The world’s top corporations have caused $28 trillion in damages related to the climate crisis, a new study seeking to help attribute climate costs to individual polluters finds. In a peer-reviewed paper published in Nature last week, Dartmouth University researchers find that the global economy would be $28 trillion richer if extreme heat caused by climate emissions from the top 111 carbon…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Diane Wilson had heard rumors for months that Exxon might be coming to Point Comfort, Texas, which sits on the Gulf Coast south of Galveston. She recalls whispers about the global behemoth hiring local electricians and negotiating railroad access. Two days before Christmas, the first confirmation quietly arrived: an application for tax subsidies to build an $8.6…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
In the face of mounting scrutiny from local, state, and federal officials, fossil fuel companies and their allies are deploying a range of tactics to obstruct ongoing lawsuits and investigations concerning evidence that the industry has misled the public about the harms it knew its products would cause to the climate, environment, and human health. Far-right industry allies with ties to…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Top oil and gas executives took the stage at the annual industry conference CERAWeek in Houston, Texas, this week to shift the blame for climate inaction onto the public, claiming in speeches and statements that consumers are unwilling to pay higher energy costs to hasten the transition away from fossil fuels. During a panel discussion on Monday, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods said the United States…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
This article was originally published on Waging Nonviolence. In Mozambique’s northernmost province of Cabo Delgado, multinational giants TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, Eni and others are developing three liquid natural gas, or LNG, projects. They will cost $50 billion, making them the largest LNG projects in Africa. Only one of these projects has started gas extraction, and already the industry has…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
oil companies ExxonMobil and Chevron announced their second-highest profits in a decade on Friday, with both companies paying out a record amount to shareholders in 2023, which was the hottest year on record due largely to the burning of fossil fuels. “In 2023, we returned more cash to shareholders and produced more oil and natural gas than any year in the company’s history…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Just ten senators own potentially over $1 million of individual stocks in fossil fuel companies, a new analysis shows, with the vast majority of the stocks owned by Republicans. According to data from financial disclosure reports analyzed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the senators collectively own between $403,023 and $1,201,000 in Big Oil stocks. Among the group…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Riding on the wave of sky-high gas prices and industry-wide price hikes, oil giant Exxon was handed the highest profits ever reported by a western oil company in 2022, its latest financial report reveals. The company reported on Tuesday that it made a net profit of $55.7 billion in 2022, roughly 2.5 times its 2021 profits of $23.6 billion. This represents $6.3 million in profits per hour on…
As Americans were struggling to afford to survive due to skyrocketing gas prices and facing horrific environmental disasters worsened by the climate crisis, fossil fuel giant Chevron was having its most profitable year in history, the company’s latest revenue report reveals. In its quarterly report published on Friday, Chevron announced that it collected a profit of $36.5 billion in 2022.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The latest study from Harvard researchers who analyzed internal documents showing the extent to which Exxon Mobil knew about the climate crisis decades ago has found that Exxon’s climate studies were incredibly accurate in predicting the effects of global warming as early as 1977 — further confirming that Exxon knowingly perpetuated a decades-long campaign to deny the existence of the climate…
Fresh off posting the highest quarterly profit in its history, the U.S.-based fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil sued the European Union on Wednesday in an attempt to stop the bloc from imposing its recently approved windfall tax targeting major oil and gas companies.
The Financial Times, which first reported the new lawsuit, noted that the challenge takes aim at the European Council’s “legal authority to impose the new tax—a power historically reserved for sovereign countries—and its use of emergency powers to secure member states’ approval for the measure.”
“The new tax is due to take effect from December 31 and will apply a levy of at least 33% on any taxable profits in 2022-23 that are 20% or more above average profits between 2018 and 2021,” the newspaper explained.
In a statement, Exxon spokesperson Casey Norton insisted the company recognizes that sky-high energy costs are “weighing heavily on families and businesses” but claimed the tax would “undermine investor confidence, discourage investment, and increase reliance on imported energy.”
Reuters reported Wednesday that Exxon’s chief financial officer has estimated the E.U.’s windfall tax could cost the corporation around $2 billion through the end of next year—a fraction of the company’s 2022 profits.
Approved in late September amid a mounting cost-of-living crisis across Europe, the windfall tax was presented as an effort to generate additional revenue to “provide financial support to households and companies” struggling with high energy costs. Oil and gas companies like Exxon have been accused of exploiting global energy market chaos spurred by Russia’s war on Ukraine to hike prices and pad their bottom lines.
In late October, Exxon announced it brought in $19.7 billion in profits from July to September, its largest-ever quarterly haul. The company also announced it would raise its dividend and expand its share buyback program, rewarding wealthy investors as consumers continue to face elevated prices at the pump.
According to a recent filing, Exxon has also been rewarding its top executives, boosting the annual salary of CEO Darren Woods from $1.70 million to $1.88 million for the coming year.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
On Friday, Exxon posted the highest quarterly profits ever posted by any U.S. oil company.
Exxon’s profit last quarter of $17.9 billion was the highest posted by any major international oil company in history. This quarter’s profits smashed that record, totalling $19.7 billion in the third quarter of this year, nearly triple what the company made over the same time period last year.
Other oil giants also posted record profits this quarter. Chevron posted its highest ever profits of $11.2 billion, nearly doubling profits from the same time last year. TotalEnergies doubled its profits, posting a net income of $9.9 billion, a record profit for the company.
Shell’s net income also multiplied from last year, reaching $9.45 billion, the corporation’s second-highest quarterly profits — afforded to them at least in part because of the company’s successful avoidance of paying a windfall tax that the U.K. has levied on them. The company also announced that it will be carrying out a $4 billion stock buyback plan because of the profits.
