Since 2023, Rick Morris has served as an insurance campaigner with Public Citizen’s Climate Program, advocating for bold action to safeguard consumers and the environment from financial institutions that have driven the climate to the tipping point. His path to this work began far from the insurance world: after studying religion at Wheaton College and Princeton Seminary, he gravitated toward environmental justice work. Originally from New Jersey and long drawn to the outdoors, Morris moved to Minnesota in 2014, where he raised money for the Land Stewardship Project and later became a clean energy organizer with the Sierra Club. It was at the latter organization that he took up skiing. He loved the sport so much that he quit his job to relocate to Vermont and work on ski patrol before transitioning to his role at Public Citizen. Outside of work, Morris met his fiancée, a fellow mountain enthusiast, on the slopes and the two are now planning a move to Utah to support her career.

1. You’ve worked on environmental justice campaigns focused on the harms of extracting and burning fossil fuels. Was there a particular community or campaign that shaped how you think about the connection between climate and equity? 

Pipeline fights opened my eyes to the connection between pollution and racism. From Standing Rock to Iowa resisting the Dakota Access Pipeline, and throughout northern Minnesota fighting against Line 3, I saw that these projects consistently ran through Native and low-income communities. Racism and classism allow powerful interests to write off these communities as sacrifice zones. Antiracism, justice, and equity must be at the center of any successful climate effort.

2. Tell us about your career path to climate advocacy. 

While finishing graduate school, I worked at a group home where we saw that LGBTQ+ kids routinely faced discrimination and abuse within the child welfare system. We organized a campaign urging the state to recognize and protect the children’s gender and sexual identities. That experience was my turning point: it made me want to address the root causes that created those harms. Now I work on what I see as the most essential cause of our time: climate change.

3. Before joining Public Citizen, you spent time working on the front lines of environmental justice. How has that grassroots perspective informed your approach to campaigning against financial institutions now? 

Grassroots organizing taught me there are two sources of power: organized money and organized people. Our opponents have all of the former, so we need to go all in on the latter. The core of my work is sparking, connecting, and resourcing a people-powered movement. Public Citizen is not just a think tank, but a “do tank.” Having the right answers to problems is rarely enough. You need to build power, and ours comes from the people.

4. What’s something you wish more people understood about the role of the insurance industry in the climate crisis?

Despite its opacity, the industry operates on a simple model: maximize premium income, minimize claims costs, and invest customer money for big returns. Here’s the kicker: fossil fuel projects cannot secure financing without insurance, and the industry holds an estimated half a trillion dollars in fossil fuel investments. The sector just saw its most profitable year ever. Its influence on the climate crisis is enormous.

5. Public Citizen’s climate program pushes for systemic change in industries that often resist it. How do you stay motivated when progress feels incremental? 

To quote Wendell Berry, “it all turns on affection.” Without affection for people and the land, this work becomes impossible to sustain. Once you feel that affection, it’s impossible not to keep fighting.

6. What’s one project or campaign you’ve worked on at Public Citizen that you’re especially proud of?

After the Eaton and Palisades fires in California, we worked with survivor groups to demand accountability from insurers that were denying, delaying, and underpaying claims. The pressure worked! The state is now investigating State Farm. It’s rare to see quick wins in this work, especially ones that help people so directly.

7. What is one thing that someone might be surprised to learn about you?

I love cooking as much as skiing! My dream is to run a bed-and-breakfast in the mountains– cooking in the morning, skiing in the afternoon, and fitting in a bit of advocacy in between.

The post Get to Know Rick Morris appeared first on Public Citizen.

Megan Whiteman is a researcher with Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program, where she works on issues related to drug pricing and access. A native Marylander, she received her bachelor’s degree in public health science from the University of Maryland and her master’s degree in health policy from the University of Edinburgh. In her spare time, she enjoys running, hiking, reading, spending time with family and friends, and traveling.

How did you end up at Public Citizen?

I am interested in the different things that influence our health and the obstacles that prevent people from accessing health care. While pursuing my undergraduate degree, I interned at PharmedOut, a project at Georgetown University Medical Center that works on evidence-based prescribing and provides health care professionals with educational resources free from pharmaceutical industry influence. From there, I became more interested in policy as an area to push for top-down change, and in finding ways to support those working to promote health from the bottom up. I find it shocking that corporations can have such an outsized influence on people’s health. Public Citizen has offered me the opportunity to advocate for accountability and lifesaving policies.

