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'Sen. Whitehouse Knows Better': Democrat Urges Climate Action at COP31—But Pushes Despised Permitting Bill at Home
"He should be standing up to Trump and Big Oil, not cutting deals that hand them even more power," said one campaigner.
Nov 12, 2026
US Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has worked hard to establish a reputation as a climate champion and a foe of fossil fuel giants, but the Rhode Island Democrat is under fire this week for pushing a "dirty deal" on permitting reform in Congress, even as he's promoting action to slash planet-heating emissions on the world stage.
Although there is no formal US delegation at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) hosted by Türkiye, Whitehouse has posted a series of videos from Antalya, arguing that "we're going to fail on climate as long as it's free for the fossil fuel industry to pollute," "economic collapse related to financial risk is on its way," and the "real villains" are not only the oil and gas companies but also their "climate denial fraud operation."
Whitehouse is the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works' ranking member and could chair the panel when Democrats claim their majority in January. He headed for the summit after joining 21 other Democrats who voted with Republicans on Monday to advance the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA)—which GOP President Donald Trump has supported, while still opposing wind energy.
BAAJA is intended to speed up the permitting process for energy infrastructure—not only renewable projects and transmission lines, but also oil and gas pipelines. Critics have blasted the bipartisan bill as "a blatant giveaway to Big Oil and Big Tech," highlighting that it would undermine its clean energy provisions by propping up the dirty fossil fuel industry and further accelerating the expansion of deeply unpopular artificial intelligence data centers.
"Sen. Whitehouse is a reliably strong voice for climate action and a frequent presence at the climate talks," Collin Rees, United States campaign manager at the advocacy group Oil Change International, said in a Thursday statement. "This makes it even more disappointing that he's choosing to introduce and champion a Trump-backed bill that would accelerate massive build-out of fossil fuel projects and AI data centers by weakening environmental protections."
As one of the lead sponsors, Whitehouse's "involvement acts as a smokescreen for the Big Tech, Big Oil, and industry-funded front groups who have spent millions of dollars lobbying for the bill," Rees asserted. "BAAJA could fast-track construction of hundreds of proposed gas power plants and pipelines, polluting communities’ air and water, desecrating tribal nations' sacred sites, and raising households' energy bills. It would gut bedrock environmental laws in exchange for some weak promises Trump has already committed to breaking."
While Whitehouse has tried to frame the legislation as "a BIG step to fight climate change," Rees pointed out that "proponents’ own modeling shows that the bill's transmission provisions would have no discernible benefit to our climate, while unlocking unprecedented fossil fuel development. At best, this bill leaves US emissions over 2.1 billion tons short in 2040 of even a modest climate goal."
"Sen. Whitehouse knows better than most the damage the fossil fuel industry has done to our climate and democracy," the campaigner continued. "That's precisely why he should be standing up to Trump and Big Oil, not cutting deals that hand them even more power. Climate leadership at COP31 must be matched by climate leadership at home, and that means rejecting BAAJA."
A final Senate vote on BAAJA looms. Reuters reported Wednesday that Whitehouse "told reporters by phone that he would return by Monday for the next permitting reform vote," and "the 75-23 Senate vote to advance the legislation earlier this week had improved its prospects in the House of Representatives."
"He said members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus had assured senators that the House will hold a vote on the measure and were optimistic about its chances of passing," according to the news agency. While the midterm election results mean Democrats will control both chambers next year, for now, they still have Republican majorities.
Backed by those GOP majorities in Congress, Trump has delivered on his 2024 campaign promise to serve fossil fuel industry interests since returning to office early last year. That has included abandoning the Paris Agreement, again, and refusing to participate in annual UN climate summits—even though the United States is the world's worst historical polluter.
With the world barreling toward "an irrecoverable overshoot of 1.5°C," the Paris Agreement's global temperature rise limit for this century, unless governments "rapidly reduce emissions to limit both the magnitude and duration of this overshoot," as Climate Action Tracker warned Thursday, other US leaders are participating in COP31.
Whitehouse is there with the Massachusetts-based Woodwell Climate Research Center, while The New York Times reported that Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom—a likely 2028 presidential candidate—and outgoing Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who ran for vice president last cycle, were both heading there Thursday and former VP Al Gore is scheduled to speak at events on the sidelines of the summit.
America Is All In, Climate Mayors, and the US Climate Alliance have organized a delegation of over 100, according to ABC News.
"America Is All In is showing up in force at COP31 to let the world know that millions of Americans are still in," said the group's chair, Gina McCarthy, a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator and White House National Climate adviser. "Mayors, governors, and cross-sector leaders from all across our country will be in Türkiye to demonstrate the strength of US subnational climate leadership and build partnerships and solutions that advance people's lives everywhere."
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‘Obscene’: Oil Giants Have Used Corporate-Friendly Provision to File Nearly Half Trillion in Government Lawsuits
"It’s obscene that the very corporations which have created the climate crisis are demanding eye-watering payouts when governments take much needed climate action."
Nov 12, 2026
Ahead of an official side event at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Antalya, Türkiye, campaigners on Thursday released an analysis of UN data regarding secretive deals within trade agreements aimed at protecting the profits of corporations, including fossil fuel giants, which have now claimed at least $443 billion from the legal provisions.
Investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS), which allow corporations to sue governments over their investments and profit losses as the result of laws and regulations, have increasingly been used by the fossil fuel industry as countries have started taking action to regulate planet-heating oil and gas emissions, according to data from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
The data was analyzed by the British campaign group Global Justice Now and the German research organization PowerShift, which found that based on 987 publicly disclosed ISDS cases, corporate investors have demanded a total of $1.177 trillion up to 2025.
That represents a 37.5% increase, or $321 billion more, from the amount investors were attempting to claim at the end of 2023.
$1.177 trillion is nearly equivalent to the total global climate finance needs, including mitigation costs, for 2021-22, said the campaigners.
The total compensation demanded by fossil fuel investors, $443.8 billion, "is equivalent to the estimated minimum amount of economic losses developing countries will face due to climate change in 2030," said Global Justice Now and PowerShift.
In fossil fuel cases, the amount demanded rose by $80 billion, or 22%, compared to 2023.
Fabian Flues, investment policy lead at PowerShift, pointed out that by "weaponizing" ISDS, fossil fuel giants are siphoning "money from public budgets that are already stretched," and Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, compared the ISDS payouts to "the owners of enslaved people being compensated for their grotesque harms following abolition in the early 19th century.”
“We know fossil fuel corporations are making a fortune out of global crises, hitting ordinary people hard," said Dearden. "But they are also using obscure international agreements to bully governments out of responding and drain money from the public sector. It’s obscene that the very corporations which have created the climate crisis are demanding eye-watering payouts when governments take much needed climate action."
