News & Analysis
May 1, 2020
Fossil fuel companies have obtained at least $50 million in coronavirus aid set aside for cash-strapped small businesses, according to an investigation by the Guardian and research group Documented. The money comes as President Trump considers an even larger bailout for Big Oil, which would force taxpayers suffering from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression to continue propping up an industry that has engaged in risky businesses and deceived the public about climate change for years.
“The federal money Congress appropriated should be going to help small businesses and frontline workers struggling as a result of the pandemic, not the corporate polluters whose struggles are a result of failing business practices and existed long before Covid-19 entered the public lexicon,” Melinda Pierce, legislative director for the Sierra Club, told the Guardian.
Of course, this is not the first time United States’ taxpayers have paid dearly to keep fossil fuel companies afloat. The industry has relied on billions of dollars in government subsidies each year, and communities are shelling out billions more to prepare for and recover from climate damages Big Oil knowingly caused.
Less than a month ago, leading gas and oil executives received an exclusive invitation to the Oval Office and asked the president for a suite of favors, including rollbacks on environmental and safety protections that would pass even more costs — both in financial damages and assaults to public health — onto communities in the midst of a raging pandemic.
At this unprecedented time, local governments are stretched between protecting their residents from the dual crises of climate change and COVID-19. Rather than keeping these corrupt companies on life support at the public’s expense, we need to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for their lies and make them contribute their fair share for the climate damages communities will be harder pressed than ever before to pay.
