Jamie Raskin 2 bak
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primary on corp person nation mag 2012, rename 2 1 24
NO MERRI
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) is expected to take over the Judiciary Committee if Democrats win in November.
OFTEN YT OVERSIGHT, RULE OF LAW, PT OUT HYPOC/ILLOGIC
see SLAPP
bak 10 22
https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/jamie-raskin
97/99%
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APR 2024 JT REPORT
https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fossil_fuel_report1.pdf
Alongside this joint staff report, the House Oversight Committee’s Democratic staff, at the direction of Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, is releasing additional documents obtained through the investigation commenced during the 117th Congress. These documents further demonstrate that fossil fuel companies—directly and through their trade associations—worked in concert to deceive the public and investors and to undermine efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions...
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Chapter 1: Introduction and Investigation Background................................................................. 1 I. Introduction................................................................................................................... 1 II. The House Oversight Committee’s Investigation......................................................... 2
CHapter 2: History of Climate Denialism ...................................................................................... 6 Chapter 3: Modern Climate Denialism and Doublespeak ........................................................... 11 I. Doublespeak: Emissions Reduction Targets.............................................................. 11 II. Doublespeak: Paris Agreement.................................................................................. 16 III. Doublespeak: Role of Natural Gas as a Clean Fuel................................................... 21 IV. Doublespeak: Emissions Reduction Measures .......................................................... 24 A. Methane Regulations........................................................................................ 24 B. Emissions Reductions Policies......................................................................... 27 V. Doublespeak: Low-Carbon Technologies.................................................................. 29 A. Companies Are Not Making Substantial Investments in CCS......................... 30 B. Companies Touted Low-Carbon Algae Biofuels That Were Never Commercially Viable ....................................................................................... 34 Chapter 4: Fossil Fuel Industry Collaboration............................................................................. 36 I. Fossil Fuel Industry Trade Associations and Other Organizations ............................ 36 A. American Petroleum Institute .......................................................................... 37 B. United States Chamber of Commerce.............................................................. 38 C. Oil and Gas Climate Initiative.......................................................................... 39 D. Natural Gas Supply Association ...................................................................... 41 E. Western States Petroleum Association ............................................................ 42 II. Abuse of the National Petroleum Council .................................................................. 43 Chapter 5: Targeting Universities, the Press, and Critics............................................................ 44 I. Cultivating Relationships with Academic Institutions ............................................... 44 A. Funding and Shaping Academic Research Programs...................................... 45 B. Conditioning Grants on Cooperation from Researchers.................................. 47 C. Studying the Disruption of Climate Change to Core Business........................ 48 D. Using Academic Programs to Bolster Access to Policymakers....................... 48 II. Tracking Critics and Pressuring News Outlets........................................................... 49 Chapter 6: Obstruction of the Congressional Investigation......................................................... 51 I. Attempting to Undermine Congressional Investigation Legal Frameworks and Norms 51 A. Power and Scope of Congressional Investigative Authority ........................... 51
B. Baseless First Amendment and Privilege Arguments...................................... 52 C. Disregard for Longstanding Congressional Practice and Norms..................... 52 II. Significantly Redacting or Withholding Documents.................................................. 53 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 60
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This joint staff report on Big Oil’s decades-long deception campaign is the culmination of a nearly three year-long investigation by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability (House Oversight), which has worked with Democratic staff of the Senate Budget Committee staff during the 118th Congress.
The investigation, focused on ExxonMobil Corporation (Exxon), Chevron Corporation (Chevron), Shell USA Inc. (Shell), BP America Inc. (BP), the American Petroleum Institute (AI), and the Chamber of Commerce (the Chamber), provides a rare glimpse into the extensive efforts undertaken by fossil fuel companies to deceive the public and investors about their knowledge of the effects of their products on climate change and to undermine efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. This final joint staff report builds on the House Oversight Committee’s earlier hearings, public memoranda, and document releases
Big Oil’s deception campaign evolved from explicit denial of the basic science underlying climate change to deception, disinformation, and doublespeak. The fossil fuel industry evolved from denying climate science to spreading disinformation and perpetuating doublespeak about the safety of natural gas and its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
New documents demonstrate that Big Oil companies: seek to position natural gas as a “bridge fuel” between coal and cleaner, renewable energy, while enmeshing natural gas in the U.S. energy economy for the long-term; seek to portray natural gas as a green, climate-friendly fuel, while internally acknowledging that there is significant scientific evidence that the lifecycle emissions from gas are as bad as coal and are incompatible with scientific emissions reduction targets; make public pledges to support the Paris Agreement and to achieve net zero emissions while internally recognizing that they could not achieve those goals or referring to them as outside of their business plans;
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY privately lobby—either directly or through their trade associations— against pro-climate legislation and regulations that they publicly claimed to support; publicly celebrate carbon capture technologies to help reduce harmful emissions while privately acknowledging that the technology is expensive and claiming that it cannot be scaled without federal government investment; and publicly promoted algae-based biofuels as an innovative low-carbon technology while investing little in its research and development and then cancelling the programs entirely.
The fossil fuel industry relies on trade associations to spread confusing and misleading narratives and to lobby against climate action. Fossil fuel companies use trade associations, think tanks, and other nonprofits to influence public policy proposals and messaging, including API and the Chamber, as well as the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, Natural Gas Supply Association, and Western States Petroleum Association. New emails between fossil fuel executives and these groups demonstrate how the companies influenced and leveraged the associations and other organizations to control their messaging and use them to lobby for unpopular proposals that they do not want to be associated with.
The fossil fuel industry strategically partners with universities to lend an aura of credibility to its deception campaigns while also silencing opposition voices. Fossil fuel companies establish funded partnerships with academic institutions to enhance their credibility, shape academic research programs to provide studies supportive of a prolonged life for oil and gas, leverage the resulting research to their advantage, and bolster access to policymakers. New documents reveal previously unknown funding levels and show how companies condition their funding on academics’ cooperation and alignment with companies’ business needs. Additional documents demonstrate that companies actively tracked individuals and organizations critical of the industry and monitored their social media.
All six entities—Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, API, and the Chamber—obstructed and delayed the Committees’ investigation. Despite valid subpoenas, the entities refused to fully comply with the investigation, making baseless legal arguments and flouting longstanding congressional practices and norms for investigations. The companies further obstructed the investigation by significantly redacting or entirely withholding more than 4,000 documents without any valid basis.
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND INVESTIGATION BACKGROUND I. INTRODUCTION
Decades of climate denial and legislative obstruction by the fossil fuel industry have forestalled meaningful government action to avert climate change, “the defining crisis of our time.”1 The effects on people around the world are already significant and will only worsen over time absent urgent action. Syntheses of the work of thousands of climate scientists demonstrate that 1.5°C of warming above preindustrial levels will cause extreme heat waves, flooding, drought, food scarcity, and sea level rise.
2 The world is on track to hit 1.5°C of warming in the next decade, and with each additional increment of warming, the effects worsen.3 With global warming now on course to breach 1.5°C compared to preindustrial levels, at least five tipping points—rapid and irreversible transformations of Earth systems—are likely to be triggered. These physical tipping points could also lead to “social tipping [points] such as financial destabilization, disruption of social cohesion, and violent conflict that would further amplify impacts on people” as well as risk “catastrophic, global-scale loss of capacity to grow staple crops” that could result in food system collapse across the world.
4 Scientific evidence makes clear that any new fossil fuel development is incompatible with the Paris Agreement, a treaty signed by 195 countries including the United States, which sets a long-term goal of keeping global temperature rise below 2°C with an additional ambition to keep it below 1.5°C. The International Energy Agency (IEA) is unequivocal that, in order to achieve that goal, there must be no new or expanded greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuel— including natural gas—projects approved for development, “beyond projects already committed.”5 Similarly, the United Nations’ (UN) 2020 Production Gap Report found that, “[b]etween 2020 and 2030, global coal, oil, and gas production would have to decline annually by 11%, 4%, and 3%, respectively, to be consistent with a 1.5°C pathway.”6 There is a “‘large consensus’ across all published studies that developing new oil and gas fields is ‘incompatible’ ....
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JOINT REPORT
https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fossil_fuel_report1.pdf
CHAPTER 5: TARGETING UNIVERSITIES, THE PRESS, AND CRITICS
I. CULTIVATING RELATIONSHIPS WITH ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS
The oil and gas industry cultivates partnerships with academic institutions as a way to
influence climate research toward an energy transition that favors maintaining fossil fuels for as
long as possible; bolster its ability to claim expertise on climate science; and gain access to
thought leaders.232 In the words of one BP official, the academics’ research was to be “informed
by the business challenges we need solved.”233 Although the existence of relationships between
industry and academia has long been known, documents released by the House Oversight
Committee (1) reveal for the first time previously unknown funding amounts and (2) shed light
on how companies condition grants on cooperation from academics and their perception of the
relationship’s business value.
228 SOC-HCOR-123228.
229 BPA_HCOR_00156030.
230 Id.
231 Id. Other documents discussing the work of the NPC include: BPA_HCOR_00135544;
BPA_HCOR_00089421; BPA_HCOR_00089557; BPA_HCOR_00091900; EM-HCOR3-00246788; EM-HCOR3-
00246789; EM-HCOR3-00246789; EM-HCOR3-00246790; EM-HCOR3-00246791; EM-HCOR3-00246796; EMHCOR3-00246797; EM-HCOR3-00246798; EM-HCOR3-00246807; EM-HCOR3-00246934; EM-HCOR3-
00246926; EM-HCOR3-00246940; EM-HCOR3-00246942; EM-HCOR3-00246947; SOC-HCOR-123223; SOCHCOR-123228; BPA_HCOR_00135813. Other documents showing collaboration between companies through
third-party organizations include: BPA_HCOR_00114332.
232 Princeton’s Climate Research: In the Service of BP,Daily Princetonian (Feb. 6, 2023) (online at
www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2023/02/princeton-bp-carbon-mitigation-initiative-greenwashing-climatechange-reputation).
233 BPA_HCOR_00141678.
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A
Funding and Shaping Academic Research Programs
Six fossil fuel companies, including BP, Chevron, Exxon, and Shell, spent an estimated $700 million on academic research programs between 2010 and 2020, though exact figures are unknown because disclosure requirements for university funding are limited.234 The funding the companies have provided has filled a research-shaping role the companies’ funding facilitated. As one study found, research centers funded by fossil fuel interests are more “favourable in their reports towards natural gas than towards renewable energy,” especially in communications that specifically mention fossil fuel companies. Programs less dependent on fossil fuel industry funding show the reverse, with a more neutral sentiment towards gas, and more favorability towards renewable energy.235
BP’s sponsorship of Princeton University’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI) spans over 20 years and is the longest among the industry-university relationships. CMI seeks “to design safe, effective and affordable carbon mitigation strategies.”236 One spreadsheet reveals that, between 2012 and 2017, BP funded CMI at levels between $2.1 and $2.6 million annually.237 BP also provides funding to climate policy academic programs at Harvard and Tufts, including the Harvard Kennedy School and the Climate Policy Lab at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.238 BP gave “$416k to Harvard and $250k to Tufts, per year” between 2019 and 2021, for programs focusing on “policy themes including but not limited to: carbon pricing, land use and carbon offsets, transportation, and technology innovation.”239 One BP email memorialized a conversation with a Princeton University climate systems modeler about research BP requested on the use of carbon capture technologies from Princeton’s 234 Fossil
NOTE Fuel Companies Donated $700 Million to US Universities over 10 Years, The Guardian (Mar. 1, 2023) (online at www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/01/fossil-fuel-companies-donate-millions-usuniversities); Data for Progress and Fossil Free Research, Accountable Allies: The Undue Influence of Fossil Fuel
...
Similarly, Chevron has partnered with major universities for workforce development and facility upgrades, including the Colorado School of Mines; Louisiana State University; MIT; Stanford University; Texas A&M University; UC Berkeley; UC Davis; the University of Texas, Austin; Tuskegee University; North Carolina A&T State University; Prairie View A&M University; and Florida International University.249 It does not appear that Chevron produced relevant documents on this subject, even though the scope of the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena covered these documents.
B. Conditioning Grants on Cooperation from Researchers
Fossil fuel companies conditioned their funding to academic institutions on the extent of their cooperation and sensitivity to industry business needs. A 2016 internal document marked “confidential” reveals that BP officials recommended cutting the budget for Harvard and Tufts research partnerships because it was finding it difficult to “obtain more value” as compared to the perceived success of BP’s partnership with Princeton, explaining that the “CMI discussions are directly relevant to BP whereas the Harvard/Tufts discussions” were not. Accordingly, the official recommended cutting funding to Harvard in favor of “a tighter focus limited to climate policy and geopolitics,” which “should enable a more integrated approach between the policy work at Harvard/Tufts and the scientific work at CMI.” The official recommended marginalizing researchers with whom BP worked less well and propping up those who were more favorable to BP. His final recommendation was to renew the Harvard grant at a “[m]aximum of $400k,” preferring “zero for geopolitics but understand[ing] it may need to be $50–$100k if necessary to manage the relationship.”250
...
D. Using Academic Programs to Bolster Access to Policymakers
Fossil fuel companies sought to gain access to policymakers and influential thought
leaders by funding academic research programs. One internal BP email describes the Tufts
program as “the policy complement to our longstanding Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI)
climate science program with Princeton,” noting that it benefits BP because “many of their
faculty are former senior government officials with deep insight, credibility and influence with
US and global policymakers.”255 Similarly, a “confidential” document from around 2018
describes the benefit of the BP partnership with Harvard and Tufts as “access to unparalleled
expertise at the forefront of research in the areas of climate change science, technology and
policy,” which helps BP “provide a business perspective to help shape international policy.”256
In a 2020 email, BP coordinated with Princeton officials on the Net Zero America study,
which maps different pathways by which the United States could decarbonize its economy.257
251 BPA_HCOR_00028087; In a 2014 internal document noting both Tufts’ and Harvard’s Energy Policy
and Geopolitics Programs, BP’s budget allocation for universities included a combined $700 thousand distributed
amongst several researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. An additional $215
thousand was allocated to Tuft’s Fletcher School. BPA_HCOR_00117652.
252 BPA_HCOR_00043055.
253 BPA_HCOR_00029996.
254 BPA_HCOR_00029996.
255 BPA_HCOR_00115928.
256 BPA_HCOR_00028087.
257 Princeton University, Net-Zero America, Net-Zero America: Potential Pathways, Infrastructure, and
Impacts (online at https://netzeroamerica.princeton.edu/?explorer=year&state=national&table=2020&limit=200)
(accessed Apr. 29, 2024).
...
II. TRACKING CRITICS AND PRESSURING NEWS OUTLETS
Documents obtained by the House Oversight Committee reveal that the fossil fuel
industry actively tracks individuals, organizations, and news outlets critical of the industry.
One particularly disturbing email demonstrates that Exxon’s chief security officer was
tasked with tracking a specific activist, noting that he “has been very active in his
communications of late. We are monitoring his location (now living in Vermont) and his social
media.”260
The activist in question, a retired petroleum and industrial engineer who used to work for Exxon, provided testimony to the Vermont state legislature on fossil fuel infrastructure and
had written op-eds concerning presidential climate plans, among other advocacy activities. A
Shell email similarly demonstrated that climate activist activity is shared internally. The email,
from May 2020, acknowledges that the coronavirus pandemic limited the ability of activist
groups to protest, but that there was, in turn, a “sharp spike—43% more than average in social
media ad spending.” This caused concern that the activists “are not sitting on their hands—they
are adapting and we expect that they will raise more than $1 billion this year to build their army
of boots-on-the-ground supporters with the goal of killing off the fossil fuel industry.”261
Other documents show that fossil fuel companies tracked outside advocacy efforts related
to emissions reductions and environmental accountability. A BP official expressed concern
about an “uptick in citizen suits” due to the “wide availability of high-tech monitoring devices”
that citizens can use to measure pollution from hazardous chemicals in their local environments.
258 BPA_HCOR_00064996.
259 BPA_HCOR_00115928.
260 EM-HCOR3-00196006.
261 SOC-HCOR-357654.
...
He worried that “NGOs will have more info” than what industry is required to report to the EPA.262 Documents produced by BP include numerous “Weekly Activist Report[s]” that track global critics and protest activity focused on the fossil fuel industry’s role in climate change. One Weekly Activist Report identified specific activism, such as “Protests in Washington as part of ‘Green New Deal’” and “Sunrise Movement occupies office of US Representative in Washington, DC.”263
API also tracked activities of climate activist groups via an email from an outside consulting group, which promised to contact API “if there is any concerning or threatening content related to API.”264 The fossil fuel industry tracks critical social media content. One email from API to its internal Communications email list, titled “API Media Monitoring,” appears to be part of a regular mass email blast that tracks critics of the industry. A 2017 email describes social media conversations on climate change following damaging snowstorms and wildfires throughout the country.265
Another shows Exxon tracking social media content, including public posts on Facebook and Twitter discussing ExxonMobil and climate change, including “a review of tweets that use the hashtags #ExxonKnew and #EnergyLiesHere.”266
Internal documents show companies pressuring news outlets pursuing stories that the companies believed were instigated by activists. In a 2016 email, an Exxon Media Relations Manager reacted angrily to questions from a Reuters journalist on Exxon’s relationship with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a nonprofit organization that has frequently undertaken political advocacy activities that appear to violate Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rules governing its tax-exempt status.267
Providing a statement that could be used “if Reuters is taking this crap seriously,” the official responded “how tone deaf are these guys for asking the IRS to investigate ALEC – an organization made up of more than 2000 conservative state lawmakers – after the IRS scandal last year? Of course anything passes for news when you slap the ‘climate denier’ label on it.” When the journalist responded, “I hear
you,” the Exxon media relations manager replied, “Don’t hear me. Kill the story.”268
CHAPTER 6: OBSTRUCTION OF THE CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION
As documented in the House Oversight Committee’s memorandum dated December 9, 2022, Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, API, and the Chamber refused to fully cooperate with the House Oversight Committee’s investigation, even after then-Chairwoman Maloney issued subpoenas to each company. Their obstruction is evident in many of the documents reviewed by the House Oversight Committee and released today.
I. ATTEMPTING TO UNDERMINE CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION LEGAL FRAMEWORKS AND NORMS A. Power and Scope of Congressional Investigative Authority There is a clear legal framework supporting Congress’s broad latitude to conduct investigations and requiring private sector entities to comply fully with congressional subpoenas. The Supreme Court has long recognized Congress’s power conduct investigations, a power inherent in the legislative process, holding as early as 1927 that “[t]he power of inquiry—with process to enforce it—is an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function .... A legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information.”269 The Supreme Court has also made clear that such power is broad: “[The] power of the Congress to conduct investigations is inherent in the legislative process. That power is broad. It encompasses inquiries concerning the administration of existing laws as well as proposed or possibly needed statutes.”270 Indeed, the “scope of the power of inquiry ... is as penetrating and far-reaching as the potential power to enact and appropriate under the Constitution.”271 Courts defer to Congress’s “broad power” to seek information “when the purpose asserted is supported by references to specific problems which in the past have been or which in the future could be the subjects of appropriate legislation.
https://oversight.house.gov/members
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AN 7 26 GARCIA PROMISE TRUMP CORRUPT?
Large law firms are already preparing their corporate clients for the investigations they expect will come if Democrats take over Congress.
Bloomberg Law reportedon Tuesday that the major firms expect there to be hearings involving President Donald Trump's investments, government contracts with allegations of quid pro quo and sponsorships of the Trump ballroom, like Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc. to name a few.
Brian Smith, a partner at Covington & Burling, said they're starting now.
It’s “getting ready for the potential of investigations in the same area, understanding what materials you have, what risks you have,” he said.
Susanne Grooms, who leads Cooley’s congressional investigations for the global law firm, told Bloomberg, “We map out the landscape of what the Congress will look like.”
Emily Loeb, who co-chairs the congressional investigations firm Jenner & Block, expects the hearings to come largely from House Oversight and Government Reform, House Judiciary, and House Energy and Commerce committees.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Ca.) has started too. The ranking member of the House Oversight Committee wrote a letter to Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners about the Trump son-in-law influencing foreign policy for personal financial gain.
He also sent a letter to The GEO Group Inc., a private prison company, that Democrats on the Oversight Committee have been investigating over self-dealing at the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Kristi Noem.
For him, Garcia said he connects such investigations to the affordability agenda because these corporations are getting American tax dollars that could be going to help Americans afford healthcare and other items that were cut in the so-called "Big, Beautiful Bill" passed by Republicans in 2025.
“Part of our agenda is going to be, if there are corporations or large organizations that are working with the administration to rip off the American taxpayer, then that’s going to be exposed,” Garcia said.
Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) is similarly concerned about companies that have given to one of Trump's projects, which also may have expected favorable treatment.
“Companies that continued to do things by the book, I think, are going to be glad that they did,” he said.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) is expected to take over the Judiciary Committee if Democrats win in November. When asked about his approach to oversight, he said, “We’re doing everything we can to try to protect the Constitution and the rule of law."
The House Energy and Commerce Committee oversees the funding for surveillance, "the practice of collecting personal information about consumers and then using the data to charge different prices for the same goods."
Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) told Bloomberg he'd already submitted letters to at least 25 companies.
“We’re trying to get to the bottom of it,” Pallone said in an interview. “And then we’ll see if there’s necessity for legislation.” While he would hope to get information voluntarily, he said, “there’s the possibility” of using subpoenas.
The House Committee on Natural Resources may seem like a tame group, but Democrats there already released a report called "From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People out of their 250th Birthday." It alleges, among other things, that the president and his staff "hijacked" the "America 250" celebrations to funnel funding to their own shell company through no-bid contracts.
A Washington Post reportrevealed that among the findings was that donors were tricked into giving to "Freedom 250" by aides who gave them the account information for "Freedom" instead of "America" in wire transfers. If true, that would constitute wire fraud and charitable solicitation fraud,
.
Donors who gave to "America" were pressured by the Trump administration to withdraw their donations and reroute them into the "Freedom 250" event instead. Trump staff was also accused of taking $75 million of congressionally allocated funds that leaders thought they were getting for America250. The reduction in funds meant that there was less available for planned events around the country.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Ca.) told the Post that he would do a broader investigation when the Democrats are in control.
“If and when we have more tools at our disposal to do investigation and oversight, perhaps in the next Congress you will see a lot more information on this, I’m sure,” he said.
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SHARIA YET AGAIN 5 26
10 COMM; ESTB CLAUSE AND SEP CLAUSE CONST BY MADISON
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AN 5 26
In late April, President Donald Trump announced that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff (the Trump Administration's special envoy to the Middle East) would be resuming peace talks with Iran — only to tell the media, the next day, that the trip was off. Kushner and Witkoff are longtime business associates of Trump as well as political allies; both of them have backgrounds in high-end real estate, like the Trump Administration.
Reporter Linda Kinstler examines the "murky legal status" of Trump's Board of Peace and the Trump Administration/Kushner/Witkoff arrangement in an article published by the New York Times Magazine on May 1.
"Over the past year," Kinstler explains, "Kushner and Witkoff have crisscrossed the globe as White House emissaries: They have met with Hamas and with Vladimir Putin, with (Ukrainian President) Volodymyr Zelensky and with Iranian negotiators. Their near-universal presence at high-stakes negotiations suggests that Kushner and Witkoff, New York real estate developers who are now executive members of Trump's Board of Peace, have been almost single-handedly tasked with realizing Trump's desire to be remembered as the 'president of peace.'"
Kinstler adds, "But these are businessmen first and diplomats second…. Their view seems to be that peace is an asset to be leveraged and maximized."
Lawmakers, according to Kinstler, "are noticing the murky legal status" of Board of Peace activities.
