Our Constitution contains absolutely zero provisions listing environmental standards as an enumerated Federal power. For all of American history up to 1970, these issues were the sole domain of state and local officials. The results were devastating.
In 2010 the Supreme Court decision of Citizens United v the Federal Election Commission wiped out any chance that environmentalists could effectively compete with Big Oil’s massive spending advantage. In 2018, Big Oil contributed almost $100 million to candidates running for Congress, outspending environmentalist lobbyists by a hundred to one margin. In the following years, these numbers increased even more.
For example, every time you filled up your car with gas from Exxon from 1998 to 2005, a portion of that money was contributed to organizations waging war on any questioning of climate change. Well over $30 million dollars has been spent to convince us that climate change was a hoax. All of this took place while the corporate hierarchy at Exxon knew full well how devastating the result of climate change was going to be to their customers.