Follow us on social

Shutterstock_1689224182-e1690397797338

Congress looks to gut emissions reporting requirements for military contractors

Lawmakers want to make it harder to determine the ecological impact of weapons manufacturers, and activists aren’t happy.

Global Crises

The defense policy bills that passed the House and Senate last month each include provisions that would block public reporting on greenhouse gas emissions by military contractors, according to a new open letter from more than two dozen activist groups and research organizations.

“[W]e urge you to ensure that this bill is not used to protect defense contractors from accounting for their role in driving climate change,” they wrote in a letter addressed to the leaders of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. “In a budget authorization that expands funding for the most polluting sector of our government yet again, this carve-out for defense contractors is a particularly egregious attempt to shirk even the possibility of future emissions reductions.”

The letter’s signatories include the Center for International Policy, Just Foreign Policy, the Project on Government Oversight, Win Without War and the Quincy Institute, which publishes Responsible Statecraft.

The open letter comes amid a growing debate over how to balance America’s world-spanning military — which emits more greenhouse gasses each year than most countries — with the Biden administration’s efforts to fight climate change. Researchers have been able to get reasonable estimates of the Pentagon’s annual emissions, but data on emissions produced by weapons contractors is far harder to come by and often relies on back-of-the-napkin math. Research from Neta Crawford of Brown University suggests that the U.S. military industry may actually emit more than the Department of Defense itself.

The White House proposed a regulation last year that would force all major federal contractors to disclose their emissions and create a plan to reduce them, but lawmakers in both chambers of Congress quietly added carve-outs for the defense industry in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The Senate NDAA includes provisions that would remove the emissions reporting requirements for “nontraditional defense contractors” and place a two-year moratorium on the regulation for the rest of the weapons industry. This is tantamount to “attempting to run out the clock on federal enforcement of the rule, likely in hopes that a different administration will roll it back completely,” the letter argues.

The House version of the NDAA is more direct. It completely bans the implementation of the policy as well as “any substantially similar rule” and exempts the military from an executive order aimed at fighting climate change.

Given the differences in the two NDAAs, the administration will have a chance to argue against these carve-outs as the bills go to conference. But it remains to be seen whether the White House will be able to find a deal to protect the regulation.


Photo: ItzaVU via shutterstock.com
Global Crises
Xi Jinping Donald Trump Vladimir Putin
Top image credit: Frederic Legrand - COMEO, Joey Sussman, miss.cabul via shutterstock.com

Why Trump won't get Afghanistan's Bagram base back

Middle East

In a September 20 Truth Social post, President Trump threatened the Taliban, declaring, “If Afghanistan doesn’t give Bagram Airbase back… BAD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!!” He now wants the military base he once negotiated away as part of the U.S. withdrawal agreement his first administration signed in 2019.

Not unexpectedly, the Taliban quickly refused, noting “under the Doha Agreement, the United States pledged that ‘it will not use or threaten force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Afghanistan, nor interfere in its internal affairs.’” And with China now deeply entrenched in post-war Afghanistan, it’s likely Beijing will ensure that the threat remains little more than another off-the-cuff comment that should not be taken literally nor seriously.

keep readingShow less
Populist, EU-Ukraine skeptic wins big in Czech elections
Top photo credit: Leader of ANO party Andrej Babis speaks during a press conference after the preliminary results of the parliamentary election, at the party's election headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic, October 4, 2025. REUTERS/Radovan Stoklasa

Populist, EU-Ukraine skeptic wins big in Czech elections

Europe

Nationalist populist Andrej Babiš scored a decisive win in the Czech Republic’s parliamentary elections held over the weekend. With the vote count almost finalized, the ANO (“Yes”) party of former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš had 35% of the vote with incumbent Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s centrist Spolu (“Together”) coalition in second place with around 23%.

ANO’s victory margin exceeds the forecasts of pre-election polling, which anticipated a gap of about ten percentage points.

keep readingShow less
Safra Catz tiktok oracle israel
Top photo credit: Safra A. Catz, CEO of Oracle, prepares to place a memorial candle on the day Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump participates in an event commemorating the one-year anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, at his golf resort in Doral, Florida, U.S., October 7, 2024. REUTERS/Marco Bello

Oracle execs: Love Israel or maybe this isn't the job for you

Middle East

TikTok’s impending sale to a group of U.S. investors led by Oracle was supposed to alleviate concerns about foreign influence over the popular social media platform. But a series of statements in Israeli media outlets by company executives including Executive Vice Board Chair and former CEO Safra Catz, reveal the company's commitment to Israel is “unequivocal" and is not shy about squelching criticism of Israel internally.

These statements raise questions about how Oracle might exercise its impending ownership role at TikTok, a platform popular with young adults who are often critical of U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza and Israel’s killing of Palestinian civilians, which a U.N. commission recently characterized as a “genocide.”

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.