Opponents of nuclear power now hauling in $400k per hour

The combined annual revenue of American nonprofits known to oppose emissions-free nuclear power now exceeds $3.5 billion. The Environmental Defense Fund is at the top of the list, reporting a recent annual revenue haul of $443,267,772.

This cumulative total is a new record and a strong increase beyond the $3.3 billion reported last summer. The steep year-over-year jump is even more striking because one of the richest anti-energy NGOs listed last summer was (at least temporarily) removed this spring.

To put $3.5 billion into perspective, it is more than $9.5 million collected per day, or nearly $400,000 per hour, just for the admitted opponents of nuclear power.

At a minimum, all the richest names on this list are also opposed to the continued use of hydrocarbon fuels (petroleum, coal and natural gas). They promote instead replacing these reliable options with unreliable, weather dependent and landscape-clogging wind and solar energy. This policy mix puts the anti-nuclear opponents in opposition to 91 percent of all the energy consumed by Americans.

The civilization wrecking consequences of their posture was explained in Enemies of Energy, my recent report for the Capital Research Center:

If their world ever exists, then our world will not. Those without access to reliable hydrocarbon and nuclear fuels toil in primitive circumstances. Half of sub-Saharan Africans live without enough electricity to power basic lighting, a radio, or charge a cell phone for more than four hours per day.

It is likely that nearly all the less wealthy anti-nuclear nonprofits also oppose hydrocarbons, because opposing nuclear means opposing the safest, cleanest and most abundant form of reliable energy humans have ever exploited. The overview for the InfluenceWatch Opposition to Nuclear Energy page summarizes the advantages:

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and from 1990 until 2021 accounted for 20 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. A 2020 analysis from Our World in Data reported that nuclear energy “results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas,” making it “just as safe” as wind and solar power production. The U.S. Department of Energy has concluded that “nuclear energy produces more electricity on less land than any other clean-air source” and that it would require “more than 3 million solar panels to produce the same amount of power as a typical commercial reactor or more than 430 wind turbines.”

How to join and leave the anti-nuke movement

This financial ranking of the anti-nuclear movement was first compiled in August 2023. So far only one group has been removed: the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The NRDC’s previous inclusion on the list was well earned. As just one example, in April 2021 an NRDC news release celebrated the enormously foolish retirement of New York’s Indian Point nuclear power station.

But in March of this year, the NRDC tepidly supported the early stages of a plan to restart Iowa’s Duane Arnold nuclear station. “This is unprecedented for us because it marks the first time in our history that we have taken action in support of an individual nuclear power plant,” said the NRDC president.

While hopeful, this was not a certain change of direction. In a letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRDC carved out room to change their mind: “While our preliminary view is that the restart of DAEC could have decarbonization and grid benefits, NRDC emphasizes again that its support for this ownership transfer does not constitute a final position on the merits of the proposed restart itself.”

But this was enough to justify temporarily removing the NRDC from the Influence Watch list of anti-nuclear groups. This was a significant deduction: the NRDC has reliably been one of the ten richest anti-energy NGOs and would have been one of the top five if included in this new ranking. The NRDC’s $248.9 million in recently reported revenue would have ballooned this year’s combined total to more than $3.7 billion.

But just as NRDC was making its way off the list, a new entrant was making its way on.

In March 2026, Make the Road New York (MRNY) cosigned a group letter sent to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), demanding that she give up on a plan to increase the state’s nuclear energy capacity. Otherwise best known as a strident supporter of illegal immigration, MRNY’s most recently reported annual income was $29.7 million. That’s enough to vault the new entrant all the way up to 20^th overall spot on the anti-nuclear list (see below).

Why does a left-wing immigration policy group decide to oppose reliable energy production? The Capital Research Center’s Mike Watson refers to this as “everything leftism.” This ideological affliction forces left-leaning groups to fall in lock step with each other’s agendas, even if there would seem to be no obvious logical connection between those agendas.

Some other prominent examples of “everything leftism” groups with known opposition to nuclear power include the California Teachers Association, the NAACP, Church World Service, the American Friends Service Committee (the Quakers), the Center for Popular Democracy, Oxfam America, CASA (another supporter of illegal immigration) and the League of Women Voters. And there are many other, less prominent examples, such as Hunger Action Los Angeles.

That said, the criteria used for the list is very conservative (and the methodology is explained here). For example, despite statements that could be broadly construed as opposed to nuclear power, the Union of Concerned Scientists has (so far) not been included. For these reasons, the total financial firepower of America’s opposition to nuclear energy is much higher than what is presented in this report.

The top twenty

The recently reported annual revenue for seven of the “everything leftism” groups is now enough to rank them within the top 20 richest anti-energy nonprofits. Here is the current, overall top 20, with the “everything leftism” opponents included:

1. Environmental Defense Fund ($443.3 million)
2. World Wildlife Fund ($366.7 million)
3. Church World Service ($279.9 million)
4. World Resources Institute ($267.4 million)
5. California Teachers Association ($238.6 million)
6. Rocky Mountain Institute ($174.9 million)
7. Sierra Club ($169 million)[*]
8. League of Conservation Voters ($159.3 million)
9. Oxfam America ($75.3 million)
10. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ($60.6 million)
11. American Friends Service Committee ($59.1 million)
12. Southern Environmental Law Center ($58.2 million)
13. National Parks Conservation Association ($51.6 million)
14. GRID Alternatives ($46.9 million)
15. Center for Biological Diversity ($45.7 million)
16. Earth Island Institute ($41.6 million)
17. Center for Popular Democracy ($40.9 million)
18. Carbon Disclosure Project ($38.7 million)
19. Greenpeace ($38.6 million)
20. Make the Road New York ($29.7 million)

If the “everything leftism” fellow travelers are excluded and only the NGOs focused on energy, climate and/or broad environmental matters are ranked, then seven others creep into the top 20:

1. Environmental Defense Fund ($443.3 million)
2. World Wildlife Fund ($366.7 million)
3. World Resources Institute ($267.4 million)
4. Rocky Mountain Institute ($174.9 million)
5. Sierra Club ($169 million)
6. League of Conservation Voters ($159.3 million)
7. Southern Environmental Law Center ($58.2 million)
8. National Parks Conservation Association ($51.6 million)
9. GRID Alternatives ($46.9 million)
10. Center for Biological Diversity ($45.7 million)
11. Earth Island Institute ($41.6 million)
12. Carbon Disclosure Project ($38.7 million)
13. Greenpeace ($38.6 million)
14. Conservation Law Foundation ($24.1 million)
15. Climate Reality Project ($23.8 million)
16. Climate Policy Initiative ($22.5 million)
17. Environmental Working Group ($21.8 million)
18. Food and Water Watch ($20.7 million)
19. Friends of the Earth ($20.4 million)
20. 350.org ($19.5 million)

An alphabetical list of the largest known opponents of nuclear energy and a general profile of the movement is available at the InfluenceWatch profile: Opposition to Nuclear Energy.

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[*] The Sierra Club’s most recent revenue filing with the IRS covers only the first six months of 2025, likely because the NGO is adjusting its annual filing date from December 31 to June 30. As such, the latest report did not cover a full year of revenue. The previous (full year) IRS filing for all of 2024 has been used for this tabulation. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/941153307

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/opponents-of-nuclear-power-now-hauling-in-400k-per-hour/