These profits come as gas prices have skyrocketed over the past two years. Gas prices reached a high this summer and have since cooled down slightly but remain high at a national average of $3.76 per gallon as of Friday, according to AAA.
Progressives and climate advocates have said that high gas prices are a direct result of price gouging by oil and gas companies — and that high inflation rates in general have been caused by corporate greed. Indeed, oil and gas companies have been experiencing a windfall that’s corresponded with all-time record profits for corporations this year.
Experts agree that current gas prices are greed-driven. While workers across the U.S. are struggling to even drive to work because of gas prices, oil and gas CEOs have been enjoying high gas prices, which give them the funds to shower their executives and shareholders with cash. As gas prices soared this summer, for instance, Exxon laid out plans for a $30 billion stock buyback program to enrich their shareholders.
“This is what price-gouging looks like,” the Institute for Policy Studies wrote on Twitter in reaction to news of Shell’s profits on Thursday. “Oil and gas companies won’t choose to stop exploiting people on their own — we need government action.”
Lawmakers have proposed levying a windfall tax on oil companies’ profits as they exploit global inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) went one step further in March, proposing that the U.S. levy a tax on all major corporations’ excess profits until 2024 in order to discourage them from price gouging. But these bills ultimately fizzled out, with conservatives like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) against the idea.
Tired of paying $4, $5, $6 a gallon for gas. Here’s why:
2nd Quarter Profits
Exxon Mobil:280% to $17.9 billion
Chevron:
Conoco:End corporate greed. Enact a windfall profits tax. Redistribute the revenue to working class commuters.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) October 24, 2022
These record profits are alarming from a climate standpoint. More profits for oil companies only further entrench their position and power at a time when climate experts are warning that the world must draw down its use of fossil fuels immediately or risk pushing the planet ever further into climate catastrophe.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
We cannot make the most urgent infrastructural investments of our lifetimes with gentle signals to financial markets. The clearest path forward is to embrace the capacity of the state.
This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.
The fossil fuel industry experienced a boom in profits during the first nine months of 2021, raking in tens of billions of dollars as Americans faced a jump in gas prices.
A new report by Accountable.US shows that 24 top oil and gas companies made $174 billion in profits between January and September, lining shareholders’ and CEOs’ pockets. Sixteen of those companies raised their dividend at least once in 2021, the report found, and most of their CEOs had compensation packages of over $10 million.
Companies like Exxon and Chevron have posted high profits in the third quarter of 2021; in just four months, the 24 companies made $74 billion in profits. Exxon alone reported making $6.9 billion in the third quarter, a 60 percent increase in revenue from the same time last year and its highest profits for four years.
Meanwhile, gas prices have hit a seven-year high during the third quarter especially, increasing by 50 percent in just a year — amounting to an average of $3.40 per gallon in the U.S. — even as wholesale prices have gone down. This has helped pad profits for the oil and gas companies as increased demand drives higher gas prices after pandemic restrictions have been lifted.
Critics of the oil and gas industry say that the high gas prices are by design, as oil and gas companies haven’t been replenishing fuel supplies to meet high demand. Conservative politicians have deceptively tried to blame high gas prices on President Joe Biden’s climate policies, despite the fact that the president’s climate approach has been tepid at best. But sustainable energy groups like the International Energy Agency have said that high prices are thanks to “the deliberate policies of energy producers.”
From a climate perspective, more oil and gas production is not to be cheered — but the oil and gas industry has little incentive to shrink the fuel supply due to the climate crisis, and wouldn’t raise prices for that reason. Instead, the industry is likely manipulating costs because gas prices typically have little effect on demand and are not likely to drive down usage. This also means that middle- and- lower-income people with few alternatives for transportation will be hurt the most by these prices, as they continue to experience high levels of hardship nearly two years into the pandemic.
“As Americans make sacrifices to cover high gas prices, oil and gas corporations are raking in billions that they then use to shower mega-rich CEOs and shareholders with more money,” Accountable.US wrote in its report. “Rather than increase production or reinvest to meet the energy demand increase caused by the world reemerging from COVID-19 lockdowns, oil and gas companies are taking advantage of bloated prices, fleecing American families along the way.”
The Biden administration has taken note of oil and gas companies’ increased profits. “[T]he oil and gas companies are not flipping the switch as quickly as the demand requires,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said.
Last month, Biden asked the Federal Trade Commission to examine potential “anti-consumer behavior” by the industry, pointing out the discrepancy between high prices and low wholesale costs. “This unexplained large gap between the price of unfinished gasoline and the average price at the pump is well above the pre-pandemic average,” he wrote.
The industry’s actions regarding natural gas prices also lend credence to the idea that the companies are acting deliberately to pad their pockets. Recent reporting found that energy companies were exporting record amounts of natural gas while limiting supply domestically ahead of the winter, as utilities are stocking up. Gas bills are projected to rise to 30 percent higher than last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) pushed energy companies to explain their exporting practices last month, criticizing their “corporate greed.”
“The cause of rapidly rising energy prices for consumers and manufacturers is clear: some of the nation’s largest and most profitable oil and gas companies are putting their massive profits, share prices and dividends for investors, and millions of dollars in CEO pay and bonuses ahead of the needs of American consumers and the nation’s recovery from the pandemic,” Warren wrote in a letter to the nation’s largest natural gas producers.
