Forever Chemicals. Forever Corporate Rule

On July 1, the Trump administration abandoned a proposed scientific risk assessment that could have led to stronger protections against spreading PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge on American farmland—even though these “forever chemicals” have poisoned water, contaminated food, killed livestock and been linked to cancer, and have been shown to damage DNA.

Follow the money.

During just the first six months of 2025, 17 corporations and industry groups connected to PFAS spent as much as $60 million lobbying the EPA and $12 million lobbying the Trump White House on PFAS-related issues. These interests included Dow, 3M, DuPont, Chemours, the American Chemistry Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Now protections for farmers, families and our drinking water are being discarded.

This is what corporate rule looks like: corporations manufacture toxic chemicals, spend millions influencing our government and leave ordinary people to carry the medical, emotional and financial consequences.

For my family, those consequences are deeply personal—and they are one reason I choose to work for Move to Amend. Overturning Citizens United alone is not enough. We must dismantle the entire constitutional framework that allows corporate power and concentrated wealth to override human rights, public health and our environment.

Five Constitutional Paths to Democracy Reform: Why the We the People Amendment Is the Most Comprehensive Solution

For more than a century, Americans have struggled with a fundamental question:

Who should govern our democracy—the people or concentrated wealth?

Today, that question has taken on new urgency. Billionaires spend unprecedented sums to influence elections. Corporate lobbyists write legislation. Super PACs dominate campaign fundraising. Artificial intelligence companies are becoming some of the most powerful corporations in history. Meanwhile, Americans across the political spectrum believe the political system is rigged. 

Many agree something must change.

Congress is now considering five proposed constitutional amendments that seek to address money in politics and the influence of powerful interests.

While they all recognize the problem, they offer very different solutions.

Some regulate campaign finance.

Some establish new election rules.

Only one seeks to change the constitutional doctrines that made corporate political power possible in the first place.

From Protest to Power: Building the Movement for Constitutional Change

In Part 1 of this series, we explored how resistance to concentrated economic power helped spark the American Revolution itself. In Part 2, we examined how corporations gradually acquired constitutional rights that appear nowhere in the Constitution and were never intended by its framers. In Part 3, we looked at America's amendment eras and how ordinary people have repeatedly organized to expand democracy and rewrite the rules when the existing system no longer served the public.

That history brings us to the question before us today:

How does constitutional change actually happen?

In Part 1 of this series, we explored how resistance to concentrated economic power helped spark the American Revolution itself. In Part 2, we examined how corporations gradually acquired constitutional rights that were never mentioned in the Constitution and were never intended by its framers.

Together, those histories reveal an important truth: democracy has never been static.

Throughout American history, ordinary people have repeatedly organized to expand political participation, challenge concentrations of power, and push the Constitution closer to its democratic promise.

Constitutional change is not a rare accident.

It is a recurring feature of American democracy

For generations, peace activists—including veterans who’ve seen the reality of war firsthand—have taken to the streets to say “No more.”

And yet, the wars continue.

Because opposing war is not enough
if we don’t dismantle the system that drives it.

In this powerful reflection, Mike Ferner challenges all of us to confront a deeper truth:

We’ve become experts at fighting fires.
But what would it take to stop them from being set?

This Earth Day, we're not just confronting a climate crisis, we're confronting a political one. At the very moment our communities need stronger safeguards for clean air, safe water, and a livable future, environmental protections are being stripped back, regulatory agencies are being hollowed out, and the industries driving pollution are being rewarded. Fossil fuel interests poured roughly $219 million into the 2024 U.S. election cycle, helping shape an administration and Congress more willing to serve oil, gas, and extraction companies than the public.

Thank you again for being part of No Kings Day 3.

Across the country — in big cities and small towns alike — people stepped into the streets, into public squares, into community spaces… and into something bigger than themselves.

Strangers became allies.
Conversations turned into clarity.
And a shared feeling rippled through it all:

We are not alone — and we are not powerless.

Now the question is: how do we turn that moment into momentum?

How did corporations gain constitutional rights in the first place?

It was never voted on..
There was no national debate.
No constitutional amendment.

Yet today, corporations can claim constitutional protections and spend unlimited money in elections.

How did that happen?

Understanding the answer reveals how power in America has evolved.

While communities face rising energy bills, climate disasters, unaffordable healthcare and shrinking public budgets, oil and gas corporations are thriving — propped up by tens of billions in federal subsidies.

How much public money are they receiving?

That depends on how you count.

Conservative estimates of direct federal subsidies — including tax breaks, discounted leasing rates, royalty reductions, and industry-specific deductions — place fossil fuel support at roughly $30–35 billion per year, a sharp increase from prior years after additional subsidies and favorable provisions were expanded in 2025

But broader analyses that include state and local incentives, indirect supports, and systemic advantages put the number far higher — often cited around $80 billion annually or more.

