Josh Voorhees

@joshvoorhees

muckraker @fieldnotes.co, an oil & gas watchdog | past: senior writer @slate.com + (an!) organizer @slateunion.bsky.social | MPH, Johns Hopkins | climate, labor, public health | DM for Signal then hit me w/tips on pipelines, petchem, plastics, PFAS, etc

996 Folgt2.509 Follower266 Posts

Bluesky

Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir joshvoorhees.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· 11d

It wasn't just Harold Hamm (seen above riding in an Israeli tank, and below meeting face-to-face with Netanyahu in 2013). Execs from the American Petroleum Institute and a dozen other oil trade lobbies were also part of the push, too.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· 22d

“I really don’t feel bad. These folks are driving down the road with the $80,000 F-150 and we’re at about $4 gas.” — Oil billionaire Harold Hamm. fieldnotes.co/reporting/ha...

Screenshot of AAA national average gas price at $4.02

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· 27d

Fracking magnate and MAGA megadonor Harold Hamm, whose estimated net worth is $20bn, added: “It’s all relative.” via @us.theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Screen grab from linked article; includes same quote in tweet.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· 27d

Come for Harold Hamm’s influence on Trump; stick around for the photo of him riding in a tank while on a trip to Israel—where he also met with Netanyahu. Full investigation @fieldnotes.co : fieldnotes.co/reporting/ha...

Annotated screengrab showing a photo of Harold Hamm and another oil executive riding in an Israeli tank.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· 27d

How did Trump misjudge the risks of an Iran war so badly? Ask his 'original oil guy, seen here riding in a tank during a trip he took to Israel (where he also met with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu).

Oil billionaire Harold Hamm rides in an Israeli tank; photo is annotated with a circle highlighting Hamm.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· 27d

📸And the short version is this photo of Harold Hamm riding in an Israeli tank.

Annotated image showing Harold Hamm riding in a tank during a trip to Israel.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Mar 11

A shady oil & gas legal group. A cadre of Trump appointees. A couple million in ultra-conservative dark $$$. Oh, and an otherwise nondescript Texas strip mall. All are part of the Endangerment whodunnit:

Text reads: The nonprofit, the Center for Environmental Accountability, has no physical office space; its only known address is a rented mailbox in a nondescript, third-party shipping store nestled between the nail salon and a vacant storefront in the Mayflower plaza. That is, to put it mildly, a curious home for a group that claims, as CEA does, to champion “transparency and accountability in environmental and energy policy.”

Then again, it’s also a fitting one for a group that passes dark money from deep-pocketed conservative orgs to well-connected oil & gas lawyers, and then passes the work of those same attorneys off as its own to the government—all while taking steps to obscure its ties to nearly every corner of the climate-denial movement, as CEA does as well.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Mar 11

An obscure oil & gas legal group. A cadre of Trump appointees. A couple million in ultra-conservative dark $$$. Oh, and an otherwise nondescript Texas strip mall. The @fieldnotes.co newsletter on who, exactly, killed the Endangerment Finding: fieldnotes.substack.com/p/an-endange...

Test reads: But look closer, as we did, and you’ll find something else: a shadowy nonprofit that has been key to Donald Trump’s ongoing assault on climate and environmental policy, including last month’s reversal of the endangerment finding—aka “the single largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.”

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Mar 9

CEA passes dark money from deep-pocketed conservative organizations to well-connected oil & gas lawyers, and then passes the work of those same attorneys off as its own to the government. And it does both while taking steps to obscure its ties to nearly every corner of the climate-denial movement.

Flow chart showing how CEA acts as both a middleman and mouthpiece for oil interests and far right orgs funded by dark money

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Mar 6

CEA is also pulling double duty—scratch that, *triple duty*—as a revolving door with the Trump admin. fieldnotes.co/reporting/ce...

Infographic showing seven CEA-affiliated lawyers working for fossil-fuel interests in between their first and second stints in the Trump administration.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Mar 6

Turns out, his successors feel similarly about talking about their time at CEA. fieldnotes.co/reporting/ce...

Screenshot from article, reading: Paul Salamanca, a University of Kentucky law professor and former Trump official, took over as CEA president when Marie returned to DOJ last year. In an email to Fieldnotes, Salamanca said that he left the group at the start of October 2025, and declined to answer specific questions about CEA’s work. Similarly, Anne Idsal Austin, a former Trump official who also led Trump’s second EPA transition team, is listed as CEA's principal officer on the group's most recent publicly available tax filing. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Mar 6

Screenshot of article that reads: CEA is registered with the government at a rented mailbox in a small, third-party shipping store alongside a nail salon, massage parlor, boba tea shop, and marijuana dispensary in a Dallas-Fort Worth suburban shopping plaza. A private mailbox, according to the shipping store’s website, offers both “Anonymity & Privacy” and, unlike a PO Box, “a ‘real address’ [that] creates a more professional appearance for your business.”

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Mar 6

And for you visual learners, here's how the group acts as both a mouthpiece for and middleman between ultra-conservative groups and oil & gas lawyers. fieldnotes.co/reporting/ce...

A flow chart showing how money moves from ultra-conservative groups to oil & gas lawyers via the Center for Environmental Accountability.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Feb 12

Via @grist.org: grist.org/politics/tru...