"Several Democratic congressional investigations are looking into both Witkoff's and Kushner's financial records and international relationships," Kinstler notes. "In mid-April, four Democratic senators announced a probe of the Board of Peace's proposal to create a stablecoin for Gaza, pointing out that a number of its executives, including Witkoff and Trump himself, could stand to profit. In a letter addressed to Kushner announcing a House Judiciary Committee probe of his dual role as an investor and a 'volunteer' government representative, Rep. Jamie Raskin wrote, 'You cannot faithfully represent the United States with billions of dollars in Saudi and Emirati cash burning a hole in every pocket of every suit you own.'"
Kinstler adds, "By continuing to do so, Kushner was effectively insisting 'that the normal rules do not apply to you,' Raskin argued."
The reporter stresses that it remains to be seen what the Board of Peace will be able to accomplish in the Middle East.
"Rising energy prices have begun to strain American households," Kinstler observes, "but Trump and his 'people' aren't feeling the squeeze. Witkoff has said he is in the process of divesting from his real estate and crypto holdings; in 2024, Kushner said he would 'try to pre-emptively avoid any conflicts of interests.' But both men have seen their wealth grow significantly since Trump returned to office. And the peace they have long promised remains out of reach."
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an 4 26
no lnx
Trump's son-in-law has a $5 billion problem
:{Jared Kushner applauds during U.S. President Donald Trump's State of the Union address in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 24, 2026.
Thom Hartmann March 20, 2026
There are several clear winners from Trump’s attack on Iran:
— Russia, who can again fund its violence against Ukraine with new oil revenue and now claims its unprovoked attack on that nation is consistent with this new Trump Doctrine;
— Saudi Arabia, which has long hated Iran and lobbied since at least 2008 for the US to attack that country;
— the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has similarly pushed America to attack Iran since at least 2010;
— the American defense weapons industry, which is making additional billions;
— Don Jr. and Eric, who have taken a big position in a drone-manufacturing business, getting them in on the Pentagon gravy train;
— Donald Trump himself, who’s succeeded in largely pushing Epstein off the front page;
— and Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s called for American strikes against Iran since 1992 and will stay out of prison as long as the war continues.
The losers include:
— The credibility of the United States and the rule of international law;
— the families of 13 dead and 140 injured American soldiers and airmen,
— the families of at least 160 dead Iranian little girls and thousands of other dead civilians in a dozen countries,
— American taxpayers who’re paying for the bombs;
— and future prospects for world peace.
But the biggest winner may be Jared Kushner, who apparently pushed Trump to initiate the war while he’s trying to solicit $5 billion from the same Arab states that have been begging American administrations for decades to attack Iran.
Back on March 5th, I speculated here on Hartmann Report that Kushner and Witkoff had been negotiating with Iran in bad faith, possibly to get the Iranian leadership to meet together in one place so Netanyahu (who used to sleep in Kushner’s bedroom) could kill them all with a missile strike.
Three years earlier, I laid out the backstory of how Kushner allegedly helped MBS take over the Saudi kingdom and was richly rewarded with $2 billion to fund his new investment venture.
Now, The New York Times is reporting that Kushner is back at the Arab trough, trying to pick up an additional $5 billion for his company from the same states that have been begging America to attack Iran for decades.
This represents a massive and apparently corrupt conflict of interest, as Congressman Jamie Raskin and Senator Ron Wyden pointed out when they called for an investigation into Kushner acting as an unregistered foreign agent in violation of the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. They wrote:
“This revelation is deeply disturbing, as Mr. Kushner appears to be influencing U.S. foreign policy by acting as a political consultant to the Saudi government while also accepting their money. … Mr. Kushner’s proximity to President Trump and the potential for political interference warrants the appointment of a Special Counsel.”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, in a brilliant imitation of Vladimir Putin, is threatening news organizations for their reporting on the War. He seems upset about news stories that Trump may have ignored warnings from his top generals that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz if we attacked them; those reports appear to be well-sourced.
And it appears it was Kushner who was one of the main cheerleaders for this war, risks to world oil supplies and the possibility of the conflict igniting WWIII be damned.
Trump himself said that Kushner had advised him that Iran was preparing to strike America, something that’s patently impossible; they don’t have any missiles capable of reaching the United States and had just offered to sign a new deal promising never to develop any. Nonetheless, Trump — in an eerie echo of Bush’s lies about Iranian WMD — told America:
“Within a week, [Iran was] going to attack us, 100 percent. They were ready. They had all these missiles, far more than anyone thought, and they were going to attack us.”
Did I mention that Kushner is asking the Saudis and Emiratis for another $5 billion? As Popular Information reported:
“Kushner’s largest investor is the Saudi Arabian government, which provided Kushner with $2 billion in funding in 2021. Each year, Saudi Arabia pays Kushner 1.25% of its investment, $25 million, as a ‘management fee.’ Meaning he has received in excess of $100 million from the Saudi government over the last few years.
“Notably, ‘Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made multiple private phone calls to Trump’ in February, advocating a U.S. attack,’ according to reporting in the Washington Post. Trump’s comments reveal that Kushner used his role in Geneva to push Trump toward the outcome favored by his biggest client. Affinity Partners also received more than $200 million from the UAE. According to CNN, behind the scenes, the UAE was also lobbying Trump to strike Iran.”
Never before in American history have US negotiators had massive personal financial stakes in the outcome of their own negotiations. It’s a clear violation of the Constitution’s and US law’s ban on foreign emoluments, and possibly numerous anti-bribery laws.
With Congress paralyzed by terrified, spineless Republicans refusing to even look into the possibility that billionaire Trump, billionaire Kushner, billionaire Witkoff, and billionaires in the Middle East have thrown America into war just to enrich themselves, the burden has fallen on the American press.
Which has produced the predictable squeals from Carr and the billionaire Murdoch family’s Fox “News” propaganda channel, and from Whiskey Pete Hegseth, giggling about how things are going to change when David Ellison takes over CNN.
Threats notwithstanding, our elected officials need to step up now to defend both the First Amendment, the Emoluments Clause, and the lives of our men and women in uniform.
Even lacking subpoena power, Democratic leadership should convene shadow hearings to investigate this possible double-dealing that’s already killed Americans and threatens to plunge the entire world into flames.
At the very least, they should spend a few weeks holding public, on‑the‑record hearings into whether this Iran war is being steered from Riyadh, Jerusalem, and Kushner’s investment firm instead of the Pentagon.
With their Benghazi spectacle that followed the death of four Americans, Republicans taught us that when our officers and enlisted people die abroad, Congress has a duty to drag every decision‑maker before the cameras; Democrats should apply that same standard now, and ask under oath whether Trump, Kushner, and their billionaire partners are profiting from a war they helped ignite.
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AN 3 26
When former special counsel Jack Smith was prosecuting two separate criminal cases against Donald Trump, he dealt with two very different federal judges: Tanya Chutkan with his election interference case, and Trump appointee Aileen Cannon with the Mar-a-Lago/classified documents case.
Chutkan was never suspected of having any type of bias against Smith's election case, whereas Cannon's critics alleged that she had a bias against the classified documents case from the beginning.
According to Newsweek's Jasmine Laws, Cannon "now faces perhaps her starkest neutrality test yet" with the classified documents case.
In an article published on March 31, Laws reports, "Florida-based Judge Cannon may have thought she put Trump's classified documents case to bed last month, when, in a February 23 order, she barred anyone at the Justice Department (DOJ) from 'releasing, distributing, conveying, or sharing with anyone outside the Department of Justice any information or conclusions' from prosecutor Jack Smith's report. However, the ink was barely dry when new revelations emerged last week that pose a fresh headache for Cannon."
Laws reports that the "latest dispute" with Cannon "stems from a March 13 DOJ production to the House Judiciary Committee" that the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D- Maryland) "said included non-public materials covered by Cannon's earlier secrecy rulings in the classified-documents case."
In a late March letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Raskin wrote, "In short, the position of the DOJ appears to be that it can violate Judge Cannon's order and grand jury secrecy whenever it sees an opportunity to smear Jack Smith."
Laws notes, "Judge Cannon, a Trump-appointee, has previously been accused of unfairly making rulings favorable to Trump, such as delaying the trial until after the 2024 election, dismissing the case entirely, stating special counsel Jack Smith's appointment violated the Constitution, and the blocking of Smith's final report. Will Cannon open a contempt inquiry to establish what was leaked and if so, by whom? Her critics will be watching closely."
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AN 3 26
New revelations have emerged in President Donald Trump's classified documents case, per a "damning" memo obtained by MS NOW, showing that he seemingly intended to profit from illegally retaining the sensitive materials.
According to the report published Friday, special counsel Jack Smith determined that Trump had retained "secret documents that related to his worldwide business interests," revealing a key potential motive for his dogged efforts to hang onto them. Trump held the documents, often in questionable places, at his Mar-a-Lago resort, after departing the White House in 2021, later insisting that he had the right to retain them and that he had declassified them with his mind before leaving office. He was indicted on 32 felony counts related to his retention of the materials, and an additional eight charges for conspiracy to obstruct justice, but the case was halted after his reelection.
The revelations about Trump's business motive originate from a January 2023 progress memo produced by Smith's office, though the specific businesses and how they relate to the classified information were not disclosed.
“Trump possessed classified documents pertinent to his business interests — establishing a motive for retaining them,” the memo explained. “We must have those documents.”
As MS NOW's report explained, Trump's motive for retaining the materials had, up until now, been largely uncertain. Trump himself has long insisted that he had every right to retain the documents, likening them to the materials kept on hand by his predecessors for their presidential libraries. Some reports indicated that Trump seemed to show off the documents to impress people who visited Mar-a-Lago, while other critics warned that he may have been attempting to sell the sensitive information.
"Trump’s reason for taking hundreds of pages of classified documents when he left office in January 2021 — and then concealing them when the Justice Department subpoenaed him for their return in May 2022 — has been one of the larger mysteries of the case," MS NOW explained. "FBI agents conducting an unannounced search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022 discovered hundreds more pages of top-secret records that Trump and his lawyers had failed to return to the government after claiming they had fully returned all classified materials."
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin cited this memo in a scathing letter to Attorney General Pam Bondion Tuesday, accusing the agency of covering up Trump's misdeeds while scrambling to find incriminating evidence against Smith.
“These new disclosures suggest that Donald Trump stole documents so sensitive that only six people in the entire U.S. government had access to them, that the documents President Trump stole pertained to his business interests,” Raskin wrote “This glimpse into the trove of evidence behind the coverup reveals a President of the United States who may have sold out our national security to enrich himself.”
The congressman further added: "Apparently blinded by the frenzied search to find any scrap of evidence that could be twisted and distorted to level an attack against Special Counsel Smith (despite constantly coming up empty-handed), you have, quite amazingly, missed the fact that some of the documents you provided include damning evidence about your boss’s conduct and may well violate the gag order your DOJ and Donald Trump demanded from Judge Aileen Cannon."
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AN 1 26 GIK
Since returning to the White House a year ago, President Donald Trump has been pardoning his allies while using the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to target his political foes — from former FBI Director James Comey to New York State Attorney General Letitia James to former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Trump pardoned supporters who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, including members of far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. But many of the people he has pardoned were convicted of federal white-collar crimes.
In an article published on January 26, The Guardian's Adam Gabbatt notes that Trump's recent "focus" has been "to grant clemency to those convicted of fraud."
"Those include Wanda Vázquez Garced, the former governor of Puerto Rico who pleaded guilty last year to a campaign finance violation," Gabbatt reports. "The U.S. Department of Justice said Vázquez took hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from a Venezuelan, Julio Herrera Velutini, and Mark Rossini in exchange for firing a federal official investigating a bank owned by Herrera Velutini. Trump pardoned Herrera Velutini and Rossini, who were both convicted of wire fraud, along with Vázquez…. Another pardon this month was given to a woman to whom Trump had granted clemency during his first term."
Gabbatt adds, "Adriana Camberos had a fraud-related sentence commuted by Trump in 2021 after being convicted as part of an elaborate fake 5-hour Energy Drink scheme."
The Guardian reporter notes that "more than half of Trump's 88 individual pardons" were "for white-collar offenses."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told The Guardian, "Our analysis shows that Trump's criminal pardon spree is, in addition to everything else, an astonishing giveaway to lawbreakers to keep the money they stole from their employees, their investors, and all the American taxpayers. Whoever said crime doesn't pay has certainly not studied the Trump Administration."
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AN 1 26
A prominent Democrat is demanding to know how many January 6 “insurrectionists” have been hired by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as critics warn that federal agents under President Donald Trump are increasingly engaging in violent enforcement actions.
“We know that several participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have been rewarded with high-ranking positions in the Department of Justice (DOJ),” U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
“However, it remains unclear how many more have been invited to join the ranks of this Administration, including among the masked Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents and officers that have dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, shot, and killed citizens and non-citizens alike in communities across the country,” he added.
According to Raskin, Jared Wise, a former Supervisory Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), “stormed his way into the Capitol Building” on January 6, 2021.
“As he did so, he taunted and threaten police officers defending the building and the ones inside, screaming: ‘You guys are disgusting. I’m former—I’m former law enforcement. You’re disgusting.”
Raskin included additional language attributed to Wise, then wrote that he “has never expressed remorse or contrition for his criminal actions.”
Wise was pardoned by President Donald Trump, along with nearly 1,600 others, “including hundreds of cop beaters.”
“Today, Mr. Wise serves as senior adviser in the office of the Deputy Attorney General, alongside another January 6th participant, Ed Martin, the U.S. Pardon Attorney and head of the DOJ Weaponization Working Group,” Raskin wrote.
Congressman Raskin also blasted the recruitment and vetting processes being used by the Trump administration.
“For its part, DHS seems to be courting pardoned January 6th insurrectionists. It uses white nationalist ‘dog whistles’ in its recruitment campaign for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents that appear aimed at stirring members of extremist militias, including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters, which participated in the insurrection,” he stated. “The recruitment campaign began with a $50,000 sign-on bonus, removal of the college degree requirement, and a relaxed vetting process.”
“Who is hiding behind these masks?” Raskin demanded to know. “How many of them were among the violent rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th and were convicted of their offenses? The American people deserve to know how many of these violent insurrectionists have been given guns and badges by this Administration.”
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NOTE BS GOP REBOOT LOUDERMILK
see retaliation LIE GASLT REVISIONISM // FASCISM
OMFG
AN 9 25
WASHINGTON — At the insistence of President Donald Trump, U.S. House Republicans launched a new Jan. 6 investigation earlier this month. This time, though, the GOP is investigating the investigators, namely the bipartisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, which finished its exhaustive work two years ago.
“I want to see all the docs and find out how many lies were told by the people that were sitting on that committee,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) — who was referred to the Ethics Committee after refusing a request to testify from the first Jan. 6 panel — told Raw Story. “That's what I want.”
While the vote setting up the initial Jan. 6 select committee was bipartisan, earlier this month the new Select Subcommittee on January 6 was approved on a party line vote.
“Trying to rewrite history, that's just kind of clearly what they've done since January 6th, so this all fits the narrative,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), who served on the initial committee, which disbanded before the GOP took the House in 2023, told Raw Story. “It’s dangerous.”
It’s not just Democrats waving warning flags. Moderate Republicans say their leaders are making a mistake.
“I just feel like both sides lost their minds, because having the debate again is kind of bad for the nation,” retiring Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told Raw Story.
Regardless, Trump wants it.
Unlike a GOP-led J6 investigation in the last Congress, this time House Republicans have subpoena power and are promising to use it.
‘What are they looking for?’
Before releasing their 845-page report in 2022, the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee interviewed upwards of 1,000 witnesses and reviewed more than a million pages of documents.
That’s why its chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), and other former members decry the new GOP effort.
“The question is what are they looking for? We have no idea. We stand by the work of the committee. Anybody — whoever — wanted to come talk to us, we invited them,” Thompson told Raw Story before dismissing what he sees as an effort to change the narrative.
“They're trying to, but it doesn't change the facts,” Thompson said.
Republicans beg to differ.
“The sham committee did an injustice,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) told Raw Story. “The only thing they did is they wanted to blame Trump for everything. They weren't out there to seek the truth. We have an opportunity now to help kind of clear the air and let the American people know.”
On Jan. 6 2021, Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” in support of his lie that the 2020 election was stolen. They then marched from the White House to the Capitol, most seeking to block certification of Joe Biden’s win.
Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including law enforcement suicides. After returning to power, Trump issued more than 1,500 pardons or acts of clemency, affecting convictions for offenses as serious as seditious conspiracy.
*Nehls is one of five Republicans on the new J6 subcommittee. He’s already come to many conclusions, as laid out in his 2022 book, The Big Fraud: What Democrats Don’t Want You to Know about January 6, the 2020 Election, and a Whole Lot Else.
“Why was the Capitol so ill prepared that day?” Nehls asked Raw Story. “I tell you why, because the leadership of the Capitol Police and others didn't want to share the intelligence reports, and they were f------ clear.
“It was quite clear that things were going to get stupid up here.”
Nehls isn’t the only Republican pushing a narrative. In December, the new subcommittee chair, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), released a report recommending former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), a member of the original J6 panel, be investigated by the FBI “for potential criminal witness tampering.”
"Right now, we're casting a pretty broad net trying to bring in any documents that were not preserved or we don't currently have," Loudermilk said. “Basically going out to all the organizations that provided information to the original select committee.”
“How much is your job, as you see it, or your mandate, to investigate the original J6 committee?” Raw Story pressed. “Or how much is your job investigating what happened Jan. 6, 2021?”
“It's both,” Loudermilk said, “because there are decisions being made in some elements based off that report that should not be made. In fact, because that's the official report, they've literally ruined people's lives from that.”
Loudermilk has plenty of questions.
“Did the FBI have actionable intelligence that this was happening? And what did they do with it? Did they pass it to Capitol Police? Was it passed on? Same with Homeland Security. We're investigating there, and we have reason to believe they had intelligence, it wasn't passed on.”
After an 18-month investigation, the bipartisan committee referred Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. Loudermilk and other Republicans claim much remained unanswered.
“How did this Capitol get breached? Regardless of who did it, it should have never been breached,” Loudermilk said.
“An unarmed mob was able to get in the Capitol, you can't find anything in their report about that. ‘Pipe bombs’ are mentioned five times only in passing, but ‘Donald Trump’ was mentioned over a thousand. So that's why we're looking into it.”
In fact, court records show rioters were armed with weapons including firearms, tasers and knives, as well as makeshift implements used to attack police.
Loudermilk was investigated by the initial Jan. 6 committee after video surfaced of him giving a Capitol tour the day before the attack. Like other Republicans, he refused to sit for an interview.
‘Run the tape’
Democrats plan to hammer home that Loudermilk and other Republicans repeatedly rebuffed fact-finding efforts.
“We can go back to some of the people who didn't testify before and who blew off their subpoenas to see if they're ready to testify,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Raw Story.
Since serving on the initial Jan. 6 committee, Raskin has become top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, making him an ex-officio member of the GOP’s new panel.
While he dismisses the investigation, Raskin promises to use his perch to highlight the terror of Jan. 6, 2021.
“It's going to be an opportunity for us to talk about the tremendous damage inflicted on the police,” Raskin said.
While Raskin is the only carryover from the initial select committee, other alumni also see Trump’s effort to rehash Jan. 6 as a chance to remind the nation of the attempt to overturn the will of the people that culminated in the brutal attack.
“Ridiculous, but it will give us an opportunity to run the tape over and over again. Why do they want to do this?” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) told Raw Story.
“We found the facts. We posted them. It's terabytes of information. Anyone can get it. They're trying to erase history.”
‘Whitewashing’
Even some in Trump’s own party are questioning his goal.
“Why can't we just say those who hurt cops, they were wrong?” Bacon told Raw Story.
“They deserve to be punished — 140 cops were injured. I don't know why we can't have just some honesty, that there were some bad apples in this whole crowd. They deserve to be punished.”
Not according to Trump, who granted blanket pardons. Democrats see the new committee as an extension of that effort.
“The president, on day one, pardoning 1,500 insurrectionists, criminals — violent criminals — was a whitewashing, an attempt to rewrite history,” Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) told Raw Story. “Most importantly, he was pardoning himself. This is a continuation of that.
“It's so infuriating. Just distraction, that's what the administration wants. A little more whitewashing. Absolutely.”
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pod youtube cohen?
jerry c fine on oversight; put aoc on doge; names 6 up comers dan g moskowitz...
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an 5 25
President Donald Trump called for an investigation into NBC News and the CEO of its parent company after one of the network’s top reporters pressed him on the Pentagon’s Wednesday afternoon acceptance of a $400 million luxury airliner from Qatar—a gift some legal scholars warn may violate the Constitution without congressional approval.
“The secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on Wednesday, as The New York Times reported. “The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the president of the United States.”
Estimates range as high as one billion dollars for work that would be required to make the luxury jetliner capable of acting as a mission center to not only transport the President but protect them and other top officials in the event of crisis or war.
Experts “said that accepting the 13-year-old jet would likely cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over time, noting that refurbishing the commercial plane would exceed its current value of $400 million,” NBC News reported last week. “The project might also not be completed by the end of Trump’s term in 2029, at which time the plane is expected to be handed over to Trump’s presidential library foundation.”
READ MORE: ‘It’s a Nightmare’: Trump’s ‘Beautiful’ Bill Slashes $500B From Medicare, Dems Say
But when confronted with a question about the jet, President Trump appeared combative and visibly angered.
“What are you talking about?” Trump asked NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander during an Oval Office meeting with the President of South Africa. “You know, you ought to get out of here.”
“What does this have to do with the Qatar jet? They’re giving the United States Air Force a jet, okay? And it’s a great thing. We’re talking about a lot of other things. It’s NBC trying to get off the subject of what you just saw. You are a real — You know, you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump charged.
“Number one, you don’t have what it takes to be a reporter. You’re not smart enough, but for you to go into a subject about a jet that was given to the United States Air Force, which is a very nice thing, they also gave $5.1 trillion worth of investment in addition to the jet. Go back, you ought to go back to your studio at NBC because [Comcast CEO] Brian Roberts and the people that run that place, they ought to be investigated.”
“They are so terrible, the way you run that that. And you’re a disgrace. No more questions from you.”
Moments later, the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, jokingly remarked, “I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you.”
READ MORE: ‘Shameless Liar and Insane Conspiracy Theorist’: RFK Jr. Slammed by Democratic Senator
“I wish you did,” Trump replied, also saying he would accept it.
HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte remarked: “And there you have it. If Palestinians want their own state, they need to come up with a half billion dollar luxury jet to give Trump. Same with Zelenskyy, if he wants US help.”
Before the announcement that the U.S. has formally accepted the jet, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a former constitutional law professor, wrote: “I’ve introduced an amendment to block Trump from accepting his $400 million Bribe Force One from Qatar, a jumbo global scandal. It’s unconstitutional to take a foreign present ‘of any kind whatever’ from a foreign state, but House Republicans won’t even give me a vote. They don’t give a flying Emolument.”
Critics blasted and mocked the President.
“Someone’s getting testy about his Flying Bribery Palace,” wrote civil liberties and national security journalist Marcy Wheeler.
“Donald Trump has put a ‘for sale’ sign on the White House,” charged U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA). “He’s accepting a $400 million jet from Qatar – rubber stamped by AG Pam Bondi, a registered foreign agent for Qatar. He’s accepting $300 million from a company tied to the PRC and TikTok. This is corruption, plain and simple.”
[Bondi is a former registered foreign agent for Qatar.]
Watch the video below or at this link.
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AN NO LNX
'Gotta be kidding': Jim Jordan scrambles as he's confronted over Musk 'double standard'
U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) listens to House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Rep. James Comer (R-KY) during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on "The Urgent Need to Address the Gun Violence Epidemic," on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 8, 2022.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Matt Laslo and Raw Story February 18, 2025
WASHINGTON — What emails?
That’s the mood from congressional Republicans these days as allegations of private servers and accessing sensitive, private data swirl about this White House.
In 2016 alone, House Republicans issued more than 70 subpoenas or investigative inquiries into Hillary Clinton and her private server.
