1500 environmental lobbyists are double-dealing with the fossil fuel industry

Hiring a lobbyist is about purchasing access to elected officials and insight into the political landscape. Major corporations spend massive sums of money on lobbyists, sometimes to block policy initiatives that enjoy public support but would negatively impact their bottom line. But non-profits and other civic-minded groups also employ lobbyists to help them achieve goals that have nothing to do with profit maximization. Environmental groups, for example, routinely employ lobbyists to help them advance policies to combat climate change or reduce air and water pollution. 

A new database reveals that many state lobbyists hired by environmental groups also lobby for fossil fuel companies with diametrically opposed policy goals. The arrangement, intentionally or not, provides real advantages to fossil fuel companies. 

A lobbyist representing an environmental group who meets with an elected official committed to environmental protection gains credibility. When the same lobbyist seeks a meeting with that elected official on behalf of a fossil fuel company, the lobbyist has already established a relationship. Further, by representing an environmental group, a lobbyist will learn the movement's tactics and key allies. This could come in handy when representing a fossil fuel company, who are frequently seeking to defeat policies favored by environmentalists. 

The database was created by F Minus, a climate group that launched this month with "a call for divestment from fossil fuel lobbyists." According to the group, the "fossil fuel industry is rapidly losing the social license needed to build new projects as the severity of the climate crisis becomes increasingly clear." But "the fossil fuel industry remains firmly embedded in state capitols because of positive or merely neutral public opinion about its lobbyists, more than 1,500 of whom also represent non-fossil fuel companies, schools, nonprofits, and other organizations whose activities are perceived as beneficial."

“The worst thing about hiring these lobbyists is that it legitimizes the fossil fuel industry,” F Minus Executive Director Jim Browning told The Guardian. “They can cloak their radical agenda in respectability when their lobbyists also have clients in the arts, or city government, or with conservation groups. It normalizes something that is very dangerous.”

Nevertheless, some environmental groups defended the arrangement. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has touted its efforts to "fight back against oil lobbyists." But the group also "shares lobbyists with ExxonMobil, Calpine and Duke Energy." EDF says working for a fossil fuel company is not an "automatic disqualification" and "can actually help us find productive alignment in unexpected places."

Timmons Roberts, a professor who studies environmental issues, was unconvinced. Lobbyists working for fossil fuel companies, Roberts says, are "guns for hire" and any information environmental groups share with them "is probably going to the opposition."

Double-dealing in Louisiana 

In Louisiana, “one of the most endangered states” from climate change, Kevin E. Cunningham has lobbied for Restore the Mississippi River Delta Coalition since 2014. The coalition, comprised of EDF, the National Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation, and others, works to raise awareness of the Mississippi River Delta and rebuild coastal Louisiana’s landscape. 

According to lobbying reports, Cunningham is being paid up to $24,999 each year for his work with the coalition. His work includes “Environmental quality, conservation, and wildlife preservation” and “Business and private and commercial enterprises.”

But Cunningham also has eight active contracts with fossil fuel companies, according to F Minus’ database. For years, he has lobbied on behalf of ExxonMobil, Calpine, and Occidental Energy Ventures, a subsidiary of the oil giant Occidental Petroleum. Since 2010, Cunningham has also lobbied for America’s Natural Gas Alliance, which is now part of the American Petroleum Institute (API) – the oil and gas industry's largest trade group. API is notorious for spending millions on “behind-the-scenes climate change denial campaigns” and using astroturf groups to undermine climate change policies. Cunningham receives up to $24,999 a year for each contract, receiving as much as $200,000 in total. 

Double-dealing in Florida

In Florida, Slater Bayliss lobbies for both EDF and fossil fuel company Duke Energy.

In 2021, EDF hired Bayliss to lobby for issues related to environmental protection, natural resources, and transportation, including “electric vehicle infrastructure,” “water-infrastructure resiliency,” and “statewide flooding and sea level rise resilience.” This includes HB 7019, legislation that developed a statewide flooding and sea level rise resilience plan, and HB 839, legislation related to transportation infrastructure. Since 2022, EDF has paid Bayliss’ firm, Advocacy Partners, between $10,003 and $49,996.

At the same time, however, Bayliss has also been lobbying for policies that directly contradict EDF’s values. This year, Bayliss worked for Duke Energy to promote HB 821. The legislation would “specif[y] eligible renewable energy natural gas [and] hydrogen fuel infrastructure projects” for cost recovery. Environmentalists typically oppose classifying natural gas, a fossil fuel, as "renewable" energy. Since 2022, Duke Energy has paid Bayliss’ lobbying firm between $50,000 and $99,995. 

Double-dealing in Kentucky

In Kentucky, Trey Grayson has spent the last year and a half lobbying for the Appalachian Wildlife Foundation, a group that focuses on wildlife education and conservation in Appalachia Kentucky. The foundation is currently building a highly-anticipated nature observatory on reclaimed mine land in southeastern Kentucky. Since 2022, Grayson has been paid $12,500 for his lobbying efforts on behalf of the foundation. 

But Grayson is also a registered lobbyist for the chemical producer Westlake Chemical. Last year, Westlake agreed to pay a million-dollar fine for violating federal and state polluting laws in Kentucky and Louisiana. A ProPublica investigation found that the “cumulative cancer risk” from the company’s operations at its Kentucky plant “far exceeded what the EPA considers acceptable.” Grayson made $43,500 lobbying on behalf of the company since 2020. He also lobbies for natural gas company Liberty Utilities, making $33,500 over the last three years.