Screenshot of article reads: Nevertheless, API pioneered many of the arguments now wielded against the endangerment finding. In 1999, the group held a meeting of industry lobbyists who strategized challenges to an early EPA proposal to regulate greenhouse gases, according to documents first reported by DeSmog and compiled by Fieldnotes, a research group focused on the oil and gas industry. At the meeting, the API circulated a legal analysis noting that there is “no clear-cut, explicit answer in statute” on the greenhouse gas question, and that “CO2 does not endanger public health and welfare and there are no cost-effective systems of emission control.” In 2008, after the Massachusetts decision, the group argued that the EPA had not produced “sufficient evidence of potential effects and harm,” and it opposed reducing tailpipe emissions in the U.S. on the grounds that this would not end climate change on its own.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Dec 18

Come for the free-speech stakes; stay for the part where I find the connection between an otherwise random insurance agent who is the front group’s on-paper president and the high-powered shadow lobbyist behind the elaborate astroturf campaign. fieldnotes.substack.com/p/inside-a-p...

Title card reading Energy Transfer Has a Make-Believe 'Friend' along with a photo collage of Kelcy Warren, a gas pipeline, and dollar dollar bills.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Dec 18

There were plenty of signs that it was an Energy Transfer front, but we'd have never known for sure if an ET exec didn't admit it under oath during a 2023 deposition. She estimated the company was spending $1MM+ per year.

Screenshot of deposition showing Energy Transfer executive admitting to the company spent $100,000 per month to keep the front group running.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Nov 20

This @taracopp.bsky.social & @michelleboorstein.bsky.social lede isn’t messing around www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Screenshot of text that reads: The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika, an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the murder of millions of Jews and that more than 400,000 U.S. troops died fighting against in World War II, as a hate symbol, according to a new policy that takes effect next month.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Aug 26

Can confirm www.nbcnews.com/politics/rcn...

Screenshot of article with highlighted text that reads: “Another thing the Joshes have in common is that they’re constantly being gifted bottles of Josh wine — a common experience, they say, for any Josh.”

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Aug 2

This after Kelcy Warren gave more than $13MM to Trump + Trump-backing groups in 2024:

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Aug 2

Among the biggest donors to Trump this year: Kelcy Warren & Energy Transfer. They gave a total of $25 MILLION this year to the MAGA Inc pac—half from Warren and half from the company. docquery.fec.gov/pdf/210/2025...

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Apr 17

Among the AI characters the company offers to police is the “radicalized” protest persona of “Heidi,” which pretends to be a 36yo divorced woman from SF who is “lonely,” w/ “no children.” www.404media.co/this-college...

A slide from the company presentation describing an “Example of Protest Persona.”

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Feb 20

Chris Kluwe: “I will now engage in the time-honored American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience.” Fox News: “Former NFL punter calls for violence after arrest for rushing council over MAGA plaque”

Screenshot of Fox News headline that reads: “Former NFL punter calls for violence after arrest for rushing council over MAGA plaque”

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Feb 19

Not the first time Energy Transfer chairman Kelcy Warren's Trump donations are relevant; won't be the last. He gave more than $13MM to Trump + Trump-backing groups in 2024:

A screenshot of the FEC database showing Kelcy Warren gave $5 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC, $7.5 million to Turnout For America, and more than $800,000 to the Trump 47 Committee.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Feb 18

Reminder: Kelcy Warren spent $13+ Million to help Trump get elected. (In addition to raising $$$ from his oil & gas buddies). Via FEC database:

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Feb 14

It's subtle, but if you look very closely you can see that my graphic design skills have improved of the past few months...

A poorly photoshop-ed image of Dennis Quaid reading a copy of the New York Times featuring a story about his involvement in a plastics propaganda campaign.

A well-designed flow chart detailing how Lee Zeldin took money from both sides of the ESG fight.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Feb 13

BlackRock didn't want to comment on w/ what we found. But their response was ... something.

Screenshot from story. Text reads: Reached for comment and informed of the evidence on which this investigation is based, a BlackRock representative did not deny that the company hired DCI Group. Instead, the spokesperson downplayed the importance of the op-ed. “I would assume zeldin [sic] had much larger/more significant payments than the dci oped [sic]," Christopher Van Es, Blackrock's director of corporate communications, texted Fieldnotes. Van Es, who had previously communicated via phone, text, and email, did not respond to follow-up questions.

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Feb 11

No wonder Energy Transfer’s Kelcy Warren spent $13MM+ to get Trump elected. Trump I preserved what oil barons like him already had (in Warren’s case saving his Dakota Access pipeline); Trump II promises them everything they want and more. [10/]

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Feb 11

Kelcy Warren’s Energy Transfer inked a major deal this week to sell natural gas to an “AI-focused” data center-to-be. The deal hasn't gotten tons of attention (bc, um, rhymes w/ shm-onstitutional shm-ises) but it illustrates the troika that is AI, oil & gas, and MAGA. 🧵[1/]

Screenshot of Energy Transfer press release with headline:
“Energy Transfer and CloudBurst Sign Agreement for Natural Gas Supply to Data Center Project in Central Texas

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Jan 27

The DeepSeek news reminds me of Michael Lewis' essay on mine safety. (Stay with me!) In short, they invented a revolutionary tech—roof bolts—in the '50s that could save tons of lives. Instead, industry used it to mine more while killing miners at the same rate www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/int...

Passage from Washington Post article, with highlighted passage that reads: "The coal mine companies had, in effect, figured out how few roof bolts they needed to use to maintain the same level of risk their miners had endured before their invention. “Simply stated,” Chris wrote, “roof bolts can only prevent roof falls if enough of them are installed.”

And so, amazingly, for the first 20 years of its use, the main effect of the most important lifesaving technology in the history of coal mining was to increase the efficiency of the mines while preserving existing probabilities of death and injury. Taking advantage, essentially, of people conditioned to a certain level of risk by failing to ameliorate that risk."

Josh Voorhees@joshvoorhees· Dec 12

www.nytimes.com/2024/11/27/c...