The oil and gas industry isn’t the only industry taking advantage of the American public to pad their pockets during this time of economic turmoil. Corporations have seen huge increases in profits this year, which consumer advocates say is because companies are exploiting media cycles about inflation to raise prices precipitously.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
House Democrats held a landmark hearing on Thursday, forcing leaders of big oil and gas corporations to testify, for the first time before Congress, on the extent to which they lied to the public about the climate crisis in previous decades.
During the hearing, CEOs from Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell and industry group American Petroleum Institute emphasized their supposed commitments to expanding clean energy and net zero pledges — continuing the decades-long greenwashing and climate denial campaigns that the oil and gas industry has spearheaded since the 1970s.
Notably, the CEOs refused to pledge to stop lobbying against climate bills when prompted by Oversight Chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York). “I want to ask each of the witnesses here today representing fossil fuel companies and trade associations to take a simple pledge,” she said. “I want each of you to affirm that your organization will no longer spend any money, either directly or indirectly, to oppose efforts to reduce emissions and climate change.”
In response, Shell CEO Gretchen Watkins failed to give a straight answer, shifting the focus to her company’s lobby for climate policy in a deliberate attempt to mislead. The other CEOs followed suit, refusing to agree to the basic pledge despite their supposed dedication to mitigating the climate crisis.
In reality, fossil fuel companies lobby for bills like the carbon tax — a proposal that climate advocates say is ineffective at best and could poison politicians against real climate action at worst — specifically to greenwash their image. Earlier this year, reporters filmed lobbyists for Exxon saying that backing a carbon tax is “an easy talking point” because “there is not an appetite for a carbon tax” in Washington.
It’s possible that the reason the CEOs refused to take Maloney’s pledge is because they are currently involved in lobbying campaigns against the Democrats’ reconciliation bill. While the bill previously contained a clean energy program that was essential to setting the country on track for vital emissions reductions, fossil fuel lobbyists have already been successful in swaying lawmakers to cut the proposal out.
An analysis from the Oversight Committee released before the hearing on Thursday found that Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP and the American Petroleum Institute have spent a combined $452.6 million lobbying the government since 2011. Later in the hearing, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) highlighted that $55.6 million of that amount has been spent by the industry within just the past few months.
“Earlier this year, [top Exxon lobbyist Keith] McCoy was recorded in a private session saying, quote, ‘I liken lobbying to fishing. You have to bait. You throw that bait out there, just to kind of reel members in, because they are a captive audience. They know that they need you, and I need them,’” Ocasio-Cortez said, highlighting McCoy’s weekly calls with certain members of Congress while the reconciliation bill was formed.
Though Exxon CEO Darren Woods did not say he was aware of McCoy’s calls, he did say that he has been involved in lobbying members of Congress directly during the reconciliation process.
“I think one thing that often gets lost in these conversations is that some of us have to actually live the future that you all are setting on fire for us,” Ocasio-Cortez said, highlighting issues like drought, declining crop yields, fires and climate tipping points that will be caused as the climate crisis evolves unmitigated. “We do not have the privilege or the luxury of lobbyist spin.”
The CEOs continued to lie about the climate crisis during the hearing, denying the cause of the threat and even its very existence. Maloney cited a report from the Defense Department calling the crisis an “existential threat,” and asked Watkins if she agreed with that conclusion. “Ms. Watkins, do you agree climate change is a threat to our existence?” Maloney asked.
Again, Watkins didn’t give a straight answer. “Chairwoman, I agree that climate change is one of the biggest challenges we have in the world today,” Watkins said, before highlighting Shell’s renewable energy initiatives, which are nothing but a distraction from the truth.
These companies’ so-called net-zero pledges aren’t about cutting emissions; they are about rehabilitating their image while claiming to be addressing the issue. None of the large oil companies have a net-zero pledge that would actually cut their emissions — rather, under some scenarios laid out in their net-zero plans, emissions would actually grow.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Later this month, six CEOS from major fossil fuel companies and trade associations will testify before Congress at a hearing about the industry’s role in spreading climate denial, reports The Washington Post.
This will be the first time oil and gas CEOs testify about the industry’s decades-long disinformation campaigns before Congress. Top executives at ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, and Shell, as well as the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are slated to testify.
“In the history of Congress, the fossil fuel executives have never come before the committee … to explain climate disinformation and address the climate crisis. That will change,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), chair of the Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment, told The Washington Post.
The industry leaders were invited by Khanna and House Oversight Chair Carolyn B. Maloney (D-New York), who sent letters asking them to testify last month.
“We are deeply concerned that the fossil fuel industry has reaped massive profits for decades while contributing to climate change that is devastating American communities, costing taxpayers billions of dollars, and ravaging the natural world,” wrote Khanna and Maloney. “We are also concerned that to protect those profits, the industry has reportedly led a coordinated effort to spread disinformation to mislead the public and prevent crucial action to address climate change.”
Oil and gas CEOs have previously declined invitations from progressive lawmakers to testify before Congress; it appears they are only complying now because Khanna threatened them with subpoenas. In their letters, Khanna and Maloney called on Congress to curb disinformation from the fossil fuel industry, echoing demands that climate activists and researchers have been making for years.
Many fossil fuel companies have been studying climate disruption internally for decades and even had chances to pivot their products to renewable or no-carbon alternatives. Instead, they doubled down on spreading climate denial — and padding their own pockets.
Though documents show that Exxon has known about climate disruption since the 1970s, the company has denied its existence and lied to the public for years, all while playing a major role in undermining climate regulation. A huge amount of climate denial is driven by the fossil fuel industry, even as climate denial morphs into different forms over time. This is particularly true for disinformation that comes from lawmakers in Washington, many of whom have close ties with lobbyists from the oil and gas industry.