What’s one research project you worked on at Public Citizen that you’re especially proud of or would want to highlight? 

In 2024, an infectious disease called mpox spread rapidly through several countries in Africa. Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines team challenged the manufacturer of a key mpox vaccine on its unaffordable pricing; urged global health organizations to negotiate a fair price for the vaccine; supported calls to share vaccine manufacturing technology; and underscored the inherent injustice of vaccine doses being unavailable in places where they are most needed. As with COVID-19, recent mpox outbreaks emphasize the inadequacy of relying on monopoly suppliers to provide medical tools to the world and the need for global action to advance equitable access, prevent suffering, and curb outbreaks.

What does a typical work day look like for you?

I typically start each day by reading news related to health and access to medicines. I share relevant stories with my team at Public Citizen and with hundreds of health advocates through two listservs that we maintain. This helps me keep up with the latest developments and can help inform advocacy priorities. For the rest of my day, I research health topics and policies and analyze their potential impacts on access and affordability.

What’s your superpower?

I’m curious and enjoy exploring new spaces, learning new things, and broadening my understanding to improve my work and generate impact.

What do you enjoy about working with the Access to Medicines team?

The team puts expertise, clarity, and compassion to work every day to promote the public interest and support equitable access to medicines. We also collaborate with advocates across countries who bring their own experience and knowledge to the fight. I’m grateful to be part of a team and an organization working for progress in the U.S. and coordinating globally to bring down monopoly barriers that keep medicines out of reach for so many.

The post Get to Know Megan Whiteman appeared first on Public Citizen.

As artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly reshapes the contours of daily life — deciding insurance claims, meddling in elections, even chatting with teens — the rules meant to keep it in check are lagging far behind. That’s why Public Citizen has stepped in, leading a nationwide push to establish guardrails that protect people from AI’s most dangerous uses. From combating deepfakes in elections to shielding kids from manipulative and dangerous “AI companions,” the organization is helping lawmakers in nearly every state turn concern into action.

Two years ago, we launched an initiative to pass legislation regulating deepfakes in election communications in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Ever since, we have substantially expanded upon this work, building relationships with Democratic and Republican lawmakers interested in regulating AI in most states. We have been intimately involved in the enactment of AI legislation in states across the nation. To date, we have drafted five model bills that provide common-sense legislative solutions to mitigate some of the most obvious and dangerous harms of unregulated AI. 

Our latest model legislation addresses the risks posed by emotionally manipulative AI companions, including chatbots. These AI companions are designed to engage in conversations that mimic human interactions and drive emotional engagement. Tech companies typically design these AI companions to maximize user engagement. This means that the companions tend to validate statements from  users, even when they are troubling. Common Sense Media reported that 72% of teens interact with  AI companions, with many engaging with bots at least a few times a month.

The American Psychological Association has expressed significant concern that children’s relationships with AI companions may hinder their ability to develop social skills and real-life emotional connections while creating unhealthy dependencies on the technology.

Making matters worse, conversations with AI companions can become highly sexualized — even when the user has identified as a minor. A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed thatMeta’s (Facebook’s parent company’s) AI companions continued to engage in sexual discussions after learning users were minors, making explicit references to their ages before proceeding with graphic exchanges.

In some extreme cases, AI companions can also encourage people to commit serious harm to themselves and others. Sixteen-year-old Adam Raine struggled with suicidal thoughts, but was allegedly discouraged by ChatGPT from seeking any outside help. Message logs revealed that the chatbot gave him advice on covering red marks on his neck from an attempted hanging and further helped him assess the effectiveness of a specific noose. 

“There is serious reason to be worried about the impact of AI companions on minors, both for extreme cases as well as the more general impact on adolescent development and social well-being,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “Big Tech and AI companies are rapidly advancing this technology. Our children should not be the guinea pigs in such a reckless social experiment, particularly when we have so much early evidence of harm.”  

Public Citizen is taking aggressive action, engaging legislators nationwide to confront this crisis head-on and pass protections for children. Our new model bill, created in partnership with the Young People’s Alliance, addresses concerns about emotionally manipulative AI and its impact on kids. We are discussing this legislation with lawmakers across the country, sharing our model and supporting them in passing the bill in their state legislatures.

In the coming years, we are committed to working tirelessly to rein in and regulate AI across the board for a better future for our society, and nowhere is that more pressing or critical than in the need to establish clear guardrails for our children’s safety from AI companions.

