Climate Deniers of the 118th Congress

The Center for American Progress has periodically analyzed statements by sitting members of Congress to determine whether they deny the existence of human-caused climate change.¹ This analysis of the 118th U.S. Congress found that 123 elected officials are climate deniers—23 percent of 535 total members. These 100 representatives and 23 senators wield significant influence on public perceptions of climate change as well as on the speed and direction of climate policy in the United States. Members of Congress also receive publicly disclosed contributions, which may provide a window into the possible influence of the fossil fuel industry.

Additionally, this analysis explores rhetorical shifts from outright climate denial to subtler types of obstruction, which may further delay action on the climate crisis as well as prolong the influence of the fossil fuel industry on environmental and energy policy in the United States.² While “climate denial” is arguably the most commonly understood and historically used term, it only describes one type of an ever-widening array of tactics.

This analysis finds:

• Currently, 123 members of the 118th Congress are climate deniers.
• Among the 90 newly elected or appointed members of the 118th Congress, 18 are climate deniers.³
• The climate deniers in the current Congress have received $52,071,133 in lifetime campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry.
• The number of outright climate deniers in Congress continues a downward trend from 150 in the 116th Congress, 139 in the 117th, and now, 123 in the 118th Congress.⁴
• There are still prominent instances of outright climate denial, including from the majority leader in the house, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA). When asked what the GOP is doing to combat climate change, Rep. Scalise responded: “We’ve had freezing periods in the 1970s. They said it was going to be a new cooling period. And now it gets warmer and gets colder, and that’s called Mother Nature. But the idea that hurricanes or wildfires were caused just in the last few years is just fallacy.”⁵

Some members of Congress have shifted from outright climate denial to other rhetorical tactics. Examples include redirecting responsibility for addressing the climate crisis, such as deferring U.S. actions to reduce greenhouse emissions until other countries act first; portraying climate activism as alarmism; or spreading misinformation.⁶

The science is clear: Americans cannot afford to ignore the realities of global climate change. Climate-fueled extreme weather events continue to cost American lives and billions of dollars year after year, and the intensity and frequency of these events will continue to increase without action to address the causes of climate change.⁷ There is no lack of warning signs:

• 2023 was the hottest year on record.⁸
• July 2023 saw the highest average global temperatures ever recorded.⁹
• The United States now experiences, on average, a billion-dollar extreme weather event every three weeks.¹⁰

Findings from the 2023 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s “AR6 Synthesis Report” solidified the link between climate change and worsening extreme weather.¹¹ The International Energy Agency further reaffirmed the need to rapidly transition to a clean energy economy and found that achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, even with significant growth in energy demand, does not require any new fossil fuel investment.¹² Despite this, climate deniers and obstructionists continue to spread misinformation and cast doubt on the scientific consensus and consequences of the ongoing climate crisis.¹³

There are 123 climate deniers in the current 118th Congress. Since the start of this Congress in 2023, 10 members have vacated their seats due to resignations, death, or expulsion.¹⁴ Four of the vacated seats were occupied by climate deniers: Rep. George Santos (R-NY), Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH), Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT), and Rep. Don Young (R-AK). As of March 1, 2024, 7 of the 10 vacancies have been filled, and one new member is a climate denier: Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE).¹⁵

Overall, the number of outright climate deniers in Congress continues a downward trend from 150 in the 116th Congress at the start of this ongoing project to 123 in the current 118th Congress. Of the 123 climate deniers in the 118th Congress analysis, 106 are incumbents; the remaining 17 are freshmen members. Of the 106 incumbent members, four have newly denied the scientific consensus behind climate change and have been categorized as climate deniers for the first time in this updated analysis.¹⁶ Since the end of the 117th Congress, 20 climate deniers did not win reelection or did not run for reelection,¹⁷ while 13 are former climate deniers who have since made public statements accepting the science of climate change.¹⁸ As tactics have broadened from outright climate denial to other forms of obstruction, there are three members of Congress previously classified as deniers whom this analysis would now characterize instead as obstructionists.¹⁹ For example, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) was previously categorized as a climate denier, but in a recent statement from him, he described climate change as being “more of a religion”—a form of climate obstruction.²⁰

Of the 90 newly elected representatives and senators, including via special elections throughout 2023, 18 are climate deniers.²¹ This is consistent with previous analyses showing that about one-third of incoming freshmen after previous elections were climate deniers.²² CAP’s analysis found no publicly available statements about climate change from 23 freshmen members of Congress. Some elected officials who have been directly asked if they believe in climate change have deflected or ignored the question.²³

