As the second Trump administration begins, we’re taking a closer look at how the oil and gas industry shaped the new federal executive and legislative branches. Yale Climate Connections regular contributor Karin Kirk dug into the industry’s campaign contributions in her article, “The fossil fuel industry spent $219 million to elect the new U.S. government.” Karin sat down with us – Editor-in-Chief Sara Peach, Features Editor Pearl Marvell, and Director of Audience Experience Sam Harrington – to talk about what she learned and where things go from here.
This discussion has been edited and condensed.
Sara: Karin, for those who haven’t read the article, can you say briefly what that article is about and what you found?
Karin: Yeah, so it started out looking at the last election and just the simple dollar amounts from the oil and gas industry that went to almost every member of Congress, every senator, as well as the presidential campaigns. And this is made much easier through a nonprofit called Open Secrets.
I looked at the money from all the elected branches of government, and then also the money over time. And that was the place where I started to get really surprised at how this has gotten so much worse, just in recent years, mostly since the 2010 Citizens United ruling that allows unlimited corporate money. And so the article has the numbers, has the links, but also has nice infographics, so you can just quickly see some summaries of where that money went and who was going to.
Sam: The chart you’re talking about that really shows the spike after the Citizens United decision was really wild to me. I’m from Wisconsin. Russ Feingold, my senator, was involved in that legislation [the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain–Feingold Act] that decision overturned. It was a really eye-opening story for me and I’m really glad that you dug into these numbers.
Pearl: What inspired you to look into this data?
Karin: The way I love to work is to start with a data set – start with an interesting question and a big bunch of numbers – and figure out how that can help us understand what’s happening in our world a little bit better. When you dig through it, you know it’s not something that most people see, even though it’s public, and so it does feel like you’re really like going down the basement with a flashlight.
I think that’s the part of journalists: to take this information and then translate it. We can do a service of using those numbers and making them more accessible.
I also feel like this is a moment in time to name names. It’s public data. It affects everybody, because everyone is affected by pollution, by climate, by your local energy company, by your energy bills. And people really need to see this. This is absolutely the time when we all need to kind of lean in and shine that bright light.
Sara: One thing that stood out to me, Karin, was how carefully you documented the partisan direction of the money flow. Could you talk a little bit about that?
Karin: It was epically one-sided. It’s hugely partisan. And you know, as journalists, we want to be careful when we see that. You kind of want to tap the brakes and be like, “Am I getting this right? What am I possibly missing?”
So I dug and dug and dug. And thanks to all of you, we really fact-checked this one and really made sure we got it right. And that’s what I mean about we need to bring this to light because it’s shockingly lopsided towards Republicans. Republicans are getting about nine out of 10 of these dollars. And that’s not a surprise, but it was bigger than I thought. And I think documenting it as much as we can is really important.
Sara: I think it’s really important for journalists to articulate the reality of the situation. I think, like you said, we get a little nervous when the picture looks one-sided because we’re taught to think about lots of different stakeholders and look at different perspectives, which is an incredibly important value of journalism. But another value of journalism is accurately depicting reality and helping our audiences understand what is in fact happening in the real world.
Karin: Yeah. There’s an infographic that is a bar graph, but it’s actually stacks of dollar bills. And if you count those dollar bills, they are scaled exactly the same as if it were a bar graph.
And yes, Republicans have always gotten more money, but it used to be, as far back as the data goes, which was the 1992 presidential election, it used to be Democrats were getting about – and this is candidates only, not super PACs – but about $7 million and Republicans $14 million. And now Democrats still get the same amount. It hasn’t even changed.
But Republicans are up to nearly $60 million. That says it all, when you consider the fact that air pollution used to be bipartisanly bad, and we
