Bad Sports

PRESENTED BY SNACKING WILLET

Big Oil likes to play dirty with major league sports, spending millions to sponsor baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and soccer teams. A new report by Evan George at the UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment finds 61 active sponsorships with oil majors and coal-and-gas-powered utility companies across the nation. And looking closer, a pattern emerges, where the sponsorships are most often especially close to where their most toxic facilities are located.

Chevron sponsors the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants (near its Richmond oil refinery), the Los Angeles Football Club (near its El Segundo oil refinery), the Sacramento Kings (California’s capital), the New Orleans Pelicans and Saints (near its many Louisiana oil fields and pipelines and facilities), the Denver Broncos (near its Colorado oil and gas wells), and the Austin Football Club (Texas’s capital).

Phillips 66 sponsors the Houston Dynamo (near its Sweeny refinery), the St. Louis Cardinals (near its Wood River refinery) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (near its Los Angeles refinery).

Marathon Oil also sponsors the Sacramento Kings (Marathon runs a giant refinery in Los Angeles) and the Cleveland Guardians (near its Canton refinery).

If one were to be cynical, one might say that these sponsorships are pro-active public relations for whenever the refineries explode in a deadly, toxic accident. Meanwhile, these companies are spewing even more methane into the atmosphere than ever before.

At least the sponsored athletes wear the logos; it would be convenient for the American public if our politicians did as well.

Now in full campaign mode, House Republicans are continuing their efforts to promote the Project 2025 agenda. At 10 am, the House Budget Committee is holding a hearing on Biden energy policy entitled “The Cost of the Biden-Harris Energy Crisis” while the House Energy and Commerce Committee has a hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency spending and regulatory policies under the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law entitled “Holding the Biden-Harris EPA Accountable for Radical Rush-to-Green Spending.”

The Energy and Commerce hearing is with the EPA Inspector General Sean W. O’Donnell, who will describe the challenge of auditing the $100 billion in supplemental funding for the EPA with a skeleton staff after years of funding declines for the EPA Office of the Inspector General.

The witnesses for the Budget hearing are all fossil-fueled climate deniers. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at the Heritage Foundation, is the author of the Department of Transportation chapter for Project 2025. Donna Jackson is with the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Project 21. NCPPR is a Project 2025 partner, and Jackson served on the advisory board for Project 2025. Alex Epstein, whose fossil fuel boosterism Molly Taft has memorably described, recently participated in the extreme-right Alliance For Responsible Citizenship conference convened by Jordan Peterson with support from the Heritage Foundation.

Meanwhile, Senate Energy and Natural Resources chair Joe Manchin (I-W. Va.) holds a hearing on fusion energy technology development with Department of Energy fusion research associate director Jean Paul Allain, nuclear lobbyist Jackie Siebens, and nuclear trade group representative and nuclear engineer Dr. Patrick White.

Today, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) has launched the Stop Project 2025 tipline:

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: Senate Energy and Natural Resources
  Fusion Energy Technology Development

• 10 AM: House Energy and Commerce
  Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials
  EPA Spending and Regulatory Policies under the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

• 10 AM: House Budget
  Biden Energy Policy

• 10 AM: House Science, Space, and Technology
  Energy; Environment
  Evaluating the Potential of Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Approaches

Climate Action Today:

• 6 PM: Climate Voters for Harris-Walz
  Phone Bank with Thania Peck

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