Wielicki to lead the program. Dr. Wielicki is both scientifically and legally unqualified for the job. He has built his post-academic career around belittling scientists’ calls to action on climate as “irrational” fears. He has made this assertion in spite of his own lack of training in climate science, which is perhaps why he has no legitimate history of scholarly debates on the matter via any platform except social media. Dr. Wielicki has used his X account to broadcast his view that climate change is an imaginary problem. As host of his podcast, Dr. Wielicki disparaged young people, scientists, scientific data, and government agencies alike, all while purposefully misunderstanding basic tenets of the scientific process. He has made uninformed arguments such as, “There is just no evidence for anything like a tipping point, particularly at 420 ppm of CO2, which is incredibly low over the last 550 million years. This is just completely unscientific garbage.” He has defended the ostensible benefits of climate change with nonsensical arguments about the risks of a new ice age. He is fundamentally unserious as a climate researcher. Yet you ask the public to believe that you are merely elevating alternative scientific viewpoints. The scientific authors of the climate reports named above have argued that there is, in fact, an avalanche of evidence behind decades-long discussions around the possible effects of carbon dioxide levels. I can only surmise that, by appointing Dr. Wielicki, your plan is to promote the Trump Administration’s politically preferred narrative by summarily removing scientific expertise from the USGCRP while benefitting from its hard-earned reputation when you slap its name on whatever product it churns out. In addition to his scientific shortcomings, Dr. Wielicki is legally ineligible to lead the USGCRP. 15 U.S.C. § 2932 establishes a committee that implements the USGCRP. The statute states that members of the committee shall be high ranking officials from each of the 14 specified federal agencies and departments, and be chaired by a member who “shall be a representative of an agency that contributes substantially, in terms of scientific research capability and budget, to the [USGCRP].” It adds that the committee shall receive support from an executive secretary, who “…shall be a permanent employee of one of the agencies or departments represented on the committee, and shall remain in the employ of such agency or department.” Public records indicate that you have appointed Dr. Wielicki as the “Director” of the USGCRP, but he is ineligible to lead or support the program because he was not a federal employee at the time of his appointment and does not appear to be currently employed by a member agency or department. Congress wrote this statute to ensure that scientific expertise would always guide the work of the USGCRP. You must follow the law. Since June 2025, OSTP has promoted so-called “Gold Standard Science” as “the highest standards of scientific integrity.” It has claimed that Gold Standard Science will enable Federal decision-makers to use “the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available.” A reasonable person would conclude that the consensus reports named above, each of which incorporated technical expertise from hundreds if not thousands of scientists, were well aligned with the tenets of OSTP’s Gold Standard Science. But this example of real Gold Standard Science was inconvenient for the Trump Administration and its anti-climate science agenda. Instead, OSTP has selected a fringe ideologue without the proper background, expertise, and legal qualifications to lead America’s premier climate science program. It is wrong, it is offensive, and it makes a mockery of what Congress intended when it created the USGCRP more than 35 years ago. I intend to monitor the activities of the USGCRP closely in the months to come. In order to facilitate the Science Committee’s oversight of the USGCRP, please provide answers to the following questions related to Dr. Wielicki’s appointment no later than 5:00 PM on Tuesday, October 13th, 2026: 1. Under what authority is Dr. Matthew Wielicki serving in relation to the USGCRP? a. By what process was Dr. Wielicki appointed? b. Please provide copies of the following: i. Documentation of the Chair’s selection; ii. Documentation of Committee discussions and approval of Dr. Wielicki’s appointment; and iii. A copy of Dr. Wielicki’s current SF-50 Notification of Personnel Action. 2. What role did OSTP play in the appointment of Dr. Wielicki to the USGCRP? 3. What role, if any, did the White House, independent of OSTP, play in the appointment of Dr. Wielicki to the USGCRP? 4. What role, if any, did OMB and/or its Director, Russell Vought, play in the appointment of Dr. Wielicki to the USGCRP? In addition, please respond to the following questions about the general operating status of the USGCRP by the date requested above: 5. In July 2025, USGCRP’s website, globalclimate.gov, was taken down and remains unavailable. a. Please provide a list of current USGCRP Committee members and documentation of USGCRP Committee meetings held since May 1st, 2026. b. What is the current staff level of the USGCRP office, including civil servants, political appointees, contractors, and agency detailees? 6. Does USGCRP intend to publish the sixth NCA? a. If yes, what process does USGCRP and any involved external parties intend to follow to draft, review, and disseminate the report? Please provide detailed guidance as it is available. b. If yes, what criteria and process will USGCRP and any involved external parties use to determine whether specific pieces of data, studies, and other forms of scientific or technical evidence qualify as meeting the conditions of “Gold Standard Science”? c. If yes, when does USGCRP intend to issue the final version of its report? 7. Who made the decision to dismiss the hundreds of authors for the sixth NCA in 2025? Did OSTP participate in that decision? 8. Who directed NASA to issue stop-work orders and/or terminate the contracts relating to the management of the USGCRP? Did OSTP participate in that decision? 9. Did Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) representatives have any involvement in the stop-work orders or termination of the USGCRP support contracts or the dismissal of the authors of the sixth NCA? Pursuant to Rule X of the House of Representatives, the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology “shall review and study on a continuing basis laws, programs, and Government activities relating to nonmilitary research and development.” The Committee possesses jurisdiction over environmental research and development. If you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact Josh Schneider with the Committee’s Minority staff at (202) 225-6375. Thank you for your attention to this important matter. ###

