Time to Wake Up 307: The Mischief Continues

Mr. President, I rise for the 307^th time with my trusty Time to Wake Up chart to warn this chamber about how America's worst polluters have occupied the Trump administration from within. The mischief continues.

The polluters are up to no good. They are desperate; desperate to pollute for free. That is their business model, even though polluting for free is wrong under the laws of economics, morality and Nature. The stakes are huge: the International Monetary Fund has calculated that the fossil fuel industry's subsidy from polluting for free is over $700 billion dollars a year.

That's a lot of money, to fund a lot of mischief.

The polluters deny the science of what their emissions are doing to Earth's natural systems; indeed, they have mounted a massive fraud operation to propagate their climate denial. They spend massive amounts of dark money to influence and control the Republican Party. They have many, many front groups they play like piano keys. It is corruption at epic scale.

Today I highlight the polluters' latest corrupt trick: using the powers of government-a federal government that is theirs now to corruptly command-to block low-cost clean energy from getting to the grid. The polluting industry's expensive polluting plants are being out-competed by reliable, renewable, clean energy like wind and solar. Polluters know that their only chance of survival is to interfere using government. So what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the Trump campaign, and now the Trump administration is paying them back to the tune of billions of dollars-maybe more.

From the Environmental Protection Agency to the Department of the Interior to the Department of Energy, polluters have infiltrated the government and are using its levers to shut down clean energy competitors. From EPA Administrator Zeldin to Interior Secretary Burgum to Energy Secretary Wright, the Trump Administration first started by telling the lie: that clean energy is more expensive than dirty, polluting fossil fuel energy. And then they went to work killing clean energy.

At EPA, Administrator Zeldin went after Congressionally appropriated and obligated funds that supported the rollout of affordable clean energy. He attacked the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, costing consumers potentially $52 billion dollars in lost energy savings. He went after Solar for All funding, costing Americans as much as $350 million per year in energy savings, billions over time. Zeldin cancelled grants totaling over $1.7 billion, including Congressionally appropriated and obligated funding for clean energy projects, among other things. The result? Clean, renewable energy off the grid, increased costs to American consumers, and more money in the pockets of fossil fuel polluters, Trump's big donors.

Over at Interior, Secretary Burgum went after companies trying to build and operate affordable clean energy projects. Early in 2025, Burgum halted construction on two offshore wind projects off the coasts of Rhode Island and New York. Later, he ordered a halt to five offshore wind projects-the two already mentioned, and three more projects in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York. That stalled nearly 6 gigawatts of electricity. If those gigawatts were off the grid, their polluting oil, gas, and coal plants would be picking up the slack. Thankfully, the courts stepped in against the illegal orders and the projects continue.

Now Interior has a new plan: pay off companies to walk away from offshore wind leases and invest the pay-off money on fossil fuel projects. Clean, renewable energy off the grid, increased costs for consumers. Three companies have made these dirty deals so far.

Over at DOE, Secretary Wright has made it his mission to revive-their words-"beautiful, clean coal" . . . even where no one seems to want it. Trump's Energy Department announced that it would provide $625 million for retrofits, re-commissioning, and life‐extension projects for existing coal plants, including at least one instance where neither the grid operator nor the local utility wanted this intervention. DOE then announced $175 million more to extend the life of six coal-fired power plants in Kentucky, North Carolina, and Ohio. DOE may have illegally repurposed funds Congress had appropriated for carbon capture programs to subsidize those coal plants. Increase costs for ratepayers, but put profits in the pockets of fossil fuel polluters, Trump's big donors.

These attacks from polluters who have infiltrated the government drive up costs for consumers, by billions. The excess cost consumers pay will flow to fossil fuel. Every day that low-cost clean energy is delayed is another day that money is steered from consumers' pockets into the pockets of expensive, polluting fossil fuel units. Those are the polluters' rewards.

In an America deeply concerned about costs of stuff, this corrupt extraction of money from consumers, to pay off Trump's big donors, won't go over well. Cost and corruption are what most concern voters, and this scheme is on the wrong side of both.

Which brings us to the coming election. Trump is in desperate political trouble, costs are exploding and corruption is epidemic, voters are angry, so the big polluters need to corrupt the election.

A corrupt attack on our elections is the last gasp of the big polluters' and creepy billionaires' grasp on power. They would rather rule corruptly in an oligarchy, than live lawfully in a democracy. Their attack on democracy uses the corrupted federal government as its agent; it is an attack coming from inside our own house.

The captured Supreme Court delivered yet another vote-suppressing service to billionaire-funded Republicans with its destruction of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais. Callais is the culmination of a years-long "judicial project to destroy the Voting Rights Act," to quote Justice Kagan. Discarding decades of precedent and ignoring mountains of factual findings by Congress, the Court supercharged partisan gerrymandering across the south.

In just two weeks we've already seen Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi begin redrawing voting maps to disenfranchise minority voters and benefit Republican candidates.

This is on top of the Court's other mischief defending billionaires' dark money and REDMAP gerrymandering.

Republicans also desperately tried to pass the vote-suppressing so-called SAVE Act, based on the bogus claim that undocumented immigrants are committing widespread voter fraud. That is unequivocally false. The bill's excessive restrictions would have disenfranchised millions of eligible voters.

As we close in on the November election, federal agencies are already seizing voter files. At least 48 states have received requests for their complete voter registration lists. DOJ has sued 30 of those states and Washington, D.C., for their refusal to turn over the information. The Administration even faked a criminal investigation to seize records in Fulton County, Georgia, after DOJ failed to obtain the records through civil proceedings. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard even seized voting machines in Puerto Rico.

The plot here is to make sure the corrupt billionaires keep their control of government, keep up their pollute-for-free business model, and keep gouging you on cost. To do that, they have to mess with the election. So be alert.

I yield the floor.