Many of those same Republicans are now shrugging off fears that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency — a.k.a. DOGE — are flouting government protocols while scouring government databases in their effort to purge federal workers.
But Republicans are about to have a reckoning. Last summer the Supreme Court gave this Congress homework — work policymakers on Capitol Hill haven’t had to do in the past 40 or so years: Write precise rules and regulations instead of leaning on experts in federal agencies to flesh out the policy specifics after Congress passes a bill.
It’s unclear if the contemporary Congress is up to the serious task of policymaking, especially the 119th Congress, which is brimming with technophiles focused on clicks, viral videos and digital dunking.
In the month since Trump took his oath of office, critics say, instead of standing up for Congress and flexing the new powers the Supreme Court bestowed on the institution, congressional Republicans have all but surrendered their oversight responsibilities as they’ve ceded unprecedented power to President Donald Trump and his billionaire sidekick, Elon Musk.
All this talk of a ‘constitutional crisis’ may be a tad premature. What’s certain is America’s in the midst of a congressional crisis — one the current Congress may not be able to withstand.
In more than a dozen exclusive interviews, Republicans on Capitol Hill tell Raw Story not to rule Congress out yet, even as critics fear there’s not going to be much power left for legislators to reclaim with the GOP ceding so much legislative turf to Trump and DOGE at the start of this new administration.
“I'm delighted”
Several Republicans who spoke to Raw Story are cheering for Musk and Trump to dismantle the very federal government set up by Congress in recent years and decades.
“Do you worry that you guys are ceding a little too much power?” Raw Story asked Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) while walking through the Capitol.
“Well, I hate to say this, but the only way it's going to happen, in my opinion, is if we let them do it the way they're doing it. Otherwise, it won't get done. So I'm delighted,” Lummis — who was a member of the far-right, Constitution-wagging Freedom Caucus when she served in the House — told Raw Story. “I mean, really, really delighted with the way that Trump is allowing the DOGE people to audit.”
Team Trump is set on upending, dismantling, overhauling or outright deleting government websites, grants, programs, agencies, protocols and even federal employees themselves.
The courts are now dealing with an onslaught of legal challenges to this new MAGA administration. All those cases will take time to wind through the judiciary, but the Supreme Court’s already spoken.
Last June, the Supreme Court issued new, norm-upending marching orders to Congress when, in a 6-3 ruling, the majority of justices overturned a pivotal, if wonky, 1984 decision when the Roberts Court obliterated the so-called Chevron doctrine, which enabled experts in federal agencies to write rules and regulations never explicitly spelled out by Congress.
That means, Congress’ crutch is gone. It remains unclear if lawmakers will be able to stand on their own and master the jot and tittle of measures they send to the president’s desk.
But for now, at least, Republican majorities on Capitol Hill seem fine outsourcing the legislative branch’s powers to Trump and his White House.
“We're witnessing the collapse of a lot of constitutional boundaries”
In spite of claiming otherwise, DOGE and its unelected leader, Elon Musk, are so opaque, it’s unclear just how their tech is set up. But IT experts say they seem to be operating their own, non-governmental server.
While a case winds through federal courts, Republicans on Capitol Hill are fine with giving Musk, basically, whatever he wants.
“Like, with Musk, I was playing back the tape, you guys were really hard on Hillary for her server,” Raw Story recently pressed House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH). “Is there a double standard here?”
“No, not a double standard. I mean, Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, after the policy decisions that administration made led to — and security decisions that the administration made — led to the deaths of Americans in Benghazi, Libya,” Jordan — the second most senior Republican on the Oversight Committee — told Raw Story. “And then we find out 60,000 emails, and she destroyed, like, 30,000 of them. You gotta be kidding me.”
“So just having the server isn’t the problem?” Raw Story pressed.
“Right. Musk isn't destroying anything,” Jordan said. “He just wants to know where your money’s being spent.”
Democrats agree on one point. They say there’s literally no comparing ‘her emails’ to the work Musk’s conducting in secret.
“No, the two are not comparable, in that Elon is in a class by himself. It's not just the server, but the unfettered power that Trump’s given him,” Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) told Raw Story. “But I think it's important in talking about him to remember, everything he does is empowered by Trump. Good cop, bad cop.”
To congressional Republicans, Trump and Musk are both playing good cop.
“I'm amazed,” Jordan said. “The Trump administration is up to the most intense and focused start of any administration, certainly in my lifetime. I think the American people appreciate the focused, intense, on-offense type of start to this administration.”
“Are you afraid that Congress could be ceding a little bit of its authority — too much of its authority — to the White House and an unelected official?” Raw Story asked.
“No. I think you have this focused effort by DOGE to identify stupid things that the federal government’s spending money on,” Jordan said. “And I think when the American people see that, they're like, ‘Well, that's ridiculous. Of course, we need to change that.’”
Democrats aren’t surprised by much these days. Still, many are astounded watching GOP leaders on Capitol Hill outsource their legislative responsibilities to officials across the Trump administration set on canceling decade’s worth of congressional work — from bipartisan foreign aid programs to nonpartisan domestic food assistance programs.
“There's a shameful abdication of legislative power and responsibility by the GOP majority to the executive branch and the executive branch's lawless delegate,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) — a constitutional scholar by trade — told Raw Story. “We're seeing tremendous erosion of our constitutional edifice.”
Raskin finds the blurred lines between Musk’s work at DOGE and the billions of dollars in federal contracts his companies, like SpaceX, receive beyond troubling.
“We're witnessing the collapse of a lot of constitutional boundaries,” Raskin — the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee — said. “You know, we have this extraordinary convergence of governmental power with corporate power to the extent that a major federal contractor collecting billions from the taxpayers is now also a federal government employee purporting to oversee federal spending.”
Unlike Trump’s first administration, today’s Trump-centric GOP is unified at the Capitol, at least when it comes to oversight, which Raskin says isn’t taking place in spite of Republican rhetoric claiming otherwise.
“They keep talking about, you know, what a great job Elon Musk is doing on oversight when we have an Oversight Committee. The Judiciary Committee has an oversight subcommittee. All of Congress is supposed to be doing oversight as a central part of our responsibility,” Raskin said. “And so instead, they want one, you know, unvetted government contractor to be doing oversight over federal contracts. It's ridiculous.”
It’s not just the lack of oversight. Republicans on Capitol Hill are now Musk’s biggest cheerleaders.
“Everybody sorta ran on the same stuff”
Republicans refute claims they’re laying down on the job. Instead, they argue today’s GOP is in lockstep with the Trump White House.
“What do you view as your guy's role in this Congress?” Raw Story asked Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ). “Is it oversight of the executive, or is it working in tandem because you all are so aligned?”
“I don't know of anybody here who ran away from the president in their campaign. You know what I mean?” the former Freedom Caucus chair told Raw Story. “So everybody sorta ran on the same stuff that included reducing spending, continuing tax cuts, planning for security, that inflation would be dealt with by reducing spending — you know, the whole thing.”
So, instead of passing new measures to bolster the Trump administration’s prerogatives, Republicans are sitting back and enjoying the rowdy show just down Pennsylvania Avenue.
“We're going to do those mandates. We view it as a voter mandate, which gives us a mandate,” Biggs said. “So we move, we work together.”
Besides made-for-TV flurries of executive action from Trump and Musk, there’s not that much working together going on. As each day passes, the threat of a government shutdown increases ahead of the current funding deadline, March 14.
Instead of conducting formal oversight on the administration — like the GOP conducted at the end of the Obama administration and throughout the Biden administration — many Republicans now say their job is to oversee taxpayer dollars. Thus, Republicans say they’re in lockstep with Trump, Musk and DOGE.
“The oversight role still continues, though,” Biggs said. “It's not a new idea to have an independent third party, you know, looking into something like this, so our oversight is to make sure that we know where the dollars are going, just like we've been trying to do for the last — ever since I got here.”
“Now Democrats, they say you guys are just puppets for Musk and Trump,” Raw Story pressed. “You all see it differently?”
“No, that's not true,” Biggs said. “That's kind of a talking point narrative that they're trying to build on, because they don't have jack squat on policy.”
Republicans remain light on policy themselves. That’s despite the new Supreme Court mandate — when it struck down the ‘Chevron doctrine’ last summer — that Congress get serious about writing legislation instead of leaning on federal agencies to think for Congress.
Don’t tell DOGE…
The day’s quickly approaching when Trump will run out of executive orders to sign, and he’ll need Congress to send him actual bills to sign into law.
Lawmakers are braced. Their jobs — or, at the very least, those of their staff — have already gotten noticeably harder since Chief Justice Roberts and the court’s conservatives upended the precedent set in the 1984 Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council decision.
“I haven't thought of it that way. I do think it's put an extra burden on us,” Sen. Lummis — the Wyoming Republican who used to be on the Freedom Caucus — said. “It ramps up our drafting. We're more detailed about our drafting because Chevron.”
It’s not just making drafting legislation more meticulous: it seems to be melding lawmakers from the president’s own party with the very federal agencies lawmakers are supposed to oversee.
“Just more hard work. And it is all specifically geared towards Chevron, but I can't really say that it has affected the relationship between the legislative and executive branch, yet,” Lummis said. “It might, but more the agency level than the White House level. You know, the agencies we work with.”
But soon, the agencies won’t be much assistance as this Congress will be required to stand on its own.
“The Supreme Court said, ‘Hey, you guys gotta do your job,’” Raw Story reminded Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX).
“I think we're early in trying to figure out how to mechanically put all that in place,” Roy told Raw Story at the Capitol. “Like, I think, honestly, a lot of what DOGE is doing and what Elon's doing, we've got to embrace and put in our own orbit in Congress.”
While Musk, Trump and many rank-and-file Republicans are promising some $2 trillion in federal budget cuts, Roy and a handful of other Republicans argue increased funding is needed now to save money in the long run.
Roy argues efforts to cut Congress’ own budget — legislative branch appropriations, to be precise — are misguided, because expertise is needed to upend the administrative state legislatively.
“Guys that are always wanting to slash and burn [legislative] branch approps, I’m like, ‘You got to have your own,’” Roy said. “You’ve got to understand in a post-Chevron world, we got to be able to do our jobs. We need to have, certainly, in some organized fashion — I'm not sure every office has to be beefed up — but our ability to be able to have overview and constraint.”
Roy says that’s where Republicans are rooting for Musk most.
Instead of the time it takes to investigate and then issue a formal report or to “have somebody come testify,” Roy believes the technology-driven Silicon Valley approach will leave a lasting imprint on on not just the executive branch but Congress itself.
“Look, with technology now, I mean, what Elon’s showing — whether you love him or you don’t — the ability to use algorithms and computers and AI to go pore over the government and expose all of the horse crap that we've all been seeing, that we have observed,” Roy said.
“Democrats say you guys are puppets of Musk and Trump,” Raw Story pressed. “But you guys don't see it that way?”
“No — at all, actually,” Roy said. “So far, what I've seen is the president empowering an individual to root through the crap and expose it…and I think this will now empower Congress in the future — both sides of the aisle — to be able to go forward and pore over all of this crap.”
“Because, essentially, when you do spending bills, you'll fill in some of the things that they're currently doing?” Raw Story asked.
“Correct,” Roy said. “But we're going to need to be able to use those same tools and have input and/or build out our own.”
The steady stream of complaints flowing from the left is mere white noise to congressional Republicans these days.
“I think the hyperbole coming from the Democrats is simply because they lost and all of their little pet programs that they've loved for years are going away,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) told Raw Story. “That is fear-mongering. The same fear-mongering that had them ignore the reality of the southern border, and it is why they lost, not just the Senate, That's why they lost the White House.”
Republicans may have won in November, but Democrats say they’re already squandering their newfound populist appeal at the feet of unelected billionaires, like when Musk backed a government shutdown during Congress’ last funding fight in December.
“They have a chance to succeed on, like, big issues that they ran on, but if they're gonna do this nonsense, it'll all fall down on them,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) told Raw Story earlier this winter after Democrats came to Republicans’ rescue and funded the government.
POT HED: MAGA Effect: “It's a different party, in so many ways”
The MAGA-mandate may be nebulous, but to card-carrying club members, part of their job is to dismantle American conservatism — or what became of it in recent neocon saturated decades — itself.
“Is part of the mandate also to upend the Republican Party of old?” Raw Story asked the House Judiciary chair.
“It just happens. It's a different party in so many ways,” Jordan told Raw Story. "Someone said this a few years ago, you know, 'We're no longer the wine and cheese party. We're a beer and blue jeans party.' And so we're much more, I think, a working-class, middle-class-focused party."
“I always say, we make the job too complicated. Job's pretty simple. We just tell the voters what you were gonna do when you ran for it. If you get elected, go do what you said. President Trump does that better than anyone,” Jordan said. “But when you have someone whose, like, singular purpose and focus is to identify that and say, ‘We need to stop this’ — that's a good thing.”
Democrats are still regrouping after their party’s stunning defeat in November, but they see one sliver of an opening — one many predict will only grow in the coming months — as they watch this, supposedly, populist president pal around with billionaires.
“He's good at taking care of people who can afford to join Mar-a-Lago, so that's, like, his crowd, whether it be a tax bill or whether it be for who he's bringing in the administration,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) told Raw Story. “It's just very different than what we've been used to, where you bring in experts in areas. Instead, he just brings in fellow rich people.”
an 12 24
no lnx
alternet-
'Pit bulls of retribution': Swalwell braces for Trump admin after 'gross abuse'
Matt Laslo,Alexandria Jacobson and Raw StoryDecember 11, 2024
A new watchdog report released Tuesday revealed that the Department of Justice under the first Donald Trump administration secretly obtained phone records for members of Congress, journalists, government staffers and incoming FBI director nominee Kash Patel — actions the top House Judiciary Democrat exclusively told Raw Story are a "gross abuse" of power worthy of investigation.
Two Democratic members of Congress. then-Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (R-CA), were targeted in the report, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
"My suspicion alert level is at the highest, considering it was me and another Democrat who the president, President Trump would routinely call out all the time, either in his tweets or his public statements," Swalwell told Raw Story on Tuesday. "That's what he was willing to do in his first administration, where there were guardrails in place and serious [pushback] around him. It's very concerning as to what he'll be willing to do with unserious people around him who are seeking to be pit bulls of retribution."
Swalwell said targeting Congress members and staff is "incredibly concerning" and will be more so with the incoming administration of Trump loyalists as "any guardrails that were in place last time are gone now with this new team," he said.
ALSO READ: Trump allies promise revenge as Dems ram through Biden judges
"Once you start going after like individual members who are critical of the president, you better be damn sure you have the goods, and it was clear that Schiff and I had done nothing wrong, and it was just a way to try and find something on us, to indict or embarrass us," Swalwell said.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the current top Democratic ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, exclusively told Raw Story that the Department of Justice investigation intended to have a "chilling effect."
"It's a gross abuse and ought to be investigated, although with Trump coming in, he's not gonna investigate it," said Nadler, who announced he would drop out of the Democratic House Judiciary race and endorsed Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD).
Schiff, who was sworn into the Senate on Monday, joined current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for a press briefing on Tuesday. He said that pre-emptive pardons were not necessary for himself or other members of the January 6 committee, but he did not take questions from reporters about the report.
NOW READ: Trump is taking the mask off after lying to us for more than a year
ymail 12 24
2024 was another record-shattering year for campaign spending, with $16 billion spent on federal races. According to OpenSecrets, nearly $4.5 billion came from independent expenditure groups such as super PACs, and $1.1 billion came from dark money groups.
Citizens United created a massive loophole for foreign interests to acquire stakes in U.S. corporations and then use that leverage to influence or control the corporation’s political activity, including campaign contributions, contributions to super PACs, and independent expenditures. Companies like Amazon and Airbnb, which have significant foreign ownership, have circumvented direct bans on foreign influence enshrined in federal law and used their money to impact the outcome of elections and to advance political agendas in their favor.
WATCH: Re-Introducing the “Get Foreign Money Out of U.S. Elections Act”
Share this video on Facebook and X!
Congressman Jamie Raskin and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse have reintroduced the “Get Foreign Money Out of U.S. Elections Act,” a bill to ban foreign-influenced corporations from contributing to candidates, parties, or committees (including super PACs) or from engaging in their direct election spending. Free Speech For People was instrumental in drafting and helping to pass this model legislation in Minnesota, San Jose, California, and Seattle, Washington, and we have worked closely with the offices of Congressman Raskin and Senator Whitehouse to reintroduce this federal bill.
Now more than ever, we must do all we can to restore faith and confidence in our democracy. By banning multinational corporations from pouring unlimited sums of money into our elections, we are upholding the letter of the law and getting us one step closer to a democracy that is truly by and for the people.
9 24 exxonknews
...What do you see as the biggest impediment to plaintiff success in climate litigation against fossil fuel companies?
We are talking about the biggest of the international oil and gas companies — incredibly well-resourced companies with access to huge pools of legal advisors, both in-house and external counsel, with offices across multiple jurisdictions, with long experience in litigation. So it is a huge challenge for an individual plaintiff — particularly an individual person or a small community group, or even a municipality, to match these companies in court. To respond to all the pre-trial applications these companies could file. To defend against strikeout applications, to provide discovery, all of that is a huge challenge.
:{Though not a challenge necessarily for plaintiffs directly but for [anyone] criticizing the companies, we’ve seen that at the same time as there’s an increasing wave of litigation against oil and gas companies, more and more strategic lawsuits against public participation — SLAPP suits — are being filed by oil and gas producers. This has a chilling effect on public discourse and public criticism of these companies. Organizations can be silenced by threats of legal action that then discourages them from even getting to the point where they could consider becoming plaintiffs. Seeing the novel uses of the EU’s anti-SLAPP directive to protect public discourse across jurisdictions, even in the United States — for example, Greenpeace has threatened to sue Energy Transfer in the Netherlands for damages related to Energy Transfer’s case against them [for organizing against] the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota — could be incredibly significant depending on how that develops. [*Tong is on the board of directors at Greenpeace International.
*:{Additional note: Rep. Jamie Raskin introduced federal anti-SLAPP legislation in the U.S. in 2022. He [recently told ExxonKnews that he would reintroduce that bill in the next Congress......
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August 9, 2024, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime
JESSE WATTERS (HOST): You think Democrats are going to go down that easy? That's not how they roll. They play dirty, they always have something up their sleeve. Jamie Raskin has had plan C in the works for months. Listen to this.
[...]
Disqualify him. That's what Democrats are going to do if Trump wins. If the Democrats have the House and the Senate, they will vote to disqualify him before he's inaugurated. On the grounds that he's an insurrectionist who's constitutionally prohibited under the 14th Amendment from serving. Even though he was never charged or convicted of insurrection. A preemptive coup. Not a silent coup. This time they're admitting.
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jake an 5 24
A top U.S. House Democrat announced Tuesday that he is demanding answers from fossil fuel executives after Washington Post reporting revealed last week that former Republican President Donald Trump recently told industry leaders he would gut climate regulations if they raised $1 billion for his 2024 presidential campaign.
Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, on Monday wrote to the heads of the American Petroleum Institute (API) and eight companies: Cheniere Energy, Chesapeake Energy, Chevron, Continental Resources, EQT Corporation, ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum, and Venture Global LNG.
Raskin's letters note that the executives "appear to have attended" Trump's fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago in Florida last month and "media reports raise significant potential ethical, campaign finance, and legal issues that would flow from the effective sale of American energy and regulatory policy to commercial interests in return for large campaign contributions."
"Mr. Trump's unvarnished quid pro quo offer is especially troubling evidence in light of recent accounts that the 'U.S. oil industry is drawing up ready-to-sign executive orders for Donald Trump aimed at pushing natural gas exports, cutting drilling costs, and increasing offshore oil leases in case he wins a second term,'" he wrote, citing Politico. "These preparatory actions suggest that certain oil and gas companies, which have a track record of using deceitful tactics to undermine effective climate policy, may have already accepted or facilitated Mr. Trump's explicit corrupt bargain."
...
Raskin also highlighted findings from a January Oversight Committee Democrats staff report, which shows that "when Mr. Trump was in office, he accepted at least $7.8 million from kings, princes, and foreign states, including the People's Republic of China and Saudi Arabia, in blatant violation of the Constitution's foreign emoluments clause, and rendered a sequence of foreign policy favors to his patrons."
The congressman—and constitutional scholar—asked the executives to respond to questions and document requests by May 27. He is seeking the names of employees who attended the April 11 fundraiser, copies of materials distributed during the event, descriptions of all policy proposals and related campaign contributions discussed, and draft executive orders or policy paperwork prepared by members of the companies.
"The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is the principal oversight committee of the House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate 'any matter' at 'any time,'" Raskin explained. "The requested information is needed to investigate and legislate on matters related to presidential and presidential-candidate ethics and to continue to address the major ethics crisis created by Donald Trump's efforts to profit off the presidency."
As Raskin released the letters on Tuesday, Media Matters for America's Allison Fisher pointed out that "unfortunately, over a four-day period, TV news broadcast and cable networks—with the exception of MSNBC—did not cover Trump's proposition to oil executives."
However, Trump has made his policy plans clear. Even before the fundraiser, he publicly pledged to "drill, baby, drill" if he beats Democratic President Joe Biden in November. One March analysis found that a second Trump term would lead to the release of 4 billion more tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide—the combined annual emissions of the European Union and Japan—by 2030 than if Biden were reelected.
The letters aren't the first time Raskin has taken aim at the fossil fuel industry this month. At the beginning of May, he testified before the U.S. Senate Budget Committee about a nearly three-year investigation into "Big Oil's campaign of deception and distraction," which he said "undermines the efforts we need to mobilize our people and government to save our climate, our habitat, and our species."
"Unless the deception ends, and until the industry is held accountable," the congressman warned, "we are unlikely ever to be able to muster the national political will to effectively tackle climate change."
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see FF CEO greenwash
see phase 4 delayism // methane net zero BS
see exxon 4 darren wood
see clean coal ccs
SEE EOR enhanced oil recovery
includes natural processes
see kemper cty, Southern co defunct
bak 4 24
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co2 pipeline leak 4 24 zombies
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ymail 4 24
In 2021, Congressional Democrats subpoenaed Big Oil for internal documents detailing the industry’s role in worsening the climate crisis.
Some of the documents have already been released. But today, we got some more.
The internal materials are from Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Chamber of Commerce. They’re being released today as part of the Senate Budget Committee’s upcoming hearing on Wednesday morning, titled “Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oil’s Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change.”
Source: X
Both the hearing and the documents mark the revival of the House Oversight Committee’s two-year investigation into the fossil fuel industry, and its role in misleading Americans about climate change. That investigation was put on ice when Republicans won back control of the chamber in late 2022.
Democrats say their new findings provide “a rare glimpse into the extensive efforts undertaken by fossil fuel companies to deceive the public and investors about their knowledge of the effects of their products on climate change and to undermine efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.”
HEATED got a chance to review the new documents prior to their publication today. And while we don’t think the revelations are necessarily all that “rare,” here are five things we found notable.
1. BP really, really loves Princeton
To influence academia, fossil fuel companies have spent at least $700 million on partnerships with U.S. universities. The longest-running of these partnerships is between BP and Princeton.
The new documents provide some insight into why: because Princeton gives BP unprecedented access to discussions about research. In 2016 emails, BP officials discussed cutting funding to Harvard and Tufts and boosting it for Princeton, because research discussions at Harvard and Tufts “are directed by the universities and much less relevant to BP.” They said “personality and structural issues” at Harvard and Tufts made it “difficult to achieve the same BP focus.”
Achieving a “BP focus” meant two things: pushing research about the benefits of carbon capture and methane gas. And that’s what Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative did.
In 2018, an internal BP presentation marked “confidential” recommended Princeton CMI director Stephen Pacala as a preferred expert in defending methane gas as a climate solution. And in a 2020 email, BP officials discussed an upcoming call with Pacala, in which BP would recommend developing a net zero plan “with emphasis on CCUS [carbon capture utilization and storage] — building ‘backbone’ of pipelines to transport carbon from emitters to the Permian and Gulf Coast sites.”