If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988. You can also reach a crisis counselor by messaging the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

The post Regulating AI in the States appeared first on Public Citizen.

Texas is known for its abundant resources, including the vast amounts of oil and gas that have been extracted for decades and shipped around the world. The state also benefits from another energy source that happens to be free: sunshine.

It might surprise many that the state known for its fossil fuels is also a leader in utility-scale solar-generated energy. It’s something that should be celebrated. That’s precisely what Public Citizen did this fall. On Sept. 21, members of our Texas office co-sponsored SUN DAY with the climate action group Third Act, celebrating renewable energy and encouraging rooftop solar adoption.

“Solar power is not only growing – it’s also saving Texas during periods of peak demand,” said Haley Schulz, Public Citizen’s Houston-area organizer who participated in the Bayou City’s SUN DAY event.

The Austin celebration was symbolically held on the grounds of the state Capitol, a place where policy decisions can make or break entire industries. The event featured informational talks on solar and other clean energy topics. It included a presentation by Kaiba White, a climate policy and outreach specialist with Public Citizen’s Texas office, who explained how homeowners can become solar adopters.

At the San Antonio SUN DAY event, Public Citizen’s Texas Director Adrian Shelley spoke about energy legislation considered during this year’s session of the Texas Legislature, which concluded in June.

In Houston, Schulz provided information and updates on Public Citizen’s work at both national and local levels, highlighting the clean energy transition campaign with the group Close Parish Coal, which aims to end the use of coal at the WA Parish power plant in neighboring Fort Bend County.

There were approximately 450 SUN DAY events held nationwide, with additional celebrations in other countries. The current iteration of SUN DAY is the brainchild of journalist and activist Bill McKibben. He recently explained the idea in an interview with the New York Times:

“Solar power is no longer the ”Whole Foods of energy — nice but pricey.” It has become the “Costco of power — cheap, available in bulk, and on the shelf ready to go.” 

Texas has come to the same conclusion. Renewable sources of energy have stabilized the state’s grid and lowered prices.

In the years since the deadly Winter Storm Uri left millions of Texans without power in 2021, Texas has faced other close calls, with state officials urging the public to conserve energy to avoid outages. Happily, the state has avoided another power outage disaster thanks largely to the booming solar and wind industries, which have, at times, provided more than half the energy Texans need to keep the lights on and homes cool. 

Still, Texas has plenty of room to grow its renewable usage. While it leads in large-scale wind and solar power generation, it lags behind other states in small-scale installations commonly seen in homes and businesses. Public Citizen is actively working in several Texas cities to support local policies that make such installations easier and more financially sound.

“Rooftop solar minimizes environmental impact, which reduces electric bills. The challenge is in financing the up-front investment needed to access those benefits,” said White, whose work in Austin includes efforts to decarbonize the city’s electric utility and convincing the city council to support solar installations on city buildings as well as residential solar incentive programs.

“Texas has big skies and lots of sunshine year-round,” White added. “We should harness that energy in order to power the world into the future. It will happen if we get the word out with events like SUN DAY and strong pro-renewable advocacy at every level of government.”

The post Texas Turns Toward the Sun: Public Citizen Celebrates Solar Power appeared first on Public Citizen.

Some 7 million people took part in over 2,700 “No Kings” rallies in October. Millions and millions more were there in spirit and participating remotely by watching coverage on television or online. It was, remarkably, the largest single day of protest in American history.

Together, the American people showed that resistance to the Trump regime’s authoritarianism is coming from every corner of this great country. We demonstrated our commitment to nonviolence, our patriotism, our anger at the needless harm Trump is inflicting on the nation, our rejection of his dictatorial ambitions, and — not least — our sense of humor.

We have no doubt that history will mark No Kings as a decisive moment in the growth of a movement that defeated Trump’s authoritarianism.

Public Citizen played an essential role in helping build the protests, as one of the core organizing groups. We did everything from identify and assist local protest leaders to recruit co-sponsoring organizations (more than 300!). We helped develop the protest themes, drive turnout and manage logistics. 

Each of us spoke to a lot of media outlets about the protests, including CNN, NPR, Fox News, The Guardian, PBS’s Newshour, USA Today, and a lot more.

In these conversations, we made three essential points:

First, Americans are outraged about Trump’s authoritarianism and what it is doing to our country.

They are furious about ICE kidnappings on our streets, the illegal deployment of National Guard troops, illegal firings of federal workers who protect our health, the illegal shutdown of agencies like the consumer bureau that protects us from financial fraud, the weaponization of the Justice Department, attacks on free speech, the effort to whitewash American history, and more.

