Month: November 2025

Is the DOJ Serious About Investigating Beef Price-Fixing?

Apparently shaken by the Democratic gains in this month’s elections, Donald Trump has changed his tune on the economy. He still tries to get us to believe everything is marvelous, but at the same time he has rolled out a series of proposals designed to give the impression he is addressing the affordability crisis.

Most of these initiatives do not amount to much. The rollback of tariffs on some food products is easing an aspect of inflation Trump himself caused. The idea of getting banks to offer 50-year home mortgages would result in modest monthly savings for borrowers while causing them to pay much more in interest over the life of the loan and slow the rate at which they build equity in their homes. It is unclear whether the deals he has been making with pharmaceutical companies will result in significant cost reductions for consumers. The suggestion that Obamacare subsidies be replaced with payments to health savings accounts would result in the proliferation of junk insurance policies and financial ruin for those with serious health conditions.

What these initiatives also have in common is that they do not challenge corporate interests in any significant way. The one possible exception to this is Trump’s call for a probe of price fixing in the beef industry.

Earlier this month, Trump put out a social media post asking the Justice Department to “immediately begin an investigation of into the Meat Packing Companies who are driving up the price of Beef through illicit collusion, Price Fixing, and Price Manipulation.”

So far, so good. But Trump went on to refer to “Majority Foreign Owned Meat Packers,” suggesting that his real aim was xenophobic. A related White House press release was headlined “Trump Administration Cracks Down on Foreign-Owned Meat Packing Cartels.” The release went on to name what it called the Big Four meat packers—”JBS (Brazil), Cargill, Tyson Foods, and National Beef”—noting that two of them “are either foreign-owned or have significant foreign ownership and control.” (National Beef is controlled by Brazil’s Marfrig.)

It is not surprising that Trump is willing to criticize foreign corporate interests when the country involved has been the target of his scorn because of the supposed mistreatment of its former president Jair Bolsonaro, whose supporters mounted a January 6-style attack on the seat of government.

This is not to deny that the Brazilian beef giants have engaged in anti-competitive practices, yet there is no indication that their market behavior has been significantly worse than that of U.S.-based Cargill and Tyson Foods.

All four companies have been entangled in legal disputes over alleged collusion and price-fixing, yet those cases have involved private litigation rather than government enforcement actions. JBS has already paid out $160 million in settlements in class action suits filed in U.S. courts by different categories of beef purchasers.

Additional cases brought against JBS as well as Cargill, Tyson Foods, and National Beef have been consolidated in a multidistrict action now centered in federal court in Minnesota. The litigation alleges that from at least 2015 the four companies agreed among themselves to reduce live cattle purchasing and slaughter volumes for the purpose and effect of increasing their margins.

The plaintiffs charge that the companies accomplished and perpetuated this agreement through collusion at trade association conferences and industry events between executives and key employees, and through ensuing collusive relationships. This anti-competitive activity, the plaintiffs say, caused them to pay artificially and illegally inflated prices for boxed beef, which in turn elevated prices for consumers.

It is not at all clear that the Trump Administration will be as aggressive as the plaintiffs’ lawyers in attacking beef industry collusion. Attorney General Pam Bondi responded to Trump’s tweet by saying an investigation was already underway. Yet the DOJ’s Antitrust Division has been less than dynamic under Trump 2.0. No significant price-fixing action against a corporation has been resolved this year.

The seriousness of the Administration’s move against the big meatpackers was also put into question by the ridiculous statements of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggesting that high beef prices are the result of reductions in the supply of cattle caused by diseased animals brought into the country by illegal immigrants.

In the end, the DOJ’s beef investigation may turn out to be no more effective in addressing affordability than any of the other gimmicks Trump has offered.

The Other Sins of the Big Greenhouse Gas Emitters

As the COP30 climate talks take place in Brazil, the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has just published its latest list of the corporations that contribute the most to the global warming crisis in the United States. Unfortunately, PERI warns that this version of the Greenhouse 100 Polluters Index may be its last.

That is because the Trump Administration, as part of its effort to dismiss the climate crisis as a hoax, has suspended the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. Since 2018 PERI has collected facility data reported under the program and linked it to corporate owners in preparing its rankings of the biggest emitters.

This year’s index once again finds fossil-fuel based utilities, petrochemical producers, and petroleum refiners dominating the list. PERI points out that the top three companies (see below) are responsible for nearly 4 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from all sources.

It should come as no surprise that many of the top emitters also feature prominently on the Violation Tracker (VT) database of companies that have paid the most in regulatory penalties.