This week, US company ExxonMobil launched a legal challenge to the European Union's Net Zero Industry Act, under which the company is required to pay for carbon storage.
“We know fossil fuel corporations are making a fortune out of global crises, hitting ordinary people hard. But they are also using obscure international agreements to bully governments out of responding and drain money from the public sector."
The law would saddle Exxon with "unrealistic timelines," the company said in a statement.
A UK-based mining company and its Singapore-based majority shareholder also sued the UK government last year for £300 million ($398 million) after officials blocked their "unviable" coal mine planned for Cumbria.
“This legal challenge is a last, desperate attempt by investors to make some money out of a project which belonged in the last century," Niall Toru, a senior lawyer at Friends of the Earth, told Land and Climate Review in May.
According to Global Justice Now and PowerShift, the total amount of compensation awarded to corporate investors through ISDS cases reached $123 billion last year, with fossil fuel investors receiving "the lion’s share of $85.9 billion, representing almost 70% of all payouts to investors."
$123 billion is "equivalent to the entire bilateral development aid given by [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries in 2025," said the campaigners.
The groups are among those calling on leaders at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) to agree to a coordinated phase-out of ISDS.
Next Monday, Global Justice Now and the Netherlands-based group Both ENDS are organizing an official side event in Antalya featuring Vanuatu Climate Minister Ralph Regenvanu, representatives from communities at the center of ISDS disputes, and a senior government official from Australia, which announced a new policy in 2022 of excluding ISDS mechanisms from future trade deals.
"Governments need to stop this heist and cancel the international agreements that enable fossil fuel investors to sue over climate policies," said Flues. "Countries like Australia, South Africa, and Indonesia have taken significant steps to free themselves from ISDS, and others should follow suit.”
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In Rousing COP31 Address, UN Chief Blasts Big Oil for ‘Making a Killing While Killing Our Planet’
“Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs, but that won’t happen on its own. The dinosaurs did not have a lobby, but fossil fuels do,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Nov 11, 2026
At his last United Nations Climate Change Conference as secretary-general, António Guterres on Wednesday emphasized that he "will not stop telling the truth" about how the fossil fuel industry and the wealthy governments that continue to hand out oil and gas subsidies are allowing the sector to reap massive profits while people around the world suffer from the worsening impacts of the climate emergency.
“The last four years were the hottest ever, and fossil fuel interests keep making a killing while killing our planet," the secretary-general said bluntly.
"Climate disasters are pounding lives, livelihoods, and economies across the globe," he added. "This is the path to mutually assured destruction."
Guterres spoke two days after the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released its "State of the Climate" report at the conference, known as COP31, which is being hosted by the Turkish government in Antalya this year. The report warned that while the past 12 years have been the Earth's warmest on record, the trend has particularly accelerated since 2022.
The impacts have been brutal, with more than 1,500 people killed this year in Nepal and Tibet after a glacier collapsed and caused sudden catastrophic flooding, an estimated 200,000 people killed across Europe by extreme heat over the past years, and tens of thousands of acres scorched by wildfires across Europe and in the COP31 host country this summer.
Last month, the UN released a report finding that avoiding a global temperature rise over 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures is no longer possible. Experts now say governments must work toward a goal of ensuring that the overshoot is only temporary, just over a decade after the warming limit was agreed to in the Paris Agreement at COP21.
On Wednesday, Guterres emphasized that the failure to avoid passing the 1.5°C limit comes as planet-warming emissions from the oil, gas, and coal industries have continued climbing—and as already wealthy companies' profits have soared.
Meanwhile, those same companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying in an effort to delay a transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources.
“The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us," said Guterres Wednesday. "Emissions in 2025 reached all-time highs. Heat records keep shattering."
“Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs," he added. "And that won’t happen on its own. The dinosaurs did not have a lobby. Fossil fuels do. And their strategy is simple: Distort the science. Delay policy. Delay action. Delay accountability.”
Guterres called on governments to tax oil and gas companies' windfall profits, like those the industry has reported since US President Donald Trump joined Israel in launching an illegal war in Iran. Since the conflict began in February, global energy prices have soared.
Last month, ExxonMobil reported $17.5 billion in adjusted earnings for the third quarter of 2026, while Chevron reported $10.4 billion. British company Shell earned $10.8 billion from July-September, and the French firm TotalEnergies brought in $9.1 billion.
The companies have reaped profits while the global Loss and Damage Fund, which experts and developing countries say needs about $400 billion annually from wealthier governments in order to help poorer countries adapt to emergency and repair damages, is woefully underfunded.
“Those who profit most from fossil fuels must help foot the bill for the damage they have caused," said Guterres. "In the last quarter alone, the nine largest oil companies pocketed $95 billion in profits. Meanwhile, the Loss and Damage Fund has received around $600 million. That is what these companies made in about 14 hours. It’s time for governments to tax these windfall profits—and use them to help vulnerable countries recover. Polluters must pay.”
David Tong, industry campaign manager for the global group Oil Change International (OCI), said in a statement that "trusting big oil to solve the climate crisis is like trusting big tobacco to cure lung cancer."
"Fossil fuel companies actively undermine a renewable energy future while trying to wring as much profits as possible out of fossil fuels while cashing in on conflict," said Tong. "It’s time to tax fossil fuel companies’ superprofits to pay for a transition to publicly owned renewable energy, governments must cut ties with fossil fuel companies and limit their influence on politics, and we must hold polluters accountable—legally and otherwise—for the damages they cause.”
OCI noted that Guterres' speech came shortly after YouGov released new polling that showed significant support in countries with large fossil fuel industries—the US, the UK, and France—for laws to phase out oil, gas, and coal production.
The climate action group 350.org said world leaders at COP31 must "turn growing international support for moving away from fossil fuels into a clear commitment at COP31."
Türkiye and Australia, which is serving as co-president of COP31, "will be to blame if this opportunity is allowed to slip away," said 350.org.
On Tuesday, said the group, attendees took part in "high-level events on roadmaps for transitioning away from fossil fuels," which "saw strong support from countries across negotiating blocs, alongside UN Secretary-General António Guterres, former COP presidents and ministers, for continuing the initiative launched by Brazil's COP30 Presidency in Belém last year."
"While Türkiye indicated it was open to considering the initiative, Australia offered no clear pathway for taking it forward," the organization continued.
Fenton Lutunatabua, Pacific and Caribbean program manager at 350.org, said that "the political mandate for a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels is there."
"The world cannot afford another COP where governments acknowledge the need to move beyond fossil fuels but fail to agree on how to make it happen," said Lutunatabua. “If Australia is unwilling to advance this agenda, Türkiye must lead rather than allow one of the world's most fossil-fuel-dependent governments to hold back progress. The political support is there. What is missing is the leadership to turn it into action.”
