Climate and Environment

As our stories this week illustrate, there are plenty of examples of how Trump’s corruption is making our lives demonstrably worse — from mining and oil extraction pollution that threatens the health of our communities and monopolists’ tightening stranglehold on our pockets and labor to corrupt machinations attacking our increasingly fragile democracy.

Welcome back to Watchdog Weekly. We’ve been busy so far this hurricane season, tracking the literal and metaphorical storms gathering on the horizon as elite immunity spreads its shadow over the American landscape. Here are some of the projects we’ve been working on lately:

Underwriting income soared to $68.7 billion in 2025, delivering windfall profits to the industry.

Soaring insurance premiums, fewer disasters, and massive investment income fuel high industry profits and CEO pay.

OMB Director Russell Vought is playing political games with people’s lives and homes as the climate crisis continues to wreak havoc on communities.

The White House’s reactionary policy choices are leaving our society ill-equipped to plan for, withstand, and bounce back from worsening extreme weather, including hurricanes.

The White House has relentlessly undermined disaster readiness and response capacity. When things go wrong, the opposition should make the president and his GOP accomplices pay a political price.

The policy storm before (and after) the physical storm must not be ignored.

This report summarizes how OMB Director Russell Vought is weaponizing federal funding for education, food, health, transportation, and other life-affirming programs to punish and coerce Trump’s political enemies, hurting millions of Americans in the process.

Members of the opposition party need to start connecting the dots between the OMB director’s actions and their constituents’ preventable suffering.

From gutting clean air rules to waging a war no one asked for, the Trump administration is showing that human suffering is a core feature of this regime. 

Former North Dakota Governor cum Trump Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was a venture capitalist who sold his software company for over a billion dollars. As Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum has decimated public lands while throttling clean energy projects and boosting oil, gas, and coal.

Fossil fuels are making our insurance premiums unaffordable and exposing us to financial ruin. But momentum is building to ramp up clean energy and make polluters pay!

Last week, The New York Times published yet another opinion piece arguing that “Democrats Don’t Have to Campaign on Climate Change Anymore,” this one by Syracuse University professor Matt Huber. Fox News’ David Marcus quickly declared victory: “New York Times announces the end of the climate change hoax.”