CMI did eventually develop a net zero study with an emphasis on carbon capture. BP officials celebrated, writing, “Princeton’s net zero study is expected to be a guide for the Biden Administration.”
Today, sure enough, the Biden Administration is making massive investments in carbon capture—just as BP’s vice president of U.S. policy and regulatory affairs predicted. In a 2020 email, he said BP’s relationship with Princeton was “becoming increasingly synergistic.” If Biden won, the VP said, “I would not be surprised to see some of our friends in senior government policymaking roles, as well!”
2. Oil companies know they can’t meet their public climate goals
While they publicly tout their efforts to fight climate change, oil companies privately say they don’t believe the world could ever reach a safe, livable climate.
For example: Exxon first publicly supported the Paris Agreement in 2015, but internally the company revealed that it did not believe the climate treaty’s goals were realistic. “We don’t yet see the world even approaching a 2°C pathway … let alone a 1.5°C pathway,” Exxon’s former manager of environmental policy and planning Peter Trelenberg wrote in a 2018 email. “Both 2°C and 1.5°C would require unprecedented changes to the global energy system and economy, at a rate and scale never before demonstrated, and with technologies not yet available and affordable.”...
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4 24 yahoo
carbon dioxide pipeline rupture in the small village of Satartia, Mississippi, sent nearly 50 people to the hospital with “zombie”-like conditions in 2020, and now another major leak from a pipeline in Sulphur, Louisiana, has once again exposed the risks carbon dioxide pipelines pose to communities in their path.
Soon, pipelines like this could be coming to cities and towns throughout the country. Spurred by federal tax incentives from the Biden Administration, the fossil fuel industry is planning to build tens of thousands of miles of carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines across the United States for experimental carbon capture and storage — a process aimed at sequestering carbon emissions from power plants, sending it through pipelines, and injecting it underground.
While regulators are working to craft updated safety rules for these pipelines, major fossil fuel companies and their trade groups — including Chevron, ConocoPhillips, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association — have launched a lobbying blitz to scale back regulations and target the regulators themselves so they can construct new pipelines as quickly as possible.
Carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant. Upon entering the atmosphere during a pipeline leak or rupture, it can travel long distances, shut down vehicles, and sicken, suffocate, or even kill people and wildlife.
Only about 5,000 miles of carbon dioxide pipelines currently exist across the country, largely operating in states across the Midwest and Gulf Coast. Many communities, landowners,and environmental and public health groups have staunchly opposed and, in some cases, successfully prevented their build-out, such as eliminating the proposed 1,300-mile Navigator pipeline that would have crossed through five Midwestern states.
But now, this pipeline network could be greatly expanded. According to the U.S. Department of Energy and financial industry estimates, it could take up to 96,000 miles of new carbon dioxide pipelines — enough to wrap around the earth four times — to transport just 15 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal agency tasked with pipeline safety, announced in 2022 that it would update rules for carbon dioxide pipelines.
The agency, which is overseen by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and was implicated in the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, is itself up for reauthorization, meaning Congress will reconsider its lawmaking mandates and funding. Now the pipeline industry, represented by its main lobbying group, the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association, is using both the rule-making and reauthorization processes to push its agenda forward.
“There is no need for adding a host of punitive provisions on the pipeline industry,” reads written January testimony from Andrew Black, the lobbying group’s president and CEO, to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has proposed a bill on the pipeline safety agency’s reauthorization. “The data just does not support those who wish to impose harsh new mandates or penalties on pipeline operators.”
On March 6, the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association arranged a meeting with the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is currently reviewing the draft carbon dioxide safety rules. Also present at the meeting were representatives from ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Marathon, TC Energy, Kinder Morgan, Phillips 66, and Valero, along with representatives from the Department of Transportation.
“THE ADMINSTRATION [sic] SHOULD AVOID AN OVERLY BROAD OR UNSUBSTANTIATED CO2 PIPELINES RULEMAKING THAT RISKS DELAY AND IMPERILS FINALIZATION,” reads the all-caps intro to the lobbying group’s talking points for that meeting.
In response to a request for comment, Liquid Energy Pipeline Association’s president and CEO Andy Black offered several reasons “why we think a measured approach to pipeline safety legislation is appropriate.” According to Black, federal data shows “the number of CO2 pipeline incidents is flat over the last 5 years,” and “Federal regulation imposes dozens of safety requirements on interstate CO2 pipelines on everything from design and construction to inspection, maintenance, and emergency response.”
Robin Rorick, one of the American Petroleum Institute's vice presidents, said in an email, “The safe use and development of CO2 pipelines will be critical as our industry and the nation as a whole advances its emissions reduction efforts. API will continue to work with [Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration] and industry experts to safely accelerate the widescale, responsible deployment of CO2 pipelines while protecting the environment and communities where we live and work.”
An Invisible Menace
The urgency of this issue reemerged this month after a carbon dioxide leak from a pipeline in Sulphur, Louisiana, co-owned by ExxonMobil and Denbury, a carbon capture developer that owns the country's largest carbon dioxide pipeline network.
Residents within a quarter mile of the leak received a phone notification to shelter in place. But others only received the news from a Facebook post by local officials, citing a “bust” in Exxon’s high-pressure carbon dioxide pipeline in Sulphur and warning residents to shut their doors and windows, turn off any ventilation, and wait.
While the proper procedure is to evacuate, local fire chief Todd Parker said changing winds near the leak made that impossible. “For the homes that were affected, they had to drive through the release to be able to get out, so we couldn’t evacuate them,” Parker explained. He said it took more than two hours for pipeline operators to stop the leak, which was called in by a resident who reported seeing “white clouds” coming from the pipeline.
In the meantime, Roishetta Ozane, a Sulphur resident and local environmental justice organizer, began fielding calls from panicked residents.
“People were reaching out asking me about what CO2 is,” Ozane said. But as a mom of six children, she was also scared and confused. “We know that this is colorless and odorless, so I just kept my children inside and made sure they were OK,” said Ozane. “Pipelines leak, CO2 leaks, and you don’t know it’s happened until tragedy has struck.”
She remembered the incident in Satartia, where another Denbury carbon dioxide pipeline rupture caused mass asphyxiation, turning people into dazed and unresponsive “zombies,” with some losing consciousness. As hundreds rushed to evacuate, vehicles became paralyzed, since cars need oxygen to burn fuel. Some residents still face serious health issues years later.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration slapped Denbury with the second-largest fine in its history after the Satartia disaster for neglecting to address hazards to its pipeline system and notify emergency responders of the leak or train them to address such an accident before it happened.
The leak in Sulphur is “a very sobering introduction to how the companies will probably try to handle similar incidents,” said journalist Dan Zegart, who reported in depth on the Satartia disaster. “I say ‘similar incidents’ not even really knowing what [kind of leak] we’re talking about here, which is a perfect example of what we’re worried about in the future.”
No injuries have been reported so far in Sulphur — regulators are still investigating the leak and the local municipality said it did not have records to provide — but the bewildering incident highlights the uncertain future for residents in the path of the carbon dioxide pipeline build-out.
“It is alarming that we have been organizing, educating the community, educating ourselves, and trying to get answers from the government on [carbon capture and storage] in Louisiana for three years now, and we still did not have the information or frankly relationships necessary to get real-time information on what was happening [in Sulphur],” said Jane Patton, a campaign manager at the nonprofit advocacy group, the Center for International Environmental Law.
“[The Liquid Energy Pipeline Association] supports Congress mandating and [Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration] imposing new safety requirements on CO2 pipelines reflecting the lessons learned from the Satartia, MS pipeline incident,” said Black, the lobbying group’s president, in his email to The Lever. He added that the organization “looks forward to the results of Sulphur, LA pipeline incident review and any recommendations it produces for how to improve CO2 pipeline safety further.”
A Carbon Capture Future?
ExxonMobil — which purchased Denbury last year — is planning to build carbon capture infrastructure throughout Louisiana, where about a third of the nation’s carbon capture projects have been proposed.
Exxon did not respond to requests for comment.
“We’ve got plans to grow our carbon capture business and really focus on emitters all along that Denbury pipeline,” Exxon CEO Darren Woods told Louisiana newspaper*The Advocate*in February. “What we’re doing is taking advantage of the ability to pump carbon dioxide back into the ground, and store it very safely. It’s isolated from the rest of the community.”
Patton says that such statements are just “another lie that we're being sold” by the fossil fuel industry.
“Louisiana is magic, and I want to be able to pass this magic onto the next generation behind me,” she said. “We deserve a future here and that future is not in carbon capture.”
Scientists have been sounding the alarm that carbon capture and sequestration is not an effective way to reduce emissions and is most often used for enhanced oil recovery, which means accessing more fossil fuels to be burned. The Department of Energy just announced it would invest $23 million in two projects to evaluate the potential for enhanced oil recovery using captured carbon dioxide.
In internal company documents, the oil and gas industry has privately admitted that though CCS is “complex, costly, and will require additional power,” it will “enable the use of petroleum and natural gas” well into the future.
But thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, which ratcheted up tax credits available for carbon capture technology, the race is on to build out carbon dioxide pipelines.
Meanwhile, advocates say their concerns are being ignored. “You’ve got communities, NGOs on pipeline safety, governmental experts on pipeline safety all raising alarm about the hazards of what is being planned,” said Monique Harden, director of Law and Policy at the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. “What you don’t have is the response of protection or response that validates those concerns. Instead, what you have is silence.”
Last week, U.S. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Brad Crabtree told the Illinois newspaper The Springfield State-Journal Register, “I would argue that our electric transmission and distribution infrastructure, it’s essential to modern life, but it also results in injuries and fatalities… But as a result of those risks, we do not have people saying we shouldn’t have electric transmission and distribution… CO2 pipelines are no different in that regard.”
Many of the proposed pipeline projects would run through communities like Sulphur — low-income communities of color already burdened by polluting petrochemical and fossil fuel facilities. These communities often have minimal resources to respond to worsening extreme weather events, like a tornado that destroyed the office of Ozane’s disaster-relief and environmental justice nonprofit not far from Sulphur just days after the leak.
“On top of the fact that this is taking public money, it is essentially a program where the federal government pays the oil and gas industry to deal with its own waste product in a way that burdens communities and makes us demonstrably less safe,” said Patton. “Accidents that happen along CO2 pipeline routes are going to become more common and much more dangerous if this program is allowed to move forward.”
While significant public resources are being deployed to develop this technology, understanding of carbon dioxide pipeline leaks — how they happen, the extent of their damage, and how they should be addressed — lags far behind.
“Often you need the knowledge gaps to be filled before you can fully fill the regulatory gaps,” said Bill Caram, executive director of Pipeline Safety Trust, an organization that advocates for stronger regulations on pipeline safety. “Right now, CO2 pipelines are relatively rare and relatively rural, and we’re moving toward building a lot more CO2 pipelines closer to communities. I don't think we are ready to do that safely.”
Current carbon dioxide pipelines are largely located in small communities with underpaid or volunteer fire departments, many of which lack equipment to respond to and monitor for carbon dioxide leaks. In Sulphur’s case, the fire chief said he had not seen an emergency response protocol from the company until after the leak occurred.
Environmental and public health groups are pushing federal regulators for additional pipeline safety provisions, including updated “dispersion modeling” requirements, which show how carbon dioxide moves and would help emergency personnel respond to accidents, and adding odorants to the carbon dioxide to warn community members of a leak.
Groups are also advocating for new limits on contaminants in the pipelines that can lead to corrosion; mandates for training and coordination between pipeline operators and first responders; and additional rules for transporting gaseous and liquid carbon dioxide, which are currently unregulated.
Pipeline Pushback
But companies, and the lobbying groups that represent them, are pushing back. Since the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration announced its intention to make new rules on carbon dioxide pipelines in 2022, records show that Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Enbridge, Marathon, Shell, and Targa, along with trade associations like Liquid Energy Pipeline Association, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, have been lobbying the agency on pipeline infrastructure, rule-making, and safety, and/or lobbying on the agency’s reauthorization, among other issues.
During their March meeting at the White House Office of Management and Budget, fossil fuel interests appeared to push for rulemaking that prioritizes secrecy and expediency over safety and transparency.
“Any emergency response requirements should ensure the protection of sensitive information and be aligned with industry current best practices,” reads API’s talking points from the meeting. “The rule must be technically feasible and set realistic timelines for implementation to ensure it supports rather than hinders the build-out of this additional CO2 pipeline infrastructure.”
Maggie Coulter, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said advocacy groups are particularly concerned about the industry’s attempts to keep data about potential pipeline leaks hidden from the public. One of the bills being considered for Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s safety reauthorization, which has received broad support from industry trade groups, contains a provision for the “protection of sensitive information in responding to a public request for information regarding carbon dioxide dispersion modeling.”
“There’s an additional cost in doing things safely, and increased public scrutiny when you’re affirmatively tasked with informing first responders and members of the public,” said Coulter. “Right now we just have to trust the company.”
Black, president of the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association, said in his comment to The Lever that his organization “supports operators sharing the results of pipeline modeling with state and local emergency planning officials and first responders,” but advocates for “limiting general public sharing of security sensitive information, as is the current approach for crude oil pipelines, to prevent bad actors from misusing this information to harm surrounding communities.”
Black did not respond directly to questions about evidence showing that pipeline operators have failed to communicate with first responders ahead of and properly respond to CO2 pipeline disasters in the past.
Caram of Pipeline Safety Trust said that given the risks that carbon dioxide pipelines pose to communities across the country, the companies involved shouldn’t be allowed to dictate their own safety standards.
“It's like the difference between a speed limit of 55 MPH as opposed to a sign saying ‘please drive safely,’” Caram said. “We need something specific to hold them to.”
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exxonknewS
y mail 12 23
no lnx see exxon 4
exxon crashes COP28 to “fight for its life”
ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods is on a mission to defend fossil fuels and deny science during his debut at the UN climate conference.
EXXONKNEWS
DEC 6
Emily Sanders is the Center for Climate Integrity’s editorial lead.
:{:{Will COP28 be a climate denial superspreader event, or the death knell for Big Oil? The fossil fuel industry is doing all it can to ensure the former and prevent the latter. At least 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists were granted access to the conference — nearly four times more than any previous year.}:
COP President and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) CEO Sultan Al Jaber proclaimed that there is “no science” to back up the need to phase out fossil fuels in order to keep warming within the 1.5 degree threshold, accused his interviewer (Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland) of lying about ADNOC’s increasing investments in oil, and insisted that ending fossil fuels would “take the world back into caves.” He then launched yet another “net zero” emissions commitment, joined by about 50 major oil companies, which the UN secretary-general swiftly condemned as greenwashing.}:
https://twitter.com/PriceofOil/status/1731025554789318713
All in all, it’s shaping up to be the worst takeover of COP by fossil fuel interests yet, with oil and gas representatives boring like hungry termites into policy discussions concerning their companies’ profits — just the kind of thing ExxonMobil wouldn’t miss for the world.
A debut of desperation
This year is Exxon’s CEO Darren Woods’ first at COP, and he has been on quite the press tour. Woods’ mission is like those of other major oil company representatives at the conference: to defend the continued expansion of fossil fuel production against the irrefutable scientific consensus calling for its end.
“This is a desperate attempt to prolong his company’s destructive, fossil fuel-dependent business model,” said Kathy Mulvey, accountability campaign director for the Climate & Energy Team at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“The unprecedented nature of an Exxon CEO’s appearance at a U.N. climate talk seems consistent with the unprecedented nature of this year’s talks themselves,” said Geoffrey Supran, a Professor of Environmental Science & Policy at University of Miami and researcher of Exxon’s disinformation campaigns.
This particular COP is a “potential watershed moment, where Big Oil’s products finally become the target of international climate policy. That’s got to have oil executives up at night,” he said.
In conversations with multiple major media outlets, the oil executive said that policymakers were focusing too much on reducing fossil fuels and not enough on their emissions.
The talks in Dubai have “put way too much emphasis on getting rid of fossil fuels, oil and gas, and not . . . on dealing with the emissions associated with them,” Woods told the Financial Times in one interview.
“I actually think that part of the thing that has slowed us down is this focus on making a step change and getting out of our existing energy system and starting something brand new,” he told CNBC in another. “I think what society ought to focus on is the true problem here, which is emissions.”
Woods’ approach “appears to be an attempt to delay the urgent phase out of fossil fuels,” said William J. Ripple, a Distinguished Professor of Ecology at the University of Oregon and Director of the Alliance of World Scientists. Ripple was lead author on a report signed by more than 15,000 scientists last month that concluded that “the significance of immediately curbing fossil fuel use and preventing every further 0.1°C increase in future global heating cannot be overstated.”
International scientific bodies agree. “The uncomfortable truth that the industry needs to come to terms with is that successful clean energy transitions require much lower demand for oil and gas, which means scaling back oil and gas operations over time – not expanding them,” International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol wrote in the foreword to a report the agency published just before COP.
As has been its pattern for decades, Exxon is well aware of the science demanding the phase-out of its products — it’s just doing everything in its power to stop that science from leading to action, critics say.
“This is what they do: confuse and corrupt, deny and delay,” said Supran.
Confuse and corrupt, deny and delay
https://twitter.com/ClimateUCS/status/1731723555207876633
“The idea of taking advice on climate action from an oil boss is like inviting an unrepentant con artist to lead a fraud protection bureau,” said Mulvey, of UCS.
Woods, who just sealed a $60 billion deal to acquire Pioneer Natural Resources and produce more oil — a merger that is now being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission — has no plans to transition away from fossil fuels. Exxon was one of the 50 oil companies to sign on to Sultan Al Jaber’s voluntary emissions reduction pledge, called the “Oil and Gas Decarbonisation Charter,” which critics say rehashes old commitments and would do nothing to curb fossil fuel production. A letter from more than 300 advocacy groups called the pledge a “smokescreen to hide the reality that we need to phase out oil, gas and coal.”
“Oil and gas companies are under pressure, desperately trying to preserve their social license through recycled pledges,” said David Tong, Global Industry Campaign Manager at Oil Change International, which last year published a report finding that Exxon’s climate commitments are “grossly insufficient” to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Woods and his fellow oil company representatives are also using COP to push for unproven technologies that will prolong the lifespan of climate-wrecking fossil fuels. In an interview with Bloomberg at COP, Woods said the energy transition would require an assortment of “solutions” — including hydrogen and carbon capture — and “we need big companies to help with that.”
Woods rejected the IEA’s recent assessment of carbon capture as an “illusion,” telling Reuters that “you could say that about electric vehicles, about wind, about solar.” But according to the IEA, “The key actions required to bend the emissions curve sharply downwards by 2030 are well understood, most often cost effective and are taking place at an accelerating rate. The scaling up of clean energy is the main factor behind a decline of fossil fuel demand of over 25% this decade.”
Yet unlike the billions it invests in carbon capture, Exxon is spending almost nothing on renewable sources of energy, while lobbying against the transition away from its core products.
“It’s no surprise that Exxon is pushing for the continued use of fossil fuels,” said Jessica Green, Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. “Exxon is in a fight for its life. Real progress on climate change isn’t about more carbon markets or net zero pledges, it’s about putting the oil and gas industry out of business.”
A larger strategy
Woods’ deflections at COP are part of a larger strategy of “corporate issues management,” said Supran, which “the fossil fuel industry has been pioneering for decades.”
“It means having your fingers in all the pies, anticipating future threats to your business and neutralizing them through decades of 360-degree public affairs strategies,” he said.
Exxon has been working to shift the narrative outside of COP, too. “On November 30, the first day of COP 28, The New York Times included a full-page greenwashing ad from ExxonMobil,” Brad Johnson documented in Hill Heat on Monday. “Reuters coverage of Al Gore’s criticism of ExxonMobil’s presence at COP 28 was smothered by greenwashing ads from ExxonMobil. The Punchbowl News political newsletter today is Presented by ExxonMobil.” Yesterday’s Power Switch newsletter from Politico was Presented by ExxonMobil, too.
While the oil giant’s greenwashing may have ramped up around COP, it’s also a years-long affair — aided in large part by many of the same media outlets interviewing Woods at the conference. A major analysis of Big Oil’s advertising between October 2020 and October 2023 found that “many of the world’s most trusted English-language news publications help fossil fuel companies mislead readers about topics like the promise of carbon capture, the potential of ‘renewable biogas,’ and how much the industry contributes to the energy transition,” according to Amy Westervelt and Matthew Green.
The analysis, published by Drilled and DeSmog this week, found that Bloomberg Media Studios last year created a video for Exxon promoting carbon capture and hydrogen; Politico organized 37 e-mail campaigns for Exxon; and Exxon sponsored more than 100 editions of Washington Post newsletters in 2022 alone, as just a few examples.:}:
Ultimately, it’s up to the media, policymakers, and other major institutions to determine whether the oil companies still responsible for fueling climate catastrophe are allowed to have a platform to stand on — or whether, like Big Tobacco, their time to influence the debate about their products’ harm is finally up.
ICYMI: If you want to learn more about the language being used by oil companies at COP this year, here’s a helpful guide from NPR.
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Carbon removal looks more promising by the day. Is methane next?
BY Chelsea Harvey | 10/19/2023
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8 23 y mail
Tell Your Legislators to support public safety—not CCS!
Both the White House and state legislators are placing their bets on Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) to rescue us from the climate crisis. The Biden Administration has invested massive amounts of money in this technology, and states are eager to cash in. But CCS will not solve the climate crisis: it will make it worse.
Tell the Administration to declare a moratorium on rolling out CCS infrastructure until, at a minimum, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has issued regulations governing pipeline safety.
Please email the White House:https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Congress members Omar and Garcia have drafted a letter to President Biden requesting such a moratorium and are asking other Congress members to join them. Tell your member of Congress to sign the letter!
Find your House Member Here:
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
Find your Senator Here:
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
Thank you for emailing the White House
Why CCS Is a Bad Idea
The Fossil Fuel Industry is pitching CCS as a way to “solve the climate crisis” AND keep the industry in business.
A critical component of CCS requires building millions of pipelines across the U.S. to carry carbon dioxide (C02) under pressure to sites where it is supposed to be stored underground permanently. It is massively expensive, requires new and special technology, will take years to roll out, and has never worked as advertised. Many CCS projects have been abandoned because they were both ineffective and too costly. See https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/the-carbon-capture-scam/.
CCS Pipelines Are Dangerous
CCS pipelines and transport are also potentially very dangerous and a public health risk. Carbon dioxide is colorless, odorless and tasteless. It is heavier than air and if leaked will displace oxygen in the atmosphere, causing people on the ground to suffocate. A CCS pipeline leak has already happened: In February of 2020, a pipeline carrying CO2 ruptured in the small rural community of Satartia, MS. Because carbon dioxide displaces oxygen, gasoline-powered vehicles like ambulances become stalled, making it nearly impossible for emergency personnel to respond. Luckily no one was killed in Satartia, though some were severely injured. See https://www.npr.org/2023/05/21/1172679786/carbon-capture-carbon-dioxide-pipeline.
Learn More About How CCS May Impact California!
JOIN OUR LEGISLATIVE MEETING ON SEPTEMBER 10th at 3:00 PM
Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, Staff Attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, will talk about the proposed Contra Costa and Solano Montezuma Carbon Capture and Storage project that proposes to collect CO2 from four Bay Area refineries (Chevron, Valero, PBF and Marathon), two hydrogen plants, and four fossil gas-fueled power plants, and run the compressed carbon dioxide (CO2) via barges and pipeline under Suisun Bay to the injection site under the 3,200 acre Montezuma wetlands.
Victoria works as part of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute to fight false climate solutions such as carbon capture and storage, as well as polluting industries involved with petrochemicals and biomass energy. In addition to her work on the Montezuma project, she is a participant in the lawsuit against Contra Costa County for approving the EIRs for the Phillips 66 and Marathon refineries conversion to biofuel production.