Elected officials hold significant power in shaping federal climate policy. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed in August 2022, was the largest investment in climate action in U.S. history. It is incentivizing investment in clean energy deployment and manufacturing, lowering energy bills for Americans, cleaning up fossil fuel pollution in communities, and much more.²⁴ The law includes investments that cut household energy costs for Americans, create well-paying, union jobs, bolster the clean energy sector, and reduce harmful air pollution that disproportionately affects communities of color and low-income communities. In total, the IRA has already led to the announcement of more than 300,000 new jobs, is projected to create 1.5 million new jobs by 2030, and has driven $361 billion in new investments to further bolster the U.S. economy.²⁵

All Republican members of the 117th Congress voted against the IRA, while all Democratic members who were present voted in favor of its passage.²⁶ Since its passage, there have been more than 30 attempts to repeal the IRA through votes on the House floor, in committees, and in subcommittees.²⁷ These actions threaten to create roadblocks to address the climate crisis in a moment when it is critical to act swiftly to stave off the worst effects associated with global temperatures rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures.²⁸

It is important to note that employing and spreading misinformation, conspiracy theories, and denials are not strictly limited to climate change. According to this analysis and other work from CAP, 90 of the 123 climate deniers in the 118th Congress also publicly denied the legitimacy of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.²⁹

For decades, the fossil fuel industry has obstructed climate action. During the 117th Congress, a House Committee on Oversight and Reform investigation uncovered new evidence of Big Oil’s extensive greenwashing campaign dating back to the 1970s.³⁰ Internal documents obtained by the committee revealed that the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron, Shell, and Exxon made major investments to “protect and entrench the use of fossil fuels, long past the timeline scientists say would be safe to prevent catastrophic climate change.” Additionally, the fossil fuel industry employs tactics such as spreading misinformation and manipulating democratic systems to influence and often obstruct climate policy.³¹

The fossil fuel industry continues to amass substantial earnings while increasing production and releasing harmful greenhouse gas emissions.³² In 2022 alone, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and skyrocketing consumer gas prices, the fossil fuel industry netted $400 billion in profits, more than doubling their annual totals from the previous year.³³ Despite these record-breaking profits, the benefits were not passed onto consumers in the form of lowered gas prices. Instead, the top five major oil companies—BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies—raked in almost $200 billion in profits, giving $104 billion in stock buybacks to their investors while eliminating thousands of jobs to “cut costs.”³⁴ Meanwhile, the larger fossil fuel industry, as a whole, spent about $124.4 million on federal lobbying efforts in 2022, according to OpenSecrets.³⁵

The 123 climate deniers in the 118th Congress collectively received about $52 million in lifetime contributions from the oil and gas and coal mining industries. While not every member who has received fossil fuel contributions is a climate denier, many are in positions of strong influence over environmental policy.³⁶ Current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), a climate denier, received $103,450 in oil and gas donations in the 2022 cycle, his second-highest industry contributor.³⁷ Figure 3 lists the top five lifetime recipients of money from the oil and gas and coal mining industries in the House and the Senate.

Many members of Congress continue to spread climate misinformation that closely mirrors talking points from their industry trade groups donors.³⁸ Research on the anticlimate movement reveals how the fossil fuel industry, conservative think tanks, and corporate interests have engaged in coordinated efforts to obstruct climate action through their lobbying efforts.³⁹

In April 2024, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Democrats and the Senate Committee on the Budget built upon the previous House Oversight and Reform Committee investigation in the 117th Congress. They analyzed documents received from the previous investigation’s subpoena to uncover more details surrounding the fossil fuel industry intentionally funding and spreading misinformation. Notably, private emails revealed that Big Oil executives relied on the trade associations they fund to spread misleading information about climate policy. For example, in 2018, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, as chairman of the American Petroleum Institute’s board of directors, sent an email to other board members stating that the objective of an upcoming American Petroleum Institute Executive Committee meeting was to “put together an assessment of API’s strengths, opportunities and ideas for potential improvements,” including “above and beyond advocacy priorities,” based on “an ExxonMobil view.”⁴⁰ This demonstrates the intentional plan to ensure that the institute’s public communications campaigns reflected the internal policies of the fossil fuel industry.

This process allows companies to publicly appear supportive of climate-friendly actions while obstructing those same actions behind the scenes.⁴¹ It reifies the cycle in which the fossil fuel industry obstructs climate policy to bring in substantial profits, which it then uses to influence trade associations and members of Congress to continue obstructing meaningful climate action that would harm its bottom line. The fossil fuel industry’s federal lobbying efforts totaled $133 million in 2023.⁴²

The fossil fuel industry also undermines the build-out of a clean energy economy through public misinformation campaigns. For example, a network of oil and gas interests operates to spread offshore wind misinformation with the goal of blocking the expansion of renewable energy in the Northeast, with claims that offshore wind construction has led to whale deaths.⁴³ While it is true the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has declared an “Unusual Mortality Event” for humpback whales since 2016, none of these deaths have been attributed to offshore wind projects.⁴⁴ The deaths, instead, have been attributed to ship strikes and entanglements. These specific falsehoods have been traced back to AstroTurf groups, organizations, and elected officials funded by the fossil fuel industry to block the expansion of wind projects off the Atlantic coast.⁴⁵

