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As Republicans Prepare Tax Giveaway Package, Oil and Gas Companies Try to Avoid Corporate Minimum Tax
New report details efforts by fossil fuel industry to escape 15% minimum corporate tax
With Republicans in charge of the White House and Congress, the fossil fuel industry has been lobbying to undermine a tax put in place under former President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law, according to a report out today from United to End Polluter Handouts, a new campaign to combat the massive subsidies the U.S. government gives to fossil fuel companies.
The report, “Minimum Tax, Maximum Influence,” details an effort by Sen. James Lankford (R–Okla.) to allow U.S. oil and gas producers to escape the 15% corporate alternative minimum tax that was a cornerstone of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. This measure was designed to stop profitable corporations from taking advantage of loopholes to pay nothing or nearly nothing in taxes. The new report draws on investor calls and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to identify oil companies that may benefit from Sen.Lankford’s legislation.
Earlier this year, Lankford (R–Okla.) introduced the Promoting Domestic Energy Production Act, which would provide oil and gas drillers a special loophole to deduct certain drilling costs from taxes owed under the corporate minimum tax. Lankford’s proposal may be added to the mammoth Republican tax cut package benefitting the wealthiest Americans and large corporations while slashing health benefits for everyday Americans later this year.
“It is simply outrageous that the GOP is using its trifecta to create yet another fossil fuel subsidy,” said Lukas Shankar-Ross, deputy director of Friends of the Earth’s Climate and Energy Justice Program and co-author of the report. “If this polluter handout is snuck into the GOP tax bill, then cuts to Medicaid and food stamps could well pay for another giveaway to Big Oil. That’s obscene.”
If passed, this newest tax break would add to more than $170 billion in existing subsidies for fossil fuel companies.
“Oil and gas companies are using the political influence they purchased to dodge paying even a minimal part of their fair share,” said Alan Zibel, energy research director with Public Citizen and co-author of the report. “If individual taxpayers understood the magnitude of the extreme subsidies for Big Oil, they would be shocked. The newest effort to bypass even the most modest of tax bills by the industry is shocking, but sadly not surprising.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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'This Is a Witch Hunt': Trump Admin Demands Colleges Provide Name and Nationality of Student Protesters
"There is no doubt that it can be used improperly," said one attorney.
Mar 25, 2025
Critics are raising grave civil liberties concerns after the Washington Postreported Tuesday that the Trump administration is seeking to collect the names and nationalities of "students who might have harassed Jewish students or faculty" as part of a U.S. Department of Education probe into alleged antisemitism on multiple college campuses.
In January, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order with the purported aim of rooting out antisemitism at higher education institutions, and has vowed to target foreign-born students who have engaged in demonstrations against Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, but which the president describes as "pro-jihadist" protests.
In January, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order with the purported aim of rooting out antisemitism at higher education institutions, and has vowed to target foreign-born students who have engaged in "pro-jihadist" protests.
His administration has already moved to deport multiple students involved in pro-Palestine organizing, including former Columbia University graduate student and green-card holder Mahmoud Khalil. A South Korean-born junior at Columbia University sued the Trump and other high-level Trump administration officials after immigration agents tried to arrest and deport her, according to a complaint filed on Monday.
According toThe Post, attorneys with the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights were instructed to collect students' names and nationalities in addition to information that is routinely gathered during a civil rights investigation, citing documents and three attorneys with direct knowledge of the situation who were quoted anonymously.
"My first thought was, 'This is a witch hunt,'" one attorney told the paper.
The schools under probe are Columbia University; Northwestern University; Portland State University; The University of California, Berkeley; and The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, according to a statement from the Department of Education released on February 3.
Last week, Columbia agreed to a number of demands from the Trump administration as part of negotiations over $400 million in federal grants and contracts that the Trump administration had pulled due to the school's alleged "inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students."
When investigating whether a school erred when handling complaints of discrimination and harassment, the Office for Civil Rights isn't responsible for disciplining students who may have been behind harassment, so it does not usually collect student names or nationalities, per the Post.
Attorneys who spoke to the outlet said they "immediately wondered whether the list was meant as a tip sheet that the administration might use to target or deport foreign students who participated in protests."
"The request asked for a list of all students that the university notified of potential violations of the code of conduct or who were referred for suspension, suspended, expelled and/or referred to law enforcement for harassment of, or violence toward, students and faculty 'on the basis of their Jewish ancestry,'" according to the paper.
The request also asked for the students' "national origin/ethnicity/shared ancestry," per the Post. According to the outlet, it is not clear whether the five universities haver provided the students' names or information on their ethnicities.
"There is no doubt that it can be used improperly," a separate attorney told the Post.