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https://www.desmog.com/2023/02/13/exxon-shell-bp-api-concerns-carbon-capture/
Last February, ExxonMobil announced it would further expand its only active carbon capture and storage (CCS) operation in the United States, located at a gas processing facility in LaBarge, Wyoming. Shute Creek is the world’s largest CCS project and has been operational for over 30 years. Although the oil giant publicly touts carbon capture as a “proven” climate solution, its own early foray reveals just how flimsy of a fix the technology really is — and how expensive, both for taxpayers and the climate.
For starters, at Exxon’s Shute Creek, nearly all of the CO2 separated from the extracted fossil gas either has been sold, for a profit, to other drillers to use for squeezing out hard-to-recover oil elsewhere (a process called enhanced oil recovery) or vented back into the atmosphere. Only 3 percent of the Wyoming project’s CO2 has been geologically stored in the same formation from which the original gas was extracted, according to estimates from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
While Exxon has already spent millions on this project — and plans to invest up to $400 million more to expand it — Shute Creek has consistently fallen short of its carbon capture goals. Still, the company plans to double-down on CCS, making the underperforming technology an essential part of its billion-dollar blue hydrogen plans, which rely on fossil gas. Yet American taxpayers have been subsidizing the oil company’s purported climate endeavors through a federal tax credit for CCS, to the tune of perhaps $240 million claimed already. And as a trove of industry documents reveals, Exxon is far from the only fossil fuel company selling carbon capture as its golden ticket to continue pumping its products, despite internal concerns about the technology’s feasibility.
[twt]
During a landmark congressional
in October 2021, Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones called out the Shute Creek project in questions posed to ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods. “Exxon and others are using captured CO2 to extract more oil and calling this a climate mitigation strategy,” Jones said. The hearing, which featured testimony from the CEOs of ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron, and the American Petroleum Institute, was part of the U.S. House Oversight Committee’s “historic” investigation into Big Oil and climate disinformation. The Democrat-led committee wrapped up the investigation in December, before Republicans took control of the House, and concluded, based on hearings and subpoenaed documents, that the oil and gas industry is continuing to mislead the public about its climate commitments. A central part of the industry’s strategy to portray itself as an essential partner in climate action, it seems, is to go all in on carbon capture and storage.
CCS and the related carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), are a set of technologies designed to trap some of the carbon pollution produced from industrial facilities. The carbon dioxide then is compressed and transported to sites where it is either stored underground, injected into oil and gas deposits for enhanced oil recovery, or used for a limited number of other applications such as beverage carbonation. ...
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EJ
https://www.desmog.com/2023/02/03/rio-grande-lng-carbon-capture-greenwash-brownsville-texas-nextdecade/
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ff ceo memo, not just br fuel
...examples.”57
API’s publicly released Climate Action Framework does not state that it is intended to promote natural gas.
API’s inconsistent internal and external messaging is common in the oil and gas industry, which advocates for government financial support for carbon capture technologies as a climate mitigation initiative—without public acknowledgement that the support entrenches reliance on fossil fuels, thereby directly benefiting the companies’ business-as-usual operation and delaying the transition to clean energy.58 An October 9, 2018, letter to members of the National Petroleum Council (NPC) from John Mingé, BP America President and Chairman of the NPC Committee on Carbon Capture, Use, and Storage (CCUS), highlights the disconnect between the industry’s public and private rhetoric.
The letter highlights an NPC carbon capture study finding that incorporating CCUS into “U.S. energy and environment plans would deliver benefits,” including “[i]ncreased usage of existing US fossil fuel resources, protecting state and federal revenue sources and supporting the license to operate.”59 Those self-interested benefits to the fossil fuel industry are only noted internally to work group members, and are not mentioned in the NPC’s 2019 public report.Instead, the public report is presented as an altruistic effort to help the world provide “affordable, reliable energy.”60 Other internal documents refer to industry’s need for financial help from the government to develop a carbon capture industry in support of the license to continue to pump fossil fuels.61
B. Presenting Natural Gas as a Bridge Fuel to Secure its Future as a Destination Fuel
In 2021, natural gas contributed to 34% of U.S. energy-related emissions and 22% of emissions globally. 62 Documents obtained by the Committee show fossil fuel companies and lobbying groups seek to publicly position natural gas as a clean source of energy and part of the transition to renewables, even as the industry is privately planning for expanded natural gas production over the long term. In November 2017, a group of major oil companies, including Exxon, Shell, and BP, announced “Methane Guiding Principles.” The group acknowledged, “Since natural gas consists mainly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, its part in the transition to a low-carbon future will be influenced by the extent to which the oil and gas industry reduces it methane emissions.” 63 Yet internal Shell documents suggest that the companies initially intended this document to serve as a defense of the long-term use of natural gas well beyond a mere “transition.”
In a September 29, 2017, email, Dick Francis, Manager of Regulatory Policy for Shell Exploration & Production Company, distributed the first draft of the Guiding Principles document to his Shell colleagues, writing: Also included in the document is an important preamble that clearly makes the case for natural gas and identifies the need to address methane emissions. Linking the natural gas preamble to the principles is an important element. Because supporting the principles will also signal acknowledgment of natural gas’s place in a low carbon future. Internal BP documents from 2017 and 2018 reveal that the company engaged a public relations firm—the Brunswick Group—to develop an advocacy campaign for gas and methane.64
A PowerPoint presentation prepared by Phil Drew, a Partner at the Brunswick Group, was presented to Robert Stout,BP’s Vice President & Head of Regulatory Affairs, and Mary Streett, BP’s Senior Vice President, U.S. Communications and External Affairs, describing the campaign that the Brunswick Group developed for BP. The overall goal of the campaign was to “Advance and protect the role of gas—and BP—in the future of energy conversation.”
62 Energy Information Administration, Where Greenhouse Gases Come From (online at www.eia.gov/energyexplained/energy-and-the-environment/where-greenhouse-gases-come-from.php) (accessed Nov. 9, 2022).
63 Climate and Clean Air Coalition, Reducing Methane Emissions Across the Natural Gas Value Chain – Guiding Principles (Nov. 2017) (online at www.ccacoalition.org/en/resources/reducing-methane-emissions-acrossnatural-gas-value-chain-guiding-principles). 64 BPA_HCOR_000246
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https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/ahead-of-hearing-committee-releases-memo-showing-fossil-fuel-industry-is
Ahead of Hearing, Committee Releases Memo Showing Fossil Fuel Industry is Misleading the Public About Commitment to Reduce Emissions
Sep 14, 2022
Press Release
Documents Show Big Oil Is Devoted to a Long-Term Fossil Fuel Future and ‘Greenwashing’ Its Record Through Deceptive Advertising and Climate Pledges
Washington, D.C. (Sept. 14, 2022)—Today, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, the Chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Rep. Ro Khanna, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment, released a new memo of initial findings of the Committee’s year-long investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s campaign to mislead the American people about the industry’s role in climate change. The findings come ahead of tomorrow’s full Committee hearing at 9:30 a.m. ET, to hear firsthand accounts from survivors of severe weather events fueled by the climate crisis, and examine fossil fuel industry profits and the adequacy of their climate pledges.
“As we face more deadly, extreme weather around the globe, fossil fuel companies are reaping record profits and ramping up their misleading PR tacticsto distract from their central role in fueling the climate crisis,” said Chairwoman Maloney. “My Committee’s investigation leaves no doubt that, in the words of one company official, Big Oil is ‘gaslighting’ the public. These companies claim they are part of the solution to climate change, but internal documents reveal that they are continuing with business as usual. I call on the big fossil fuel companies to stop their deception and cut their emissions now—before it is too late.”
“The documents I released today as part of my investigation into Big Oil’s efforts to deceive the American public about the climate crisis are explosive,” said Subcommittee Chair Khanna. “Internal emails and messaging guidance show that Big Oil’s climate pledges rely on unproven technology, accounting gimmicks and misleading language to hide the reality. The documents also show a culture of intense disrespect towards leading climate activists like Bill McKibben and influential climate groups like the Sunrise Movement. Big Oil executives are laughing at the people trying to protect our planet while they knowingly work to destroy it.”
The Committee’s memo found:
- Contrary to their pledges, fossil fuel companies have not organized their businesses around becoming low-emissions, renewable energy companies. They are devoted to a long-term fossil fuel future.
- Despite BP previously rebranding itself as “Beyond Petroleum,” internal documents highlighted how carbon capture and storage (CCS), one of the energy technologies touted by the company, could “enable the full use of fossil fuels across the energy transition and beyond.”
- An internal Shell email discussingcarbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) warned an executive, “We want to be careful to not talk about CCUS as prolonging the life of oil, gas or fossil fuels writ large.”
- Chevron pays lip service to a “just transition” to cleaner fuels but provided talking points to an executive asserting that “[o]il and gas” are the “lower carbon solutions that ensures a just transition.”
- Big Oil’s climate pledges and green advertising focus on unproven technologies the companies admit are decades away from implementation.
- Although Exxon spent at least $68 million advertising its research into algae-based biofuels, notes from an investor presentation obtained by the Committee show this technology is “[s]till decades away from the scale we need.”
- One Exxon public affairs manager warned that implying in an advertisement that algae can be deployed on a mass scale would be misleading, and “might create some angst with the research folks who know that.”
- Oil and gas companies have tried to create the impression that they are taking ambitious steps to reduce emissions—without actually doing so.
- Internal documents show that Exxon and Chevron sought to water down statements by the industry-led Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) to “remove language that potentially commits members to enhanced climate-related governance, strategy, risk management, and performance metrics and targets” and to avoid any “explicit commitment for OGCI companies to align their advocacy with their climate related positions”—including advocacy for the Paris Agreement.
- Shell has touted its “Sky scenario” as an ambitious path to achieve net-zero emissions, but internal emails emphasize this is “not a Shell business plan” and has “nothing to do with our business plans.”
- Internal Shell messaging guidance—which was developed to “insulate Shell” from lawsuits about “greenwashing” and “misleading investors” on climate change—calls on employees to emphasize that net-zero emissions is “a collective ambition for the world” rather than a “Shell goal or target.” The guidance urges Shell employees, “Please do not give the impression that Shell is willing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to levels that do not make business sense.”
- Big Oil relies on accounting gimmicks, tricky language, and delay tactics to claim the mantle of climate leadership while continuing to be a primary cause of an ongoing climate catastrophe.
- Internal documents show that in 2019, Exxon scrubbed a public statement about an executive’s speech at a private conference to remove a reference to a plan to increase production in the Permian basin by “1000% within 5 years.”
- After Shell posted on Twitter asking others what they would do to reduce emissions, a communications executive wrote privately that he agreed this could be seen as “gaslighting” the public, explaining: “We are, after all, in a tweet like this implying others need to sacrifice without focusing on ourselves.”
Click here to read the Committee memo.
Click here to read selected investigation documents.
Click here to watch the Committee hearing tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. ET.
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much on greenwash ccs and algae
https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/2022.09.14%20FINAL%20COR%20Supplemental%20Memo.pdf
p 13
[CCS] underperformed or failed.48Exxon recently announced ten potential new facilities around the
world. 49
Exxon spent $86 million in 2010 to expand its carbon capture facility in Wyoming and
plans to spend another $400 million on a further expansion of the facility. 50 Exxon claimed $240
million in carbon capture tax credits over the last decade of the facility’s use. However, experts
estimate that Exxon may only be capturing less than 1% of its total emissions through carbon
capture technology.51
In a May 2018 email exchange, Exxon CEO Darren Woods and Exxon’s Vice President
of Corporate Strategic Planning, Mr. Wojnar, discussed “emissions avoided” through carbon
capture technology. Mr. Wojnar wrote to Mr. Woods that he was “[c]oming back on your
question on GHG emissions avoided,” including through carbon capture technology, and
provided “options for how to respond to a query” on this topic. Mr. Wojnar suggested that Mr.
Woods say that “over the last decade, ExxonMobil has taken action to reduce GHG emissions by
approximately 75 million tons.”52 In reality, nearly all the carbon dioxide Exxon has captured
through CCS has been sold to other fossil fuel companies to inject into their depleted oil fields to
help extract even more oil. As a result, the carbon captured by Exxon through CCS technology
likely has not meaningfully reduced total carbon emissions.53
Exxon has heavily advertised its efforts to develop carbon capture technology. Three
carbon capture television ads from 2016 through 2019 aired 9,058 times nationally, generated 4.1
billion impressions, and are estimated to have cost Exxon over $68 million to run. 54 Draft ...
Chevron’s and Exxon’s Attempt to Use OGCI to Greenwash Big Oil
The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) is a voluntary organization co-led by
members from the oil and gas industry and environmental groups. Its stated intent is “to deliver
tangible, transparent and integrated contributions to climate change solutions.”76
Documents obtained by the Committee show that in 2019, employees from Exxon and
Chevron edited a messaging document from OGCI ahead of the annual Conference of Parties to
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The document was meant to
“serve as the basis for communication & press release as well as talking points for the CEO
event.” The documents suggest that despite several attempts to weaken the language, OGCI
pushed back, saying that Exxon’s and Chevron’s CEOs already committed to the stronger
language. The edits from Exxon and Chevron attempted to weaken OGCI’s ambition on targets
for achieving net-zero emissions, methane emissions, carbon intensity, carbon capture
implementation, among other things. 77
In particular, a memorandum from Peter Trelenberg, Exxon’s Manager of Environmental
Policy & Planning, to CEO Darren Woods highlighted “critical edits” proposed by Exxon and
noted that “Chevron has expressed that they are generally aligned with these edits.” Among
other issues, the memo to Exxon’s CEO addresses the following:
• Avoiding a commitment to advocate for the Paris Agreement. Regarding OGCI’s
“Statement on responding to the climate challenge,” Mr. Trelenberg wrote:
“Need to remove reference to Paris Agreement as support for the Paris
Agreement goals and member company advocacy are separate concepts and not
directly related. Creating a tie between our advocacy/engagements and the Paris
Agreement could create a potential commitment to advocate on the Paris
Agreement goals.”
• Avoiding a commitment to advocate for climate policies that Exxon and Chevron
claim to support. The memo raised a concern that one OGCI annual report
“includes explicit commitment for OGCI companies to align their advocacy with
their climate related positions. We have raised concerns with this linkage
through previous comments.”
• Refusing to commit to enhanced climate-related governance.The memo
continued, “Need to remove language that potentially commits members to
enhanced climate-related governance, strategy, risk management, and
performance metrics and targets.” ESG?!
• Concern about a commitment to reduce downstream emissions. Discussing an
OGCI “September Announcement package,” the memo states: “The carbon
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caller energy eg
carbon dioxide removal is the process of removing carbon pollution from the atmosphere via natural and technological methods, and will be an important tool for restoring a safe climate — once we’ve pretty much stopped sending more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
:{:{}:
}:
Carbon capture and storage/sequestration (CCS), on the other hand, refers to scrubbing the carbon dioxide out of the emissions from fossil fuel plants, and is essentially a pipe dream that the fossil fuel industry invokes to pretend its continued existence is compatible with a stable climate, which it’s not. CCS is also a major part of the policy platforms of conservatives who want you to think they care about climate change (but not enough to actually reduce fossil fuel extraction or pollution).
Late last year, the Government Accountability Office published a report showing the $1.1 billion spent on CCS by the Department of Energy since 2009 was largely wasted. That money was for 11 projects, of which only three were built (the other eight were cancelled). And because managers at the DOE waived some cost controls, the government spent an additional and unnecessary $300 million on four of the unbuilt CCS projects. The single CCS project at a coal-fired plant that actually got built was the US’s only real CCS facility — and it shut down in May of 2020.
“Federal investments for CCS are greenwashing – they are simply fossil fuel subsidies by another name,” Grassroots Global Justice Alliance policy director Adrien Salazar told The Verge.
Nevertheless, CCS still enjoys ample support from conservatives who want to pretend like they care about climate change, and Democratic coal barons like Joe Manchin (D-ALEC).
In response to the GAO report detailing how the conservative-loved program is rife with government waste, the Carbon Capture Coalition tried to do some damage control, and apparently sent out a press release the conservative Washington Examiner ran with, about how they’re trying to “correct the record” and insist the technology is still worthwhile.
Over at the Daily Caller, though, Energy and Environment reporter Thomas Catenacci apparently hasn’t gotten the full memo on CCS being the climate policy conservatives pretend to support, and instead just covered last month’s GAO report just this week, with a frame of government waste for trying to reduce carbon emissions!
Now to be fair, the government should be investing tons of money in viable climate solutions as well as risky ones the private sector won’t yet risk investment in (Hi, Solyndra, we haven’t forgotten you!) because government support for emerging technologies can yield massive benefits. But when things like CCS fail, as they have over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, that should be a sign to stop burning coal mine dump trucks full of money chasing them.
Those billions of dollars, instead of getting wasted on unbuilt CCS plants meant to keep coal hobbling along, could have paid for something like 50,000 home solar systems, which tend to be much more costly than utility-scale renewables. And on that, for example, Biden’s DOE in 2021 announced just $128 million in funding to cut the cost of solar by 60%. Think of what ten times that much money could accomplish!
For another comparison, in 2020, a billion dollar deal got BP a 50% stake in two offshore wind projects big enough to power two million homes — a much better deal than getting a bunch of failed projects that (had they not failed) would have just continued to allow coal plants to pollute anyway.
A billion dollars is also how much MidAmerican Energy planned to spend in Iowa to replace old wind turbines and add a thousand new ones, adding up with the rest of their fleet to generate enough clean energy to power 95% of MidAmerican Energy customers’ needs.
Unfortunately, the bipartisan infrastructure package passed last year shells out another $3.5 billion on even more carbon capture demonstration projects.
CCS has had plenty of time for demonstration projects, and all they’ve demonstrated is how to waste billions of dollars on useless technology.
But yay, bipartisanship, right?
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huge ccs shut down last yr? (kemper cty, Southern co?]
ENERGY
Exxon plans to build nation’s largest carbon capture project in Baytown
Shelby Webb Staff writer
March 1, 2022
Exxon Mobil will build one of the world’s largest carbon capture and storage projects, as well as a new hydrogen production plant, at its refining and petrochemical site in Baytown.
The company made the announcement Tuesday, though key details are still unkown, such as a timeline and cost. Officials also are still deciding where they will inject the carbon dioxide into geologic formations beneath the Texas coast, said Ed Graham, vice president of ventures for Exxon Mobil Low Carbon Solutions.
The goal is for the project to transport and store up to 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, which would make it the largest project of its type in the United States, according to business data company Statista.
BIG MONEY: Exxon posts $23B profit last year, highest since 2014
The hydrogen plant, meanwhile, would produce up to 1 billion cubic feet a day of hydrogen by using natural gas as a feed stock. That hydrogen would be used in Exxon’s olefins plant in Baytown, reducing on-site emissions by up to 30 percent.
“It will be a game-changer for Houston to help kickstart both the hydrogen and (carbon capture and storage) industries,” Graham said. “This will help us more broadly decarbonize our businesses across Houston.”
Houston companies and local officials have pitched Houston as the ideal proving ground for the hydrogen industry. The city is already the largest hydrogen producer in the country, producing one-third of the annual U.S. output. There are 48 hydrogen production plants across the region and more than 900 miles of pipelines designed specifically for hydrogen — about one-third of all hydrogen pipelines globally.
In late January, Texas Sen. John Cornyn pitched a bipartisan Hydrogen Infrastructure Initiative. If passed, it would create grant programs to encourage construction of hydrogen infrastructure at ports and heavy-industry facilities and provide financing to support hydrogen transport infrastructure.
The Exxon Mobil plant would use natural gas [METHANE?!] to produce what’s known as blue hydrogen. Graham said the carbon dioxide produced from turning the natural gas into hydrogen would be captured and sequestered as part of the new carbon capture project.
Exxon Mobil’s plans to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from its operations by 2050 relies heavily on carbon capture and sequestration. Last spring, executives said they were looking to build a $100 billion carbon capture project along the Ship Channel [HURRICANES] . Also last year, Exxon’s low-carbon solutions venture said it would invest $3 billion in a portfolio of 20 carbon capture projects.
Graham said Exxon already injects more carbon dioxide into the earth than any other company. He said the projects are part of “world-scale efforts.”
“Houston and Baytown are important to us as a company, and it's important that we help lead the way and to help Houston and its efforts to be a leader in the energy transition,” Graham said. “And we think these (carbon capture) technologies and hydrogen are really critical to make that happen.”
shelby.webb@chron.com
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axios
hOUSTON — CEOs of multinational oil-and-gas giants Exxon and TotalEnergies gave remarks at a major industry gathering here that underscore Big Oil's differing diversification strategies across the Atlantic.
What they're saying: Exxon CEO Darren Woods touted Exxon's emphasis on carbon capture, hydrogen and biofuels.
- "We are a company that has a real long history in frankly, manipulating hydrocarbon molecules to make products that the world needs," Woods said at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference.
- "Andif you think about the technology that we have been using and will use in this space, it's is continuing to manage hydrocarbon molecules and leveraging the skills that we've developed over the years," he said.
The other side: Patrick Pouyanné cited TotalEnergies' moves into areas including renewable power, electricity services, batteries and EV charging that TotalEnergies and other European majors like BP and Shell are increasingly pursuing.
- "The transition is a matter of two types of new products: new molecules, on which obviously an oil-and-gas company, some DNA, it's biofuels, biogas, hydrogen, and the strategic move we have decided that we will become an electricity and renewable producer and supplier," he said.
Of note: Traditional fossil fuels remain the dominant business lines of all the majors.=
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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876610211008101
Abstract
Production of natural gas from theLaBarge field in southwest Wyoming began in 1986.This gas contains high concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), and from the very beginning, ExxonMobil has successfully implemented several technologies and approaches to effectively manage the substantial volumes of CO2 associated with its production. Many of the technologies and approaches used for managing CO2 at LaBarge are examples of technologies and approaches being proposed for use in carbon capture and storage (CCS) by other industries.
The Shute Creek Treating Facility (SCTF) processes the gas produced from the LaBarge field. The SCTF handles the lowest hydrocarbon content natural gas commercially produced in the world. The gas composition entering Shute Creek is 65% CO2, 21% methane, 7% nitrogen, 5% hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and 0.6% helium. The SCTF separates CO2, methane, and helium for sale and removes hydrogen sulfide for disposal.
Most of the CO2 captured at Shute Creek is used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). EOR is consistently cited as one of the most viable early opportunities for large scale implementation of CCS. ExxonMobil’s LaBarge operation is the largest deployment of this approach to CCS in the world today. Currently ExxonMobil provides 4 to 5 million tonnes per year of CO2 for EOR. Ongoing facility expansion will increase this capacity to over 7 million tonnes per year in 2010.
A concentrated acid gas stream of about 60% hydrogen sulfide and 40% CO2 is injected into a carefully selected section of the same reservoir from which it was produced, safely disposing of the hydrogen sulfide along with approximately 400,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. Other technologies and approaches that have reduced CO2 emissions include the ExxonMobil patented low BTU fuel co-generation system that substantially reduces CO2 emissions when compared to emissions from purchased power.
Cumulatively, through the application of these technologies at LaBarge, ExxonMobil will have the capacity to capture and manage over 75% of the CO2 produced from the LaBarge field.
Additionally, new technologies are being developed that may provide additional reductions in emissions, either at this site or at others with similarly challenged production streams. Construction of a commercial demonstration facility for ExxonMobil’s Controlled Freeze ZoneTM (CFZ) gas treatment technology has been completed at Shute Creek and operations are about to begin. The CFZTM technology allows the single step separation of CO2 and other contaminants from a natural gas stream without the use of solvents or absorbents. Its successful commercial demonstration would enable the development of increasingly sour gas resources around the world by substantially reducing gas treatment and geo-sequestration costs from these sources
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09032022/carbon-capture-and-storage-fossil-fuels-climate-change/
no lnx many grfx
Fossil Fuels
Carbon Capture Takes Center Stage, But Is Its Promise an Illusion?