This year's UN conference marks the second consecutive year without an official delegation from the US, the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, as Trump has refused to participate.
French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi are also skipping the summit, leaving UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham the only G7 leader attending.
“It really is a disgrace,” Mohamed Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa, told The New York Times of the absences. “The world’s biggest economies should be leading the response to the climate crisis, not leaving it to others.”
But Guterres stressed that despite the absence of leadership from the world's wealthiest economies, "science is not telling us to surrender. It is telling us to fight harder.”
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Days After Midterm Blowout, 22 Democrats Join GOP to Advance 'Massive Giveaway' to Big Oil
"It’s exactly what the fossil fuel industry wants," one critic said of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act.
Nov 10, 2026
The US Senate on Monday voted in bipartisan fashion to advance a fossil fuel industry-backed permitting reform bill that would weaken the Clean Water Act and other key environmental protections to make it easier for the federal government to streamline energy projects—including climate-wrecking gas pipelines.
The 73-25 vote to advance the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) sets the stage for what's expected to be a contentious amendment process. The bill's Democratic supporters—including Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, and Chuck Schumer of New York—argue it is a necessary compromise to accelerate construction of clean energy projects. Environmentalists, tribal organizations, and progressive lawmakers say the legislation is a gift to fossil fuel companies, tech giants, and other corporate interests at the expense of local communities and the planet.
The 22 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus who voted with Republicans for passage were:
- Blumenthal (D-CT)
- Coons (D-DE)
- Cortez Masto (D-NV)
- Fetterman (D-PA)
- Gallego (D-AZ)
- Gillibrand (D-NY)
- Heinrich (D-NM)
- Hickenlooper (D-CO)
- Kim (D-NJ)
- King (I-ME)
- Klobuchar (D-MN)
- Ossoff (D-GA)
- Peters (D-MI)
- Reed (D-RI)
- Rosen (D-NV)
- Schatz (D-HI)
- Schumer (D-NY)
- Shaheen (D-NH)
- Slotkin (D-MI)
- Warner (D-VA)
- Warnock (D-GA)
- Whitehouse (D-RI)
"The Senate’s supporters of BAAJA just cleared an initial hurdle towards offering Big Oil and Big Tech a massive giveaway at the expense of our clean air, clean water, and communities' right to protect themselves from polluting projects," said Elizabeth Bast, executive director of Oil Change International. "Just days after voters demanded accountability and relief from soaring costs, 73 senators chose Trump’s energy policies over the American people."
“BAAJA is not a compromise—it’s exactly what the fossil fuel industry wants," Bast added.
The bipartisan permitting reform legislation is backed by the Trump White House—which has waged war on clean energy projects while working to boost fossil fuel production—and the American Petroleum Institute, the leading oil and gas industry trade association in the US. Trump said Monday that he would not approve the construction of any wind turbines, confirming critics' fears that the White House sees the bill as an opportunity to advance dirty energy projects.
The bill would exempt pipeline expansions and other energy projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act and make it harder for opponents of the projects to challenge them in court. The legislation would also restrict courts' ability to pause projects due to inadequate environmental reviews.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), one of the 25 senators who voted against advancing BAAJA on Monday, said in a statement that while the legislation "has a number of other features that merit careful analysis," it "has never had a public hearing" despite its potentially massive impact.
Merkley warned that, as currently written, the bill "accelerates the extraction and burning of fossil fuels," effectively offsetting the benefits of the measure's promotion of clean energy projects.
“The bill restricts states’ ability to raise and address clean water concerns on gas pipelines as well as transmission lines," said Merkley. "It shortens timelines that make it hard-to-impossible for grassroots and community groups to raise concerns about projects. It eliminates tools that states and localities use to fight the development of new data centers and detention centers. And it impacts the sovereignty and rights of tribes."
"Permitting reform for electrical transmission lines is essential," the senator added. "But the current bill raises too many serious issues that require more deliberation."
Environmental groups and tribal organizations urged lawmakers to pause consideration of the permitting bill until the next Congress, when Democrats will take control of the House and the Senate.
“We shouldn’t and don’t need to endanger our wildlife just to save a few dollars on gas," said Lisa Frank, executive director of Environment America. "We shouldn’t and don’t need to weaken the rules that protect our water from pollution in order to build more clean energy. We shouldn’t facilitate more global-warming air pollution. And we definitely shouldn’t be taking away the public’s right to weigh in on projects that can ruin their environment, make them sick, and lessen their quality of life.”
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Despite Midterm Win, Are Democrats About to Help GOP Pass 'Massive Giveaway' to Big Oil and Big Tech?
"Handing Stephen Miller a loaded howitzer is not something any senator should even contemplate. Period."
Nov 08, 2026
With a vote expected as soon as Monday on a far-reaching permitting reform bill in the US Senate, opponents to the legislation are raising the alarm over legislation they warn represents the worst kind of bipartisanship: the kind where corporate interests have twisted enough arms in each party to get what they want while the public and the common good get the short end of the stick.
The looming vote to advance S.5653, the so-called Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, BAAJA for short, has largely been overshadowed by the midterm elections, but coming on the heels of the Democratic Party's routing of Republicans last Tuesday, it is being pitched as one final chance for the current Congress to pass at least one piece of legislation before President Donald Trump becomes a truly lame duck president come January.
The Democratic co-sponsors in the Senate—Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico—have tried to thread the bipartisan needle by arguing that the benefits of their proposal outweigh what Republicans demanded in exchange.
“We need a fast, fair transition to clean energy, but not one built on the backs of communities that live next to mines and pipelines. These communities are the ones drinking the water and breathing the air and this bill gives them fewer protections."
But the problem, according to critics, is that it's a horrible and counterproductive bill that will empower utility conglomerates, mining companies, data center operators, and oil and gas behemoths to extract huge concessions on the future buildout of polluting projects while hiding behind the promise of a more efficient permitting process for clean energy infrastructure—a noble goal.
The crux, as summarized by The Verge, is that while the legislation, if passed, "could be a catalyst for lots of clean energy, it could also speed up polluting projects and limit oversight of new data centers."
Green groups in the days leading up to Monday have intensified their opposition, even as lawmakers have introduced changes to make the bill more palatable. On Saturday, the Senate Democratic Caucus met in Washington, DC to discuss the bill and offer "manager's amendments" in hopes of garnering enough votes for passage.
According to Elizabeth Bast, executive director of Oil Change International, however, “No amount of last-minute tinkering can disguise that this bill is a massive giveaway to fossil fuel companies and Big Tech at the expense of communities, the climate, and people’s energy bills."
The bill, Bast added, "is exactly what the fossil fuel industry has been asking for years" and called on all lawmakers to vote against it.
