@joshvoorhees
muckraker @fieldnotes.co, an oil & gas watchdog | past: senior writer @slate.com + (an!) organizer @slateunion.bsky.social | MPH, Johns Hopkins | climate, labor, public health | DM for Signal then hit me w/tips on pipelines, petchem, plastics, PFAS, etc
3️⃣→ Building off our work exposing CEA as a mouthpiece & middleman for ideologues & industry, Zack makes clear regardless of who delivered the endangerment death blow, it wouldn't have happened w/o the infrastructure industry created & still funds today subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...
Another 🚨 @fieldnotes.co investigation is out in the wild.
This one reveals how an obscure nonprofit founded by oil & gas lawyers and funded by right-wing ideologues—and registered at a suburban Texas strip mall—has played an outsized role in Donald Trump’s assault on climate /enviro policy. 🧵
This completes what I like to think of as Fieldnotes’ (admittedly, somewhat accidental) trilogy on Who, Exactly, Killed the Endangerment Finding?
So put another way, any disconnect that emerged during the final push to kill endangerment doesn’t change how we got here; it simply points to where the industry and their far-right allies want to go next.
We’re now seeing industry & rightwing ideologues come together in a post-endangerment world to shield corps from climate lawsuits and state superfund laws.
These are 3 different stories ofc, but they’re also part of a larger one. While MAGA culture warriors and oil & gas corps weren’t marching in lockstep on this particular issue, there’s evidence to suggest any daylight btw them is already gone.
3️⃣→ Building off our work exposing CEA as a mouthpiece & middleman for ideologues & industry, Zack makes clear regardless of who delivered the endangerment death blow, it wouldn't have happened w/o the infrastructure industry created & still funds today subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...
2️⃣→ @juliakane.bsky.social & I explained in @emorwee.bsky.social's HEATED why API, which for yrs fought to repeal the finding, took its foot off the gas—namely, fear that axing endangerment would make it tougher for oil & gas corps to avoid paying for climate damages.
heated.world/p/trump-is-w...
1️⃣→ Based partly on confidential docs we obtained, @nytimes.com's Lisa Friedman & @maxinejoselow.bsky.social revealed how a small group of MAGA activists dragged the endangerment repeal across the finish line, even after the oil & gas industry had pumped the brakes. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/c...
This completes what I like to think of as Fieldnotes’ (admittedly, somewhat accidental) trilogy on Who, Exactly, Killed the Endangerment Finding?
As @zcolman.bsky.social, who got the exclu & built on it, put it @politico.com: The group's alumni are now responsible for implementing Trump policies "that its largely undisclosed backers paid them to advocate for as part of a broader network of conservative orgs financed by fossil fuel interests”
Another 🚨 @fieldnotes.co investigation is out in the wild.
This one reveals how an obscure nonprofit founded by oil & gas lawyers and funded by right-wing ideologues—and registered at a suburban Texas strip mall—has played an outsized role in Donald Trump’s assault on climate /enviro policy. 🧵
“'I don’t work at the Center for Environmental Accountability,' said the person who answered when POLITICO called. The individual then hung up."
Totally normal behavior for a nonprofit.
subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...
If you like Will's writing, you should read his book of essays called Farewell Transmission:
bookshop.org/p/books/fare...
“This story does not have a happy ending, and I can assure you the villains do not get punished in the end. If that is your motivation, try again, start over.
“But you also need to understand — and this is equally important — that we’ve already won.”
“In the resistance we drive the high school car pool, that holy responsibility, the ferrying of innocents among the wolves.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/o...
Two big attacks on climate accountability lawsuits made the news last week -- and both were pushed by the Republican Attorneys General Association.
Connecting the dots to some of RAGA's biggest funders: the same major oil industry players facing those lawsuits.
www.exxonknews.org/p/the-top-co...
The political effects of X's feed algorithm https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2 Received: 16 December 2024 Accepted: 4 January 2026 Published online: 18 February 2026 Open access • Check for updates Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.
A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right.
Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement.
This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.
‘The best thing we can do is pay attention. The devastating irony of surveillance companies is that they don’t want you to see what they’re doing.’ — @brianphillips.bsky.social
www.theringer.com/2026/02/18/t...
@fieldnotes.co's thread on how the oil & gas industry pushed EPA to rescind the endangerment finding, but is now scared the extreme rollback could leave it vulnerable to "polluter-pays" laws and lawsuits. ⬇️
RIP
Great rundown from @juliakane.bsky.social & @joshvoorhees.bsky.social on how Trump EPA's move to axe the endangerment finding could backfire on #BigOil - by opening them up to greater liability risk
And now Big Oil's friends in Congress are crafting a liability shield
heated.world/p/trump-is-w...
Trump claimed the endangerment repeal "will eliminate over $1.3 trillion of regulatory costs." As E&E points out that, EPA’s own analysis says those savings will be wiped out and then some by the costs that will come from repealing all auto standards. subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...
“The Caligula-like antics of Jeffrey Epstein and friends occurred over two decades that saw the decline of America’s manufacturing sector and the subprime mortgage crisis, in which millions of Americans lost their homes.”
@draperrobert.bsky.social in @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/u...
People briefed on the endangerment finding repeal tell me that it's based on legal arguments only. It doesn't take aim at the actual science of warming.
The repeal could decimate federal climate policy -- if it survives legal challenge.
Proud of the research @fieldnotes.co @juliakane.bsky.social @joshvoorhees.bsky.social did that's informing coverage of the endangerment finding repeal today:
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/p...
Crucial point from @grist.org:
"API pioneered many of the arguments now wielded against the endangerment finding... Trump’s EPA used many of these same arguments in its proposed endangerment finding repeal, demonstrating how much his deregulatory agenda owes to the oil industry’s work."
Last month, the American Petroleum Institute said a top priority would be to stop state climate laws and lawsuits this year.
Now, a member of Congress who got $58k from the industry in 2024 is crafting legislation to "tackle" both. www.opensecrets.org/members-of-c... h/t @eenews.bsky.social