Climate researchers have called on Congress to tackle the fossil fuel industry’s continued efforts to obstruct climate action. In a House Oversight subcommittee hearing last year, Congress heard from a scientist involved in the fossil fuel industry’s internal climate communications for the first time.
“In reality, today’s climate chaos is big oil’s legacy, not ours,” wrote Harvard University climate researchers Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes last year. “Unlike the rest of us, the fossil fuel industry saw this climate chaos coming, then literally and figuratively added fuel to the fire, doubling down on a business model incompatible with the science of stopping global warming; buying political inaction; and building a global climate denial and delay machine that has confused the public and fomented distrust of science, media and government.”
Climate activists and state and local governments have filed lawsuits to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable, arguing that they have run deceitful climate denial campaigns and have lied to the public about the climate crisis. However, most of these lawsuits are pending, and many others have been thrown out.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Oil giant ExxonMobil is pouring millions into Facebook advertisement purchases in a wider lobbying effort against the Democrats’ reconciliation bill, which is slated to include a corporate tax raise and proposals to address the climate crisis.
As of Thursday, Exxon spent $275,000 on Facebook ads just this past week. These ads include a campaign against Democrats’ tax reform proposals to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy. CNBC reports that Exxon has spent $2 million on Facebook ads over the past 90 days.
Though the extent of the issues Exxon is targeting is unclear, CNBC reports that at least six of the anti-reconciliation bill ads ran from Friday to Monday. One of the ads said, “Tell Congress no tax hikes,” and brought users to a page encouraging them to contact their elected officials to “let them know you oppose the proposed tax increases on American businesses.”
The text of the Build Back Better Act hasn’t yet been finalized, but drafts of the bill have included a corporate tax hike from 21 percent to 26.5 percent. This incredibly modest hike falls short of the 28 percent statutory rate that President Joe Biden had proposed in the spring, and even further from the 35 percent rate in effect before Republicans slashed taxes for corporations and the rich in 2017.
Furthermore, it’s dishonest to imply that the tax increases will affect businesses uniformly. In August, the Treasury Department said the tax increases won’t affect 97 percent of small businesses, meaning that the tax raise will mostly only affect larger businesses and corporations like Exxon.
The fossil fuel industry has long been the recipient of extra tax breaks, on top of corporate tax breaks they have likely benefited from.Though climate advocates and progressives like Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) have fought against these tax breaks, the fossil fuel industry is slated to receive fossil fuel subsidies in the reconciliation bill — many of which they have been receiving for years.
Still, the oil and gas industry isn’t satisfied with the massive amount of support they already receive from the government.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Gas Association have also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Facebook ads targeting climate provisions in the reconciliation bill. API broke its single-day total for Facebook ad buys with a $10,800 purchase in early August — and, since then has spent $423,000 on ads, according to a report by InfluenceMap. The American Gas Association has spent $18,000 on similar efforts. In total, these ads have been viewed 23.2 million times.
The American Petroleum Institute is flooding Facebook with ads aimed at blocking key climate initiatives in the $3.5t budget reconciliation.
The group has eclipsed its previous daily spend record, which was set when Joe Biden announced his climate plan during the 2020 election. pic.twitter.com/e0sauNx4sP
— InfluenceMap (@InfluenceMap) September 30, 2021
The API is also targeting specific members of Congress on Facebook, running hundreds of ads encouraging people to either voice their support for elected officials like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) for “being a champion of AMERICAN MADE ENERGY” or calling their representatives to voice their displeasure for being “ready to risk YOUR job by hiking taxes on U.S. ENERGY PRODUCERS.” Which jobs will be affected by a marginally higher tax rate, however, is unclear.
The fossil fuel industry has rallied together to lobby against climate action in Washington over the past year. After President Joe Biden announced a climate plan on his campaign trail last year, fossil fuel companies and trade groups launched a $10 million ad campaign just for Facebook, promoting the idea that natural gas should play a role in the country’s future.
The fossil fuel lobby against the Build Back Better Act is part of a larger campaign by corporations and conservative groups to scale back various aspects of the bill, including tax reforms and Medicare expansion. Tens of millions of dollars have been poured into the lobbying effort against the act, and lobbyists representing corporations like Exxon and Pfizer are targeting Capitol Hill to sway lawmakers against key parts of the package.
The lobbyists’ influence appears to be working. Manchin, who is in charge of writing climate policies in the bill as chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is making efforts to carve many of the bill’s most powerful climate policies out of the bill. Instead, he’s working to ensure that the bill protects the use of natural gas and coal, as well as other policies favored by the fossil fuel industry.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
As deep-pocketed lobbyists representing companies like Exxon mount a campaign to get Congress to gut the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, a coalition of 93 progressive and advocacy organizations are fighting back, urging lawmakers to keep the bill strong in the face of corporate pressure.
The groups, led by the Institute for Policy Studies and the Economic Policy Institute, sent a letter to lawmakers telling them to keep provisions like tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations in the bill — provisions that the corporate lobby is particularly vehemently opposed to. They also encourage lawmakers to keep climate and social provisions in the bill.
“Congress must step up and do the right thing and live up to its Constitutional and moral commitments to establish justice and the general welfare,” the groups write. “Now is not the time to let deep-pocketed corporate lobbyists stand in the way of vital public investments in an economy that works for all of us.”
Among signatories of the letter are powerful labor groups like the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); progressive groups like the Working Families Party; and climate groups like Sierra Club and the Sunrise Movement.
