Today we are calling on local governments, schools, businesses, and other organizations who employ lobbyists to end their relationships with lobbyists who work for the fossil fuel industry. Research by F Minus finds more than 1,500 of these lobbyists are playing both sides of the climate crisis by lobbying on behalf of oil, gas, and coal companies at the same time they are lobbying on behalf of communities and businesses being harmed by the climate crisis.
Young people will live with the climate crisis the longest and experience some of its worst impacts. Yet hundreds of colleges and public school districts employ lobbyists whose work on behalf of fossil fuel companies is making the crisis worse. We call on educational institutions to cut ties with these lobbyists.
Local governments face increasingly steep climate mitigation costs and their residents face increasing danger from extreme heat, drought, flooding, fires, storms, and other impacts of the crisis. Yet hundreds of counties, cities, and towns are spending taxpayer funds to hire lobbyists who also work for the fossil fuel industry. We call on these local governments to cut ties with these lobbyists.
Tech companies’ promises to help solve the climate crisis ring hollow when they share lobbyists with fossil fuel companies who fund climate denialism and block solutions large and small to the crisis. We call on tech companies and historic allies of the fossil fuel industry such as banks and insurance companies to cut ties with these lobbyists.
Fossil fuel lobbyists are able to cloak a radical pro-pollution agenda in respectability by also lobbying for schools, local governments, mainstream businesses, and cultural institutions. All of these organizations and their constituents face a harrowing climate future unless we do more to check the power of the fossil fuel industry. Fire its lobbyists.
Signatories:
- 350.org
- Clean Creatives
- ClimateVoice, a project of Tides Center
- Dogwood Alliance
- Earthworks
- F Minus
- Food & Water Watch
- Fossil Free Research
- Hip Hop Caucus
- Rainforest Action Network
- Third Act