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House Ways & Means Committee Advances Egregious Fossil Fuel Subsidies
Reconciliation Bill Fails to Curtail Billions in Handouts to Oil & Gas Drillers and Faulty "Carbon Capture" Schemes
WASHINGTON
Today the House Ways & Means Committee is advancing a massive budget reconciliation funding bill associated with Congressional Democrats' Build Back Better Act, which would invest $3.5 trillion in an infrastructure spending package. The bill fails to remove massive existing subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, including:
- A subsidy enacted in 1916 (Sections 263(c) and 291) allowing many fossil fuel producers to deduct 100 percent of many costs associated with extraction;
- A subsidy enacted in 1926 (Sections 611 through 613A and 291) that allows many producers to deduct 15 percent of gross income annually, which often results in a deduction greater than the value of actual assets;
- A tax credit for "carbon capture and sequestration" (Section 45Q), an unrealized, faulty technological process that is falsely characterized by the industry as a solution to toxic climate emissions.
In response, Food & Water Watch Policy Director Mitch Jones issued the following statement:
"As climate-driven fires and floods ravage our country, Chairman Neal's failure to tackle billions of dollars in direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry is an egregious dereliction of duty. We must be halting new oil and gas drilling and fracking, not encouraging decades more of it. This abject failure to stand against polluting fossil fuels and stand up for a livable planet now leads to a firm demand to the Senate and the Biden administration: No handouts for fossil fuels can be allowed. Not one dollar will be tolerated."
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
(202) 683-2500LATEST NEWS
Conceding NJ Race, Malinowski Applauds Progressive Winner Mejía for ‘Inspiring So Many Voters’
Former Rep. Tom Malinowski also decried the influence of AIPAC “dark money” on the Democratic primary process.
Feb 10, 2026
Former Rep. Tom Malinowski on Tuesday conceded the 2026 Democratic primary race to represent New Jersey's 11th Congressional District to progressive challenger Analilia Mejía, whom he vowed to back in the general election.
In a statement posted on social media, Malinowski praised Mejía for "running a positive campaign and for inspiring so many voters," while also emphasizing that "it is essential that we send a Democrat to Washington to fill this seat, not a rubber stamp" for President Donald Trump.
Malinowski then unloaded on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest pro-Israel lobbying group in the US. Through its super PAC, the United Democracy Project, AIPAC spent a significant sum hammering the former Democratic congressman with negative ads that accused him of supporting Trump and US Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) operations.
"The outcome of this race cannot be understood without also taking into account the massive flood of dark money that AIPAC spent on dishonest ads," he said. "I wish I could say today that this effort, which was meant to intimidate Democrats across the country, failed in NJ-11. But it did not. I met several voters in the final days of the campaign who had seen the ads and asked me, sincerely, 'Are you MAGA? Are you for ICE?'"
During his previous tenure serving in Congress from 2019 to 2023, Malinowski was a reliable vote in favor of sending military aid to Israel. However, AIPAC and some associated political action committees decided to target the New Jersey Democrat when he suggested putting conditions on future aid packages to Israel.
Malinowski said that no Democrat should accept support from AIPAC, which he described as a pernicious influence on US elections.
"Our Democratic Party should have nothing to do with a pro-Trump-billionaire-funded organization," he said, "that demands absolute fealty to positions that are outside of the American pro-Israel community, then smears those who don't fall in line."
Malinowski vowed to oppose any candidate that AIPAC backs "openly or surreptitiously" in future contests in the district.
"The threat unlimited dark money poses to our democracy," he emphasized, "is far more significant than the views of a single member of Congress on Middle East policy."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who also endorsed Mejía in the Democratic primary, also congratulated her on her win, emphasizing the significant number of obstacles she needed to overcome before emerging victorious.
"Starting with almost no name recognition, Analilia Mejía took on the oligarchs, the Republican establishment and Democratic establishment—and WON," Sanders wrote on social media. "The American people want leaders who stand up to the billionaire class and fight for working families."
The progressive advocacy organization Our Revolution praised Mejía for beating New Jersey machine politics, and pointed to her past campaign work as a sign of what she could do if she wins the April general election and is sworn in as a congresswoman.
"As a grassroots organizer, she helped win a $15 minimum wage and paid sick days," Our Revolution wrote. "As national political director for Bernie 2020, she's built movements to un-rig the economy. Now, she's ready to take this fight to Washington. When we organize, we win!"
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Reporting Says Rubio 'Deliberately' Lying to Trump About US-Cuba Talks
According to Drop Site News, said one organizer, "Marco Rubio is personally overseeing the starvation of an entire nation."
Feb 10, 2026
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long sought regime change in Cuba, and new reporting from Drop Site News on Monday suggested he may be intentionally misrepresenting the Trump administration's current policy in the communist country to achieve his goal.
The outlet reported that, based on the accounts of five Cuban and US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the "deal" that President Donald Trump has said is likely to be finalized soon is not being pursued in any high-level, official diplomatic discussions.
Soon after issuing an executive order that labeled Cuba an extraordinary threat, accused it of harboring terrorists, and threatened other countries with sanctions if they provide oil to the Cuban government, Trump said his administration is "talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens."
But one senior White House official explained to Drop Site that "he’s saying that because that’s what Marco is telling him."
If the public and the president himself believe that high-level negotiations are taking place, "in a few weeks or months, Rubio will be able to claim that the talks were futile because of Cuban intransigence," Drop Site reported, asserting that Rubio is "deliberately" blocking Trump from the talks and misleading him.
A lie like the one Drop Site's sources alleged, said reporter Ryan Grim, "would be a defining scandal in any other administration."