And if you include the true societal costs — public health impacts, climate damage, environmental cleanup, and military expenditures tied to securing global oil supply — economists estimate the effective public cost climbs into the hundreds of billions per year.

Lives have already been lost — American service members and civilians in the region — while military operations move forward at accelerating speed.

This conflict is unfolding inside a political system shaped by Gulf sovereign wealth, multi-billion-dollar arms deals, expanded U.S. military aid to Israel, defense industry lobbying, and tens of millions in election spending.

The State of the Union was presented as a celebration of “strength” and “prosperity.”

But for millions of people struggling to pay rent, afford groceries, survive medical debt, or keep their farms and small businesses afloat, it sounded like something else entirely:

A victory speech for corporate America — and one filled with multiple false or misleading claims about the economy, jobs, inflation, immigration, and key policy outcomes, according to independent fact-checkers.

1776 Was Only the Beginning

Series Introduction 

Two hundred fifty years ago, the Boston Tea Party was not just a protest over tea—it was a rebellion against corporate rule. 

The British East India Company was granted special privileges by the Crown, allowed to undercut local merchants, and shielded by a distant government that ignored the will of the people. Colonists recognized what we still face today: when corporations are given political power, democracy erodes.

Move to Amend carries forward that unfinished revolution, working to end the legal doctrines that grant corporations constitutional rights and treat money as free speech. Just as the patriots dumped tea to oppose governance shaped by corporate monopoly, we organize today to build what democracy has always promised — a system where We the People, not corporate entities, decide the direction of our democracy.

Every generation has been forced to ask the same question in its own time: who governs — concentrated power, or the people?

As the country approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Move to Amend is launching a new series, Declaration of Independence from Corporate Rule, to explore that question in the present moment.

In the months ahead, we will look at how corporations gained constitutional rights, why so many of today’s crises share a common root, and how constitutional change has historically expanded democracy when existing systems no longer served the public good.

This series is not about looking backward. It is about understanding the work that remains unfinished — and the role each generation plays in carrying democracy forward.

Black History Month is often framed as a time of remembrance — a moment to honor courage, sacrifice, and achievement. But Black history is not only about what has been overcome. It is a warning about how fragile democracy can be, and a reminder that freedom in the United States has only ever expanded when people forced it to.

Corporate lobbying just hit record levels — who is government really working for?

Something important is happening in Washington right now — and most people only see it in fragments.

Banks are increasing lobbying spending. Tech companies are flooding Washington with influence campaigns. Defense contractors and financial firms are expanding their political operations. Lobbying firms themselves are reporting record profits as corporations race to shape policy before it is written.

This isn’t speculation. It’s happening in plain sight

The U.S. Constitution was never a democratic document.

It was written to protect the political and economic power of a narrow ruling class: white male property owners. Enslaved people were excluded. Women were excluded. Indigenous nations were excluded. Poor people were excluded. Democracy, such as it exists at all in the United States, was not a gift from the founders — it was wrestled into existence through centuries of struggle.

The Constitution only began to move toward democracy through amendments: evidence of popular pressure forcing the system to expand who counts as “We the People.”

The People’s Movement Our Future Depends On

As we reflect on 2025, one truth stands out clearly: this was not a normal year—and the challenges we face demand systemic solutions.

Across the country and around the world, people confronted deepening crises: unchecked corporate power, rising authoritarianism, accelerating climate devastation, economic precarity, and political systems increasingly unresponsive to the will of the people.

Today, we are happy to share our 2025 Annual Report: Building Power for a Real Democracy—the story of what you helped build

Before we rush into the intensity of 2026, I want to take a moment with you — a breath, a look back, a recognition.

The story of 2025 is not only one of crisis— it is also the story of a people who refused to back down. It’s the story of communities who organized, educated, marched, petitioned, built networks of solidarity, demanded constitutional change, and expanded a movement rooted in justice and real democracy

Move to Amend — and democracy itself — need you right now.

Tonight, we arrive at the longest night of the year—the Winter Solstice—when darkness stretches to its fullest breath and the world seems to hold still. For generations, people have gathered at this threshold not in surrender, but in quiet faith that the light is beginning to return.

Our democracy stands in a solstice moment of its own.

The night feels long. Corporate money still floods our elections. Corporate power still drowns out the voices of the people. Authoritarian forces press their advantage, measuring how much we will endure.

And yet—this moment, too, carries a promise.

The We the People Amendment is the most fundamental and comprehensive solution to the deep, systemic crises we’re facing—not just the corrupting influence of money in politics, but the entire framework of corporate rule that has hijacked our democracy.

Right now, every front of justice is under assault: climate collapse, immigration, endless war, healthcare, workers' rights. And while those fires need to be fought—we also need to step back and name the arsonist.

Corporations, armed with constitutional rights they were never meant to have, are behind the curtain of every major injustice.