The oil industry, Biden administration and even some environmentalists see sucking carbon dioxide from smokestacks and the atmosphere as critical to solving the climate crisis. But the IPCC says relying on it presents a “major risk.”
By Nicholas Kusnetz
March 9, 2022
[Related
Fossil Fuel Companies Stand to Make Billions From Tax Break in Democrats’ Build Back Better Bill]
Biggest “Direct Air Capture” Plant Starts Pulling in Carbon, But Involves a Fraction of the Gas in the Atmosphere
Fossil Fuel Companies Are Quietly Scoring Big Money for Their Preferred Climate Solution: Carbon Capture and Storage
]
Equipment installed as part of the Petra Nova Carbon Capture Project stands at the NRG Energy Inc. WA Parish generating station in Thompsons, Texas, on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. The project has since ceased operations indefinitely. ]
Pipe Dreams: First of a continuing series on whether capturing carbon is a climate solution or a dangerous distraction.
With his climate agenda stalled in Congress, President Joe Biden has managed to win billions in federal spending for one pillar of his platform that is gaining increased attention globally: carbon capture.
In a major win for oil, coal, utilities and other industries, the federal government is poised to make its largest investment ever—more than $12 billion from last year’s infrastructure bill—in technologies that capture carbon dioxide from smokestack emissions or straight from the air.
ExxonMobil, Southern Company and other oil fossil fuel giants have promoted carbon capture and storage as a tool for cutting emissions for more than a decade, with little to show for it.
Still, carbon capture is gaining traction with politicians in both parties, policy experts, scientists and even some environmentalists who say that the threat of climate change is so dire that it requires every possible solution.
Supporters including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat and one of the Senate’s most outspoken champions of climate action, point to modeling by academics and others that show the technologies could play a critical role in curbing emissions, particularly from hard-to-tackle sectors like heavy industry and shipping.
Their arguments have won unprecedented spending on carbon capture over the past year, with governments in Europe, Canada and Australia also committing billions in subsidies. Proponents say all this funding could prove transformative and, within a decade, could help cut hundreds of millions of metric tons of pollution annually.
But many progressive climate groups like Greenpeace and 350.org say oil companies are promoting the technologies as a distraction to avoid phasing out their products. At best, they argue, carbon capture and removal will play a marginal role in limiting emissions. At worst, they warn, subsidies for the technologies will prolong demand for fossil fuels, squandering money that would be better spent on replacing coal, oil and gas altogether.
While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in 2018 that carbon capture and removal technologies may be critical to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), it also said that carbon removal in particular remains unproven and that relying on it posed “a major risk” to meeting climate targets. Carbon capture prevents emissions, by pulling them out of smokestacks, while carbon removal refers to processes that suck the gas from the atmosphere.
In 2020, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions totalled nearly 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, including other pollutants like methane. Even optimistic projections say that carbon capture and removal technologies will be able to cut only about 250 million metric tons annually by 2035, or about4 percent of 2020 emissions.
“The Biden administration is really doubling down on the fossil economy and the false solutions that are entrenching that fossil economy in the name of addressing the climate crisis,” saidCarroll Muffett, chief executive of the Center for International Environmental Law, a nonprofit advocacy group. “I think that is a really significant failure of vision and failure of leadership.”
The infrastructure bill, for example, will direct billions of dollars to producing electricity and hydrogen from fossil fuels paired with carbon capture and storage. Yet Muffett and others point out that wind and solar are already cheaper sources of electricity than fossil fuels, even without the added expense of operating carbon capture equipment.
The White House declined to comment for this article, but a spokesperson for its Council on Environmental Quality pointed to a report it issued last year, which said that in order to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century, “the United States will likely have to capture, transport, and permanently sequester significant quantities of carbon dioxide.”
Big Money for Carbon Capture and Removal
Last month, the council attempted to square carbon capture with another pillar of Biden’s climate plan, environmental justice, issuing guidance that recommended including community input during the planning and approval of all carbon capture projects.
Environmental justice advocates have been among the harshest critics of carbon capture, saying it won’t address the many other forms of toxic pollution from producing and burning fossil fuels. The White House’s own Environmental Justice Advisory Council included carbon capture and carbon removal in a list of the kinds of projects that would not benefit communities at all.
With the first batches of federal spending set to start flowing this year, these competing arguments are about to see their biggest tests yet.
A Flood of Investment
The last year has seen a wave of new carbon capture, storage and removal projects announced, with at least 55 in the United States alone since the beginning of 2021, according to the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental group. Some are highly speculative, such as a proposal by Exxon to build a $100 billion carbon capture “hub” in the Houston area.Exxon announced the first proposed project for the hub on Wednesday, a plan to attach carbon capture to its refinery complex in Baytown, Texas, to produce low-emissions hydrogen.
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The company has said the hub can proceed only with substantial government funding and tax incentives worth $100 per ton of carbon dioxide removed, twice the current rate.
In North Dakota, an energy company bought a coal power plant slated for closure and said it would revive it by attaching carbon capture technology.
Other projects are further along, particularly in sectors including ethanol and fertilizer production, where the costs of capturing carbon dioxide are lower because of the emissions’ high concentrations of the greenhouse gas.
In the Midwest, companies want to build a network of carbon dioxide pipelines to connect corn ethanol plants and distribute the gas for injection underground. These proposals are being driven by a federal tax credit that was increased in 2018 and gives companies up to $50 per metric ton for capturing and storing carbon dioxide.
The Biden administration has promised its support. Its roadmap for reaching net-zero emissions by mid-century, released last year, included a significant role for carbon capture and storage. It has also said it wants to further increase the value of the carbon capture tax credit. The Build Back Better legislation would have raised the value to up to $85 per ton for carbon dioxide removed from smokestacks, and up to $180 per ton when the gas is removed directly from the air.
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While the bill failed, the expanded tax credit enjoys support from lawmakers in both parties, includingSen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), the powerful chairman of the Energy and Natural Resource Committee.
The promise of a bigger payout has helped spur a wave of entrepreneurial activity and corporate investment in carbon removal. Microsoft, Stripe, United Airlines and other companies have announced millions of dollars in investments in carbon removal, and some have even bought carbon offsets from the first commercial “direct air capture” plant, which began operating last year in Iceland. Technology giants—and billionaire executives including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos—have been pouring money into start-ups. Elon Musk’s foundation is funding a $100 million competition for efforts to pull carbon from the atmosphere, including direct air capture, nature-based and other approaches.
Occidental Petroleum has said it plans to begin construction this year on a direct air capture plant in Texas that will initially pull up to 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air. The company could then pump the gas into depleted oil reservoirs to increase their production, a process that can also store most of the carbon dioxide underground.
The International Energy Agency last year said that the most “cost-effective and economically productive pathway” to reaching net-zero emissions by mid-century required not only the rapid phase-out of coal power plants and an end to the sale of gas and diesel cars by 2035, but also substantial amounts of carbon capture and storage, with a more than 40-fold increase in the technology’s capacity by 2030, to nearly 1.7 billion metric tons.
That tremendous leap would still represent less than 5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2021. Direct air capture capacity, it said, would need to reach 90 million metric tons by 2030 from essentially zero today.
“We’re at a point when dealing with climate that we just have to look at all the options now,” said Shannon Heyck-Williams, senior director of climate and energy policy for the National Wildlife Federation. Her organization is part of the Carbon Capture Coalition, which includes fossil fuel producers, utilities and unions and has pressed for more federal funding for the technologies.
John Thompson is the technology and markets director at the Clean Air Task Force, which is also a member of the Carbon Capture Coalition, and he said that while the United States may be closing most of its coal plants, China is building more. Deploying the technology domestically, he said, could help China adopt it on a larger scale.
“If our retrofits in the United States shave five, 10 years off the time China takes to decarbonize, that’s globally significant,” he said. “We can’t bet the planet that those coal plants are going to close.”
Direct air capture is particularly alluring because it could draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Such “negative emissions” will be necessary to meet climate targets, scientists say. Restoring natural habitats also pulls carbon from the air, is far cheaper, and has many other benefits. But many scientists say the capacity of that method is limited, and planting new forests will face competing demands for land from agriculture. Storing carbon dioxide underground could also be more durable than storing it in trees, which are vulnerable to fires and droughts.
Supporters of pursuing direct air capture say that, by pulling carbon dioxide from the air, the technology could achieve something that even the most aggressive measures to avoid emissions could not.
“Carbon removal offers a way for those of us who have caused and benefited the most from climate change to clean up our mess, and that’s one of the things that to me makes it particularly attractive,” said David Morrow, director of research at the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University, though he added that direct air capture is only one of several approaches to removing carbon dioxide from the air. “Emissions abatement can’t do that. We can get to zero and the mess is still there.”
Expensive and Energy-Intensive
If these arguments sound convincing—who wouldn’t want to lock away emissions for good?—many environmental advocates say they gloss over an important detail. Despite decades of research and development, and billions of dollars spent, carbon capture and removal remain extremely expensive and energy-intensive, even as the costs of alternatives have plummeted.
Building new renewable energy projects is cheaper than building new fossil fuel power plants in much of the world, and in some cases is even cheaper than continuing to operate coal or natural gas plants. Adding hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to build and operate a carbon capture system only worsens the math.
A December report by the Government Accountability Office said the Department of Energy gave nearly $684 million to six coal plants for carbon capture projects from 2010 through 2017, but that only one of those projects was built and it ceased operations in 2020, citing high costs.
In the industrial sector, critics say, other technologies such as electrification or the use of hydrogen made with renewable electricity may be more cost effective than carbon capture equipment.
Direct air capture is even more expensive. The only commercial operation captures 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, an insignificant number when it comes to reducing greenhouse gases. It was built in Iceland partly because of access to abundant geothermal, emissions-free energy to run the project.
The technology generally requires large amounts of power, heat or both, so scaling it would consume vast quantities of energy and money. Skeptics argue that it would be cheaper and better to simply feed this carbon-free energy into the grid to electrify the economy.
Large-scale carbon capture would require pipeline networks that would rival the scale of existing oil pipelines. They would come with their own set of safety risks associated with leaks and ruptures—in large volumes, carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant.
Then there is all the other pollution associated with producing, transporting and burning fossil fuels, much of which would remain unaddressed by carbon capture equipment.
“That entire fossil fuel life-cycle pollution remains in place,” said Basav Sen, climate justice project director at the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank. “You are in a sense losing an opportunity to deal with multiple environmental problems in the way you tackle greenhouse gas emissions.”
Just a Down Payment?
Carbon capture has failed to catch on commercially—there are only a few dozen plants operating globally, most of them in the United States. But both supporters and critics say that might be changing, thanks largely to government support.
The funding in the infrastructure bill was the culmination of years of lobbying by industry and unions. One carbon capture bill, which was later included in the infrastructure law,drew lobbying from dozens of corporations and industry groups in the coal, oil and power sectors, as well as from labor unions, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks money in politics. In Exxon’s lobbying disclosures, carbon capture and storage was the only issue tied to the infrastructure law it reported discussing. In fact, Exxon reported lobbying on carbon capture more than on any other issue last year, according to an Inside Climate News analysis.
The result was more than $12 billion dollars that will fund large scale demonstration projects to capture and store carbon dioxide, as well as funding for the pipelines and infrastructure that would tie it all together. The Department of Energy, which will oversee most of the money, is required to fund at least one demonstration project each for coal and natural gas power plants and an industrial application. The bill directed an additional $8 billion to “clean hydrogen” projects. Some of that funding, too, is earmarked for using fossil fuels paired with carbon capture to produce hydrogen. Today, hydrogen is commonly produced from natural gas, but the process emits carbon dioxide.
Thompson, of the Clean Air Task Force, said the funding is important to help demonstrate the technologies at commercial scale in different applications. But he said carbon capture will need far more government support in the form of tax incentives, or a price on carbon emissions, to play a larger role.
“You could see enormous growth, something like 200 million tons of CO2 captured every year in the 2030s” if the tax incentives were increased to the levels included in the Build Back Better Act, he said.
Put another way, $12 billion may be only a down payment.
Nicholas Kusnetz
Reporter, New York City
Nicholas Kusnetz is a reporter for Inside Climate News. Before joining ICN, he worked at the Center for Public Integrity and ProPublica. His work has won numerous awards, including from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and has appeared in more than a dozen publications, including The Washington Post, Businessweek, The Nation, Fast Company and The New York Times. You can reach Nicholas at nicholas.kusnetz@insideclimatenews.org and securely at nicholas.kusnetz@protonmail.com.
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interesting ~ to myth of gubmint scientist paid
https://yyy.theguardian.com/science/2022/mar/21/universities-must-reject-fossil-fuel-cash-for-climate-research-say-academics
no lnx many
Universities must reject fossil fuel cash for climate research, say academics
Open letter from 500 academics likens fossil-energy funding of climate solutions to tobacco industry disinformation
Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, speaks to media before a Climate Emergency Summit in Melbourne
Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said fossil-fuel funding ‘has been used to compromise leading academic institutions’. Photo]
Fiona Harvey environment correspondent
Mon 21 Mar 2022
Universities must stop accepting funding from fossil fuel companies to conduct climate research, even if the research is aimed at developing green and low-carbon technology, an influential group of distinguished academics has said.
Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, the Nasa data scientist Peter Kalmus, and prominent US climate scientist Michael Mann are among close to 500 academics from the US and the UK who have written an open letter addressed to all university leaders in the two countries, calling on them to reject all funding from fossil fuel companies.
Accepting money from fossil fuel companies represented “an inherent conflict of interest” and could “taint” essential research and “compromise” academic freedom, they wrote. For the companies, it was a chance to “greenwash” their reputations and skew the findings of research in a way favourable to them.
The letter draws a comparison to the tobacco industry and its disinformation campaigns, noting that numerous public heath and research institutions reject tobacco funding for these reasons and calling on fossil fuel cash to be treated similarly.
“Universities and the research they produce are vital to delivering a rapid, just transition away from fossil fuels. However, such efforts are undermined by fossil fuel industry funding. Academics should not be forced to choose between researching climate solutions and inadvertently aiding corporate greenwashing,” the signatories wrote.
Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, told the Guardian: “This sort of funding has been used to compromise leading academic institutions.It’s a two-for for polluters: they purchase the imprimatur of these institutions and their presumed authority and objectivity, while funding research that often translates into advocacy for false solutions and ‘kick the can down the road’ prescriptions likemassive carbon capture, which is unproven at scale, and geoengineering, which is downright dangerous. That is entirely the wrong path forward.”
Genevieve Guenther, founder and director of the End Climate Silence campaign, and an affiliate at the New School university in New York, said: “Funding research enables oil and gas companies to ground their promotional statements in enough truth to give substance to the green shadows in which they hide their most polluting and deadly activities. We must remove fossil-energy interests from our institutions so that our children can have a chance at a liveable future.”
Universities have been under pressure from their students and some academics for several years to divest their investments, such as pension funds and endowments, away from fossil fuels, and many have done so. However, this is the first major call from senior academics for them to go further and cut all research ties with fossil fuel companies.
There is no clear estimate for how much money universities accept from fossil fuel companies, as most do not publish their sources. An investigation for the Observer last year found UK universities alone had taken at least £89m from oil companies in the previous four years.
Some scientists disagree with the letter. James Hansen, former chief scientist at Nasa and one of the first scientists to warn governments of the impending climate crisis, told the Guardian: “It’s the wrong focus, causing young people to waste their energy on unproductive activities, while they actually have the potential to lead a solution.”
Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said it was reasonable for universities to accept funding from fossil fuel companies if those businesses showed genuine commitment to transforming themselves. “Fossil fuel companies that are genuinely committed to the transition [to a low-carbon economy], including net zero emissions, can and should receive help from university researchers, particularly with the development of technologies for carbon capture and storage, renewables and emissions reductions. However, universities should be careful about accepting funding directly or indirectly from oil, gas and coal companies that are not genuinely committed to the clean energy transition and which are attempting to greenwash their reputations.”
A spokesperson for Imperial College London, which the Observer found last year had accepted £54m from oil companies since 2017, said: “Decarbonisation is our top priority when working with energy companies. This goal requires a radical shift in industrial systems, technologies and business models in the energy sector. We are using our influence and expertise to accelerate this transition and actively engage with energy companies to push them to meet the Paris Agreement targets. We will monitor progress and only continue to work with companies who demonstrate commitment and credible action to achieving these targets.”
Some academics argue that fossil fuel funding is needed to develop the technologies necessary for a low-carbon economy, and that if western universities reject such funding it will be accepted in other countries around the world.
Guenther disagreed: “It’s a myth that fossil-energy companies are spending large sums to aid the green transition. According to the IEA’s 2021 World Energy Investment report, a mere 1% of fossil-energy companies’ capital expenditure is devoted to research, development or deployment of technologies that either abate or do not produce greenhouse gas emissions.”
At the end of this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will publish the third part of its comprehensive review of climate science, examining the potential ways of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This will include technology such as renewable energy and nuclear power, and novel ideas such as sucking carbon dioxide out of the air.
The report will throw the spotlight on the potential technological solutions to the climate crisis, which will require tens or hundreds of billions of pounds in funding to be brought to market and deployed widely around the world.
Jason Hickel, an economic anthropologist who is signatory to the letter, said the funding should come from governments. “The US and UK are among the richest countries on Earth, and their governments enjoy total monetary sovereignty. They have the capacity to finance the necessary research many times over, at the touch of a button. Most of the major innovations and public projects that have changed history over the past century have relied on public funding for research,” said Hickel, who is professor of environmental science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a fellow of the LSE.
The letter did not specify whether companies with interests in fossil fuels amid a broader portfolio should be included in the ban. Ilana Cohen, a Harvard student who led the organisation of the letter, said it was directed at the top 200 fossil fuel companies.
Cohen said the organisers had confined the call to US and UK universities for now as these are where many fossil fuel companies are concentrating their funding, but that it could be widened in future to a global effort.
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no lnx pix
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/12/09/world/exxon-mobil-climate-change-tech/
The Japan Times
Why Exxon Mobil is holding back on technology that could slow climate change
BY KEVIN CROWLEY AND AKSHAT RATHI
BLOOMBERG
Dec 9, 2020
Elk and pronghorn antelope migrate each fall through southern Wyoming, where the sparsely vegetated landscape slowly gives way to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Interrupting this serene vista is a dense web of steel pipes, tanks and pumps owned by Exxon Mobil Corp.
The industrial complex provides a clue about what lies beneath: an ancient sea of coral and marine life, petrified by time and pressure into a thick layer of rock. Known as the Madison formation, this geologic structure is kilometers wide and reaches more than 10 Empire State Buildings below the ground. It contains natural gas, helium, and carbon dioxide. Two of these gases are consistently valuable to Exxon’s business. The third is not — and that’s a problem for everyone on the planet.
For three decades, the American oil titan has been pumping up these gases, separating them, selling some, and dumping the remainder into the atmosphere. Exxon produces more carbon dioxide than it can sell or use, so the company lets a lot float away — as much as 300,000 cars’ worth of emissions a year.
Exxon was set to embark on a project to do the reverse: pump the unwanted gas back down where it came from. The plan was technically and strategically straightforward. By capturing carbon dioxide, transporting it to an injection site, and burying it, Exxon would have locked away enough of the planet-warming gas to almost eliminate the climate harm caused by the facility. The captured carbon may not have made much money for Exxon on its own, but a recent change to the U.S. tax code would help overcome that hurdle with lucrative credits for safe storage. The company put the total cost of construction at about $260 million, 1% of its capital budget for 2020.
LaBarge, as the gas operation is known, would have become one of the world’s foremost examples of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), a technology most climate-modeling experts view as essential to slowing down global warming and, eventually, reversing it. The project would also help Exxon clean up its image as one of the foremost corporate climate polluters.
Construction was set to begin over the summer. But in April, Exxon told Wyoming officials that the project would be delayed indefinitely, because of fallout from COVID-19. The company’s share price at one point during the pandemic dropped to an 18-year low, as oil prices cratered, throwing many plans across the industry for this year and beyond into turmoil.
Some traditional oil and gas projects are continuing. In September, for example, Exxon announced plans to expand crude operations off the coast of Guyana at a cost of $9 billion — 35 times the cost of implementing CCS at LaBarge. Guyana is just one of the growth projects that would have fueled a sharp increase in the company’s carbon emissions, according to internal projections from before the pandemic reviewed by Bloomberg Green. If LaBarge had gone ahead, on the other hand, it would have been one of the largest carbon-capture projects operated solely by Exxon, making up almost 20% of the company’s new emission-reduction efforts out to 2025, according to the documents.
LaBarge "remains in our capital plans, and the permitting process and necessary design work continue,” says Exxon spokesman Casey Norton. Spending cuts "have impacted projects across all business lines.” Exxon has said estimates in the planning documents are preliminary and do not include additional measures to cut emissions.
The decision to pause things in Wyoming won’t stop development of CCS, but it will slow down worldwide deployment. There are now 26 large-scale carbon-capture projects, according to the Global CCS Institute. Exxon also has a stake in a large facility in Australia as well as others in Qatar and the Netherlands, and Norton says the company has "expanded our interest in carbon capture significantly” over the past two years.
Taken together, all the world’s existing capture facilities can zero out more than 38 million metric tons of CO2 a year. That number, about 0.1% of all global emissions, would have to rise 100 to 200 times by 2050 to meet climate goals, according to the International Energy Agency.
Most of these carbon-capture projects are run by fossil fuel companies. Big Oil likes to celebrate the technology: By putting carbon back in the ground, the industry can provide consumers with the benefits of fossil fuel without the full climate impact.
"If you’re going to ask somebody to actually do carbon capture, oil companies have all the experience,” says David Use, a former Chevron Corp. engineer who purchased some of the gases from LaBarge for use at the Rangely oil field in Colorado. "They’ve got the pocketbooks and the credentials to do the big projects.”
And therein lies the paradox. As Exxon and its peers look into a carbon-constrained future, CCS seems to offer a golden opportunity. Oil companies could develop a tool considered crucial by no less than the scientists with the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But in the absence of strong government support or regulation, the oil industry might not have the will to invest enough. Even if Exxon one day completes its plans in Wyoming, the current delay shows that urgent climate projects can sometimes become expendable in a crunch.
Catch and release
Carbon capture wasn’t created to tackle climate change. Oil and gas deposits typically contain large amounts of carbon dioxide, which must be separated out before the fuel can be sold. In its early days, that’s all the technology was used for — catch and release.
As a result, carbon capture didn’t follow the typical clean-energy pathway. Many technologies move from laboratory to mass scale with help from taxpayer money. Research grants support the early phases, followed by subsidies to encourage deployment. A rule of thumb holds that when a new technology doubles its presence in the wider market, the process becomes more efficient and costs fall. Solar panels, wind turbines, and lithium-ion batteries have all followed this trajectory over the past two decades.
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Carbon capture took a more market-oriented route, even though its earnings potential was always slight. The first real commercial application, in the 1930s, came in equipment maintenance. Then the technology became useful in submarines, to collect the breath exhaled by crewmen and keep it from building up to toxic levels.
By the 1970s, petroleum geologists figured out that injecting CO2 into oil reservoirs did something miraculous: produce more oil. Compressed CO2 acts like soap, pulling crude from the tiny sedimentary pores of large underground reservoirs. The industry calls the process enhanced oil recovery, or EOR. "Even today the overwhelming majority of capture and storage projects are associated with EOR,” says Julio Friedmann, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
Fossil fuels were first discovered in the LaBarge field in 1920, but it was only in the 1980s that Exxon first began selling gases from the site. Once separated from carbon dioxide, natural gas is used for heating and cooking in homes and sold to power plants to generate electricity. Helium is prized for research and medical applications, such as operating MRI machines; it’s also useful in producing fiber-optic cables and semiconductors.