The idea that talks are taking place has been "accepted as fact" in Washington, DC, reported the outlet, which pointed to Politico's recent reporting that said the son of former Cuban President Raúl Castro traveled to Mexico for talks with the Central Intelligence Agency.
Politico's article was sourced to a Cuban dissident blogger and a "single, fantastical Facebook post made by a Spain-based Cuban journalist."
Drop Site noted that while Trump is currently threatening Cuba's economy and the lives and livelihoods of millions of people with an oil blockade, having cut off the Venezuelan oil supply to the island after ordering an invasion of the South American country over a month ago, he doesn't appear to be driven by an "ideological confrontation with Cuba" and in fact holds potential financial interests in normalizing relations with the country because he holds a registered trademark for a Trump property in Havana.
Rubio, whose family immigrated to the US from Cuba before the Cuban Revolution—but didn't flee Fidel Castro's takeover as he claimed early in his political career—has long called for regime change in the country.
The US State Department refuted the accounts of Drop Site's five sources and told the outlet that diplomatic talks—which Cuban leaders have said they are entirely open to holding—are taking place, but did not provide evidence or details.
“As the president stated, we are talking to Cuba, whose leaders should make a deal. Cuba is a failing nation whose rulers have had a major setback with the loss of support from Venezuela and with Mexico ceasing to send them oil," the State Department press office said.
That claim contradicted a comment from Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, Cuba's deputy minister of foreign affairs, who told CNN last week that the government has had "some exchanges of messages" with the White House.
"We cannot say we have set a bilateral dialogue at this moment,” he said.
Drop Site News' reporting indicates, said Cuban-American organizer and New York City Council candidate Danny Valdes, that "Marco Rubio is personally overseeing the starvation of an entire nation," while Cuban leaders "want dialogue and a way forward, without surrendering their sovereignty."
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Shortsighted Business-as-Usual Is Crushing Nature, Warns Landmark Report
"The growth of the global economy has been at the cost of immense biodiversity loss, which now poses a critical and pervasive systemic risk to the economy, financial stability and human wellbeing."
Feb 10, 2026
A new report confirms that unchained economic growth driven by corporations seeking profits with too little concern for downside harm is having devastating impacts on biodiversity and natural systems across the planet while also undermining the health of the global economy in the long run.
The landmark new report published Monday by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was backed by over 150 nations after three years of research and analyses by 79 leading experts from 35 countries across all regions of the world.
What the research found is that "the current conditions in which businesses operate are not always compatible with achieving a just and sustainable future, and that these conditions also perpetuate systemic risks" with far-reaching implications.
"The growth of the global economy has been at the cost of immense biodiversity loss, which now poses a critical and pervasive systemic risk to the economy, financial stability and human wellbeing," warned the IPBES in a statement.
“We must place true value on the environment and go beyond gross domestic product as a measure of human progress and wellbeing. Let us not forget that when we destroy a forest, we are creating GDP. When we overfish, we are creating GDP.” —António Guterres, UN Secretary-General
With natural resources "being depleted and degraded faster now than any period in human history," the report is designed to warn humanity, equip policymakers with knowledge, and provide solutions that could mitigate the crisis of biodiversity loss.
The report notes that "unsustainable economic activity and a focus on growth as measured by the gross domestic product, has been a driver of the decline of biodiversity... and stands in the way of transformative change."
According to Alexander De Croo, an administrator with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), an IPBES partner organization, "Businesses are inseparable from the ecosystems they operate in: they both depend on them and profoundly impact them. As significant drivers of today’s planetary crises, businesses have contributed to climate change, biodiversity loss and cultural erosion."
At the same time, he added, these companies "have a critical role to play in advancing more sustainable solutions, a role already reflected in a growing number of initiatives." The real problem, the report finds, is how intractable the business-as-usual approach has been, with corporations resistant to changing their operations to put them more in line with nature and too little pressure coming from governments to force through more sustainable practices.
According to the report:
Current conditions perpetuate business-as-usual and do not support the transformative change necessary to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. For example, large subsidies that drive losses of biodiversity are directed to business activities with the support of lobbying by businesses and trade associations. In 2023, global public and private finance flows with directly negative impacts on nature, were estimated at $7.3 trillion, of which private finance accounted for $4.9 trillion, with public spending on environmentally harmful subsidies of about $2.4 trillion.
In contrast, $220 billion in public and private finance flows were directed in 2023 to activities contributing to the conservation and restoration of biodiversity, representing just 3% of the public funds and incentives that encourage harmful business behaviour or prevent behaviour beneficial to biodiversity.
“The loss of biodiversity is among the most serious threats to business,” said Prof. Stephen Polasky, co-chair of the assessment. “Yet the twisted reality is that it often seems more profitable to businesses to degrade biodiversity than to protect it. Business as usual may once have seemed profitable in the short term, but impacts across multiple businesses can have cumulative effects, aggregating to global impacts, which can cross ecological tipping points."
But Polasky goes on to say that the report "shows that business as usual is not inevitable," and that with better policies, "as well as financial and cultural shifts, what is good for nature is also what is best for profitability."
The IPBES assessment arrived alongside fresh warnings about the disastrous results that have stemmed from obsessive allegiance to gross domestic product (GDP) as the key economic indicator by governments and businesses worldwide.
In an interview with the Guardian on Monday, UN secretary general António Guterres suggested that the obsession with GDP was driving humanity toward a cliff.
“We must place true value on the environment and go beyond gross domestic product as a measure of human progress and wellbeing," Guterres said. "Let us not forget that when we destroy a forest, we are creating GDP. When we overfish, we are creating GDP."
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