Investigation platform
A Field Guide to Fossil Fuel Front Groups
Thirty-eight organizations asked the Supreme Court to shield Exxon and Suncor from climate deception lawsuits. This maps who funds them.
Thirty-eight organizations filed amicus briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to shield ExxonMobil and Suncor from climate deception lawsuits. Consumer Watchdog went and looked at who pays for them.
Two-thirds are financially connected to fossil fuel companies, fossil fuel fortunes, or the climate denial networks that spent decades building the deception those lawsuits are about. Sixteen received funding tied to the defendants themselves — either directly from ExxonMobil, or through entities linked to the same money.
The problem this had to solve
A finding like that is a network, and a network read as prose is unfollowable. Thirty-eight organizations, dozens of funders, and relationships that only mean anything when you can see that the same three names keep appearing behind supposedly independent voices.
So the piece is built as a field guide rather than a report: every organization gets an entry, every entry carries its funding, and the connections are navigable rather than asserted. A reader can start at an organization they recognise and follow the money outward, or start at a funder and see everything it touches.
That structure is the argument. "Not 38 independent voices" is a claim in a headline and a demonstrated fact in a graph.
What that costs to build honestly
Every relationship has to be sourced. A funding link between a foundation and an advocacy group is either documented in a filing or it does not go in, because the entire value of the piece is that a hostile reader can check it. The case files sit alongside the guide for exactly that reason.
The other constraint is that this has to survive scrutiny from people with considerable resources. A network graph is a lot of individual claims presented at once, and one wrong edge discredits the rest. Slower to build, and not optional.
Why it exists as a site and not a PDF
A PDF is read once by the people already looking. A navigable guide is something a reporter can search mid-story, a researcher can cite one entry from, and a reader can enter at any point.
Published this month.