Second, it was shameful and ridiculous for Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and other Republican figures to say these were “Hate America” rallies, to disparage participants, and to denigrate protest itself.

As was evidenced by anyone who attended or watched any footage from the rallies, these were patriotic rallies that sought to defend our democracy and the best of our values. Given the out-of-control rhetoric from the Trump regime, Johnson used coded language that suggested the rallies verged on domestic terrorism. That was a disgraceful attack on First Amendment expression.

As we said over and over, “No Kings” takes its place in the long and honorable tradition of American protest. Every single major social advance in American history has come as the result of protest. Our nation’s very independence originated in protest.

Third, this was a protest with a purpose. Donald Trump and his cronies have spread the lie that they have overwhelming support and their policies are inevitable. “No Kings” proved those claims untrue. The Trump regime wants to intimidate opponents and chill dissent. They want people to be scared and isolated. With “No Kings,” we joined together to feel, and feed, our power — in overwhelming numbers.

Politicians were watching. Just as the prior large nationwide demonstrations this year — “Hands Off!” and the first “No Kings” — stiffened their spines just a bit, what they witnessed this weekend is already making them stronger in the very difficult fights ahead.

We and our allied organizations designed No Kings so that it would be a launching pad for more actions to follow, many of which have already occurred and others of which are underway. 

• Call-in days to demand Democrats continue to stand up for health care in the current government shutdown fight.

• Actions to support immigrant families against ICE raids.

• Email campaigns to block schemes that would make voter suppression even worse.

• State initiatives against Trump-demanded mid-term gerrymanders.

• Campaigns against corporations preparing to fund Trump’s White House ballroom.

• Campus projects to ensure universities reject Trump’s proposed “racist” compact.

• And so much more.

 Ultimately, mass mobilizations remind us of the power of solidarity and love. We have great challenges ahead to defeat Trump’s authoritarianism. But — animated by the spirit and energy of “No Kings” — we will prevail.

The post No Kings: Seven Million Voices for Democracy appeared first on Public Citizen.

Big Pharma is pulling out all the stops to kill the most impactful drug pricing reform in decades. The Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, established by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, empowered Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. The program is projected to save billions of dollars for Medicare and lower costs for millions of Americans, with the first round of negotiated drug prices alone estimated to save $1.5 billion for Medicare beneficiaries  and $6 billion for taxpayers.

Big Pharma has filed a slew of lawsuits to derail price negotiations, but the courts have thus far rejected the industry’s court challenges. Public Citizen filed amicus briefs in the cases on behalf of consumer and health groups in support of the negotiation program.

Big Pharma doesn’t easily take no (or “lessen your price gouging”) for an answer, and the industry and its allies in Congress and the White House are pushing legislation that threatens to undermine the negotiation program’s ability to deliver savings to taxpayers and Medicare patients.

A recent Public Citizen analysis shines a light on how Big Pharma has dispatched hundreds of lobbyists to defang Medicare price negotiation. We examined lobbying activity during the first half of 2025 on three bills that would either delay negotiations on certain drugs or exempt some drugs entirely. Some key findings include:

• There were 515 unique lobbyist-client relationships, wherein a client (a company, trade group, or nonprofit  organization) hired an individual to lobby on at least one of three bills that would weaken Medicare price negotiations.
• Over 90% (471) of the lobbyist hires were made by clients supportive of the three harmful bills, outnumbering opposition 20-to-1. Supporters were either pharmaceutical companies, groups with pharmaceutical company members, or groups with ties to the industry.
• Big Pharma and its allies sent lobbyists to influence Congress, the White House, and various federal agencies, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Big Pharma’s efforts have paid off handsomely. One of the three bills we analyzed – the ORPHAN Cures Act – passed into law through congressional Republicans’ July 2025 budget reconciliation bill. It will delay and exempt some of the most profitable drugs from negotiations. In an April executive order, Trump essentially endorsed another bill that would prevent negotiations for 11 years. Extending this already long delay risks permanently excluding many medicines from negotiations or providing patients access to lower drug prices for only one or two fleeting years.

