Since the late 1980s, just 100 companies have been responsible for 71 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst publish annual lists of the top corporate air and water polluters and top greenhouse gas emitters in the U.S. They have just released the latest data amid widespread fear that our environmental crisis will rapidly worsen in the next four years as the Trump administration rolls back regulations and stalls climate action at the federal level.

In the interview that follows, Michael Ash, professor of economics at UMass Amherst and one of the main researchers behind the PERI project tracking U.S. corporate pollution, shares the latest data identifying the biggest corporate polluters, discusses the potential impact of Donald Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” policy and offers his thoughts on how activists can push back against corporate polluters. The interview that follows has been lightly edited for clarity.

C. J. Polychroniou: PERI has released the latest yearly editions of the Greenhouse 100 Polluters, Suppliers and Coal Indexes, and Toxic 100 Air and Water Polluters Indexes. These track the environmental performance of U.S.-based industrial activity and identify those corporations that produce the largest share of emissions as well as air and water pollution. You are one of the main PERI researchers behind this project, so which industrial corporations are the biggest polluters according to the most recent data, from 2022?

Michael Ash: In terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the top polluters are the large electrical generators, with Vistra Energy, Southern Company, Duke Energy, Berkshire Hathaway (which has a large generating portfolio) and American Electric Power topping the list. In fact, ExxonMobil is the only nonelectricity corporation in the Greenhouse Top 10. The dominance of electricity is not surprising because much energy in the U.S. is still produced by burning fossil fuels (around 60 percent in 2023 according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration). The coal share of U.S. electricity has declined a lot, but natural gas has expanded.

The Toxic100.org looks at industrial toxics, corporate facilities’ release of roughly 600 highly toxic substances into the environment. Here the profile is a bit different, with large chemical, plastics and rubber, and petroleum-processors at the top of the list. Dow, ExxonMobil and Tesla (largely due to the latter’s heavy metals waste at its Sparks, Nevada, battery gigafactory) are ranked high on either or both the Toxic Air and Toxic Water lists.

A dimension we added recently is the supply of greenhouse gas precursors into the economy — basically the extraction and processing or imports of oil, coal or natural gas. At the top of the Greenhouse Suppliers list are large refiners, Marathon, ExxonMobil, Valero and Phillips 66, joined by a big coal producer, Peabody Corporation.

Do we know how emissions from top industrial polluters compare with gross emissions from entire states?

It seems clear that the Trump administration will give fossil fuel companies free rein, adding to the climate crisis. The new power plant rules are a case in point.

That’s a good question and I don’t have the data to draw comparisons. But we see extraordinary disproportionality in........

© Truthout