Earthworks, one of the hundreds of advocacy groups lining up against BAAJA, warns that the legislation would give the public and Tribes less say in major energy projects, creating conditions that are a giveaway to the mining, data center, and fossil fuel industries.
"The bill would expand the 1872 Mining Law so companies could claim nearly unlimited public land for waste dumps, roads, pipelines and power lines," Earthworks said in a statement. "The demand for minerals for the energy transition is real, but it is no excuse to let mining companies take more public land with fewer safeguards, under a law that already prioritizes mining ahead of other land use."
The group's policy director, Lauren Pagel, said, “We need a fast, fair transition to clean energy, but not one built on the backs of communities that live next to mines and pipelines. These communities are the ones drinking the water and breathing the air, and this bill gives them fewer protections."
Veteran climate organizer Bill McKibben, writing about the legislation on Saturday, also pointed out the fundamental problem with legislation that treats permitting reform for clean energy projects and dirty energy projects as an equal endeavor.
While acknowledging that currently it remains "too hard to build stuff we badly need—housing, transit, energy," when it comes to building energy infrastructure, "there’s a problem, and that problem (as so often) is climate change. Building more housing produces…more housing. But if you take climate change seriously, you have to build more clean energy and less dirty energy, or otherwise you don’t get anywhere."
It's a similar argument made by groups like Public Citizen, who said Friday that while some of the bill's provisions—like those related to transmission lines and ratepayer protections from data centers—are "strong and sorely needed," the problem remains that "the bill’s drawbacks are greater, more immediate, and more certain."
Whatever benefits the legislation might secure, explained David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Program, the downsides will be far worse, undercutting existing laws designed to protect public lands, endangered species, and the nation's natural resources, including clean air and water.
BAAJA, said Arkush, "seriously weakens the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act and guts the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. It fast-tracks the permitting of all manner of projects, then makes it virtually impossible to regulate or arguably even enforce existing rules against them, without an act of Congress."
"Among other effects," he continued, "the bill will open the door to a vast increase in exports of liquefied natural gas and facilitate a hasty and reckless buildout of data centers powered by fossil gas. And the bill would make it significantly more difficult to moderate, regulate, or alter these actions later, regardless of what public health, climate destruction, or public sentiment demand."
As far as McKibben is concerned, "I think that if this deal had been made 30 years ago, it might have made sense—we’d be reaping the benefits now. But the fossil fuel industry made sure we didn’t. And this bill, which they’re backing with great enthusiasm, seems an awful lot like a hedge to make sure they can string their business model out for a few more decades—a way to lock in the fruits of their decades of political obstructionism."
With Democrats soon returning to power, opponents of the permitting reform bill said it makes no sense to bend to Republicans now to pass a bill that falls short in such fundamental ways.
“In the November 3 elections, voters across the country resoundingly rejected data centers," said Arkush. "This is not the time to pass a bill that enables Big Tech to charge forward with them, powered by fossil fuels, over the objection of local communities."
Come January, he said, "the makeup of Congress will change substantially," making it likely that a significantly "better deal can be reached then—one that enacts the laudable and important provisions in this bill, and more, without so many sacrifices."
In October, veteran Democratic operator John Podesta warned that providing legislation like BAAJA to the Trump administration would be like giving the president and his party a "loaded howitzer" with which to attack environmental protections.
With Trump's appointment on Friday of Stephen Miller to be his new White House chief of staff, McKibben connected that choice of the "single most vile character I've ever seen on our national scene" with Podesta's comments and offered this guidance: "Handing Stephen Miller a loaded howitzer is not something any senator should even contemplate. Period."
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The 2026 Election Gives Winners a Mandate to Act Big on Climate
Over the last two years, we’ve witnessed the most corrupt, pro-fossil fuel, anti-environmental administration in US history. Last night, voters overwhelmingly rejected those priorities and demanded a total system reset. It's time to deliver.
Nov 05, 2026
Where does Tuesday night’s historic election leave the climate movement? The answer is on the cusp of a huge opportunity—if we know how to seize it.
Two of the issues that voters cared about most in this election—energy prices and corruption—present climate advocates with the perfect framework within which to push exactly the sort of bold agenda we need for this moment in the climate fight.
Let’s take energy first. Above all else, this was a gas prices election. It’s hard to imagine the sort of Democratic blowout we saw last night if gas and diesel prices weren’t the highest they’ve ever been for any election day in US history. The same is true for electricity bills. While not as mediagenic as the price ticking up on the pump, utility bills were top of mind for voters. No surprise considering the impact that they have on a family’s bottom line: it’s easier to cut back on miles driven than the need to light and heat your home.
From utility reform, to new investments in public transit, to rapidly scaling up renewables, Democrats have a mandate to roll out a historic clean energy package that will cut costs and pollution at the same time.
In response, Democrats up and down the ballot made energy affordability a core campaign issue. On Tuesday, voters rewarded them for it. In election after election, Democrats who spoke clearly and passionately about the need to drive down rates, hold big utilities accountable, and build more clean energy won overwhelmingly. The same was true for energy cost-related ballot initiatives, like in Michigan, where over 80% of voters supported an initiative to ban their utility from making political donations that many rightfully saw as bribes for politicians to keep rates high. Down ballot, Democrats also won important seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission, the Arizona Corporation Commission, and the Texas Railroad Commission, which all have crucial decision-making roles in those states when it comes to prioritizing renewables over fossil fuels.
These wins set up Democrats at all levels to embrace the most ambitious and sweeping clean energy affordability agenda possible. Voters are demanding that politicians drive down rates, and building more clean energy is the fastest and cheapest way to do it. From utility reform, to new investments in public transit, to rapidly scaling up renewables, Democrats have a mandate to roll out a historic clean energy package that will cut costs and pollution at the same time.
But voters want more than just affordability—they want accountability. Corruption emerged as a major issue in this election, from President Donald Trump and his family’s self-dealing, to Big Tech’s backroom deals to push AI data centers, to Big Oil’s profiteering off the War in Iran and invasion of Venezuela. People are rightfully furious at a system that they see enriching a small circle of billionaires (including all those Big Oil CEOs) at the public’s expense.
That anger is the rocket fuel Democrats need to pursue an aggressive agenda that goes after Big Tech, Big Oil, and other corporate polluters. In Congress, that should look like an aggressive oversight agenda to investigate the corrupt dealings between the Trump administration and the fossil fuel industry. From the sale of our public lands, to the attack on our environmental regulations, to the outrageous profits Big Oil and Trump personally has raked in because of the war in Iran, there is plenty for Democratic-led committees to sink their teeth into.
