The GND and 'Socialist' Democrats Are Normalizing Trump

Despite polling that shows over 80 percent of Americans favor action to reduce carbon pollution, Congress has failed to pass comprehensive climate legislation. The 19 Senators delivered over five and half hours of remarks describing the activities, backers, and affiliates of 32 denier groups. Each Senator called out one or more organizations, including the Advancement of Sound Science Center; the Acton Institute; Americans for Prosperity; American Legislative Exchange Council; the American Petroleum Institute; the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy; the Cato Institute; the Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; the Competitive Enterprise Institute; the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation; the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity; the George C. Marshall Institute; the Global Climate Coalition; the Heartland Institute; the Heritage Foundation; the Hoover Institution; the Hudson Institute; the James Madison Institute; the John Locke Foundation; the Lexington Institute; the Locke Institute; the Manhattan Institute; the Mercatus Center; the Nevada Policy Research Institute; the Pacific Research Institute; the Reason Foundation; the Science and Public Policy Institute; the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy; the Virginia Institute for Public Policy; and the Western Fuels Association.

Senator Whitehouse, who organized the web of denial floor speeches, said during his remarks that he and his colleagues sought to “shine a little light on the web of climate denial and spotlight the bad actors in the web, who are polluting our American discourse with phony climate denial. This web of denial, formed over decades, has been built and provisioned by the deep-pocketed Koch brothers, by ExxonMobil, by Peabody coal, and by other fossil fuel interests. It is a grim shadow over our democracy in that it includes an electioneering effort that spends hundreds of millions of dollars in a single election cycle and threatens any Republican who steps up to address the global threat of climate change. . . . t is long past time we shed some light on the perpetrators of this web of denial and expose their filthy grip on our political process. It is a disgrace, and our grandchildren will look back at this as a dirty time in America’s political history because of their work."