JOLON, CA — Today, Representative Zoe Lofgren (CA-18) announced that the County of Monterey Department of Public Works, Facilities, and Parks has received a $9,784,000 federal grant to rehabilitate approximately 8.7 miles of Jolon Road (from the Mission Road south to Bradley Lockwood Road). Running parallel to U.S. Highway 101, Jolon Road is the only corridor that serves U.S. Army Garrison Fort Hunter Liggett. The funding comes from the Defense Community Infrastructure Program (DCIP), which addresses deficiencies in community infrastructure that supports a military installation’s readiness. “I am thrilled to see that this grant was secured and that Jolon Road will be getting necessary safety improvements,” said Rep. Lofgren. “It’s fantastic news for the Monterey County residents that regularly drive this narrow road, especially our brave troops at Fort Hunter Liggett that rely on it. I commend Supervisor Lopez and Monterey County for their work on this issue, and I’ll always continue to be supportive of efforts to revitalize infrastructure and make California’s 18th district safer." “This is a big win for South Monterey County and a reminder of what is possible when we make sure rural communities have a seat at the table," said Monterey County Supervisor Chris Lopez. "Jolon Road has served our families, our visitors, and Fort Hunter Liggett for generations, and this nearly $9.8 million investment will help us make long-overdue improvements to this critical corridor. Our rural roads matter, and the people who rely on them every day deserve safe, reliable infrastructure. I am grateful to Congresswoman Lofgren for continuing to show up for South Monterey County, and to our County Public Works team and partners at Fort Hunter Liggett for helping us bring this investment home. This is what partnership looks like, and I am excited to see these dollars put to work in our community.” “Jolon Road is the sole gateway and vital lifeline for everyone who lives, works, and trains at Fort Hunter Liggett," said Colonel Jason McKenzie, Fort Hunter Liggett Commander. "This $9.8 million DCIP grant to Monterey County is a monumental achievement that positively impacts combat readiness of the military. We are incredibly grateful to Representative Zoe Lofgren, County Supervisor Chris Lopez, and the Monterey County Department of Public Works for their tireless partnership and support to this project." Jolon Road is a rural, narrow, two-lane road constructed in the 1940s with little to no shoulders, spanning a length of approximately thirty-nine miles and connecting to U.S. Highway 101 in King City and Bradley. After many years in use, the road has geometric deficiencies, poor pavement conditions, and needs rehabilitation to improve safety.

OCT 5: I’ll be having an in-person fireside chat with #CA18 residents in Soledad focused on immigration issues. You can sign up and submit your questions at https://t.co/0iEZraHNYN. https://t.co/WbqkCNyf6E

Este 5 de Octubre, voy a tener un conversatorio con los residentes de nuestro districto. Esta junta se va a tomar a cabo en la Ciudad de Soledad donde hablaremos sobre temas de inmigracion. Pueden registrarse y enviar sus preguntas en https://t.co/0iEZraHNYN. https://t.co/PWaf79vxkl

I met with @TheRealANCOR to discuss improving care for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities. In Congress, I’m fighting to protect Medicaid for these individuals and support the community providers who care for them. https://t.co/7HAmD8vsTz

Watch the full speech: https://t.co/O7CqwtvZ7l

This is the last week that the House is in DC until November. Republicans aren’t using this valuable time to lower your costs, they’re instead picking a fight with California to help oil and gas companies. https://t.co/QG1VjryenA