But oversight isn’t enough. Democrats will also have to show that they’re willing to take these corporations head on. That means doing everything they can to stop the massive build-out of AI data centers, which have become the largest new source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country, along with their other harms. It also means taking immediate action to rein in the massive profiteering oil companies are engaged in right now—just days before the election, Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, and TotalEnergies announced they’d made a combined $56.2 billion in the last quarter, or $611 million every day. When the new Congress convenes in January, they should pass a permanent Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax that would send the majority of those profits back to the public and ensure prices aren’t allowed to spike like this again.
Voters’ desire for affordability and accountability also provides fertile ground for politicians of all stripes to throw their support behind the growing Make Polluters Pay campaign, which is demanding fossil fuel companies pay their fair share for growing climate damages. As Tuesday’s election was taking place, people across the Southwest were still grappling with the impacts of record-breaking flooding, which has wiped away bridges and homes across the region and made getting out to vote that much harder. The costs of the damage in New Mexico alone could be as high as $300 million. State leaders should fully embrace the push for climate superfund bills, like those passed in Vermont and New York, which would force the oil and gas companies most responsible for the climate crisis to pay into funds to offset the costs of climate disasters and invest in resiliency, as well as squash any attempts by the industry to pass “big oil immunity” bills which would grant them a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Above all else, we need our politicians to act—and act big. Now isn’t the time for small thinking or convoluted triangulation and half measures. Over the last two years, we’ve witnessed the most corrupt, pro-fossil fuel, anti-environmental administration in US history. Last night, voters overwhelmingly rejected those priorities and demanded a total system reset. Our job now is to do everything we can as a climate movement to help deliver on that vision in the most sweeping way possible.
For a new generation of Democrats looking to make a name for themselves as champions of working people, this is an obvious place to start. From making polluters pay to getting every American access to cheap, clean energy, we know what needs to be done in the years ahead—it’s time to go out and fight for it.
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'Officially a Green Wave Too': Climate and Eco Champions Triumph in Historic Midterms
"Voters across the country supported candidates who pledged to cut energy costs, end corruption, and take on corporate greed. That’s the exact framework we need to push a bold clean energy and polluter pays agenda," Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media said.
Nov 04, 2026
Tuesday's historic rebuke of President Donald Trump's policies and party was also a major victory for the climate and environment, campaigners said, as Democratic control of Congress gives lawmakers a chance to check the president's pro-pollution and pro-extinction agenda.
Up and down the ballot, voters elected candidates who champion climate action and holding wealthy polluters accountable while rejecting data centers and tech and fossil-fuel spending blitzes.
"Voters just overwhelmingly repudiated the most anti-environmental, pro-fossil fuel administration in US history," Jamie Henn, the director of Fossil Free Media, told Common Dreams. "This was a historic climate victory in disguise. Voters across the country supported candidates who pledged to cut energy costs, end corruption, and take on corporate greed. That’s the exact framework we need to push a bold clean energy and polluter pays agenda."
"Climate politics are back on the table, and we plan to fight for them."
"Last night’s election opens the door for plenty more states to pass climate legislation, like climate superfund bills, and block industry attempts to hold back clean energy or immunize themselves from climate damages," Henn said.
Affordability and Corruption Are Climate Issues
While climate and the environment took a backseat in election rhetoric and reporting to issues like affordability and corruption, many winning candidates who champion reducing inequality and challenging corporate greed—such as Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-Mich.) and Reps.-elect Chris Rabb (D-Pa.), Claire Valdez (D-NY), and Melat Kiros (D-Colo.)—also back policies such as a Green New Deal and holding polluting industries accountable. Also in Michigan, Democratic Rep.-elect Will Lawrence was a co-founder of the climate focused Sunrise Movement.
"Ardent advocates of climate and environmental action and justice who loudly rejected Trump and the Republican attack on both are now heading to and returning back to Congress and to offices across the nation," environmental investigative journalist Antonia Juhasz wrote on social media. "It’s officially a Green Wave too."
Kidus Girma, Sunrise Movement's campaign director, told Common Dreams that on Tuesday, "Young people proved that progressive ideas like the Green New Deal are just as popular in central Michigan as they are in Brooklyn."
"Working people in America no matter where they live want the same thing—good green jobs, a pause on data centers, and a system that works for people, not billionaires," Girma said. "Climate politics are back on the table, and we plan to fight for them."
SUNRISE CO-FOUNDER @WeWill2026 IS HEADED TO CONGRESS!!!A climate leader just unseated a Republican by running against data centers. Green New Deal, here we come. https://t.co/k2r87awJZg
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) November 4, 2026
Climate advocates pointed out that issues such as the high price of gas due to Trump's illegal war on Iran are intimately connected with the dependence on a fossil fuel industry that is empowered to profit from energy crises.
"Climate change may not have dominated the election, but the consequences of our dependence on fossil fuels certainly did," said Cassidy DiPaola, the communications director at Fossil Free Media and spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay campaign, in a statement. "Americans are struggling with high gas prices, rising energy bills, and mounting climate disaster costs while Big Oil rakes in record profits and spends millions buying influence in Washington."
Further, the backlash against the AI data centers build-out, reflected in massive wins for data centers moratoriums and anti-data center candidates, is also a major climate victory, as the Sierra Club projects that the use of fossil fuels to power new data centers will increase power sector emissions by 42% by 2030 when compared with 2025 levels, undoing 15 years of climate progress in electricity generation.
"Millions of voters cast their ballots in frustration over data centers, corporate greed, and Trump’s egregious giveaways to fossil fuel CEOs and other industry cronies," Brett Hartl, the national political director at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, said in a statement.
Elizabeth Bast, executive director at Oil Change Action, said in a statement that "voters send a clear message: They’re fed up with Trump’s agenda of fossil fuel giveaways, illegal and immoral wars, and unchecked data center expansion that makes their lives more expensive while lining the pockets of Big Oil and Big Tech,"
Bast continued: "Affordability and accountability were voters’ top concerns this election cycle. Both are inseparable from fossil fuel dependence. Americans have spent an additional $101 billion on gas since the start of Trump’s war on Iran, highlighting the dangers of fossil fuel reliance. Meanwhile, Trump increased his wealth by tens of millions through stock trades made profitable by his war—a blatant example of this administration’s corruption."
Big Oil Bet and Lost
One major theme of the midterms was the ability of the "many" to beat the "money," as El-Sayed put it in his victory speech. Big spending by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Big Tech oligarchs including Elon Musk failed to force their preferred candidates over the finish line.
This was equally true of Big Oil, as Emily Atklin detailed in a race-by-race breakdown for Heated. On the national level, Chevron, Koch, Energy Transfer, and the American Petroleum Institute gave a combined $25 million to keep Republicans in charge of Congress, only to see the Democrats retake both the House and Senate. Chevron also gave $200,000 each to losing GOP candidates Ken Paxton in Texas and Sen. Susan Collins in Maine.