Public Citizen is mobilizing to offset Big Pharma’s lobby and money power. We are lobbying members of Congress on the importance of preserving Medicare drug price negotiation. We have published issue briefs that explain how legislative proposals would exclude even blockbuster drugs from negotiation, and underscore that these bills do nothing for innovation but instead protect Big Pharma’s profits. We published a report that revealed how pharmaceutical company Amgen  abused patents to prolong its monopoly on the autoimmune drug Enbrel, depriving Medicare of lower-cost alternatives.

In April, Public Citizen and dozens of other organizations wrote to members of Congress, urging them to oppose any legislative efforts to undermine the drug price negotiation program and to ensure the program can continue delivering lower costs for seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Medicare. 

The negotiation program is an important tool in the fight to rein in Big Pharma’s runaway drug prices. But the work doesn’t stop at defending Medicare from corporate attacks. The program should be improved upon and expanded. “The loopholes and restrictions included in the Inflation Reduction Act already impose limits on savings for patients and taxpayers,” said Steve Knievel, an advocate with Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program. “Instead of undermining the negotiation program, Congress should improve it to deliver lower prices for more drugs and more patients, including people with other kinds of insurance.”

The vast majority of Americans support Medicare drug price negotiations and support expanding the program to negotiate prices for all its prescription drugs to prices no higher than what other wealthy nations pay. Public Citizen is intent not just on defending the modest wins recently obtained, but delivering the fundamental reform that Americans support and need.

The post Big Pharma Lobbies to Erode Landmark Drug Pricing Reform appeared first on Public Citizen.

A new report by Iza Camarillo from Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and the National Project for New Americans (NPNA) unpacks how decades of corporate-led trade agreements have displaced millions of people, stripping them of their livelihoods and forcing them to migrate to survive. Once they arrive in the United States, many migrants are criminalized, funneled into low-wage jobs, or detained in for-profit prisons. Yet Trump continues to blame immigrants for working people’s frustrations.

U.S. manufacturing workers have long decried free trade agreements that empty out factories and create ghost towns as companies relocate elsewhere. The flipside of the coin is that the countries to which these businesses relocate also get hollowed out. After the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), artificially cheap imports and multinational corporations displaced Mexican small farmers and artisans.  Lucky workers found jobs in maquiladoras — sweatshops bordering the U.S. — while the less fortunate, facing unemployment, sometimes migrated to survive.

Despite having seen the destruction wrought by NAFTA, the United States, at the behest of corporate interests with privileged access to negotiations, repeated the model with the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which damaged the economies of the rest of Central America and displaced countless people.

Public Citizen’s report, “Exporting Instability, Importing Exploitation,” includes testimonials from immigrants who witnessed the cruelty of these systems firsthand, including an undocumented farm worker who, earlier this year, was injured on the job by an agricultural machine. He recalled: “If I went to a hospital or told anyone what happened, [the farm owner] would call ICE and deport my family.” Even though he did not disclose his injury to anyone, the worker was fired without pay.

For some industries, anti-immigrant sentiment is lucrative for reasons beyond the exploitable workforce it creates. The report documents, for example, that many donors within the private prison industry who gave millions to the 2016 and 2024 Trump campaigns were rewarded with government contracts for migrant detainment facilities.

Report Launch Event

The demonization of immigrants distracts from the real beneficiaries of current trade and migration policies: big corporations. They exploit both xenophobic fears and economic anxieties created by free trade agreements. “It is not immigrants who signed trade deals that devastated American communities…it was the billionaire class,” remarked Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) at a launch event for the report.

At Public Citizen’s report launch event, immigrant rights advocates from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) joined with the United Auto Workers (UAW) to underscore that mass migration is a foreseeable consequence of trade policies that prioritize corporate profits over human welfare.

“This expansive report illustrates that trade agreements like NAFTA and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) were always rooted in extraction and corporate greed,” said Christopher Zatratz, a legislative representative of the UAW. “The working class deserves a better way of life, regardless of where we come from.”

Representatives Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, and Casar, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, spoke to the centrality of trade in any structural immigration reform. Sánchez summed up Trump’s bait-and-switch approach to trade and immigration perfectly: “Trump has exacerbated economic pressures abroad while targeting immigrants to appeal to his MAGA base. The fact is that shutting down all legal pathways [to residency and citizenship], as this administration has done, doesn’t manage our borders.”

What’s Next?

Public Citizen and allies in and outside the United States are gearing up for an inflection point in the continent’s trade and migration history: a mandatory and first-of-its-kind review of USMCA. The review, due in 2026, is an opportunity to demand fixes to Trump’s USMCA, which has failed to reverse the race to the bottom that pits North American workers against each other.