(Washington, DC) — Today, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is holding an Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee hearing titled, Balancing Biotechnology Innovation and Biosecurity: Securing U.S. Leadership in a Global Race. Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren's (D-CA) opening statement as prepared for the record is below: Good morning. Thank you to Chairman McCormick and Ranking Member Sykes for this hearing. Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today. I want to start, Mr. Chairman, by asking unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from the American Society for Microbiology, one of our country’s oldest and most respected scientific societies. I agree wholeheartedly with Ranking Member Sykes that the voices of the scientific community need to be heard in this discussion, and ASM has a valuable perspective on these issues. One of the things that they point out in their letter is that the McKinsey Global Institute has estimated that as much as 60% of the physical imports to the global economy could in principle be produced biologically. That is a stunning possibility, and I see that one of our witnesses is connected with Dr. Endy. Visiting Dr. Endy's lab at Stanford – it is mind-blowing to see what the possibilities are. This Committee has long and really impressive legacy of bipartisanship and oversight for biotechnology and biosecurity. Our bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act had several provisions tasking our agencies to support research on the safety and security implications of engineering biology. In this Congress, we approved H.R. 3029, a bill to support nucleic acid screening research at NIST. This bill has since passed the full House and I urge our counterparts in the Senate to take it up. We are also looking closely at the legislative ideas catalyzed by our colleagues from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. For years, this Committee has maintained a deep understanding of, and respect for, the spirit of openness that animates life science research. Republicans and Democrats alike have taken biosecurity and safety seriously, while understanding that to be the world leader in biotechnology, we must be tactful of how we legislate and perform oversight on biosecurity. Unfortunately, the term “strategic” does not adequately define the actions of the Trump Administration and how it has approached these issues. Ranking Member Sykes talked at length about many of these concerns. I will focus instead on what is at stake for us to lose. One of the things I want to talk about, Mr. Hodges, is your work with Dr. Endy at the Hoover Institution. Dr. Endy was part of the research community that contributed to the development of one of the very first synthetic cells created entirely from scratch – a remarkable achievement for American life science. And when I texted him congratulations, he did text back saying, "We beat China." So that was a good step forward.Dr. Endy importantly recognizes that the U.S. cannot, as he says, “ride the breaks” on biotechnology innovation and expect to remain a world leader. I remember touring the lab. There is a little sign that one of the scientists made that says, "The Wright brothers didn't need a license." We have to keep that in mind if we are going to be successful. That doesn't mean that we don't take security seriously. We do, but we have to make sure that we don't stifle innovation in a way that is not strategic. I just want to say a final thing on a concern that I have that's not really in the purview entirely of this Committee. And that's the fact that for years, we in the United States have benefitted from the fact that 80% of foreign-born STEM researchers have wanted to stay in the United States and become Americans with us. For a variety of reasons, hostility towards immigrants, lack of visa availability, the number of people coming from other countries to get their PhDs in STEM has dropped. And the number who want to stay after has also dropped precipitously. That is bad news for our country. A little under 50% of American Nobel Prize winners were Americans who are here by choice. Americans born in another country who decided to become one of us. Losing that will harm us and it will not only harm the research done here, but also our international partnerships and our dialogue and transparency. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you for this hearing on this important topic.

¡Feliz Mes de la Herencia Hispana! Este mes, igual como todos, honramos las numerosas contribuciones que los latinoamericanos han hecho para fortalecer nuestras comunidades y nuestro país. https://t.co/GLkgvZSFsY

(Washington, DC) – Today, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a bipartisan meeting with representatives from Hugging Face, METR, OpenAI, and Anthropic. During the roundtable, Members discussed recent loss-of-control incidents among different AI systems and how to prevent these events from happening in the future. The Members also considered different policy actions to build an AI governance strategy. “I am concerned about recent loss-of-control incidents at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta," said Ranking Member Lofgren. "The bipartisan Science Committee moved quickly to schedule a meeting with the companies and third party auditors involved. Each incident is unique and each can teach us different lessons about regulating AI responsibly. Science Committee Members met today to better understand what went wrong as we work to build safeguards that will stop events like this in the future. We have to develop policy interventions that improve internal control, robust cybersecurity, and incentivize good governance for frontier AI systems. “Democrats are ready to move forward on bipartisan solutions to this problem. We share the concerns that Americans across the nation have on the risks of AI and we’ll keep working with experts to develop good AI governance that will enable us to capitalize on the positive promises of AI while also keeping people safe. “The Science Committee passed 10 AI bills through Committee that address the AI boom and the risks that come with it. Unfortunately, Speaker Johnson hasn't brought these bills up for a vote in the full House. The Speaker is apparently following President Trump's admonition that we should do absolutely nothing to address the risks of AI. Instead, we are wasting our time voting on meaningless partisan bills that have no chance of passing the Senate. “Should Democrats control the House next Congress, we will hit the ground running and actually get something done on AI.”