Media Contact:
Camila Ruiz-Gallardo, camilarg@earthworks.org
WASHINGTON — The war unfolding in Iran is, first and foremost, a human tragedy. More than 1,200 civilians have reportedly been killed, seven American service members have died, and many more have been wounded as the conflict escalates. The full human cost of this war is still unfolding, but the consequences will be felt by families, communities, and the entire region long after the bombs stop falling.
Sadly, during this time, America’s largest oil, gas, and mining companies are doing what they always do when the world is on fire: making money. This is not just a war of human catastrophe; it is a wealth transfer engineered by an administration that was purchased by the very industries now profiting from the conflict. Big Oil spent over $200 million getting Trump elected. In return, they’ve received $18 billion in tax breaks, allies inside every agency meant to regulate them, and now a war that has handed them a captive global market.
The math is simple and damning. With Qatar’s LNG offline and the Strait of Hormuz essentially closed, global supply has cratered by 20%, and American companies are rerouting exports to whoever pays the most. Meanwhile, American families pay more at the pump, on their utility bills, and at the grocery store as fertilizer prices spike alongside fuel prices. The same exports driving those profits were already projected to raise domestic gas prices, but the war has accelerated and multiplied that.
Americans are being squeezed from both ends. On the back end, our tax dollars are subsidizing the very industries profiting from this war. On the front end, those same companies are driving up the cost of gas and groceries, taking yet more money from our pockets. There is no version of this where ordinary people come out ahead; they are, in effect, left subsidizing an industry that is pricing them out of their own energy supply.
The war is also turbocharging a quieter extraction grab happening under American and foreign soil. The Defense Department recently bought shares in critical-minerals companies to secure supplies of materials for weapons and military infrastructure. Taking over $1 billion in direct equity stakes in private mining companies makes the federal government a financial partner in industries that it is supposed to hold accountable. The administration has taken advantage of the moment to fast-track mining permits on public lands, dismantle environmental reviews, and relegate tribal consultation requirements that have protected Indigenous communities for decades. The administration has made itself a financial partner in the mining industry while stripping away environmental reviews and tribal consent processes that exist to protect people. That isn’t governance; that is a conflict of interest written into policy.
The full cost of the war cannot yet be counted. Bombing fossil fuel infrastructure releases a toxic cascade–hydrogen sulfide, benzene, and other toxic compounds don’t stay within borders. They spread through the air, water, and soil, compounding the existing negative health impacts already faced by communities living in the shadow of extraction. Every pipeline ruptured, refinery struck, or well set on fire is a climate event as well as a military one because it releases greenhouse gases at a scale and speed we cannot offset or absorb. These consequences will outlast the war by decades.
A system that treats war as a market opportunity and public land as a corporate subsidy has its priorities exactly backwards. People’s lives, their health, and this planet are not acceptable collateral damage for corporate profit. We cannot normalize a government and actions that believe otherwise.