In addition to the five schools named above, the Department of Education in early March sent letters to 60 universities "warning them of potential enforcement actions" if they do not take adequate steps to protect Jewish students.
Critics have argued that efforts to weaponize accusations of antisemitism against pro-Palestinian voices is part of a familiar playbook that aims to distract from serious war crimes and human rights abuses being carried out by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people.
Lawyer and historian Fernando Oliver characterized the effort by Trump's Education Department as a continuation of the president's "campaign to end free speech," adding: "This is what dictators do."
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'History in Real Time': NYC Dem Socialist Mayoral Candidate Mamdani Maxes Out Fundraising
"I'm now asking New Yorkers for their time as we seek to build the single largest volunteer operation we've ever seen in the New York City's mayor's race," said state Rep. Zohran Mamdani.
Mar 25, 2025
After bringing in $8 million from donors across New York City at a pace never before seen in the city's elections, mayoral candidate and state Rep. Zohran Kwame Mamdani called on his supporters to shift their focus away from donating money and toward creating "the single largest volunteer operation in New York City history."
"I'm about to say something to you you've never heard a politician say: Please stop sending us money," said Mamdani (D-36) in a video posted on social media Monday.
The fundraising haul from 18,000 donors makes Mamdani the first candidate in the mayoral race to reach the cap for donations, including projected matching funds from the city's Campaign Finance Board, and comes three months before the Democratic primary.
Halting fundraising efforts—even though his current donations are only a projection and won't be confirmed until the Campaign Finance Board makes its public funding decisions on April 15—"means that I don't have to spend the hours that I have sitting at a table calling through our supporters and asking them for their money," Mamdani told Gothamist. "It means that instead, I'm now asking New Yorkers for their time as we seek to build the single largest volunteer operation we've ever seen in the New York City's mayor's race."
In the video posted on Monday, the democratic socialist explains that he aims to grow his 7,000-strong volunteer force to knock on more than 1 million doors across New York City before the June primary election.
"I teach New York City history for a living," said historian Asad Dandia of Mamdani's momentum. "This here is history in real time."
A poll released Tuesday by Honan Strategy Group found that—as he was in the group's February survey—Mamdani is currently in second place in the primary contest, with 18% of voters saying they favored him. Twelve percent of voters said they supported him last month.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is in first place with 41% of voters backing him, while city Comptroller Brad Lander and Mayor Eric Adams—who is facing federal corruption charges—are trailing Mamdani with 8% and 6%, respectively.
"This is us while fasting," Mamdani's campaign said in response to the poll numbers, in reference to Ramadan.
Mamdani has made deft use of social media to promote his campaign, posting photos and videos of himself riding the subway alongside millions of working New Yorkers; interviewing people in the outer boroughs who either didn't vote in the 2024 election or supported President Donald Trump; and announcing his proposal for city-owned grocery stores, which would "operate without a profit motive or having to pay property taxes or rent, and would pass on those savings" to New Yorkers.
The state assembly member, who has represented District 36 in Queens since 2021, also wants to make rent stabilized housing units "the bedrock of economic security for the city's working class" by freezing rent, expand a fare-free program for all city bus lines, and introduce no-cost childcare.
In addition to demanding answers from Trump's "border czar," Tom Homan, on the abduction of former Columbia University student protester Mahmoud Khalil, Mamdani has taken aim in recent days at Cuomo over his refusal to take questions from the press and his demand that nursing homes accept residents who had recently had Covid at the beginning of the pandemic, followed by his understatement of the coronavirus death toll at nursing homes.
"New York City deserves a leader," said Mamdani at a press conference outside Cuomo's apartment building last week, "who will not pick and choose the moments in which they are accountable to this public."
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'Child After Child': Israel Has Killed 270+ Gaza Children Since Ditching Cease-Fire Last Week, Says NGO
"Children and families in Gaza have barely caught their breath and are now being plunged back into a horrifically familiar world of harm that they cannot escape," said Save the Children's regional director.
Mar 25, 2025
Since fully abandoning a two-month cease-fire in the Gaza Strip a week ago, the Israel Defense Forces have slaughtered more than 270 children in the Palestinian enclave, the global charity Save the Children said on social media Tuesday.
"Bombs falling, hospitals destroyed, children killed, and the world is silent. No aid, no safety, no future," said Save the Children humanitarian director Rachael Cummings. The group also noted that the death toll since October 2023 has topped 50,000.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday that since March 18, the IDF has killed at least 792 people and injured 1,663, bringing the totals over the past 18 months to 50,144 dead and 113,704 wounded. Thousands more are missing and presumed dead.