The letter highlights proposals included in the Democrats’ original framework for the bill, arguing that it is crucial that lawmakers preserve the bill as it was first proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Democrats in the Senate. Climate provisions like funding for clean energy and electrifying public transportation, Medicare expansions, and support for parents like paid family leave and the child tax credit expansion are crucial to help working families stay afloat, they write.
“Such investments would be a major boost to all working families, but especially to the tens of millions of poor and low-income people — disproportionately people of color — who have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic and recession and have not yet recovered,” reads the letter.
The letter writers also emphasize the importance of proposed tax hikes on the rich and corporations to help fund the bill but, more importantly, helping to bar the wealthy from paying less than their “fair share” in taxes — a message that Democrats and President Joe Biden himself have emphasized.
The reconciliation bill, as the letter points out, enjoys significant favorability among the public. Polling by Hart Research Associates in July found 73 percent of voters support the reconciliation plan, called the Build Back Better plan. Recent polling by Data for Progress, meanwhile, found majority support for many of the bill’s major proposals like funding for care workers and modernizing the electricity grid.
The coalition’s message comes as powerful lobbyists have descended upon Washington looking to get many of the bill’s largest provisions cut from the package. Lobbyists from across industries — entertainment, fossil fuels, big banks, major retailers, and drug manufacturers — are banding together to oppose the bill, pouring tens of millions into the effort. Conservative groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are lobbying specifically against the tax hikes; other targets are likely climate provisions, Medicare expansion and drug price negotiation, and paid family leave.
The lobbyists already likely have the ear of several conservative Democrats in Congress, some of whom banded up with lobbyists in gutting climate provisions from the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), in fact, has already noted his opposition to potential climate proposals that would draw down fossil fuels in the U.S., and has been a leading proponent of gutting the package.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The final negotiations over the infrastructure bill have ground funding down to a paltry $550 billion, from what began as a $2.25 trillion proposal from President Joe Biden.
The bipartisan group of senators overseeing the negotiations cut about $29 billion in new spending from the previous draft, eliminating $20 billion of what little climate spending was left in the bill, E&E News reported.
Compared to the previous draft of the bill announced in June, the latest and final draft of the bill removes $10 billion from public transit spending and $5 billion from electric school bus funding. It also effectively cut electric vehicle charging infrastructure in half from the previous draft from $15 billion to $7.5 billion.
The cuts are yet another instance of drastic reductions that the bipartisan group has repeatedly made to climate provisions from Biden’s original proposal. Electric vehicle funding fell by nearly 96 percent from the first proposal of $174 billion, and transportation funding in general took a $263 billion cut.
The bipartisan group, along with Biden, touted the bill as a success. “This deal signals to the world that our democracy can function, deliver, and do big things,” Biden said in a statement.
But, so far, the infrastructure negotiations have done more to frustrate Democratic lawmakers and progressive movements than to give them something to celebrate. Progressives have been saying for months that they wouldn’t support a bill that didn’t sufficiently address the climate crisis, adopting the mantra “no climate, no deal.”
The sharp cuts to climate provisions in the bipartisan deal are a sharp contrast from the $10 trillion climate, justice and infrastructure bill that progressives had introduced earlier this year, called the THRIVE Act. The bill aims to reduce emission while boosting justice initiatives over the next decade, and climate advocates have lauded it as one of the only proposals in Washington that comes close to matching the scale of the climate crisis.
Though the THRIVE Act has little chance of passing, all hope isn’t lost for climate-focused progressives. Democrats were hoping to tack on climate and other provisions cut from the negotiations onto a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that they could pass through a simple majority vote as long as all Democratic senators were on board.
However, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (D-Arizona) recently announced opposition to that plan, throwing progressive support for watered-down reconciliation and infrastructure bills into question.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-New York) highlighted the enormous sacrifices of bipartisanship.
What was gained: “Bipartisanship”
What was lost: pic.twitter.com/QxjDXiHb1s
— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) July 30, 2021
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) pointed out that the motivation of the bipartisan group to cut climate provisions from the bill might have come directly from fossil fuel lobbyists. “Exxon lobbyists bragged about how much influence they had in this deal,” she said on Twitter. “This is what that influence looks like,” she said, sharing the E&E News report on the climate provisions being cut.
Indeed, an explosive June report from Greenpeace found that Exxon, continuing decades-long practices of fighting climate policy, was “working hard behind the scenes to eliminate the proposed funding” for Biden’s climate policies.
The lobbyists had also targeted a number of the conservative Republicans and Democrats in the bipartisan group, including Senators Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), Sinema, John Tester (D-Montana), Chris Coons (D-Delaware) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia).
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Fox Corp. PAC, a political action committee for Fox News parent Fox Corporation, has donated to Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-West Virginia) re-election campaign, according to a recent filing uncovered by CNBC.
The PAC, according to OpenSecrets, is funded largely by Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News, and other Fox Corporation and Fox News executives such as Murdoch’s son. The PAC in June gave $1,500 to Manchin, the conservative Democrat who has been under fire by progressives for his ties to right-wing interest groups.
According to CNBC, the donation was the PAC’s first to Manchin, which would indicate that conservative groups are taking more interest in the lawmaker. Indeed, dark money groups with ties to other right-wing figures like the Kochs have launched pressure campaigns to influence the West Virginia senator as he continues to uphold conservative policy in his role.
Koch advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, for instance, has encouraged followers to cheer Senator Manchin for standing against key Democratic proposals like voting rights and election finance transparency. Meanwhile, far right figures like former president Donald Trump have heaped praise on Manchin for standing up for the filibuster, which acts as the single largest roadblock to the Democrats’ agenda.
