Fossil fuel lobbyists grossly outspend “Big Green”

Enlarge (credit: Stephen Melkisethian)

One of the stranger conspiracy theories against climate science is that corporate interests are pulling all the strings so that "Big Green" can get rich from action against climate change. Of course, it's no secret that industries related to fossil fuels have lobbied for the exact opposite, pushing to avoid any significant climate policy.

So what do American industries spend to lobby Congress on this issue?

Drexel University's Robert Brulle used lobbying reporting laws to find out. Not every penny spent on persuading congresspeople has to be reported-and a lot of political activities, like think tank funding, don't count as lobbying. But spending on lobbying itself has been tracked in the US since a 1995 law mandated it. Brulle was able to sift through climate-related expenditures between 2000 and 2016, sorting the entities into groups.

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