Climate and Environment

Revolving Door Project senior researchers Kenny Stancil and Henry Burke joined Citations Needed to talk about the so-called Abundance agenda, including how it’s being promoted as an alternative to a downwardly redistributive economic populism.

This week has put on full display the Trump administration’s embrace of the white collar criminals, grifters, harmful extractive industries, and fascist tech bros jointly wreaking havoc on our social institutions and the environment.

Trump’s unbridling of AI, crypto, and dirty energy should be understood as one inseparable process. Big Tech has thrown Big Oil & Gas a lifeline by fabricating speculative justifications for fossil fuel expansion.

This week the Trump administration deepened its wildly corrupt and lucrative crypto grift, sought to further enrich wealthy supporters at the direct expense of working households, and continued to pardon white-collar criminals who don the red MAGA cap.

A roundup of recent RDP work on the patent system takeover, bipartisan support for crypto, FAA chaos, and more!

Surprising no one, Trump’s 2026 budget proposal reads as a nakedly self-interested list of his priorities. It attacks his favorite targets—DEI and climate programs, social services, and non-billionaires—while directing funds to his favorite pet projects: building the border wall, violent mass deportation efforts, privatizing healthcare, enriching defense contractors, and making more and more data available to be mined by tech companies (see the VA section below), including Trump’s allies in Silicon Valley.

This week, the Trump family continued to blur the line between politics and business with Trump 2028 merch and a billion dollar deal with Binance and MGX. Trump Jr. and Eric Trump’s potential stock sales and a new elite Washington club further expose this convergence. President Trump’s pardons of allies, Elon Musk’s apparent sway over personnel picks, and the rollback of consumer and coal miner protections add to the ethical concerns.

A series of interactive maps and tables to help people make sense of the climate change-fueled home insurance crisis.

Harold Hamm: founder and Chairman of oil and gas company Continental Resources. Campaign Donor.
Net worth: 18.5 Billion

Department of Interior understaffing has been threatening environmental protection efforts and the health of marginalized communities.