Public Citizen has joined more than 600 labor and civil society organizations in a letter to the Trump administration about the reforms required to end the USMCA’s harms to working people across borders.

With continued pressure from engaged citizens and devoted members of Congress, we have a unique opportunity to not only turn the tide of American trade policy but also highlight the true costs of migration and displacement caused by trade.

It’s also a chance to hold Trump accountable for the lies he has fed the American people, both about our immigrant neighbors and his phony desire to upend the corporate-dominated global trade system. We will continue to fight against dehumanization and corporate greed to uplift the common dignity and rights of workers everywhere.

The post Not a Border Crisis, But a “Free Trade” Crisis appeared first on Public Citizen.

The White House and congressional Republicans are pushing an anti-regulatory agenda at warp speed that threatens public health and safety as well as long standing norms of legislative and regulatory procedure. Public Citizen is exposing how this is all being done to benefit Big Business, Big Banks, Big Polluters, Big Pharma, and Big Tech at the public’s expense. 

One powerful anti-regulatory tool Republicans used this Congress to advance a corporate agenda  is the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The CRA allows Congress to override final agency actions, such as rules that ensure clean air and water. Under the CRA, Congress can undo rules by passing a resolution of disapproval in both chambers – which only requires a simple majority in the Senate – that is then signed by the president. Typically, bills must overcome the filibuster with a 60-vote supermajority to pass in the Senate. The CRA offers the opportunity to sidestep the filibuster.

For example, in a handout to Big Polluters, Senate Republicans in May used the CRA to invalidate Clean Air Act waivers issued to California by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The waivers have long allowed California to establish protective pollution standards for auto fuel efficiency and other measures without being preempted by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) national standards. The Government Accountability Office and the senate parliamentarian found that the waiver should not be subject to the CRA but Senate Republicans simply ignored their findings.

Public Citizen fought hard to prevent this maneuver,sending a letter along with more than 80 other allies to Senate leadership explaining how his dangerous precedent will damage our democracy for the foreseeable future. The door has now been opened for the Senate to ignore the parliamentarian on other matters and pass more harmful measures by simple majority when a 60-vote threshold should be required – namely, through the upcoming budget reconciliation bill. Public Citizen may have lost the CRA fight, but the work to prevent future harms isn’t over. 

Congressional Republicans have many more anti-regulatory legislative priorities. In May, the House Oversight Committee referred two dangerous bills to the House for consideration: the Unfunded Mandates Accountability and Transparency Act (UMATA) (H.R. 580) and the Modernizing Retrospective Regulatory Review Act (H.R. 67). These bills seek to delegitimize and weaken the regulatory process that all of us rely on for protection from potential harms caused by regulated industries – like businesses that place unsafe products in the market or banks that engage in risky financial activities. 

UMATA would increase the private sector’s involvement in the rulemaking process at the expense of consumers, workers, the environment, and public health and safety, and it would further delay rulemaking. The Modernizing Retrospective Regulatory Review Act would force agencies to waste resources reviewing regulations already on the books, which will do nothing to protect Americans from under-regulated or unregulated hazards. Instead, it will drown government agencies in busy work and distract them from addressing significant threats to public health and safety, such as polluted drinking water, toxins in our food and products, or workplace safety hazards. Public Citizen is pushing back against all anti-regulatory bills this Congress to ensure they never become law. 

“Make no mistake: Trump’s deregulatory blitz from DOGE’s mass firings to dismantle entire agencies to gutting enforcement against corporate criminals will mean more preventable injuries and illnesses, more needless deaths, more consumer scams and ripoffs, more industrial disasters,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “These moves will help boost CEOs’ compensation packages and further skyrocket corporations’ record profits.”

The Trump administration’s anti-regulatory agenda is nearly boundless. In February, President Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14219, “Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Deregulatory Initiative.” EO 14219, in concert with its accompanying presidential memorandum issued in April, pushes an anti-regulatory agenda onto federal agencies by directing agency heads to identify and rescind so-called “unlawful regulations and regulations that undermine the national interest” primarily in accordance with, but not limited to, 10 Supreme Court cases. 

Furthermore, the EO calls on agencies to use something called the “good cause” exception to bypass the notice and comment rulemaking process, the democratic process that gives the public the opportunity to have their voice heard as agencies are writing rules. The “good cause” exception is a carveout under the Administrative Procedure Act – the federal law governing the rulemaking process – that allows agencies to forgo notice and comment when that process would be “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” The Trump administration is urging agencies to subjectively label rules as “unlawful” and roll them back without any chance for public input. 