Lawrence, the Sunrise Movement alum, triumphed over the combined forces of Musk and other GOP insiders in what was the nation's most expensive House race.
"Lawrence mobilized voters and volunteers by his long-standing commitment to putting working-class families over billionaire polluters and data center developers. His campaign estimates it knocked more doors than any other House Democratic race," Oil Change's Bast said.
Mya Lega, a Lawrence campaign spokesperson, told Common Dreams: “Michiganders want our land, air, and water protected from AI data centers, polluters, and corporate oligarchs. Will Lawrence built his career on standing up to them. In the House, he’ll be a leading voice against the Trump administration’s rollbacks on environmental protections and handouts to corporations and oligarchs.”
The victory of people over money was true of more local races as well, as in Georgia where voters flipped the Georgia Public Service Commission to Democratic control despite fossil fuel spending on behalf of Republican candidates, while voters in Colorado rejected an industry-backed attempt to enshrine a right to use or sell natural gas in the state constitution.
This is...a much bigger deal than you might think. So many thanks to everyone at @thirdactorg.bsky.social and elsewhere who fought so hard for this winthecurrentga.org/2026/11/03/d...
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— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 8:19 AM
"Fossil fuel money is one of the most powerful forces in American politics. It is the biggest obstacle we face in preserving a livable climate for everyone on Earth," Atkin wrote. "But it is not invincible. Not even close."
Further, the appetite for getting money out of politics was reflected in votes on energy and climate issues. In Michigan, voters approved Proposition 2 to bar publicly regulated utilities from giving funds to state and local candidates. And nationwide, more than 65 congressional candidates who had signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge won their races.
“Big Oil and Big Tech have poured enormous amounts of money into this election to protect their power and profits," Bast of Oil Change wrote. "Across the country, candidates who refuse fossil fuel money have won elections, proving that Big Oil's money is no match for the power of organized communities."
A Win for Wildlife
Beyond climate and energy concerns, Defenders of Wildlife celebrated Tuesday's results as a check on Trump's gutting of protections public lands and endangered species.
“For those of us working to protect America's wildlife and wild places, this is a moment of renewed hope and possibility," the group's president and CEO, Andrew Bowman, said in a statement. “Over the past two years, we have faced extraordinary challenges, including relentless efforts to weaken the Endangered Species Act, roll back protections for public lands, and undermine decades of conservation progress."
Bowman continued: "A new Congress offers opportunities to defend bedrock environmental laws, strengthen congressional oversight, and advance conservation priorities that have faced significant political headwinds. It also creates new possibilities for bipartisan cooperation around something we know transcends political divisions: America's shared commitment to wildlife and our natural heritage."
'Rallying Cry'
Following Tuesday's win, climate and environmental campaigners urged victorious candidates to consider their election as a mandate to protect public health and the environment and to hold polluters accountable for harm and corruption.
They also urged current members of Congress to reject the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA), a bill that advocates argue would gut current regulations to clear the way for more fossil fuel and data centers projects.
“The midterm results are a rallying cry for Democrats to use their newfound power to rein in Trump. Democrats must not cut deals in the lame duck that bolster Trump and give Republicans wins but instead lay the foundation to end Trump’s corrupt anti-environmental crusade for good," the Center for Biological Diversity's Hartl said.
“Voters gave Democrats control of Congress to advance policies that uplift communities, not offer sweetheart giveaways to corporate polluters and data centers, like the Senate permitting reform bill,” Hartl continued. “Trump has done so much damage to our public lands, wildlife habitats, and clean air and water protections in the last two years. Democrats must take ownership of their new mandate right now and start changing the conversation in Congress.”
"For newly elected leaders looking to establish themselves as champions of the working class, taking on Big Oil is an obvious place to start."
Earthworks policy director Lauren Pagel warned: "In the coming weeks this administration and current Congress will treat the lame-duck session like a fire sale on essential environmental and health protections and the rights of tribal governments. It is critical we stop them before they do even more damage to our air, water, land, sacred places, and the health of our communities."
She argued that this started with rejecting BAAJA: "This legislation that the Senate will likely consider next week would permanently undercut the ability of communities to say no to dangerous oil, gas, and mining projects in their backyards."
Bast of Oil Change agreed, saying: "Democrats have a clear mandate to rein in Big Oil and Big Tech. They must seize the opportunity to do so, first by rejecting the currently proposed permitting deal... and then by taxing Big Oil’s windfall profits in the incoming Congress."
The Environmental Protection Network (EPN), an organization made up of more than 800 former employees of the Environmental Protection Agency, called on the new Congress to hold Trump's EPA to account for failing in its mission to protect people and the environment from pollution and to restore it to its prior function and scientific rigor.
“Americans understand that when corporations aren't held accountable for their pollution, ordinary families end up paying the price,” EPN's senior director of public affairs, Marc Boom, said in a statement. “Our polling shows that 81% of registered voters surveyed believe the costs of pollution are being shifted onto families. The incoming Congress has an opportunity and a responsibility to hold EPA and the rest of the federal government accountable and make sure they're doing their jobs to protect public health and leave families safer, not sicker.”
Others urged the new Congress to take the opportunity to hold Big Oil accountable as well.
So when are we scheduling the live hearings with Big Oil CEOs?
— Jamie Henn (@jamieclimate) November 4, 2026
"Americans are struggling with high gas prices, rising energy bills, and mounting climate disaster costs while Big Oil rakes in record profits and spends millions buying influence in Washington," DiPaola said in a statement. "Voters made clear they're fed up with corporate greed and politicians who put wealthy donors ahead of working families. Now Democrats have a chance to prove they're serious about changing that. For newly elected leaders looking to establish themselves as champions of the working class, taking on Big Oil is an obvious place to start."
She continued: "We want to see oil executives hauled before Congress to answer for their profiteering and political influence. We want a windfall profits tax that puts money back in working people's pockets, climate superfund laws that make polluters pay for the damage they've caused, and an end to Big Oil's push for special legal immunity. Democrats have won the power to take on one of the wealthiest and most politically connected industries in America, and we expect them to use it."
Aaron Regunberg, who directs Public Citizen’s Climate Accountability Project, agreed.
"Democrats across the country ran on a pledge to lower the costs of essentials and take on corporate corruption. They just won a massive mandate to do just that. And you can't achieve those goals without fighting for Big Oil accountability," he told Common Dreams.
He continued: "Democrats have an opportunity to crack down on fossil fuel profiteering and haul Big Oil CEOs in to investigate their corrupt dealings with Trump. It would be a huge mistake to not seize this huge opportunity."
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As Big Oil Reports Billions in Q3 Profits, Climate Groups Say Tax Them to 'Protect Communities'
A Greenpeace campaigner said the revenue should be used to help everyday people deal with "price shocks and extreme weather, and accelerate a just transition away from fossil fuels."