Manchin’s motivations are unclear, but Republicans have made their goals extremely transparent: to obstruct Democrats in Washington while reaping chaos and spreading fascism across the country. To that end, Manchin’s opposition to filibuster abolition strengthens the GOP.
But Manchin may not be so clear-minded. He continually insists upon pursuing an obsolete notion of bipartisanship with Republicans who have, in no uncertain terms, stated that they’re uninterested in partnering with Democrats.
The most recent iteration of Manchin’s bipartisan obsession came as the lawmaker has again asserted that he wants to water down the Democrats’ landmark voting rights and campaign transparency bill, the For the People Act or S. 1.
Texas Democrats, who recently fled the state to block GOP-led voter suppression efforts, travelled to Washington to plead with Congress to pass bills that protect voting rights in the country. They met with Manchin, who on Thursday said that, despite his meeting with the Texas lawmakers, he still wants to water down S. 1 to only address voting procedures and voting rights. Why? Because, as he told CNN, he somehow thinks Republicans would support such legislation, even though they are leading the charge across the U.S. to suppress voters so that they never lose an election again.
Manchin also said Thursday that he doesn’t want to carve out an exception to the filibuster for S. 1, which advocates and fellow Democrats have suggested.
In recent months, Manchin has proposed his own changes to the For the People Act. His changes essentially gut some of the most important parts of the bill — most notably, provisions of the bill that would overhaul election finance to reduce corruption.
S. 1 proposes creating new, strict laws regarding campaign finance disclosures. Experts have said it would greatly reduce the influence of dark money and corporations on elections by exposing corporate interests and their ties to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Manchin himself has been accused of having such ties, with praise from right-wing pressure campaigns and, as was exposed in recent bombshell reports, ties to Exxon lobbyists. A recently leaked call between Manchin and Wall Street donors, too, painted a damning picture of a give-and-take relationship between large financial interests and politicians that the lawmaker seems to champion. In other words, if the filibuster is abolished and these financial ties are severed or put under more scrutiny, Manchin’s wallet may suffer.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna, the chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Environment, has announced plans to ask the CEOs of Exxon and other fossil fuel companies to testify before the committee about their role in blocking congressional action to address the climate emergency. Khanna made the request after Greenpeace UK released a video of two lobbyists discussing Exxon’s secretive efforts to fight climate initiatives in Washington, revealing how the oil giant supported a carbon tax to appear proactive about climate change while privately acknowledging that such a tax has no chance of being passed. We feature the complete video and speak to one of the activists involved with it. “The reality is that almost nothing has changed in the Exxon playbook,” says Charlie Kronick, senior climate adviser at Greenpeace UK. “This has been going on for decades.”
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna, the chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Environment, has announced plans to ask the CEOs of Exxon and other fossil fuel companies to testify before the committee about their role in blocking congressional action to address the climate emergency. Congressmember Khanna made the request after Greenpeace UK released a stunning video, where two top lobbyists discussed Exxon’s secretive efforts to fight climate initiatives in Washington. This is the video produced by Unearthed, an investigative journalism unit at Greenpeace UK.
DAN EASLEY: You know, the wins are such that it would be difficult to categorize them all.
KEITH McCOY: Did we join some of these shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing — there’s nothing illegal about that.
NARRATOR: This is Keith McCoy, one of ExxonMobil’s top Capitol Hill lobbyists. And this is Dan Easley. Until February this year, he was Exxon’s leading White House lobbyist. Unearthed posed as recruitment consultants and told them we had a client who admired their work. Then we interviewed them on Zoom and asked them to tell us what they and the other lobbyists at Exxon have been up to.
ExxonMobil is so powerful that the management suite at its global headquarters is known as the “God Pod.” Until recently, it was the biggest, richest corporation in the history of the world. For decades, critics have claimed Exxon deploys cynical, aggressive lobbying techniques to pull the strings of government, while running clandestine campaigns to block action on climate change, discredit its opponents and distract attention from its polluting activities. But not one of its serving senior executives has ever come clean about the Exxon playbook — until now.
Here’s what Dan Easley and Keith McCoy told us. Mr. McCoy revealed that, behind the scenes, the company has been working hard to undermine President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The White House proposal included spending hundreds of billions on clean energy and transport as part of the most ambitious clean energy legislation ever proposed by a U.S. president, and it would have been paid for by higher taxes on corporations like Exxon. But these ambitious proposals are on the verge of being defeated. According to Mr. McCoy, Exxon has been working to scale back the legislation and stop Exxon paying more tax. He told us which United States senators the company sought to recruit to their lobbying campaign — and they’re not all Republicans.
KEITH McCOY: 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. You stick to highways and bridges, then a lot of the negative stuff starts to come out, because —
REPORTER: Right. For you guys.
KEITH McCOY: — there’s a germaneness, right? That doesn’t make any sense for a highway bill. Why would you put in — why would you put in something on emissions reductions on climate change to oil refineries in a highway bill?
REPORTER: Who’s the crucial guys for you?
KEITH McCOY: Well, Senator Capito, who’s the ranking member on environment and public works. Joe Manchin, I talk to his office every week, and he is the kingmaker on this, because he’s a Democrat from West Virginia, which is a very conservative state. And he’s not shy about sort of staking his claim early and completely changing the debate. So, on the Democrat side, we look for the moderates on these issues. So it’s the Manchins. It’s the Sinemas. It’s the Testers.
NARRATOR: Exxon is even trying to get through to President Biden through his friend, Senator Chris Coons.