Public Citizen is fighting back against the Republicans’ alarming and destructive anti-regulatory agenda by fighting for a regulatory system that works in the public interest, not for corporate special interests. We’re working in coalitions and educating members of Congress to reimagine a regulatory system that is transparent, responsive to the public’s needs, and isn’t heavily influenced by corporations and their lobbyists. Our health and safety shouldn’t be jeopardized by politicians and an administration who have an anti-regulatory, pro-corporate agenda and don’t want to play by the rules. 

The post The Republicans’ Anti-Regulatory Agenda appeared first on Public Citizen.

The future of artificial intelligence might hinge not just on chips and code, but on who controls the power to keep it all running. In Virginia, where hulking data centers loom like sealed fortresses on former farmland, a regulatory battle over a single gas-fired power plant hints at an approaching storm over energy monopolies, and the price our climate will be forced to pay for AI’s rapid development. 

Earlier this year, Public Citizen challenged a move by the private equity firm Blackstone to acquire an 800 megawatt gas-fired power plant just outside of Washington, D.C. The plant, located in Virginia’s Loudoun County, sits close to numerous power-hungry data centers, making it a potentially profitable acquisition for the massive private equity firm.

The acquisition is also part of a disturbing trend for energy customers across the country: large private equity firms have been purchasing land, data center companies, and power plants near major data center hubs to set themselves up to profit from a boom in AI usage that could create a run on energy across the United States.

The $1 billion proposal by Ares Management to sell the 800 MW Potomac Energy Center in Loudoun County, Va., to Blackstone raises concerns about anti-competitive practices by the world’s largest investment management company. (Blackstone’s CEO, Stephen A. Schwarzman, is a close confidant of President Trump and made $1 billion just last year alone.)

In Virginia — home to more than 25% of the entire data center capacity of the United States — Blackstone controls as much as 1,000 MW of the data center load.

In its attempt to take control of the gas power plant, Blackstone omitted its role in the data-center boom in a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

“Blackstone’s lawyers have argued that FERC has no current authority to assess an applicant’s control over data centers,” Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program told a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in April. “Then last summer, FERC was caught off guard when 30% of Virginia’s data centers suddenly went offline with a resulting surge in electricity nearly causing a blackout.”

Projections of exactly how much power will be required to meet the future needs of AI are wildly scattered.  At the April hearing, Slocum emphasized that forecasts of massive infrastructure investment—spurred by surging data-center growth—risks leaving consumers and taxpayers burdened with energy capacity beyond what will be needed to power AI. He warned of repeating the pattern seen in the early 2000s, when electricity forecasts severely overestimated actual demand due to unanticipated efficiency gains.

“Energy use per computation has decreased by 20% every year since 2010,” said Slocum. “There are ample opportunities to require or encourage data centers developing generative AI to pursue energy demand management programs, limiting the need for expensive new energy generation infrastructure.”

“I’m very concerned that President Trump’s decision to use emergency powers to usurp state and local laws will force taxpayers and ratepayers to cover the cost of hastily implemented energy infrastructure,” added Slocum. “Federal energy regulators seem to lack adequate authority to ensure that the demand for data center energy will not disrupt the current demand by homes and businesses.”

As part of Public Citizen’s filing with FERC, Slocum asserts that Blackstone’s application to FERC omits critical data, including the private equity firm’s substantial ownership of the data centers.

Over the past year, two alarming grid disruptions—in July 2024 and in February 2025—triggered a sudden shutdown of 1,500 MW and 1,800 MW of data‑center load, respectively.

“These disturbances nearly triggered cascading blackouts in PJM’s ‘data‑center alley’ around Loudoun and Fairfax counties,” said Slocum. “If Blackstone were to own the power plants providing energy to these data centers, the risk of anti‑competitive and abuse of consumer protections is very real.”

Hypothetically, Blackstone could manipulate energy markets, shifting its significant control of regional data center load away from its longtime consumers and moving it to power data centers.

In its filings with FERC, Blackstone doesn’t deny owning significant data center capacity in Virginia. But the private equity firm has neither confirmed exactly which data centers it owns, nor stated the load size in megawatts of such facilities, let alone divulged whether it is in the process of building additional data center capacity in the region.