But there was more CO2 coming out of LaBarge than Exxon could sell. After oil prices plunged below $100 per barrel in 2014, enhanced oil recovery lost its allure. The shale boom also sent prices for natural gas into free fall. That left Exxon relying on helium, a relatively rare commodity, to shore up profits.
Meanwhile, the demands on Exxon to reduce its emissions got louder, and the company began to think about a long-term solution for its excess carbon dioxide. LaBarge also produced small amounts of toxic hydrogen sulfide, which the company learned to bury back in the field along with some carbon dioxide. What about injecting all of it back into the Earth on a much larger scale? The Madison formation is capped by a thick layer of impermeable rock, so the carbon dioxide wouldn’t be able to escape. The move could deliver a public relations boost. Most important, LaBarge offered an almost painless way to lower emissions without hurting any moneymaking assets.
The big sticking point, according to people familiar with carbon capture at Exxon, is that the LaBarge expansion would have to be profitable enough for the company to take it seriously. A tool that would benefit the planet needed to first show it could drive revenue for Exxon. Would capturing carbon be worth it?
Exciting prospect
The prospect of building one of the world’s biggest carbon-capture facilities generated excitement within Exxon.
LaBarge had the attention of senior management, and there was even a proposal for Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods himself to reveal the project to Wall Street by the end of 2019, according to people familiar with Exxon’s carbon-capture projects. But the big announcement never came. During an investor presentation on March 5, Woods made only a general statement. "ExxonMobil has cumulatively captured more carbon dioxide than any other company, accounting for more than 40% of all carbon dioxide captured in the world,” he said. "We agree with independent experts. Carbon capture is absolutely necessary if society is going to achieve its aspiration of eliminating carbon dioxide emissions.”
He didn’t mention LaBarge. A few weeks later, faced with global cutbacks due to the pandemic, Exxon notified state regulators in Wyoming that the project would be delayed indefinitely.
The decision to put the project on hold came as a blow to those inside the company who wanted carbon capture to succeed. People familiar with Exxon’s CCS projects described it as a significant setback, because LaBarge was in an advanced state, used proven technology and would have made money. It gave these people the sense that carbon capture wasn’t a serious focus and that the technology’s climate potential had been treated like an unwanted addendum at a corporation devoted to oil and gas.
An Exxon gas station. Exxon produces more carbon dioxide than it can sell or use, so the company lets a lot float away — as much as 300,000 cars’ worth of emissions a year. | REUTERS
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Alex Doukas of the environmental groupOil Change International sees three motivations shaping the approach fossil fuel companies take to carbon capture. First, they want to use CO2 to increase their overall production. Second, they want to prove they can produce "lower-carbon oil” and thus look more responsible. Third, they want CCS projects to help justify ongoing operations and persuade regulators not to intervene. In the industry this is called the social license to operate, and it’s something Exxon clearly considers.
The company keeps careful internal accounts of its current and future emissions, including what it terms "self-help measures” to lower the total, according to planning documents reviewed by Bloomberg Green. Its self-help projects, which include reducing methane leaks and improving energy efficiency, would have amounted to a reduction of 11 million metric tons per year — less than 10% of Exxon’s current direct emissions. If the climate impact of customers burning Exxon’s fuels is considered, the company’s emissions-lowering measures appear far smaller.
"Exxon is employing a CCS strategy that is focused on using it as a public relations tool and as a narrative tool to allow them to continue polluting,” Doukas says. Exxon says, to the contrary, says that it takes carbon capture seriously.
Public messaging
The company spends large sums of money on all advertising — more than $800 million from 2005 through 2015, according to one estimate from Robert Brulle,a professor of environment and society at Brown University. One of Exxon’s more recent Twitter ads was a 36-second video discussing the potential use of fuel cells in carbon capture. The clip ends by celebrating cooperation between an Italian researcher and Tim Barckholtz, a senior scientific adviser at Exxon.
It’s not the only ad to feature Barckholtz’s interest in fuel cells — another ran on Facebook as recently as 2018. Exxon says a pilot project is advancing, but large-scale use of the technology remains years away. Unlike the tried and tested methods proposed at LaBarge.
The sluggish pace of carbon capture’s development is a sign that it’s not yet a strategic fit for the energy industry, especially with oil and gas prices at historic lows. "Most companies see CCS as a dead-weight economic cost,” says Columbia’s Friedmann. "Market adoption will require either large incentives or serious regulations limiting emissions.”
That’s what did the trick in Norway. Starting in 1991, the government adopted a steep carbon tax. The state-owned oil company, now called Equinor ASA, bore the brunt and found it cheaper to bury carbon dioxide than pay taxes on emissions. Norwegian CCS projects built in the 1990s are continuing to pump down, mitigating some of the climate damage from the country’s large oil and gas sector.
It may seem ironic that U.S. President Donald Trump, famous for boosting coal and doubting climate change, supported something similar. A tax program meant to encourage carbon capture had been on the books since 2008, but the credits amounted to less than a fifth of the typical cost of the process. In 2017 a bipartisan group of lawmakers more than doubled the value of the tax credit, known as 45Q, to as much as $50 per metric ton. Trump signed it into law.
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That likely helped persuade Exxon to be more ambitious about LaBarge. The planning documents show that a first phase of the project was estimated to capture a million metric tons of CO2 annually; a second phase would have doubled that. All that carbon could have been buried in exchange for tax credits, guaranteeing revenue even if there were no other buyers.
Use, the former Chevron employee who bought CO2 from LaBarge, blames the delay on a lack of desire among industry leaders to grab climate opportunities. "There are individuals that truly believe that we need to get on with carbon capture,” Use says of the oil sector. "There’s no leadership that seems to have really taken the baton.”
The pandemic has caught Exxon wrong-footed. The company had begun a $210 billion plan to build a new suite of oil, gas, refining, and chemical operations by 2025. This attempt to upgrade its asset base and maintain the dividend has largely been funded by new debt. Given that spending, Wall Street fell out of love with its stock, which was the largest single component of the S&P 500 as recently as 2012. The carnage of COVID-19, which has wrecked demand for oil, saw Exxon removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Like many oil CEOs, Woods has been forced to reverse course on his plans. He cut Exxon’s capital budget by a third, and spending will remain $10 billion a year below prior forecasts through 2025. The moves were necessary to save the company’s fabled dividend, which remains the third-highest in the S&P 500 at a cost of about $15 billion a year.
Woods also shed staff. Exxon will lose 14,000 employees and contractors by 2022, joining Chevron and European peers Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC in enacting deep layoffs. Unlike Exxon and Chevron, which have said they will stick to their oil and gas expertise, the European majors have used the current crisis to cut dividends and pivot toward renewables.
Net-zero emissions
Whether or not oil companies invest enough in carbon capture, demand for the technology is set to grow. The European Union, China, Japan, South Korea, and the U.K. are all among the major economies that have set firm dates to reach net-zero emissions. By 2050, carbon-reduction projects around the world — including nature-based solutions such as reforestation — could bring in as much as $1.4 trillion annually, according to Vivid Economics Ltd., a strategy consultancy. At that level, the total revenue from sucking carbon out of the air would match those generated by the oil and gas industry today.
Decisions such as Exxon’s have prompted carbon-capture advocates to focus on the cement and steel industries, which require immense amounts of energy that so far can’t be supplied by cheap, clean alternatives.Some are focusing outside the U.S. A Norwegian project to capture carbon from a cement plant is backed by Equinor, Shell, and Total. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced in November government support for CCS. Exxon and Shell are among companies supporting the Netherlands’ Porthos project to bury CO2 in empty gas fields beneath the North Sea.
There’s also a crop of startups developing a new kind of CCS technology: direct-air capture. Rather than collecting emissions from a power plant or refinery’s chimney, these experimental machines would pull the gas from the air. If direct-air-capture technology is run on renewable energy, it’s capable of delivering "negative emissions.”
Swiss company Climeworks AG already has at least three pilot plants demonstrating that direct-air capture works. Carbon Engineering Ltd., based in Canada, is working with Occidental Petroleum Corp. to build its first large-scale plant. And Exxon is partnering in an effort to deploy direct-air capture with Global Thermostat LLC, a U.S. company founded by a former employee. Exxon says it’s expanded research in the field, but so far the joint project has generated advertising without significant deployment.
No one expects carbon capture to sweep the world overnight, least of all Exxon’s CEO. Back in March, as the pandemic spread, Woods warned investors to be patient. "Transitioning a large, complex, capital-intensive global system — that, by the way, plays an incredibly important role in people’s lives — is going to take time,” he said.
REUTERS
KEYWORDS U.S., OIL, EMISSIONS, CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT, EXXON, CARBON CAPTURE
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an 720 RIP
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Even in states long associated with coal production, the plants are closing. At what was once the largest coal powered generating plant in the world, Paradise Steam Plant in western Kentucky, the last of three huge turbines has made the switch to natural gas. That switch means that Paradise will still produce greenhouse gases, but it will no longer generate millions of tons of coal ash for the surrounding communities, or throw out a plume of both mercury and uranium that reaches a thousand miles to the sea.
The declining cost of renewables also means that what coal companies once viewed as the industry’s savior—exported coal—is also in decline. Coal exports were actually down 29% in the first five months of 2020. Companies have actually dropped several of the efforts to build export facilities as overseas markets evaporate even faster than those in the United States.
The industry crash also means that the efforts to save coal through “next generation” plants has completely crumbled. It’s been almost three years since what was supposed to be the nation’s first “clean coal” plant announced that it would not burn coal at all, ending a $6 billion experiment in failure. And on Tuesday, the only remaining commercial scale clean coal project in the United States was cancelled. As Oilprice.com reports, Petra Nova, which was supposed to capture carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power plant near Houston, has been “mothballed.” There is another project out there—North Dakota’s “Project Tundra”—but it exists only on paper and is unlikely to ever move forward.
As with many industries, coal mining employment has fallen sharply during the pandemic, but even before COVID-19 made the news, mining jobs were already in a steep decline.
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https://theconversation.com/the-earth-needs-multiple-methods-for-removing-co2-from-the-air-to-avert-worst-of-climate-change-121479
nice chart columbia u
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https://theintercept.com/2019/09/20/carbon-capture-technology-unions-labor/
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icn 320
website comes amid evidence that the clout of Heartland and other groups that have promoted skepticism about climate change may be waning. An increasing number of Republican politicians have sought to distance themselves from climate denial. Last month, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, a Republican, introduced a package of bills to promote carbon capture and sequestration technology. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), in her final year as chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has been attempting to lead a bipartisan effort to pass energy efficiency and technology investment.
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619 conf
Department of Energy officials came to talk about research.
They touted a plan to spend as much as $100 million on research and development of a new generation of what they call "near-zero" emission coal-fired power plants, designed to be "flexible, innovative, resilient, small and transformative."
They've dubbed that program "Coal FIRST."
"Carbon-free fossil energy is closer than you think," said Lou Hrkman, an assistant secretary for the department.
These small coal-burning plants could be assembled from modular parts that fit on a flatbed trailer and could be turned on and off quickly, meeting intermittent energy demand, and be equipped with carbon capture, he said.
Traci Rodosta, carbon storage technology manager at the Energy Department's National Energy Technology Laboratory, talked about the government's ongoing research path toward safe, underground storage of utility scale carbon dioxide. A slide in her presentation suggested it would not be ready for broad, commercial-scale adoption for 16 more years.
"Smaller, flexible coal plants? We have those. They're called natural gas plants. That's the problem," said Howard Herzog, a senior research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in an interview before the conference.
Herzog ran an industrial consortium on carbon capture and storage at MIT from 2000 to 2016 and is an expert on the technology.
Carbon capture and storage has so far proven to be too expensive for utilities to be willing to invest in it, at least in the United States, without a federal climate policy that would put a price on carbon, he said.
That all leaves the coal industry in a precarious position.
"Coal depends more on research and development technologies now than any time in the past," said Snavely, the Kentucky regulator.
PUBLISHED UNDER:
COAL REGULATION NATURAL GAS AND FRACKING CLEAN ENERGY BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY
CLIMATE CHANGE NERN - SOUTHEAST
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- Soaking Up Floodwaters
Wetlands line coasts in many parts of the world. They act as natural sponges that soak up floodwaters and absorb force from storm surges, protecting communities further inland.
Working with Lloyds of London, UC Santa Cruz researchers Siddharth Narayana and Michael Beck sought to quantify the value of these functions. Using insurance industry storm surge models, they calculated that during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, wetlands along the U.S. Atlantic coast prevented more than $625 million in direct property damage by reducing storm surge. They also estimated that marshes in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey reduced annual losses from flooding during smaller storms by an average of 16 percent, and up to 70 percent in some locations.
Narayan and Beck see restoring wetlands as an effective way to make coastal communities more resilient against storms and flooding:
"Across the United States, the Caribbean and Southeast Asia, coastal communities face a crucial question: Can they rebuild in ways that make them better prepared for the next storm, while also conserving the natural resources that make these locations so valuable? Our work shows that the answer is yes."
- Carbon-Rich Mud
Wetlands store large quantities of carbon in plant tissue and soils. But as climate expert Williams Moomaw and wetland scientists Gillian Davies and Max Finlayson point out, no global climate change agreement calls for protecting wetlands as a way to slow climate change. And around the globe, wetlands are constantly being drained, diked and paved over.
Coastal wetlands can extend well inland, transitioning from saltwater to brackish and freshwater.
EPA
In contrast, forest protection gets a special section in the Paris agreement, which offers developing countries incentives to protect and expand tropical forests as carbon sinks. Moomaw, Davies and Finlayson believe wetlands deserve equal attention:
"In our view, instead of draining swamps and weakening protections, governments at all levels should take action immediately to conserve and restore wetlands as a climate strategy. Protecting the climate and avoiding climate-associated damage from storms, flooding and drought is a much higher use for wetlands than altering them for short-term economic gains."
3. 'Blue Carbon' Banks
Mangrove forests, which grow in salt water in tropical regions, are especially effective at locking up "blue carbon"—so called to distinguish it from "green" carbon storage on land. Louisiana State University scientists Robert Twilley and Andre Rovai estimate that "the wood and soil of mangrove forests along the world's coastlines hold 3 billion metric tons of carbon—more than tropical forests."
Coastal development is an enormous threat to mangroves, whether for vacation homes in Florida or aquaculture farms in Asia. Twilley and Rovai wanted to pinpoint what type of mangroves were the most effective at storing carbon. By comparing conditions in different settings where mangroves flourish, they determined that river deltas and estuaries offer the best conditions for mangrove growth and carbon uptake:
"Overall, mangroves in deltaic coasts such as the Mississippi River delta, the Amazon in Brazil and the Sundarbans in India and Bangladesh can sequester more carbon yearly than any other aquatic or terrestrial ecosystem on the globe. These are the world's blue carbon hot spots."
- Mangroves Versus Marshes
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https://www.alternet.org/environment/carbon-capture-what-we-dont-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-climate-change
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12102018/global-warming-solutions-negative-emissions-carbon-capture-technology-ipcc-climate-change-report
The UN's latest global warming report made it clear that if the world is to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, society urgently needs to move away from fossil fuels completely.
But to keep the planet from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, the report says, we'll also have to figure out how to undo some of the damage that's already been done.
"Given our current knowledge, we can't get to 1.5 degrees without removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it," said Kelly Levin, a senior associate at the World Resources Institute.
With 1.5°C of warming just around the corner, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considered several solutions for removing CO2 from the air—some as simple as planting more trees, others as complex as using technology to filter CO2 from the air. Their practicality and their risks vary considerably.
...
Some of the most viable options identified by the IPCC are based in the natural world, as opposed to more costly technologies that aren't yet proven on large scales.
Of the options considered, the solution the IPCC found to have both the most potential for reducing CO2 and the lowest costs was what's known as soil carbon sequestration.
How Soil Carbon Sequestration Works
The way soil carbon sequestration works is well understood, explained Deborah Bossio, the lead soil scientist with the Nature Conservancy. When plants grow, photosynthesis absorbs carbon dioxide from the air and converts the carbon to a more stable form under the ground. If farmers use certain practices, such as farming without tilling the soil and leaving the ground covered for longer, more carbon gets stored in the ground.
"You have so many agricultural fields that only have crops during one season, and the rest of the year it's this bare dirt," Bossio said. "We're talking about growing things during those other times to increase the amount of carbon that can be stored."
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NET neg emission tech
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UK Could Become ‘Net Zero by 2050’ Using Negative Emissions
By Daisy Dunne
The UK could cut its emissions to "net-zero" within the next three decades by stepping up investment into technologies that can remove CO2 from the atmosphere, a report finds.
However, such methods, which are known collectively as "negative emissions technologies" (NETs), would only be effective if paired with drastic efforts to cut the UK's current rate of emissions, the findings suggest.
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http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/04/3478726/futuregen-gets-epa-approval-for-ccs/
Environmental Protection Agency for the first time on Tuesday issued permits to allow a coal-fired power plant to capture its carbon dioxide emissions and inject them deep underground, a process that many hope could help control climate change if it is ultimately successful.
FutureGen Industrial Alliance Inc. received four identical permits to use the process, called carbon capture and storage (CCS), at its long-planned FutureGen 2.0 coal plant in Meredosia, Illinois. The company’s goal is to capture and inject 1.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year for the next 20 years, the yearly equivalent of 232,000 cars, according to EPA.
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“The issuance of the permit is a major milestone that will allow FutureGen 2.0 to stay on track to develop the first ever commercial-scale, near-zero emissions coal-fueled power plant with integrated carbon capture and storage,” FutureGen Alliance CEO Ken Humphreys said in a statement.
The permits mean the FutureGen project is one step closer to beginning its long-awaited process of refitting the existing coal-fired power plant in Meredosia, and drilling four, 4,000-foot deep underground wells to inject liquefied carbon dioxide and store it long-term. Drilling those wells could start as soon as October, the EPA said.
The concept of using CCS to achieve a low-emission “clean” coal plant has been talked about for years now, but not without skepticism. On the one hand, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has purported that CCS can help control climate change by allowing the country “to use our abundant fossil fuel resources as cleanly as possible.” According to the DOE, CCS is a “next-generation” clean coal technology, an “all-of-the-above approach to develop clean and affordable sources of American energy.”
On the other hand, as ClimateProgress’ Joe Romm has argued, there is no way to know yet whether CCS will be successful as a strategy to mitigate climate change. He warns against looking at the process as a be-all and end-all to fix the climate problem. The technology requires a “staggering” amount of CO2 injection to make a difference as a climate solution, Romm has said, citing a Businessweek report claiming the emissions from just one coal-fired plant would require an underground storage space the size of a major oil field.
“Pretty much every major CCS project relevant to large-scale deployment at coal plants has been scaled back, delayed, or cancelled entirely,” Romm has written, noting that the NextGen project itself has faced numerous setbacks since it was first announced by President George W. Bush more than a decade ago. The original plan from President Bush — the FutureGen 1.0 project — was scrapped because of massive cost increases, according to Midwest Energy News.
Some have raised issues with the safety of the process. A Duke University study found that if injected CO2 were to begin leaking from the underground wells, it could “bubble up into drinking water aquifers near the surface, driving up levels of contaminants in the water tenfold or more in some places.” In addition, a 2009 Stanford University report warned that the process could “trigger small earthquakes that might breach the storage system, allowing the gas back into the atmosphere.”
Romm notes that none of this is to say we shouldn’t try using CCS. It’s just that as of now, he says, there are too many uncertainties regarding how well it would work and how safe it would be to deem it a “major climate solution.”
Still, CCS could become extremely important in the wake of the EPA’s proposed regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing coal plants. If the technology is successful, it could become a way for coal plants to keep operating with strict limits on how much carbon they can emit into the atmosphere.
Until a coal plant in the U.S. is actually CCS-functioning, though, there is no way of knowing if the technology could work. To see all the hurdles FutureGen 2.0 still faces, Bloomberg BNA has a good rundown here.
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accusations are confession/ projection:
an 1 24
badash
while serving as President of the United States, Donald Trump’s businesses accepted millions of dollars from numerous foreign governments, including China and Saudi Arabia – the very acts House Republicans have baselessly alleged Joe Biden performed as Vice President and as a private citizen before being elected President, despite having provided no actual proof.
“Donald J. Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his presidency, according to new documents released by House Democrats on Thursday that show how much he received from overseas transactions while he was in the White House, most of it from China,” The New York Times reported Thursday. The paper calls it “concrete evidence that the former president engaged in the kind of conduct that House Republicans have labored, so far unsuccessfully, to prove that President Biden did as they work to build an impeachment case against him.”
The Wall Street Journal adds that the “report, underpinned by documents provided to House investigators by the accounting firm Mazars USA, offers a fuller picture of how Trump’s businesses benefited during his presidency as foreign officials may have tried to curry favor with Trump.”
In a break with tradition, as President, Donald Trump’s first foreign trip was to Saudi Arabia (video below), in May of 2017. One month earlier, Trump met with China’s President Xi at Mar-a-Lago. Ivanka Trump received patents from China that same day.
READ MORE: CNN Host Debunks Mike Johnson’s False Hundreds of ‘Known Terrorists’ Claim in Real Time
The 156-page report, “White House for Sale: How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers Paid Off President Trump,” was produced by the House Democrats on the Oversight Committee under Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a former constitutional law professor. He calls the findings and conclusions in the report “astounding,” and says “they demand urgent action by the Congress and by the American people.”
The Journal offers staggering details from the report.
“Hundreds of pages of expenses seen by the Journal include at least $210,000 in real estate and lodging fees by Saudi Arabia in 2018, the same year Trump publicly doubted U.S. intelligence assessments that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi,” the WSJ writes. “And a few months earlier, a Saudi delegation paid $2,000 for coffee table flowers and towers of cookies at the same hotel.”
“Newly disclosed receipts also show that Hainan Airlines Holding, which then had connections to China’s leadership, incurred $195,662 in charges at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas during a 14-month period beginning days before Trump was elected in 2016,” the Journal adds. “Malaysia paid for a $10,000-per-night suite in Trump’s Washington hotel in September 2017 for then-Prime Minister Najib Razak while he was under a U.S. investigation for his role in a multibillion-dollar corruption scandal that ultimately helped topple his government. Malaysia’s spending caused a 70% jump in average nightly room revenue at Trump’s Washington hotel compared with other nights that month, the report said.”
READ MORE: ‘Outlandish and Feral’: Trump Plans to Turn DC Trial Into Conspiracy-Fueled Reality TV Show
Ranking Member Raskin writes in the report: “By elevating his personal financial interests and the policy priorities of corrupt foreign powers over the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent set and observed by every previous Commander-in-Chief.”
“Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution forbids the President to accept money payments or gifts ‘of any kind whatever’ from foreign governments and monarchs unless he obtains ‘the Consent of the Congress’ to do so,” he observes. “Yet Donald Trump, while holding the office of president, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign states and royalty and never once went to Congress to seek its consent. This report sets forth the records showing foreign government money—and all the spoils from royals we can find—pouring into hotels and buildings that the President continued to own during his presidency, all in direct violation of the Constitutional prohibition.”
Watch video of Trump being honored by Saudi Arabia during his first foreign trip below or at this link.
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an 1123
on Tuesday, lawyers representing Hunter Biden said their client was willing to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability to answer lawmakers' questions in response to their subpoena — but only if his testimony was conducted in full view of the public.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell said committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) had previously used closed-door committee meetings "to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public" and instead proposed "opening the door." Comer rejected the offer and said President Joe Biden's son must first appear before the committee in a closed-door session, but proposed a public hearing at an undetermined later date.
In a public statement, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), who is the ranking member of the oversight committee, said that Comer's "wailing and moaning" about a "vast unproven family conspiracy" proved that the chairman's inquiry was little more than partisan bluster.