KEITH McCOY: One of the other ones that aren’t talked about is Senator Coons, who’s from Delaware, who has a very close relationship with Senator Biden. So we’ve been working with his office. As a matter of fact, our CEO is talking to him next Tuesday.
Then you take it out a little bit more, and you say, “OK, well, who’s up for reelection in 2022?” That’s Hassan. That’s Kelly. And then, obviously, the Republicans. We have a great relationship with the senators where we have assets. I can’t worry about the 2027 class, because they’re not focused on reelection. The 2022 class is focused on reelection, so I know I have them. Those are the Marco Rubios. Those are the Senator Kennedys. Those are the Senator Daines. So, you can have those conversations with them because they’re a captive audience. They know they need you, and I need them.
NARRATOR: Dan Easley left Exxon earlier this year, after nearly eight years lobbying for the corporation. He described just how big a problem Biden’s original proposal posed for oil and gas companies.
DAN EASLEY: Oh, it’s going to be replete with provisions that will be difficult for oil and gas. Take away tax — you know, favorable tax treatment. You know, they’re going to raise the corporate rate, and then a whole host of environmental — new environmental requirements.
REPORTER: Right.
DAN EASLEY: And procurement requirements — the requirements for the federal government to purchase, you know, green energy and renewable technologies, and, you know, retrofitting federal buildings, and all of — I mean, it’s going to accelerate the transition to the extent that, I think, four years from now, it’s going to be difficult to unwind that. So, we’re all living in a different world.
NARRATOR: For years, Exxon has claimed it supports a carbon tax. When they came out for the policy, it surprised a lot of people. But does Exxon really believe in a carbon tax? Or is it a ploy to make the company look responsible while giving them cover to aggressively oppose climate regulations that would hit their bottom line?
KEITH McCOY: 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.”
REPORTER: What you said was just really interesting. So, it’s basically never going to happen, right, is the calculation?
KEITH McCOY: Yeah. No, it’s not. It’s not going to — a carbon tax isn’t going to happen.
REPORTER: So, this helps me understand a little bit why suddenly a lot of U.S. oil majors are talking about a carbon tax, because it sounds pretty, uh —
KEITH McCOY: Well, I — the cynical side of me, they’ve got nothing else. It’s an easy talking point to say, “Look, I’m for a carbon tax.” So that’s the talking point. That is a — in my mind, an effective advocacy tool.
NARRATOR: Until February, Dan Easley was Exxon’s main man lobbying the White House. He gave us an insight into the relationship between Exxon and the previous administration when he detailed the successive lobbying victories the company secured under Trump. This includes issuing thousands of new oil and gas drilling permits, which critics argue are incompatible with efforts to tackle climate change.
DAN EASLEY: The executive branch and regulatory team for Exxon had extraordinary success over the last four years, in large part because the administration was so predisposed to — you know, to helping.
REPORTER: What were the big wins you got out of Trump?
DAN EASLEY: You should google “ExxonMobil announcement and Donald Trump.” 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 tons of permits out.
I mean, you know, the wins are such that it would be difficult to categorize them all. 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, I mean, there were a lot of wins.
NARRATOR: Mr. McCoy then told us how Exxon aggressively fought to discredit climate science. He also told us how, even now, talking down solutions to global warming, like renewable energy and electric vehicles, is critically important to the work Exxon does in Washington, D.C.
KEITH McCOY: Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes. Did we hide our science? Absolutely not. Did we join some of these shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing — there’s nothing illegal about that. We were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our shareholders. And you’re not going to be able to just switch to battery-operated vehicles or wind for your electricity. And just having that conversation around why that’s not possible in the next 10 years is critically important to the work that we do. And that’s at every phase. That’s in the Senate. That’s in the House. That’s with the administration. On something like climate change, there’s some forest fires. There’s an increase of, you know, 0.001 Celsius. That doesn’t affect people’s everyday lives.
NARRATOR: For decades, the decisions made in Exxon’s “God Pod” have had an impact on the lives of every American — maybe every human being on the planet. They held back action on climate change and used their power and money to ensure Washington politicians were working for them, not us. Now we have a better idea of what they did and how they did it. And crucially, now we know they’re still doing it. ExxonMobil released this statement.
EXXONMOBIL STATEMENT: The report “contained a number of important factual misstatements that are starkly at odds with our positions … including on climate policy and our firm commitment to carbon pricing. Our lobby efforts on the infrastructure bill are related to a tax burden that could disadvantage US business. … We have supported climate science for decades. Our lobbying efforts comply with all laws and are publicly disclosed.”
AMY GOODMAN: That video produced by Unearthed, an investigative journalism project of Greenpeace UK, which spoke to the two Exxon lobbyists, Keith McCoy and Dan Easley, after posing as corporate headhunters.
We go now to London, where we’re joined by Charlie Kronick, senior climate adviser at Greenpeace UK.
Quite something to get them so clearly putting all of this on the record, Charlie. Can you talk about what surprised you most and what you think is most significant about their revelations as they try to sell themselves over the effectiveness of how they’ve captured so many U.S. senators, key among them, Joe Manchin?
CHARLIE KRONICK: I think the most amazing and surprising thing about these revelations is that: Is anybody still surprised at what Exxon is doing? You know, I think that the reality is that almost nothing has changed in the Exxon playbook in terms of their appearance to want to be seen to be credible on climate change, while at the same time spending an amazing amount of time, resources to slow down progress on climate change, at a time when we just simply have zero time left for delay, obfuscation or debate on what should be done when. It’s absolutely clear what needs to happen now. And they seem to be, up until Darren Woods’ apology last week, committed to carrying on slowing things down and stopping action, doing everything they can to do that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Charlie, how do these revelations from these interviews compare to previous exposés of Exxon and its lobbying efforts? There have been many over the years.
