Some of America’s most climate-conscious colleges and universities share lobbying firms with fossil fuel companies, according to a new F Minus report that lists more than 200 such schools and profiles the Top 20 whose climate research and initiatives are most in conflict with the pro-fossil-fuel advocacy of their own lobbyists.
Hypocrisy 101 finds schools such as the University of California, Stanford University, and Johns Hopkins University promoting climate or health legislation opposed by their own lobbying firms on behalf of their fossil fuel clients. The report also finds numerous examples of universities whose research is focused on climate-related health risks, who nevertheless share lobbying firms with coal, oil, and gas companies whose projects are exposing people to carcinogens.
Key findings:
- 14 of the 20 most-conflicted schools profiled in the report continue to employ fossil fuel lobbying firms despite having moved to partially or wholly divest their endowments from fossil fuels.
- In Maryland, Johns Hopkins University shares a lobbying firm with the American Petroleum Institute; and as revealed by F Minus, this firm failed to disclose two instances of opposing JHU-supported climate legislation on behalf of API.
- Stanford University research on the health risks from gas stoves helped convince the California Assembly to pass a bill requiring health warning labels on gas stoves in Sep. 2024. Yet Stanford shares the lobbying firm of Cruz Strategies with SoCalGas, the natural gas utility which helped convince Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto the bill.
- In 2023, the University of California Berkeley and UC San Francisco supported a state pension fund divestment bill that was defeated in part by a lobbying firm that represents both oil driller Berry and the University of California, Office of the President. This firm also helped defeat two air pollution bills supported by recipients of UC climate grants on issues such as health impacts from jet fuel in Oakland and from oil wells in the Central Valley.
- In New York, Barnard and Columbia share a lobbying firm with National Fuel Gas, which in 2024 helped defeat a bill that would have curtailed the gas use in new construction and ameliorated issues of energy inequality for low-to-moderate income residents and communities of color.
- In Pennsylvania, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Pennsylvania are documenting the health risks fracking poses to frontline communities. Yet both schools share lobbying firms with members of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, which helped defeat a key public health bill that would have increased buffer zones between toxic fracking sites and residential areas.
- The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s climate action plan singles out the destructive impacts of coal, but the university shares a lobbying firm with Foresight Energy, the largest privately-owned coal company in the U.S., Knight Hawk Coal, and the Prairie State Generating Company, owner of the second-largest coal mine in Illinois.
“Across the country, universities are pledging to go ‘all in’ on solving the climate crisis, yet many of these universities share lobbying firms with oil and gas companies who’ve gone all in on climate denialism,” said James Browning, Executive Director of F Minus. “This is deep hypocrisy. This is schools funneling tuition dollars, alumni donations, and in some cases state funds to lobbying firms that are helping to cause the very climate problems that these schools are trying to solve.”
“These conflicts of interest are yet another example of our universities’ hypocrisy on climate,” said Alicia Colomer, Managing Director at Campus Climate Network. “It’s time for these universities to cut ties with fossil fuel lobbying firms.”
“Amid rising authoritarianism and growing distrust in institutions, universities must reflect on how aligning with fossil fuel lobbyists while claiming a commitment to fossil fuel divestment exacerbates this climate of skepticism,” said Jasmine Bankes, Executive Director of Generation Common Good. “Our educational institutions should lead by example, embodying integrity and alignment with the values needed to build sustainable and equitable futures. Amid climate shocks like the California fires, the time to act on behalf of people and planet is now.”
In Oct. 2024, a 50-state report card from F Minus gave 27 states failing grades for their lobbyist disclosure systems, citing failures to capture information about lobbyists’ salaries, bills lobbied upon, or positions taken on these bills. The new report finds that weak lobbying disclosure laws in states such as Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, and New Mexico are helping to hide the extent to which universities’ pro-climate lobbying is being opposed by their own lobbyists.