Denying the validity of the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change remains the primary tactic to obstruct climate action, which CAP has tracked with its regular series identifying climate deniers in each session of Congress since 2012. However, climate denial no longer fully encompasses the often complex tactics used to delay or obstruct climate action.⁴⁶ This analysis highlights some recent public statements that typify climate obstruction tactics beyond outright climate denial. This is an illustrative, not exhaustive, list of obstruction tactics. By laying out broad categories—doomism, alarmism, redirecting responsibility, and spreading misinformation—alongside specific examples, this analysis intends to better equip the public to recognize, counter, and inoculate against these narratives.

Counseling doomism, which denies the power of policy to mitigate climate change:

• Doomism refers to the idea that humanity is already locked into climate catastrophe, and therefore no policy can reverse it.⁴⁷
• Example: “The climate has always changed and always will change, so I don’t deny climate change. The question is, can you really do anything about it?” – Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI)⁴⁸

Deriding the motivations—or dismissing the urgency—of climate activism, portraying both as alarmism:

• Alarmism portrays climate activism as exaggerating the impact and urgency of the climate crisis.⁴⁹
• Example: “I know that over 20 years ago there were experts before the United Nations who talked about if we didn’t do something within 10 years this global warming thing would be a disaster, and we couldn’t turn back from that. That was back in 1989, and those global alarmists have since proven to be false.” – Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI)⁵⁰

Redirecting responsibility for addressing the climate crisis:

• Redirecting responsibility detracts from the need for the United States to take substantial transformative actions to decrease its emissions, while shifting the burden of responsibility to other countries or onto individuals rather than advocating for larger governmental change. This includes “whataboutism” claims that the United States should not commit to international agreements such as the Paris Agreement while other industrialized countries are not doing their fair share of cutting emissions.
• Example: “Other nations want us to do everything to fix the environment, and they don’t want to participate in that at the same level as we do. And if you look at the emissions in places like India and China, they’re not making any strides to try and curtail emissions or to address climate change in their part of their world. But they want us to do it.” – Rep. Rick Crawford (R- AR)⁵¹

Spreading misinformation about climate action:

• The spread of misinformation—that is, deceptive, misleading, or false information—has been well-documented across the world and requires constant vigilance to inoculate. Examples include false statements that disparage clean energy, minimize the hazards of fossil fuels, and misrepresent actions taken to reduce emissions. Misinformation on climate change can polarize the public, decrease support for climate actions, and ultimately obstruct needed actions to address the climate crisis.⁵²
• Example: “Joe Biden’s climate plan includes cutting 90% of red meat from our diets by 2030.” – Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO)⁵³

While there has been a shift in the use of rhetorical tactics to obstruct climate action without directly denying climate science, there are still 123 members of Congress who are outright climate deniers. The fossil fuel industry continues to use its exorbitant profits to exert its influence on federal environmental policy in the form of contributions to elected officials and on public relations campaigns. Publicly elected officials and the fossil fuel industry must be held accountable for their statements on climate change and deceptive obstructionist tactics such as greenwashing and spreading misinformation. ⁵⁴ Climate action cannot afford to be delayed any further.

The author would like to thank Hannah Malus, Trevor Higgins, Lauren Vicary, Ryan Koronowski, Cody Hankerson, Jamie Friedman, Jenny Rowland-Shea, Chris Martinez, Devon Lespier, Will Beaudouin, Shanée Simhoni, Mat Brady, Bill Rapp, Beatrice Aronson, Audrey Juarez, Doug Molof, the entire CAP Production team, and the many former staff at the Center for American Progress, Center for American Progress Action Fund, and ThinkProgress who worked on previous iterations of this project.

Download the dataset for this analysis here.

• The author calculated the overlap between the 123 U.S. senators and representatives who voted against certifying the 2020 election results and climate deniers defined by this analysis using data from the CAP column: “Election Deniers Lost Key Races for Federal and State Offices in the 2022 Midterm Elections.” ⁵⁵
• CAP reviewed quotes on climate change and its connection to human activity from every single elected official in the 118th U.S. Congress—Democrats, independents, and Republicans—and applied the definition of “climate denier” to determine whether that official denied climate science.
• The analysis includes the total lifetime political contributions to all deniers and obstructionists from oil, gas, and coal-affiliated industries using OpenSecrets data. ⁵⁶ The numbers only include money from the oil and gas and coal mining industries, under the “energy/natural resources sector” in the OpenSecrets data. The numbers included in this analysis are based on Federal Election Commission data released on May 21, 2024.
• The list of elected officials in the 118th Congress that this analysis used was finalized on March 1, 2024. Any changes to the U.S. Congress after this date are not reflected in the overall data.