The coronavirus crisis may result in stronger corporate influence on basic political and social institutions. Already, corporations have played an outsize role in crafting the Trump administration’s pandemic response. The White House’s press briefings are full of executives from companies like Walmart and underwear manufacturer Jockey International, who often get even more speaking time than the medical professionals on the White House virus task force.

On March 18, the Plastic Industry Association requested that the federal Department of Health and Human Services issue a national pronouncement discouraging the use of reusable grocery bags in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. They insinuated that reusable grocery bags are a health risk, despite the questionable grounds for the claim (the risk appears to vanish if the bags are washed) and further evidence that suggests that single-use plastics might be quite dangerous themselves: “SARS-CoV-2 was more stable on plastic and stainless steel than on copper and cardboard, and viable virus was detected up to 72 hours after application to these surfaces,” a group of epidemiologists wrote in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine a day prior to the plastic lobby’s request. Nevertheless, governors of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts have prohibited or discouraged people from using reusable grocery bags.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency has issued a sweeping declaration allowing power plants and factories to decide for themselves whether they are meeting environmental regulations—in effect, a direct transfer of the responsibility of environmental stewardship from the government’s regulatory office to the businesses themselves. This move has been sharply criticized by scientists, who argue that the rollback will encourage yet more pollution of communities of color whose environmental justice concerns are routinely ignored. The fossil fuel industry is likely to benefit financially from the emergency coronavirus legislation despite its role in causing and distorting the ongoing climate crisis, which available evidence suggests will make future pandemics more likely and costly and hurt communities of color worst. Meanwhile, state legislatures in Kentucky, South Dakota, and West Virginia have quietly criminalized protests against pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. They joined five states that have already passed legislation strongly resembling a model drafted by the conservative American Legislative Executive Council, which in turn is partly funded by the Koch Industries. Fossil fuel companies like Exxon and BP have only exited ALEC in the past few years as ALEC’s notorious climate change denial became a liability.

The structure of the stimulus legislation suggests that there are further gains for corporations on the way. It grants Stephen Mnuchin, secretary of the U.S. Treasury, unprecedented discretionary power over $500 billion of taxpayer money. Mnuchin spent much of his career ruthlessly foreclosing the homes of working-class people of color in California and is empowered to decide which businesses get loans or cash grants and what companies have to give up in exchange (in one case, giving the government an equity stake in the assisted company). Corporate lobbyists have already spent weeks trying to influence the legislation and aren’t likely to stop now that it has passed. The legislation provides for several layers of government oversight of Mnuchin’s choices, but the president has a less than inspiring record of complying with lawful requests for information and has already signaled his intention to bypass at least one of the stimulus’s oversight provisions.