Friends of the Earth knows regulation, legislation, taxes, and banking have a big impact on our environment. We hold our elected officials accountable and work to expose unnecessary funding for environmentally destructive projects—saving taxpayers’ money and the planet.
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Read the latest news and updates from our Government and Industry campaigns:
Friends of the Earth's Michelle Chan testified before the Ways and Means Committee on March 26 about the financial aspects of reducing carbon emissions. She emphasized that existing financial regulations, as well as those in major cap-and-trade bills, are inadequate to govern carbon trading, creating a potentially huge regulatory gap. We must rapidly reduce global warming pollution, but we must do so in a way that limits financial risks.
President Obama’s first budget did away with over $30 billion in giveaways to oil and gas companies. Friends of the Earth has been working for years to end these give aways to multi-national companies that are earning record profits. Congress should follow the President's lead and act immediately to return this money to taxpayers. Click here to join us in sending this message to Congress.
For the first time in decades, the nuclear power industry is considering building new nuclear reactors in the United States. They claim that nuclear power is a solution to global warming, but that’s just not true. Indeed, nuclear power costs too much, takes too long, and is too risky when better alternatives are available.
This report is Friends of the Earth's fifth annual review of climate change reporting in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings of automobile, manufacturing, integrated oil & gas, insurance, petrochemicals, and utilities companies. It indicates that over the past five years, climate reporting in general has steadily increased in quality and quantity.
To effectively address climate change, the United States needs robust domestic emissions reduction targets and policies that send the correct signals to change industry behavior and produce real emissions reductions. The implementation of a cap and trade program is viewed by many as a way to use the market to achieve these reductions. However, over-reliance on a cap-and-trade program to solve climate change raises a number of concerns, particularly in terms of the monitoring, evaluation, and verification of carbon credits in a global market. Unfortunately, the federal cap and trade proposals put forth so far would create a system that poses almost identical challenges as those in the mortgage-lending industry.
Congress is failing to serve the public when it comes to our energy crisis and global warming. A compromised energy bill just passed the House and now the Senate is considering similar legislation THIS WEEK.
House Democrats pushed weak legislation days ago that capitulated to Republican demands for more offshore drilling and many Republicans complained about all the good things in the bill that had nothing to do with drilling. Now the Senate is taking up the issue, and they need to hear from you to tell them not to fund more dirty oil and coal.
More than a year after the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA must treat greenhouse gases as "pollutants," President Bush's lap dog at the EPA—Administrator Stephen Johnson—still refuses to respond with meaningful action. We’ve decided enough is enough and are holding the EPA to account. Friends of the Earth and allied groups filed legal documents informing the EPA that will take it back to court in order to force it to act.
Big Oil benefits from tax loopholes, royalty rollbacks, R&D subsidies and accounting gimmicks
Friends of the Earth’s new analysis shows that even though the oil and gas industry is experiencing record profits, it is set to receive at least $33 billion in handouts from taxpayers over the next five years.
Adm. Steven Johnson appears to be on course to do as much damage as possible to the EPA in the remaining months of President Bush's presidency. Johnson has shown contempt for his agency’s mandate, its employees’ viewpoints, and its independence from political manipulation. His abrogation of duty is a betrayal to the EPA's mission and Friends of the Earth calls for his resignation.
