Lobbying is corrupt
- Generally how lobbying is done is by lobbyists somehow financially influencing lawmakers to vote with their interest rather than the interests of the citizens they were elected to represent
- In the UK, lobbyists can give gifts to Members of Parliament up to a value of ₤300 without the MPs having to disclose their conflict of interest.
- This inevitably leads to dishonesty. A recent news story revealed that many companies will buy MPs tickets to watch horse-racing and claim that the cost was just below the threshold for disclosure.
- In my opinion, this essentially amounts to bribery, as corporations with a lot of money are able to wield an outsized influence, which is contrary to the principles of democracy
- In the US, elected officials who have left office can often use their network of contacts to land very cushy jobs in lobbying
- Donations in the US are even more ridiculous, as lobby groups can donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to campaign financing
- The ‘revolving door’ concept describes how individuals often switch between commercial and legislative roles in the same sector, creating huge conflicts of interest.
Lobbying is a massive business
- (UK) The professional lobbying industry has been rapidly growing since the mid-1990s and in 2007 was estimated to be worth £1.9 billion, employing 14,000 people. The report also suggested that some MPs are approached over 100 times a week by lobbyists.
- (US) Lobbying is an incredibly effective tool for businesses, according to one study yielding as much as 22,000% returns on investment. Companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying.
Types of lobbying and their problems
- NRA
- This is not really environmental, but I wanted to bring it up anyway. The National Rifle Association is one of the most successful lobby groups in America, and it is one of the reasons that gun laws tend to be loosened after mass shooting events.
- Oil, gas and coal
- These are the most powerful and most harmful lobby groups. Oil companies are so rich that they can individually hire lobbyists and influence government policy.
- If we think about any number of recent negative environmental rulings, fossil fuel interests are probably to blame.
- EG: The recent US misnomered ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ was originally meant to be a 3.5 trillion dollar climate spending (and other progressive investments) bill. However, the Democrats had no majority in the senate, which was split 50-50. Joe Manchin, the senator from West Virginia, opposed the bill as he is knee-deep in the coal industry. This caused it to be massively shrunk down to a 750 billion dollar investment.
- EG: In Australia, fossil fuel and mining interests have a tight grip on the government. Thanks to them, Australia is building ecologically precarious oil and gas drilling stations and blowing past its climate targets.
- EG: In the US, despite the clear economic unviability of coal as a power source, the government poured money into trying to make ‘clean coal’.
- EG: In the UK, Boris Johnson approved plans for a new coal mine despite being a major proponent of green legislation.
- Animal agriculture
- Across the world, animal agriculture lobbyists are trying to convince legislators that consumers are being deceived by companies labelling environmentally friendly alternatives to animal products as ‘milk’, ‘yoghurt’, ‘cheese’, ‘burger’ or ‘sausage’. This is a sour attempt to prop up a dying industry, and is entirely contrary to how everyone refers to the products.
- Animal agriculture lobbies also persuade the government to continue the insane subsidies
The result of lobbying
- If governments actually took the best interests of their citizens to heart, we would have made, as a planet, much more progress towards our necessary climate targets
- Joe Biden ran on an environmental platform, but just recently, under pressure from the oil lobby, he approved a massive pipeline through Alaska, the Willow Project
- Most people in the world want to be more climate friendly, especially those in developing nations who are already suffering from floods and pollution.
- Lobbyists are only necessary for these industries because they need to persuade the government to turn their backs on the people and instead to promote their own interests.
- As a result of all this, the world is a measurably worse place to live
Subsidisation: tax exemption
- One of the simplest forms of subsidisation is indirect subsidisation in the form of tax exemption.
- In some of our very early episodes we talk about tax incentives as ways to promote climate-friendly choices for consumers and companies.
- Currently, tax incentives are often totally opposite to what we are trying to achieve.
- For example, worldwide almost all airplane flights are free of VAT, despite being the most polluting way to travel.
- The fuel duty in the UK hasn’t been raised for a long time, meaning in real terms it is falling.
- Meanwhile train travel in the UK remains prohibitively expensive for many people.
Subsidisation: direct subsidies
- The US government directly subsidises domestic air travel
- The US government has massive caves full of cheese that it purchases to keep dairy production high despite reduced demand
- The meat industry receives huge subsidies despite its enormous negative environmental and ecological impacts, while plant-based alternative, which are more in need of investment, remain at prohibitively high prices
- Plant farmers produce more nutritious and environmentally advantageous food, but receive much smaller proportions of subsidies
https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/blog/meat-and-dairy-gobble-up-farming-subsidies/
- e.g. Malawi’s FISP (farm input subsidy program) that subsidizes synthetic fertilizers, maize seed (probably GMO) and other farm inputs…
