A political action committee associated with one of the country’s leading medical societies has given nearly $500,000 to lawmakers who have consistently voted against climate action — despite the society’s position that global warming is a public health crisis.
A new analysis by Harvard University researchers examined political donations from the American Medical Association-linked PAC and found that one-third of its donations went to lawmakers who opposed legislation to address climate change more than 90 percent of the time between 2020 and 2023.
“The American Medical Association is our largest medical society, and they have a lot of lobbying power, so to see the quantity of contributions going to legislators who work very aggressively against climate action, that is a huge concern,” said Gaurab Basu, an author of the study who teaches at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment.
Researchers looked at the voting records of congressional lawmakers on 50 climate-related bills over the three-year period. Those who supported environmental legislation more than 90 percent of the time were classified as pro-climate action, and those who opposed the measures more than 90 percent of the time were classified as anti-climate action. The researchers then looked at the contributions that the political action committee, known as AMPAC, gave to members of the House Senate during the 118th Congress.