CHARLIE KRONICK: Well, I think — there has been. I mean, this has been going on for decades, Juan, and I think it’s really important to highlight that this is the ongoing activity of a company that’s been trying to slow down progress on climate change for decades. What’s different about it is, literally, it is from the horse’s mouth.
As both lobbyists said earlier in the interviews, they were quite comfortable using front groups. They were quite comfortable in hiding behind — whether they were sort of think tanks, you know, sort of what would describe themselves as right-wing or free market think tanks who would espouse these views, which were supported and funded by Exxon, or whether it was groupings like the American Petroleum Institute, which is a trade association, which always presents the lowest common denominator in terms of ambition for an industry. But the API, American Petroleum Institute, is seen as respectable, certainly has a huge presence in D.C. And that kind of lobbying has been known for decades.
I think what’s unusual about this situation is that they were just absolutely — they weren’t even — I mean, I was going to say unapologetic. They were gloating at the level of success that they were having on slowing down progress on the biggest challenge that we’re facing as a country, as a generation, as a world.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Charlie Kronick, we want to thank you so much for being with us, senior climate adviser at Greenpeace UK.
Next up, we go to Colombia, where an international human rights commission has arrived to document the right-wing government’s deadly crackdown on protesters following the general strike in April. Stay with us.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Senate Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has called on top oil and gas executives to testify at a hearing on “The Cost of Inaction on Climate Change” before the budget committee next Thursday.
The senator invited BP America President David C. Lawler, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth and ExxonMobil CEO Darren W. Woods to testify. Sanders told CBS that Lawler has already denied the request sent on Tuesday. “These guys don’t want to answer hard questions,” Sanders said. BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil are some of the biggest carbon emitters in the world.
Sanders told CBS that the distortion of climate research by the oil and gas majors over the past decades is “one of the scandals of our lifetime.” Research and reporting have found that companies like Exxon have participated in a decades-long disinformation campaign in order to sow doubt over whether or not fossil fuels cause global warming and climate change.
“These companies are producing a significant percentage of the carbon that we use, which is destroying our planet,” Sanders told CBS, “and we want to know what they are doing to transform their companies away from fossil fuel.”
A press release for the hearing cited the potential economic toll of failing to address the climate crisis.
“Inaction on climate change could eventually cost the U.S. $34.5 trillion in economic activity by the end of the century and cause up to 295,000 avoidable deaths by 2030 and one million by 2050,” read the press release. “In 2020, while 22 weather disasters in the United States caused a total of $95 billion in damages,” while Exxon, Chevron and BP have raked in tens of billions of profits, says the statement.
“In addition to these company profits, American taxpayers are currently on the hook for about $15 billion per year in direct federal subsidies to the fossil fuel industry,” the press release said. “In 2019, the fossil fuel industry spent $190 million lobbying Congress for more polluter welfare and the fossil fuel industry received more than $8.2 billion in benefits from the CARES Act.”
In recent years, oil and gas companies have touted their investments in clean energy and have even made pledges to reduce their carbon outputs, but reporting has shown that many of their claims are nothing more than greenwashing — PR campaigns that attempt to trick consumers into thinking that the companies and their products are more environmentally friendly than they actually are.
President Joe Biden has made some steps to try to end the federal government’s direct subsidization of the fossil fuel industry, but his purview as president is limited and activists say that his actions are not enough.
In his recent tax plan, Biden has proposed ending $35 billion over the next decade in tax credits and loopholes for the fossil fuel industry, but can only control about 20 percent of the $15 billion in direct subsidies that the fossil fuel industry receives from the federal government each year.
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has also shown that, aside from tax credits and direct subsidies, the fossil fuel industry also receives an estimated $62 billion in “implicit subsidies” each year. Implicit subsidies are costs that are absorbed by the government or the public via externalities — costs to public health and environmental damage — but that fossil fuel companies don’t pay.
“Fossil fuel companies benefit in a big way because prices currently do not reflect the environmental and social costs associated with the production and consumption of fossil fuels,’’ said study author Matthew Kotchen in a press release. “A change would really affect their bottom lines.” If it weren’t for these implicit subsidies, Kotchen finds, the entire coal industry would likely go bust.
Climate advocates have urged Biden to throw his support behind the End Polluter Welfare Act, which addresses some of the more direct subsidies given to the fossil fuel industry. Introduced by Sanders, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), and others last summer, the bill would end the direct subsidies, close tax loopholes and bar extraction on federal lands.
“At a time when we are dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and an economic decline, it is absurd to provide billions of taxpayer subsidies that pad fossil-fuel companies’ already-enormous profits,” said Sanders at the time. “We need more safe, healthy, good paying jobs — not more corporate polluter giveaways.”
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The activist investor leading a proxy fight to reshape Exxon Mobil Corp on Monday named the four directors it wants shareholders to remove at the oil company’s upcoming annual general meeting.
The investor, Engine No. 1, is a small fund that last year took on the top U.S. oil producer for what it said was poor financial returns and a lagging approach to cleaner fuels. Exxon since has vowed to cut its debt, invest more in low-carbon initiatives, and improve returns.
The fund singled out for removal three former chief executives of prominent U.S. companies and the former head of Malaysia’s state-run oil firm who joined the board last month. Its nominees for the board include a former U.S. Energy Department official and an executive at a wind turbine developer-manufacturer.
The post Activist Investor Urges Exxon Shareholders To Vote Against Directors appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.