Oct 30, 2026
As US fossil fuel giants on Friday followed European companies in reporting their soaring profits for the third quarter of this year, and as President Donald Trump's illegal Iran War drives up prices worldwide, climate campaigners renewed calls to tax the corporations wrecking the planet.
Chevron and ExxonMobil respectively reported adjusted earnings of $10.4 billion and $17.5 billion for July-September, a day after UK-based Shell and the French firm TotalEnergies said their adjusted earnings were $10.8 billion and $9.1 billion—announcements that all came after Trump, who is personally invested in the industry, bragged that "we're making a freaking fortune."
Collectively, major firms in the United States have "earned more than $130 billion in profit as people pay much higher prices for gasoline, diesel, and other fuel," The New York Times reported Friday, after analyzing "the performance of more than 50 large US oil and gas companies, most of them producers or refiners, in the six months from April through September."
Not only are fossil-fuel companies killing people with pollution and helping to destroy the conditions for life on this planet, they absolutely flourish when there’s war.Has there ever been a more demonic industry?
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— Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) (@doctorvive.bsky.social) October 30, 2026 at 7:17 AM
Meanwhile, as greenhouse gases in the atmosphere climb to unprecedented highs ahead of the next United Nations climate summit, COP31, the Climate Solutions Lab at Brown University estimates US residents have paid at least $81.5 billion more for gasoline and over $66 billion for diesel, or a total of $147.8 billion, since Trump began bombing Iran in February.
"Trump called on polluters to finance his campaign as a quid pro quo in exchange for his administration doing all it can to tear down protections for people and the environment," Sierra Club's director of beyond fossil fuels policy, Mahyar Sorour, noted Thursday. "That $1 billion campaign investment is bringing big returns for the biggest oil and gas companies that heeded the call and are now expected to double their Q3 earnings over last year as energy prices skyrocket due to Trump's war in Iran."
"It's not just Big Oil that is profiting off of Trump's action: The president himself is lining his own pockets and bragging about it on stage while Americans struggle to make ends meet," Sorour stressed. "Trump does not care about people's health or about building a secure, clean energy future. He cares about himself and his friends in Big Oil getting richer. We need to rein in Big Oil and Gas profiteering and enact a windfall profits tax."
Rebecca Newsom, global political lead at Greenpeace International, pointed out Friday that "every time a crisis pushes up the prices, the same oil and gas giants are there to cash in. This is fossilflation. The rest of us pay, at the pump, at the checkout, and again through the climate disasters driven by the fuels the industry intends to extract down to the last barrel."
"This is where decades of fossil fuel dependence have led us, and governments that keep letting these corporations off the hook are leaving households to foot the bill," she continued. "It doesn't have to be this way. If governments permanently increase taxes on oil and gas profits and clamp down on corporate profit shifting, hundreds of billions of dollars could be raised, while supercharging a shift in investment towards cleaner, more secure renewable energy."
According to Newsom, "That revenue should protect communities from price shocks and extreme weather, and accelerate a just transition away from fossil fuels."
Candice Fortin, US campaigns manager at the group 350.org, highlighted that the fossil fuel industry's latest profit reports came just days before Americans head to the polls next Tuesday for elections that will determine control of Congress for the rest of Trump's second term.
"As we head into the midterms, energy affordability is on everyone's minds," she said. "Families and small businesses want reliable electricity they can afford, and communities want a say in how their land, water, and energy resources are used. Yet as people struggle with energy bills and the impacts of extreme weather, the biggest oil companies are forecast to make billions."
"We need an energy system that puts people first," Fortin argued. "That means protecting households from losing access to essential electricity during extreme heat and cold, expanding affordable solar and wind power, and ensuring that new sources of electricity demand, including data centers, do not drive up bills or place additional pressure on communities. It also means making sure oil and gas companies pay their fair share towards the costs of the crisis, rather than leaving the public to pick up the bill."
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‘Permitting Reform’ Is a Giveaway to Data Centers and Fossil Fuels
Making it easier to build data centers and fossil fuel infrastructure benefits no one except Big Tech and Big Oil. A bipartisan group of Senators wants to do it anyway.
Oct 26, 2026
The US Senate is considering a bill to ease the environmental permitting of infrastructure projects. It’s a blatant giveaway to the fossil fuel and data center industries that would stifle input from the communities most impacted by their expansion.
Bill proponents claim it will ease the buildout of renewable energy. However, peer reviewed studies have shown that most renewable energy projects do not face significant permitting delays, and that permitting delays under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) are mostly attributable to staff shortages and communication delays between project developers and permitting agencies—not the stringency of the permitting process itself.
If bill proponents really wanted to expand renewable energy, they would focus on reversing the disastrous repeal of wind and solar tax credits in last year’s budget bill, the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” Under that law, there are no remaining federal tax credits for households to put solar panels on their homes, stifling the growth of distributed solar energy. And most utility-scale solar or wind projects that commenced construction after July 4, 2026 will also be ineligible for tax credits.
This bill strips the public of their right to have a say in what gets built in their communities, in whose interest, and at what cost to human rights, air and water quality, public health, and culturally important places.
Instead, the permitting bill limits the power of communities and state, local, and tribal governments to challenge fossil fuel and data center projects, stacking the deck in favor of project developers.
For example, Section 1202 of the bill limits the authority states and tribes currently have under the Clean Water Act to certify federally permitted projects as compliant with their own water quality standards. This would prevent states and tribes from requiring stronger standards than the federal government, allowing projects that they determine will harm water quality to go forward.
Additionally, the “project certainty” provisions in Sections 1401 through 1403 of the bill grant project developers the right to sue the government for “disparate treatment” if their project is denied a permit when similar projects have been approved in the past. This would effectively bar a future administration from denying permits for polluting infrastructure if this one greenlights them.
A Dream Bill for Data Center Developers and Fossil Fuel Companies
The proliferation of data centers is leading to a boom in fracked gas power generation, driving up greenhouse gas emissions and undoing progress in making the electric grid fossil fuel free. This is a giant step backwards happening at the worst possible time, with the Antarctic ice sheet collapsing, and drought and glacier loss threatening the world’s freshwater supply.
Backup diesel and gas turbine generators at data centers also emit toxic air pollutants such as particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, which are responsible for cancer, asthma and other respiratory diseases, and cardiovascular disease.
While families struggle with the high cost of living, massive (and growing) energy consumption by data centers is driving up utility bills for regular people. The permitting bill purports to address this problem by requiring data center developers to pay for the added cost of transmission to meet their demand, but that’s only one of the ways in which data centers impact utility bills. Increased demand for fracked gas from data centers is also driving up natural gas prices, and consequently household electricity and gas bills.