Yet that is not because they have been penalized significantly for their climate sins. Even before Trump 2.0, environmental regulations in the U.S. have largely ignored greenhouse gas levels. The companies at the top of the PERI list have, instead, been fined for other environmental offenses.

Vistra Energy, which tops the PERI rankings with over 86 million metric tons of annual CO2 emissions, has a total of $525 million in environmental penalties documented in VT. Most of that comes from a Clean Air Act settlement its power generation subsidiary Dynegy signed with the U.S. Justice Department, the EPA, and the State of Illinois designed to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from power plants. PERI’s data shows that Vistra’s plants are emitting large levels of greenhouse gases in Illinois and elsewhere.

Number two on the PERI list is utility giant Southern Company, whose operations account for about 76 million metric tons of CO2 each year. Southern’s VT environmental penalty total is $207 million. Most of this comes from a settlement its subsidiary Alabama Power reached with the DOJ and the EPA also involving reductions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. That settlement dealt with emissions from the James H. Miller Jr. plant, which PERI shows accounts for the largest portion of Southern Company CO2 emissions, at over 16 million metric tons. That makes it one of the largest greenhouse gas sources in the country.

Third in the PERI ranking is another utility behemoth, Duke Energy, which accounts for about 73 million metric tons of CO2 emissions. Duke Energy’s VT environmental total is $2.5 billion. That figure reflects both air pollution and water pollution penalties. The latter includes a case in which three Duke subsidiaries pleaded guilty to nine criminal violations of the Clean Water Act at several of its North Carolina facilities and agreed to pay a $68 million criminal fine and spend $34 million on environmental projects and land conservation. Four of the charges were the direct result of the massive coal ash spill from the Dan River steam station.

The same pattern is seen in other top emitters on the PERI ranking, such as American Electric Power ($4.7 billion in environmental penalties) and Exxon Mobil ($2.2 billion).

Greenhouse gas pollution and “traditional” pollution go hand in hand. No amount of climate denialism or suppression of emissions data can hide the fact that the big fossil fuel companies remain a danger to the planet.

Taking Aim at Whistleblowers

Everyone in the Trump Administration seems hellbent on giving the president as much power as possible over nearly everything. Congressional Republicans are playing along.

Things are less clear in the courts, especially in the wake of the skeptical reception Trump’s tariffs just received in the Supreme Court. Yet there is a lower-profile judicial effort in the works that could further empower the executive branch at the expense of corporate accountability.

The effort concerns qui tam lawsuits filed by whistleblowers under the federal False Claims Act, which dates back to the Civil War era. The actions typically are brought by corporate insiders who expose fraudulent practices committed by government contractors in the provision of goods and services, especially healthcare.

Whistleblowers file their case on behalf of the federal government, and then one of two things will happen. The Justice Department can decide to take over the prosecution of the case, and the whistleblower receives a portion of any damages or settlement paid by the defendant. If the DOJ declines to intervene, the whistleblower can choose to pursue the lawsuit independently. Any financial recovery is then shared with Uncle Sam.

Both of those options may be in jeopardy. In 2023 the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the DOJ could choose to dismiss a qui tam case even if it initially decided not to intervene in the matter. The dissenting vote was cast by Justice Clarence Thomas, who used his dissent to question the constitutionality of the entire qui tam system.

Now an appellate court judge is seeking to make that view a reality. Judge James Ho of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a concurring opinion in a ruling that dismissed a qui tam case against Encompass Health Corp. for allegedly submitting false claims to Medicare.

Ho, appointed by Trump during his first term, urged his colleagues to revisit the constitutionality of qui tam by making the MAGA-style argument that whistleblowers should not be able to bring cases, given that they “are neither appointed by, not accountable to, the President.”

It is unclear whether Ho’s colleagues will go along with his suggestion, but it is troubling to think that other jurists will take up the call to abolish qui tam. Whistleblower lawsuits have played a major role in lawsuits exposing and punishing corporate fraud against the government and thus the public.

A substantial portion of the 3,000 False Claims Act cases we document in Violation Tracker were initiated by whistleblowers and taken over by the DOJ. When the DOJ declines to intervene, most qui tam cases collapse for lack of resources. Yet we document about two dozen that survived and which recovered substantial sums. For example, in 2023 Eli Lilly was ordered to pay $183 million in a qui tam case that accused the company of shortchanging the Medicaid program in its drug rebate calculations.

Preserving the ability of individuals to expose corporate fraud is especially important at a time like this, when the administration in power has exhibited an inclination to make prosecutorial decisions based on dubious criteria. Cases are being dropped, leniency deals are being offered, and pardons are being awarded to companies and executives with ties to the president and his family’s businesses.

If whistleblowers were to be blocked from initiating cases, more rogue corporations would go unpunished.