Fieldnotes

Industry communications that were never meant to be made public, FOIA records, and statements from oil & gas executives reveal corporations’ strategy on methane: publicly state general support for regulation, then maneuver behind the scenes to avoid actual accountability. Working closely with the second Trump administration and congressional Republicans, industry groups succeeded in neutralizing the first direct charge the U.S. government has ever assessed on greenhouse gas emissions.

You can find all the nitty gritty details of Exxon’s influence campaign in our full investigation, which is based on the ACRC internal documents, IRS tax filings, federal lobbying disclosures, EPA visitor logs, and emails between lobbyists and state regulators obtained via public records, among other material. But the Exxon-developed legislation itself is worth a closer look.

ExxonMobil is waging a covert campaign to weaken federal regulations on “advanced recycling,” confidential documents show. Exxon quietly worked with a DC firm specializing in “third-party identification & mobilization” to launch the Recycling Leadership Council, a “cross-industry coalition” that is the public face of the influence campaign and obscures its ties to Exxon.

This past January, U.S. oil billionaire Harold Hamm announced that his company would stop drilling new wells in North Dakota’s Bakken oilfield. It would be the first time this century that Hamm would not have an active rig in the state where he had made his fortune as a fracking pioneer. “There’s no need to drill it when margins are basically gone,” the Continental Resources founder said, as domestic oil prices approached their lowest point since the pandemic.

An obscure nonprofit founded by then-former, now-current Trump officials, funded by wealthy conservative culture warriors, and backed by oil & gas lawyers is playing an outsized role in Donald Trump’s attack on federal climate regulation, a Fieldnotes investigation has found.

Energy Transfer, the pipeline company behind the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, has deployed a decade-old astroturf group it secretly funds in a bid to stop Greenpeace from suing it in Europe for intimidation, a Fieldnotes investigation in partnership with Drilled has found.

MAGA influencers hired by a firm that promotes “anti-woke” movies. The obscure research group Lee Zeldin was working for when he was picked to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A “pink-slime” media outlet backed by right-wing billionaires Leonard Leo and Charles Koch.

Industry communications and other documents detail a multipronged effort by oil & gas companies to pressure Ohio state lawmakers to clear the way for the corporations to profit from carbon capture and storage (CCS). The effort is being led by the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA), which together represent some of the largest oil & gas companies in the United States, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Energy Transfer.

A Fieldnotes investigation reveals that a network of extreme right-wing groups is waging a multi-state financial deregulatory campaign centered on claims of discriminatory banking practices. The dark money-fueled effort, which alleges that banks are "debanking" fossil fuel companies, the cryptocurrency industry, firearms manufacturers, and right-wing political groups, represents an evolution of the network’s years-long opposition to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing.

Kate MacGregor, President Trump's nominee for the No. 2 post at the Interior Department, participated in systematically concealing public records of her meetings during her previous tenure at the agency, according to documents obtained by Fieldnotes.