In May, the company announced it would buy TXNM Energy, a monopoly utility in New Mexico and Texas with 800,000 customers whose only option is to buy electricity from the utility. The company already has controlling interests in the utilities FirstEnergy and Northern Indiana Public Service Company, and owns a huge fleet of fossil fuel power plants across the country, along with 7,000 miles of Tallgrass Energy’s pipelines. 

“Data centers consume so much energy because they’re filled with millions of microprocessors that are doing millions of computations each minute,” said Slocum. “As the use of AI expands, data centers should have to improve the energy efficiency of these facilities and of these microprocessors. There are ways we can ensure an AI future doesn’t accelerate climate change or drive up energy prices for consumers, but we need the companies to take measured steps today to ensure those protections.”

The post Blackstone’s AI Power Grab Faces Federal Scrutiny appeared first on Public Citizen.

For many Americans, the summer months bring to mind picnics, backyard barbeques, and other fun times with family and friends. Yet for the many workers who labor outside under the sun or inside in broiling temperatures, summer heat can be deadly. Sweltering temperatures also pose a lethal danger to behind-the-scenes laborers like warehouse workers and truck drivers who fulfill orders for consumer goods  that many of us will be taking on our summer camping trips and beach getaways.  

Public Citizen has long fought for enforceable safeguards to protect  all workers from exposure to high levels of heat, twice petitioning the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for a national heat standard. Those petitions have pointed out that excess heat exposure can cause illnesses ranging from heat rash, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, cardiac arrest, and even death. Symptoms of heat illness such as fatigue, sweating, loss of balance and motor coordination, and fainting also greatly increase the likelihood of workplace accidents, such as falling off ladders or roofs, or making mistakes while using power tools, operating vehicles, or working with dangerous chemicals.

It is estimated that 600 to 2,000 workers across the United States die every year due to excessive heat; as many as 170,000 workers across the country experience some form of heat illness or injury that can cause bodily damage and leave a permanent impact on their lives and their families’ livelihoods.

The danger from heat exposure is only intensifying as climate change impacts continue to worsen. Heat is already the leading weather-related killer, exceeding the lives lost to hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes. 2024 was a record year for high temperatures across the country. And this year has already seen some startling heat events, like temperature records being shattered across the East Coast during a June heat wave.

Relatively simple and affordable measures have proven extremely effective at protecting workers, like ensuring continuous access to water, ample breaks in a cool space, and making sure new employees are acclimatized before working in high temperatures. Federal worker protections are slowly making their way through the rulemaking process; in August 2024, in response to Public Citizen’s petition, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) finally issued a proposed rule to protect outdoor and indoor workers from heat injury and illness. The long-awaited proposal was a thoughtful and comprehensive rule that followed the science and the lived experience of workers. As with all rule proposals, there are areas where worker safeguards could have been strengthened but, on the whole, OSHA set forth a meaningful, enforceable, protective proposed rule that would educate employers and provide clarity on how to keep their workers safe, and give employees the much-needed protection from the effects of extreme heat that they require.

While OSHA is continuing its progress on the rulemaking, with hearings happening this summer, it seems unlikely this standard will fare well under the Trump administration, given its typical deregulatory bent. Public Citizen will continue to advocate for the rule as it moves forward to prevent the proposal from being defanged and to ensure that it continues to move forward in a timely manner.

Even in the best of times, it was expected that finalizing the federal heat standard would still take several years. And, with only a handful of state heat standards in place, the vast majority of employees lack simple heat protections like guaranteed shade, water, and rest. As an interim step, leaders in Congress will again champion the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness, Injury and Fatality Prevention Act. Named after a worker who tragically lost his life due to laboring in the heat without protections, this bill would direct OSHA to implement an enforceable interim heat standard that would be in effect until a final federal OSHA standard is issued. Public Citizen is again working with offices on the Hill and our diverse set of stakeholder partners in the Heat Stress Network to ensure as many offices as possible join this important interim measure as we await a strong and effective final heat rule from OSHA.

“The failure to protect workers – including especially vulnerable immigrant farm workers – is a long standing and absolute disgrace” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “The core elements of a heat standard are water, shade and rest. There’s nothing complicated about it. And there’s no excuse for further delay as temperatures continue to soar due to the worsening climate crisis.”

As summer temperatures continue to rise, Public Citizen will remain focused on keeping the heat on our nation’s leaders to finally ensure that every single worker has enforceable protections to keep them safe from dangerous heat in the workplace.

The post Heat Is Killing Workers. Public Citizen Demands Congress Act. appeared first on Public Citizen.