Direct water consumption by data centers for cooling servers, and indirect water consumption for fracked gas power generation to supply data centers, pose an additional threat to water availability in already water-stressed communities.
In spite of these serious concerns, the bill makes it harder for communities to use federal law to challenge proposals for data centers or their ancillary fossil fuel infrastructure (such as fracked gas pipelines and power plants).
The overwhelming scientific consensus is that fossil fuel infrastructure should not be built today, period. Bill proponents’ assumption that the increased buildout of renewable energy and transmission lines from deregulating permitting would more than make up for the simultaneous increase in fossil fuels is at odds with peer-reviewed science.
Easing permitting of fossil fuel infrastructure is discriminatory and contrary to environmental justice. Our environmental permitting system already allows for rampant race and class discrimination in the siting of polluting facilities. This racist bill will lock in protections for polluting corporations while depriving historically marginalized communities of even the limited rights they have today.
Speeding up infrastructure permitting will not lower energy bills either, contrary to bill proponents’ claims. It might increase the cost of living instead. In addition to data centers driving up demand for natural gas, natural gas prices could also rise if more liquid natural gas (LNG) is exported. Under the bill, LNG exports will get a boost from easier permitting of LNG terminals.
Despite greenlighting more fossil fuel infrastructure, proponents claim that the bill will reduce overall emissions. But that claim is based on seriously flawed modeling.
For one example, the models use the EPA estimates for leakage of methane, a short-lived but potent climate pollutant from oil and gas production, when accounting for the emissions impact of more fossil fuel infrastructure. But a number of independent studies have shown that the EPA seriously underestimates methane leakage.
For another, the models conveniently ignore emissions from US fossil fuel exports, because the emissions from burning the fuels occur in a different country. Ignoring emissions from exports is a bad faith shell game.
Assault on Democracy
This bill strips the public of their right to have a say in what gets built in their communities, in whose interest, and at what cost to human rights, air and water quality, public health, and culturally important places.
This is an end-run around democracy. Yes, bad faith actors sometimes misuse procedural protections for the wrong reasons, delaying or blocking good projects based on frivolous objections. But using that as a pretext to limit communities’ ability to have any say in projects institutionalizes the subordination of community rights to corporate interests.
That’s exactly why powerful industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute (API) have come out in support of this bill. Senators who claim to care about addressing climate change should recognize that if they’re on the same side as API, they’re on the wrong side of the climate fight.
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75% of Likely US Voters Oppose Giving Big Oil Immunity From Climate Lawsuits
Even 67% of Republican voters think states should be allowed to sue oil companies for climate damage. But Trump and GOP lawmakers are pushing to kill these suits for good.
Oct 15, 2026
President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have sought to stop state-level lawsuits aimed at holding oil and gas companies responsible for climate-related damage. But most voters don't think they should be immune from accountability.
In a poll released last week by Data for Progress, 75% of likely voters said they would oppose legislation that would give fossil fuel companies "legal immunity from having to pay for the damages they have caused by worsening climate change."
Just 20% said they would either "somewhat" or "strongly" support such legislation. Meanwhile, more than half (53%) said they would "strongly" oppose it.
Opposition was strong across political affiliations: 83% of Democrats and 76% of independents said they opposed giving oil companies immunity from lawsuits, but so did 67% of Republicans.
(Graphic by Data for Progress)
In recent years, states and municipalities have sued fossil fuel companies over their well-documented history of misleading the public about their products' role in warming the planet. These lawsuits have sought compensation for damages from worsening floods, wildfires, droughts, and other climate-related disasters.
Eleven US states—California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont—as well as the District of Columbia, have active lawsuits, as do at least two tribal governments and dozens of municipalities around the country, according to a tracker by the Center for Climate Integrity.
The new poll suggests voters are even more opposed to shielding oil companies from these lawsuits than they were five months ago. Another Data for Progress poll in May showed just 65% opposed legislation to shield oil companies, compared with 75% now.
"Big Oil is desperate to secure legal immunity and escape accountability for its role in the climate crisis—and the billions of dollars of damages that have followed," said Iyla Shornstein, the political director at the Center for Climate Integrity. "These poll results show that Americans across the political spectrum are opposed to putting Big Oil above the law.”
Protesters hold a banner outside the US Supreme Court as it considers the Suncor v. Boulder case in Washington, DC, on October 5, 2026. (Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
The oil industry's lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute, has described stopping state climate lawsuits as a top priority for 2026. Their Republican allies have pushed at all levels of government to advance that goal.
In April, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and several GOP cosponsors joined Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) to introduce legislation that would shield fossil fuel companies from any climate-related lawsuits, dismiss pending cases, and overturn state "superfund" laws requiring the industry to pay for climate damages.
That bill failed to pass out of the House Judiciary Committee last month but could be brought forth again during the "lame-duck" session after the midterm elections in November.
ProPublica has identified at least 15 bills across 11 states that have either been enacted or proposed to shield companies, either by granting them broad immunity from liability for greenhouse gas emissions or restricting the ability of communities to sue over climate-related damages. Groups linked to Leonard Leo, the co-chair of the right-wing Federalist Society, have coordinated many of these efforts.
Republican attorneys general in 16 states have proposed creating a "liability shield" for fossil fuel companies modeled on the one that protects gun manufacturers from liability for the misuse of their products. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a leading conservative policy shop, approved a model bill in August aiming to establish this shield in state legislatures nationwide.
The oil industry has also pushed for the right-wing Supreme Court to step in to block these lawsuits. Earlier this month, during oral arguments, oil giants ExxonMobil and Suncor urged the court to block a lawsuit brought by Boulder, Colorado, that accused oil companies of deceiving the public about climate change and sought to hold them financially responsible.
If the court blocks the Boulder suit before it gets to trial, it could set a precedent that derails dozens of similar lawsuits around the country.
Meanwhile, Trump, who pledged to help Big Oil executives in exchange for their donations to his presidential campaign, signed an executive order last year directing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to identify and challenge state lawsuits that seek to impose financial penalties on fossil fuel companies.
His DOJ has weighed in on the Suncor v. Boulder case on the side of the oil industry and has sued at least five states that have sought to hold fossil fuel companies accountable.
The question about climate lawsuits was part of a broader set of questions Data for Progress asked voters about rising insurance costs and corporate accountability in partnership with the Insurance Fairness Project. Other results showed that many Americans want legal recourse against insurers and other companies that impose costs on consumers.
"As rising home insurance costs directly threaten housing affordability for the majority of Americans, voters are tired of their prices rising while insurance companies, energy providers, and the oil and gas industry go unchecked," said Grace Adcox, senior climate strategist for the Insurance Fairness Project. "There is a strong appetite for holding corporations accountable, both for their role in driving up costs and their role in contributing to the climate crisis."
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