On Monday, Drop Site News' Sharif Kouddous reported that the ministry "released a 1,516-page document listing the names of over 50,000 Palestinians confirmed killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. There are a total of 474 pages listing 15,600+ children's names. The first 27 pages the age is listed as 0—children under 1 year old."
In addition to the 876 infants under age 1, Drop Sitedetailed on social media, the IDF has killed at least 1,686 toddlers (1-2 years), 2,424 preschoolers (3-5 years), 5,745 elementary school students (6-12 years), 2,837 young teens (13-15 years), and 2,045 older teens (16-17 years).
The outlet noted that "this toll does not include deaths from indirect causes such as starvation, disease, or the thousands still missing under the rubble. Researchers have said the actual toll could be three to five times higher."
The Associated Pressreported Tuesday that "when the first explosions in Gaza this week started around 1:30 am, a visiting British doctor went to the balcony of a hospital in Khan Younis and watched the streaks of missiles light up the night before pounding the city."
Dr. Sakib Rokadiya then headed to Nasser Hospital's emergency ward, which soon filled with people harmed by the strikes. "Just child after child, young patient after young patient," he said. "The vast, vast majority were women, children, the elderly."
The AP shared more accounts from healthcare providers at the largest hospital in southern Gaza, including Dr. Feroze Sidhwa:
Sidhwa, an American trauma surgeon from California with the medical charity MedGlobal, rushed immediately to the area where the hospital put the worst-off patients still deemed possible to save.
But the very first little girl he saw—3 or 4 years old—was too far gone. Her face was mangled by shrapnel. "She was technically still alive," Sidhwa said, but with so many other casualties "there was nothing we could do."
He told the girl's father she was going to die. Sidhwa went on to do some 15 operations, one after another.
When Israel fully ditched the cease-fire last week, after many violations since mid-January, Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children's regional director, said that "children and families in Gaza have barely caught their breath and are now being plunged back into a horrifically familiar world of harm that they cannot escape."
"These airstrikes come as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain displaced, their homes destroyed and uninhabitable, with tents all that stand between them and explosive weapons designed for wide reach," he pointed out. "Children are the most vulnerable to explosive weapons. Their lighter bodies are thrown further by the blasts, and their bones are softer and bend more easily, with higher risk of secondary injuries and long-term deformities and disabilities. Their small bodies have less blood to lose—a death sentence when emergency services can't safely operate and reach them."
"Children who survive the onslaught will not be able to receive adequate medical care or even basic pain medication, following the government of Israel's restrictions on and denial of medical supplies and the fuel hospitals need to function," Alhendawi continued. "This cannot be what world powers allow children to return to. When children are slaughtered en masse, humanity's moral and legal foundations crumble. We have seen it for ourselves: The only way to ensure children and families are protected as international law requires is through a cease-fire. This time, it must be definitive—the constant threat of war cannot be left hanging over their heads."
He added that "until then, even wars have laws, and those laws are clear. Civilians must be actively protected, with concrete steps taken to avoid and minimize civilian casualties. There is no military imperative that can justify atrocity crimes. And the international community must use all available means—exhaustively, not selectively—to ensure international law is upheld. Anything less is a global failure—not a mistake, not a regrettable dilemma, but a total dereliction of legal duty. Failure to act now risks the annihilation of children and their futures."
Global demands for a renewed cease-fire have mounted over the past week as Israel has returned to a full-blown military assault, backed by a U.S. government now controlled by President Donald Trump and Republican majorities in Congress.
"During the 42-day cease-fire families in Gaza could finally fall asleep knowing their loved ones would still be beside them when they woke up," Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam's policy lead for the occupied Palestinian territories, said Monday. "Even though aid that entered was not enough—far from enough—it was something. The price of food stabilized. Supermarkets reopened. Bakeries began running again. Many people even went to their homes or what was left of it, and tried to repair and rebuild, however little they could."
Khalidi explained that "Oxfam, through its partners has been able to initiate emergency water trucking across the Gaza Strip, and are maintaining some other aid programs, such as multipurpose cash transfers, despite the severe challenges that all humanitarian workers now face around lack of protection."
"For the past 535 days, Israel has been systematically weaponizing lifesaving aid, inflicting collective punishment upon the population of Gaza," she continued. "The denial of food, water, fuel and electricity is a war crime and a crime against humanity. Many within the international community are enabling this by their silence, inaction, and complicity."
Oxfam called for a permanent cease-fire, the safe return of Israeli hostages and illegally detained Palestinian prisoners, "unfettered aid at scale," and other governments to stop transferring arms to the involved parties. The group also said that "we reiterate our call for justice and accountability for all those affected."
Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court in November issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and a Hamas leader who has since been confirmed dead.
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