EXXONMOBIL
'Bombshell' Secret Footage of ExxonMobil
Lobbyists Sparks Calls for Climate Accountability
Common DreamsJul. 01, 2021 11:20AM ESTCLIMATE
An ExxonMobil senior director was secretly recorded by
Greenpeace.
Keith McCoy, a senior director in ExxonMobil's
Washington, DC government affairs team, was secretly recorded by Unearthed,
Greenpeace UK's investigative journalism arm.
By Jessica
Corbett
While
ExxonMobil's decades of sowing public doubt about climate science and the
impact of fossil fuels have provoked various lawsuits, secretly recorded videos
released Wednesday expose how the company continues to fight against U.S.
efforts to tackle the climate emergency.
Published
by Unearthed, Greenpeace UK's investigative journalism arm, and the British
Channel 4 News, the footage of ExxonMobil lobbyists sparked new calls for
congressional action to hold the oil and gas giant accountable.
The videos,
obtained by Unearthed reporters posing as recruitment consultants, feature
Keith McCoy, a senior director in ExxonMobil's Washington, DC government
affairs team, and Dan Easley, who was a senior director for federal relations
until leaving the company for a clean technologies firm earlier this year.
"In
the midst of a deadly heatwave, the Exxon Tapes show how Exxon's climate lies
have spanned from outright denial to puppeteering our government and
economy," said Lindsay Meiman, 350.org's U.S. communications manager.
"Exxon knew and lied about the climate crisis for decades, and our
communities are bearing the costs."
"As
the window for action quickly closes, this footage proves what we've known all
along — Exxon continues to deliberately block necessary climate action to skirt
accountability," Meiman added. "We demand Congress immediately
investigate Exxon and fossil fuel companies' climate crimes, and make polluters
pay for their destruction."
McCoy said
on the Zoom call, secretly recorded in May, that ExxonMobil cast doubt on the
scientific consensus about the climate crisis and targeted centrist lawmakers
like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) — "I talk to his office every week,"
the lobbyist claimed — to scale back President Joe Biden's infrastructure
package.
"Did
we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes. Did we hide our
science? Absolutely not," he said. "Did we join some of these 'shadow
groups' to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that's true. But
there's nothing illegal about that. You know, we were looking out for our
investments; we were looking out for our shareholders."
McCoy also
said that "we're playing defense, because President Biden is talking about
this big infrastructure package and he's going to pay for it by increasing
corporate taxes. So it's a delicate balance we're asking for help with taxes
over here [lobbying for subsidies for a carbon capture project] and we're
saying, don't increase our taxes over here."
He further
suggested that ExxonMobil's public support for a carbon tax is just an
"effective advocacy tool," saying: "Nobody is going to propose a
tax on all Americans and the cynical side of me says, yeah, we kind of know
that, but it gives us a talking point that we can say, well what is ExxonMobil
for? Well, we're for a carbon tax."
Easley, who
was ExxonMobil's chief White House lobbyist when former President Donald Trump
was in office, "laughed when asked by an undercover reporter if the
company had achieved many big policy wins under Trump, before outlining
victories on fossil fuel permitting and the renegotiation of the NAFTA trade
agreement," Unearthed reported.
"You
should Google 'ExxonMobil announcement' and 'Donald Trump,'" Easley said.
"So he live-Facebooked from the West Wing our big drill in the Gulf
project, he mentioned us in two States of the Union, we were able to get
investor state dispute settlement protection in NAFTA, we were able to
rationalize the permit environment and you know, get ton of permits out."
"The
wins are such that it would be difficult... to categorize them all,"
Easley added. "I mean, tax has to be the biggest one right, the reduction
of the corporate rate was, you know, it was probably worth billions to Exxon,
so yeah there were a lot of wins."
In a
statement, ExxonMobil chairman and chief executive officer Darren Woods doubled
down on past climate pledges and tried to distance the company from the
footage:
Comments
made by the individuals in no way represent the company's position on a variety
of issues, including climate policy and our firm commitment that carbon pricing
is important to addressing climate change. The individuals interviewed were
never involved in developing the company's policy positions on the issues
discussed.
We condemn
the statements and are deeply apologetic for them, including comments regarding
interactions with elected officials. They are entirely inconsistent with the
way we expect our people to conduct themselves. We were shocked by these
interviews and stand by our commitments to working on finding solutions to
climate change.
However,
climate experts and advocates pointed to the footage as confirmation of
findings from previous investigations into the company.
Harvard
University researcher Geoffrey Supran, who has published multiple scientific
papers on the company's efforts to mislead the public, said the videos show
that "ExxonMobil has been a bad-faith actor on climate change for 30
years, and it still is."
Since 2017,
26 U.S. state and local governments have filed lawsuits against major fossil
fuel companies for deceiving the public about their products' role in the
climate emergency, according to the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI).
CCI
executive director Richard Wiles said Wednesday that "this bombshell
recording confirms yet again that ExxonMobil simply cannot be trusted by
policymakers."
"They
lie about climate science and their products' role in the climate crisis,"
Wiles continued. "They lie about their commitment to climate solutions.
And they lie to protect their bottom line, with no regard for the catastrophic
damage their products continue to cause to our planet and everyone on it."
"It's
time for members of Congress to stop doing the bidding of oil and gas lobbyists
and executives who have no interest in solving the climate crisis," he
added, "and instead hold them accountable."
Amid
protests by climate advocates in Washington, DC this week, Democratic leaders
are working out the details of a reconciliation package to pass alongside the
bipartisan infrastructure bill Biden recently announced with centrists in
Congress.
In his
response to the ExxonMobil videos, Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn
focused on federal infrastructure legislation.
"If
you'd been wondering who was to blame for putting Biden's climate agenda on
life support, we now know: ExxonMobil," Henn said. "The recordings
help clarify the battle lines for the next round of infrastructure
negotiations: This is going to be a showdown between Exxon and the American
people."
According
to Henn, "The question for President Biden and members of Congress is:
whose side are you on?"
"It
isn't a coincidence that many of Exxon's 'key senators' are the ones that
supported the bipartisan infrastructure package, instead of an actual plan to
tackle the climate crisis," he added. "They're doing exactly what
Exxon asked: Protect the company's profits at all costs."
"President
Biden needs to show us he's not Exxon's puppet," Henn concluded, "by
putting climate back at the heart of his agenda."
Unearthed,
meanwhile, promised that in the coming days, its journalists will also reveal
"claims that Exxon covertly fought to prevent a ban on toxic
chemicals" and "how Exxon is using its playbook on climate change to
head-off regulations on plastic."
Reposted
with permission from Common Dreams.
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