Research & Publications
Policy Briefs
Change the Chamber publishes policy briefs that outline policies, bills, court cases, etc. in layman’s terms for a general audience, who may not have a political or legal background. They are typically used by legislators and executives, but this format is helpful for people looking for a straightforward summary.
News and Research
Calling Out the U.S. Chamber
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2023 Report
Our latest report, spanning from September 1998 to March 2023, exposes how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has consistently prioritized its own gains at the expense of fair treatment for minority populations, the preservation of our environment, and timely climate change mitigation.
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2021 Report
Our report lays out a timeline of actions executed by the U.S. Chamber and its subsidiaries to oppose policy measures that would help mitigate the rapidly escalating crises of climate change and biodiversity collapse.
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2020 Report
We analyzed the Chamber’s activity from 2019 to 2020 and found that the U.S. Chamber has been a relentless and effective advocate for the interests of the fossil fuel industry.
U.S. Chamber Litigation Timeline
In the courts, the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center regularly champions the fossil fuel industry. They provide legal support for oil pipelines such as the Dakota Access Pipeline, they fought to allow drilling in the Arctic and the Gulf of Mexico, and they regularly undermine local and state government attempts to regulate polluters. To learn more, click on the right arrow below (or swipe left on mobile).
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2019-2020
The Chamber is gearing up to defend the Trump Administration’s replacement of the Clean Power Plan, the Affordable Clean Energy plan, in court.
ACE has substantially lower GHG emissions reductions than the Clean Power Plan, putting the US’s emissions on a track consistent with 4°C+ warming by 2100 warming globally.
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2019
The Chamber filed two briefs to protect Shell Oil and Suncor Energy from litigation by local governments in Colorado and Rhode Island who were suing to hold the companies liable for climate change.
The briefs were filed in two Federal Appeals Courts to reverse the remand orders and to have the cases taken out from the District courts.
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2017
The Chamber filed a brief in a case against 18 states and 2 cities, who were protecting an EPA rule requiring new coal-fired power stations capture a percentage of their emissions with carbon capture.
This helped secure the building of a new generation of coal-fired power plants.
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2017
In 2017, the Bureau of Land Management repealed a rule that required hydraulic fracturing operations on Federal and Indian lands to follow certain standards, including methane leaks, and waste water disposal.
We can thank the Chamber for helping to sue to make that happen!
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2016
The Chamber filed a brief against the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, arguing that it “unlawfully attempts to radically transform the electric sector and usurp states’ traditional authority over the electric grid.”
The Chamber won: the U.S. Supreme Court suspended the Clean Power Plan.
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2016
As soon as President Obama announced that he would limit offshore gas & oil drilling in Alaska, the Chamber threatened to sue the administration.
The Chamber followed up by asking President Trump to undo the regulation. It worked.
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2015
The Chamber filed a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s new Ozone Standard. The new standard was based on thousands of new studies that had been published since the last review in 2008. It limited ground-level ozone to 70 parts per billion. Ozone causes harm to the respiratory system, and aggravates asthma and other lung diseases. Higher levels of ozone disproportionately affects children, older adults, and outdoor workers.
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2014
In 2014, the Chamber began to convene groups of fossil fuel industry lobbyists, lawyers, and political strategists to devise strategies to oppose future regulatory actions that might limit greenhouse gas emissions.
The litigation began that year. Two years, later the Chamber boasted about its leadership role in killing the Clean Power Plan in an op-ed.
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2011
In 2011, the US Chamber helped sue to make a special exception to expedite oil & gas exploration in Polar bear habitats.
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2011
The Chamber filed a brief urging the US court of Appeals to reject a challenge to the federal offshore permitting process that would have halted offshore oil and natural gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.
This was less than a year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.
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2010
The Chamber sued the EPA for trying to regulate car emissions.
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2009
The Chamber tried to set up the “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century,” to discredit climate science so as to put off science-based climate legislation.
The Chamber filed to sue the EPA for saying that climate change is caused by humans. They used absurd, pseudo-scientific language. There is an overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that climate change is human-made.