"What an epic humiliation for our colleagues and what a frank confession that they are simply not interested in the facts and have no confidence in their own case or the ability of their own Members to pursue it," Raskin stated. "After the miserable failure of their impeachment hearing in September, Chairman Comer has now apparently decided to avoid all Committee hearings where the public can actually see for itself the logical, rhetorical and factual contortions they have tied themselves up in. The evidence has shown time and again President Biden has committed no wrongdoing, much less an impeachable offense."
"Chairman Comer’s insistence that Hunter Biden’s interview should happen behind closed doors proves it once again. What the Republicans fear most is sunlight and the truth," he added.
While Comer has repeatedly assailed Biden over alleged corrupt behavior, he has bristled at accusations of impropriety within his own family. Earlier this month, Comer erupted at Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Florida) when the Democrat brought up unanswered questions regarding a $200,000 loan the Kentucky Republican made to his brother involving a land transaction made with an LLC.
"Why should they believe you? There’s there’s a different rule for the president and there’s a different rule for you? Why should they believe what you’re saying? Mr. Chairman, why?" Moskowitz said. "You go on Fox News and say, ‘loans and deals are a way to evade taxes,' we don’t know that’s what you’re doing or not? We don’t know. We have no idea."
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2x? an
united States Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) on Wednesday ridiculed the House Oversight Committee's crusade against President Joe Biden's son Hunter following the Justice Department's multi-count indictment against Chairman James Comer's (R-Kentucky) supposed key informant.
Israeli-American think tank director Gal Luft was charged with eight felonies last Monday and faces a maximum sentence of one hundred years in prison for the combined offenses.
This development has damaged the credibility of the GOP's probe of alleged Biden family corruption, for which they have provided no evidence.
Raskin, the ranking Democratic member on Oversight, noted as much during Wednesday's hearing.
"The majority's long-promised star witness turns out to be a fugitive from American justice; an arms trafficker indicted on eight federal criminal felony counts, and an unregistered foreign agent for China who tried to trade Chinese arms for Iranian oil. So I guess he's not gonna be a witness for the majority anytime soon," Raskin said.
"Well after the failed SARS reports, bank records, form 10-23," Raskin quipped, "we can conclude that this Inspector Clouseau-style quest for something that doesn't exist has turned our Committee into a theater of the absurd; an exercise in futility and embarrassment."
Watch the clip below via The Recount or at this link.
apr 7 2x?
rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) shared an internal memo with Democrats revealing that House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) has issued subpoenas for documents and bank records related to the Biden family and business deals allegedly conducted by Hunter Biden, Politico reported.
The memo showed that Bank of America, Cathay Bank, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC USA N.A., and Mervyn Yan, a former business associate of Hunter Biden’s, were all targeted in the subpoena.
"To date, Chairman Comer has issued six subpoenas and sent 39 letters in the Biden family investigation alone. Notably, Mr. Comer has failed to issue a single document subpoena in any other Committee investigation this Congress," Raskin said. "This significant use of resources duplicates efforts by Senate Republicans in the 116th Congress, which, after three years, have failed to reveal any wrongdoing by President Biden."
Comer fired back at Raskin's statement, saying his disclosing of the subpoenas showed a "cheap attempt to thwart cooperation from other witnesses."
"Given his antics with the first bank subpoena, the American people and media should be asking what information Ranking Member Raskin is trying to hide this time," he added.
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am 7 23 vid
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) warned Republicans that former President Donald Trump's culpability for Covid-19 deaths "would only deepen" if their theory about a lab leak in China was true.
Raskin made the remarks during a Tuesday House Oversight hearing into the origins of Covid-19.
"We are all interested in finding out the origins of the Covid-19 epidemic to make sure that such a nightmare never happens again to us," Raskin began. "Some people think that the finding that it all started with a lab leak would somehow absolve Donald Trump of his lethally reckless response to the pandemic. Of course, his response was dangerously dysfunctional regardless of how it got started."
The Maryland Democrat pointed out that Trump's former adviser, Dr. Deborah Birx, "said that we lost hundreds of thousands of American lives because of the flaws in the response."
IN OTHER NEWS: Trump has set up an 'embarrassing' trap for his own lawyers: national security attorney
"But even if the virus came from a lab, as indeed it could have, we don't know that yet, that would only deepen Donald Trump's culpability because he was the one who repeatedly and enthusiastically praised China's early handling of the pandemic and assured us that he was working closely with President Xi on the response to it," Raskin added. "So let's just get the facts straight and leave all the political myth-making aside."
an 6 23 vid
comer burisma redux bs
https://www.alternet.org/recycling-stale-debunked-conspiracy-theories/
https://www.alternet.org/a-huge-distraction-gop-fbi/ contempt of congr
https://www.alternet.org/jim-jordan-trump-special-counsel/
6 23 DC election integrity BS
https://www.alternet.org/unworthy-of-this-body-raskin/
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Jamie Raskin (D-MD) shared an internal memo with Democrats revealing that House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) has issued subpoenas for documents and bank records related to the Biden family and business deals allegedly conducted by Hunter Biden, Politico reported.
The memo showed that Bank of America, Cathay Bank, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC USA N.A., and Mervyn Yan, a former business associate of Hunter Biden’s, were all targeted in the subpoena.
"To date, Chairman Comer has issued six subpoenas and sent 39 letters in the Biden family investigation alone. Notably, Mr. Comer has failed to issue a single document subpoena in any other Committee investigation this Congress," Raskin said. "This significant use of resources duplicates efforts by Senate Republicans in the 116th Congress, which, after three years, have failed to reveal any wrongdoing by President Biden."
Comer fired back at Raskin's statement, saying his disclosing of the subpoenas showed a "cheap attempt to thwart cooperation from other witnesses."
"Given his antics with the first bank subpoena, the American people and media should be asking what information Ranking Member Raskin is trying to hide this time," he added.
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no lnx
republican House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan's unprecedented attack on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg this week will "backfire" on the GOP, according to a Washington Post columnist who spoke with House Democrats.
Chairman Jordan, who has no constitutional oversight authority over an elected county district attorney, demanded Bragg hand over documents and communications and testify before Congress about his criminal investigation into Donald Trump's hush money payoffs and business practices. Some believe an indictment could come as early as Wednesday afternoon.
"If Jim Jordan and MAGA Republicans attack the Manhattan DA's potential indictment of Trump, Democrats will use the proceedings to draw attention to coordination between House Republicans and Trump's legal team, Dems tell me," The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent said Wednesday via Twitter. "This will backfire on the GOP."
Sargent adds House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin told him: "This is an extreme move to use the resources of Congress to interfere with a criminal investigation at the state and local level." Raskin likened "GOP 'political culture' to 'authoritarian dictatorships.'"
READ MORE: 'Chilling': Law Enforcement 'Seriously' Investigating Threats Ahead of Possible Trump Indictment Says Top WaPo Reporter
Sargent says Democrats "can use this against the GOP."
He adds: "Trump's lawyer sen[t] a letter to Jim Jordan urging an investigation into any charges against Trump, the NYT reports. Dems will use any hearings that Jordan holds to shed light on coordination between Trump's legal team and House Republicans, aides tell me."
In his Wednesday Washington Post opinion column Sargent calls onDemocrats to "marshal some serious creativity in response" to Republican attacks.
"The extraordinary move by House Republicans to insert themselves into Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's investigation of Trump provides Democrats with an opening to do just that," he says.
Sargent says "it's not clear that Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chair, has thought this through. The course of action signaled by the letter — also signed by Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) — could go sideways for Republicans in unforeseen ways."
READ MORE: US Secretary of State Denounces Uganda's New 'Kill the Gays' Bill
Raskin is an attorney, constitutional law professor, and was the lead impeachment manager for the second impeachment of Donald Trump. He has become a leading voice for American democratic values and in the fight against the MAGA Republicans.
"If and when there is an indictment, we will be able to reconstruct all the facts of this case in a way that makes sense to the American public," Raskin told Sargent, who explains: "The aim, he noted, would be to 'show the justice process is working, and there is no call for extraordinary intervention by the U.S. Congress.'"
Sargent warns, "A Trump indictment will unleash months of information warfare around a numbingly complex matter never before litigated in the public arena. Democrats sometimes undervalue the importance of sheer creativity in politics, and as ugly as the GOP response has been, Republicans are responding to unprecedented circumstances with new innovations. Democrats must meet them on that battlefield."
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an 3 23 raw
no lnx twt vid
Jamie Raskin (D-MD) blasted a House Select Committee on Covid-19 by noting that former President Donald Trump had refused for months to investigate the virus's origins but praised China President Xi Jinping instead.
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At a hearing to determine the origins of Covid on Wednesday, Raskin wondered why Republicans were not more upset with Trump's mishandling of the pandemic.
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"The COVID-19 pandemic came to America in 2020, of course, when Donald Trump was president," Raskin told the committee. "And that president's policy failures, magical thinking, and total recklessness caused, according to his own special advisor on COVID, Deborah Birx, the unnecessary death of hundreds of thousands of Americans."
Raskin said that answers "must come from objective, fact-based investigations informed by doctors, scientists, and public health experts."
"Whatever the origins of COVID-19, whether it is bats or bureaucrats, no finding will ever exonerate or rehabilitate Donald Trump for his lethal recklessness in mismanaging the crisis in America, which cost us more than a million lives," he continued. "Indeed, if COVID was actually the product of a lab leak, or the worst bioweapon of mass destruction ever invented, as some have argued, and obviously we don't have the scientific evidence to say any of this yet, it would not only not remove Donald Trump's culpability, it would only deepen his culpability in the most profound way."
The congressman offered a list of tweets in which Donald Trump praised Xi in the early days of the pandemic.
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"I'm just giving the committee a tiny taste of Donald Trump's fawning, star-struck, sycophantic embrace of everything the Chinese government was telling him in 2020," he explained. "He could have directed the intelligence community to lead a COVID-19 origins investigation back in March of 2020, three years ago. He did not. He wasted precious time minimizing the risk of the virus and lavishing his praise on President Xi."
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Raskin concluded: "He could have pushed back against the CCP for interfering with the WHO's investigation into its origins, and he could have asked our intelligence community to intervene. He did none of those things. And everyone should remember that. Let's take the politics out of it, and let's get to the bottom of what happened."
Watch the video below from the U.S. House.
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Rep. Jamie Raskin worked overtime on the Floor yesterday, schooling Lauren Boebert not only on basic facts about ex-president Donald Trump's disastrous handling of Covid, but also on basic grammar. Her poor grasp of the English language, he said, was not only unpleasant to the ears, but was contagious, as he heard some of her "distinguished colleagues" also making the gaffe.
"I believe that she referred to a 'Democrat solution.' I heard another member talk about a 'Democrat member.' I just wanted to educate our distinguished colleagues that 'Democrat' is the noun," he explained. "When you use it as an adjective you say the 'Democratic member.' Or the 'Democratic solution.'"
He then hilariously compared her bad grammar to sounding like a political speech impediment: "As if every time we mentioned the other party, it just came out with a kind of political speech impediment, like 'Oh, the Banana Republican Party' … 'the Banana Republican member' … 'the Banana Republican plan' … 'the Banana Republican conference.'" (See video below, posted by Acyn.)
The only problem with Raskin's lesson on grammar is that he did not first explain to Boebert what a noun and adjective was, losing her as soon as the exercise began.
bb
Congress quack Lauren Boebert (R–CO) spouted utter nonsense (again) as she tried to defend Donald Trump as a tough-on-Covid, tough-on-China ex-president who was mischaracterized by the media. This was during a larger conversation on the House floor in which she blamed President Biden for the mishandling of Covid-19.
"You're right. President Trump was in office when the Covid virus was released from a lab in China – from the Wuhan lab," she spat. "And he tried to make that very clear that this came from China, and reporters regularly dismissed that."
So Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) kindly volunteered to enlighten the simple lawmaker with some common knowledge history, sprinkling in a bit of ol' fashion sarcasm to make an otherwise dreary task amusing. "I appreciate the gentlelady's passion," he began.
He then explained two points the forgetful gentlelady should be "alerted to":
1) Trump on at least 20 occasions boasted about China's "wonderful" President Xi and the "wonderful job" he and Xi were doing together. "So, if there's a problem with the Chinese government unleashing a virus ― which has not been proven anywhere, but it certainly could be true ― you would have to pin that on your favorite president, Donald Trump, not on Joe Biden."
2) Trump's very own special advisor, "Deborah Birx – I'm sure you've read her book," wrote about the "reckless lethalness" of the bumbling former president's handling of Covid that cost the U.S. hundreds of thousands of lives. (Make that about a million.)
"So you don't have to believe anybody on the Democratic side of the aisle," Raskin wrapped up. "That's Donald Trump's own special adviser on Covid-19." (See video below, posted by Acyn.)
the dude rocks that bandana
During a House Rules Committee hearing this Monday, Jamie Raskin (D-MD) took an opportunity to call out Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) for saying that the "major civil rights issue" of the day was Trump supporters who are being charged for partaking in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
During the hearing, the Democratic congressman spoke out against GOP efforts to disapprove of legislation passed by the D.C. Council. Republicans and others critics have described the legislation as soft-on-crime.
According to Raskin, Greene sees discriminatory mistreatment "not of Washingtonians, but of MAGA insurrectionists who are in jail for assaulting officers, interfering with a federal proceeding, and engaging in seditious conspiracy."
Raskin went on to say that Republicans controlling the House want to "turn the clock back on D.C.'s home rule power and relive the glory days when Washington was run like a colonyby some racist Dixiecrats out of the House district committee."
"Today, it's the GOP that is determined to put the people of Washington in their place," Raskin said, adding that Republicans will be "attacking Washington not just for its local voting rights policies and criminal justice code, but for its gun safety policies, for its defensive abortion rights and LGBTQ rights, its decriminalization of marijuana, and dozens of other issues potentially headed to the House floor."
Watch the video below or at this link:
==
180 co spon House - 03/04/2021 Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. (All Actions)
https://oversight.house.gov/subcommittees/civil-rights-and-civil-liberties-117th-congressjamie raskin chair, jimbo jordan
Introduced in House (01/04/2021)
This joint resolution proposes a constitutional amendment authorizing Congress and the states to set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections.
The amendment grants Congress and the states the power to implement and enforce this amendment by legislation. They are allowed to distinguish between natural persons and corporations or other artificial entities created by law, including by prohibiting such entities from spending money to influence elections.
apr 2019
following the historic passage of the For the People Act (H.R. 1), the most extensive and powerful set of pro-democracy reforms to pass the House in decades, People For the American Way and our allies are working to build support for stand-alone reforms that are key to fixing our democracy and creating a political system that works for everyone.
One campaign finance reform that is particularly critical to addressing the influence of big money in politics is a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and other related Supreme Court cases, which have allowed unlimited sums of money to be spent in our elections. The Democracy For All Amendment (H.J.Res. 2) has been introduced by Rep. Ted Deutch , D-Fla., and already has 101 cosponsors. This proposed amendment would allow Congress and the states to regulate and set limits on the raising and spending of money in our elections, as well as legally distinguish between the rights of people and corporations. It also provides the important clarification that nothing in the amendment should be construed to abridge the freedom of the press. Since the Citizens United decision in 2010, this amendment has emerged as a leading solution among reform-minded members of Congress,even getting afloor vote after a week of debate in the Senate, with 54 Senators voting in support during the 113thCongress in 2014.
Importantly, the Democracy For All Amendment also rejects the current Court’s misguided interpretation that the only basis for campaign finance regulation is to address corruption in the form of quid pro quo bribery. In fact, in addition to preventing corruption, there are multiple rationales that justify campaign finance regulation, including but not limited to: leveling the electoral playing field; advancing the fundamental principle of equality for all; and protecting the integrity of the governmental and electoral processes.
There is widespread support for an amendment to address the influence of big money in politics. Since the Citizens United ruling there have been 19 states that have gone on record in support of an amendment, in addition to nearly 800 localities. And earlier this year, through the passage of the For the People Act, the House of Representatives called for an amendment. Likewise, in the Senate, every Democrat has endorsed the H.R. 1 companion bill, which also calls for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
Tags:
Citizens United v. FEC constitutional amendment Democracy For All Amendment Fighting Big Money in Politics For the People Act
2017 OVERSIGHT
Mr. Raskin. All right. And thank you, Mr. Roy.
Before I close, for the record I want to introduce four
Exxon internal memoranda, dated June 6, 1978, October 16, 1979,
August 3, 1998, and October 13, 1997, as well as the April 3,
1998, American Petroleum Institute Action Plan. Without
objection, those will be admitted into the record.
https://www.desmog.com/2022/10/07/slapp-lawsuits-exxon-chemrisk-dapl-climate-change-raskin/
Emily Sanders
In 2018, Krystal Two Bulls received notice that she was being sued for criminal conspiracy.
Two Bulls, who is Oglala Lakota and North Cheyenne, has been organizing for environmental justice for much of her life. She was raised on the North Cheyenne Indian Reservation of Lame Deer, Montana, part of a community that had resisted coal developments for nearly 40 years. In 2016, she helped defeat Arch Coal’s plans to build a massive strip mining operation on the reservation’s border. The project would’ve been one of the largest coal mines in the United States.
Later that same year, Two Bulls received an urgent call for assistance from land and water protectors at Standing Rock, North Dakota, who were working to oppose the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, which transports crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois.
When Two Bulls arrived, the conflict between protestors and local police was escalating. Her auntie, Dr. Sara Jumping Eagle, had recently been arrested after standing in the path of a bulldozer set to dig up human remains at an ancestral burial site. Two Bulls spent three-and-a-half months supporting and sustaining the camp — handling basic logistics like providing protestors with food, warm clothing, and other necessities — all in the face of violence by state police. She then helped to launch the No DAPL Solidarity Campaign, a global movement to back the Indigenous opposition to the pipeline.
It wasn’t until a year after camp was shut down that Two Bulls, who came to North Dakota on her own dime and left in debt, found out she was being sued for millions of dollars by the pipeline developer, Energy Transfer Partners. The charges were brought under the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Practices (RICO) Act, a law originally designed to prosecute the mafia. The company claimed that through her “calls to action,” including a statement on Greenpeace’s website asking “all people from around the world to take action” and “come stand with us” against the Dakota Access pipeline, Two Bulls and others had conspired to interfere with Energy Transfer’s business operations and engaged in organized crime. The individuals and groups’ opposition, the company claimed, was defamatory and cost key investments in its pipeline.
In 2017, The Intercept reported on documents leaked from former personnel at an international security firm, TigerSwan, revealing that Energy Transfer had paid the firm to use military-style surveillance and infiltration tactics to gather information that could be deployed in a RICO lawsuit against the anti-pipeline activists.
Two Bulls is just one of many victims of the fossil fuel industry’s use of SLAPPs— strategic lawsuits against public participation — to silence and intimidate its critics. A report released last month by legal advocacy nonprofit EarthRights International identified 152 instances of legal and judicial harassment by fossil fuel corporations to suppress dissent in the United States over the past 10 years, including 93 SLAPP lawsuits.
Just this week, a California oil industry trade association paid nearly $650,000 in fees to the city of Los Angeles and several environmental advocacy groups the company had targeted in court for years following the city’s implementation of new environmental safety requirements for drilling applicants. After declaring bankruptcy, the California Independent Petroleum Association was allowed to pay only a fraction of a judgment initially awarded to the city and groups by a trial court that ruled the lawsuit was a SLAPP.
“With the strengthening of our movements, the revelation of how long the fossil fuel industry has been aware of how their practices impact and contribute to climate change, and the rise of legal cases against oil and gas corporations, these companies are becoming more desperate to silence the voices of their critics,” said Deepa Padmanabha, deputy general counsel at Greenpeace USA.
A wide range of concerned groups, from community organizers to members of Congress, are taking up the fight against SLAPPs. Last month, the House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held a hearing to expose the fossil fuel industry’s use of SLAPPs and its backing of bills to criminalize protest. The committee’s witnesses, including Padmanabha and others, explained that corporations were using these tactics to suppress activists’ ability to freely voice dissent.
The day after the hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the subcommittee chairman, introduced the SLAPP Protection Act of 2022 — the first federal legislation that would “establish a procedure to dismiss, punish, and deter strategic lawsuits against public participation.” Advocates say the bill could create a sorely needed protection for individuals and community groups who speak out against fossil fuel infrastructure, and an important safeguard for free speech at large.
According to EarthRights International, the proposed legislation would provide a federal mechanism for SLAPP suits to be quickly identified and dismissed while balancing the rights of plaintiffs and defendants. The bill would also force those bringing SLAPP suits to pay their opponents’ legal fees if the lawsuit is proven to have abusive intent.
Advocacy organizations are also tackling the issue. EarthRights is a member of the Protect the Protest coalition, an initiative created in response to the rise of SLAPP suits. “If a corporation can sue a nonprofit organization out of business for criticizing its activities, then that’s extremely dangerous,” Kirk Herbertson, senior policy advisor at EarthRights International, said.
About a year after Energy Transfer filed its lawsuit against Two Bulls and others, a district court judge in North Dakota dismissed the case, denying the RICO claims with prejudice — meaning the company could not refile those claims.
RICO claims, which can triple the amount of damages sought in a SLAPP suit, can be financially devastating — even for a larger, well-resourced organization like Greenpeace USA, which was named in the original suit. While Energy Transfer’s RICO claims against the organization have been dismissed, the pipeline company filed a second lawsuit in North Dakota state court, which is scheduled for trial in June 2023. In its current case, which also names Two Bulls as a defendant, Energy Transfer argues that Greenpeace USA conspired with others to defame, trespass, and interfere with business relationships, among many other charges.
Energy Transfer did not respond to a request for comment.
“Companies are becoming more desperate to silence
the voices of their critics”
– Deepa Padmanabha
Fighting these lawsuits not only takes vast amounts of money, but also time and energy. Padmanabha said that since mid-2016, her career has been almost entirely dedicated to advocating against corporate lawfare — corporations’ use of the legal system to attack opponents — preventing her from engaging more in the dire work needed to prevent climate catastrophe.
“The next decade is so critical in our fight against climate change. And if we didn’t have to deal with these lawsuits, we would really be putting every penny and every minute we have into fighting the existential threat of climate change,” Padmanabha said, adding that they are also intended to intimidate and deter individuals and lesser-resourced, smaller groups from speaking out.
Karen Savage was working in Massachusetts as a middle-school math teacher when she got hit with a SLAPP suit. In 2013, she and another environmental activist, Cherri Foytlin, wrote an unpaid article for the Huffington Post about a so-called independent study fromscientific consulting firm ChemRisk. The study had claimed that there was no connection between chemicals released during the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the serious health problems reported by cleanup workers and coastal residents in its aftermath.
As their reporting revealed, ChemRisk — a company with a long history of working with polluters, including defendant PG&E in the infamous Erin Brockovich case — produced “science” on behalf of BP that the oil major could use to defend itself from liability in court.
After the article was published, the Huffington Post received an immediate request from the company to retract it, which they forwarded on to Cherri Foytlin. (In a note on her Facebook page, Foytlin told ChemRisk to “kiss my derriere.”)
Foytlin’s Facebook post, along with many other social media posts from the two writers, appeared in a defamation suit filed against them by ChemRisk in New York state. The company claimed their article contained falsehoods — though, according to Savage, ChemRisk couldn’t explain what those falsehoods were — and that as long as it was kept online, the article would “continue to do substantial harm to ChemRisk’s reputation.”
“Basically what they wanted to do was shut us up,” Savage told me. “It was an intimidation tactic.”
With pro-bono representation, Savage and Foytlin were able to get the suit dismissed in New York. Within two weeks, the company refiled in Massachusetts, where Savage lived. At one point, she said, the company’s lawyers even attempted to serve her in her classroom while she was teaching.
Cardno ChemRisk, the parent company of ChemRisk, did not respond to a request for comment.
The case was eventually dismissed under the state’s anti-SLAPP laws, and ChemRisk was forced to pay Savage and Foytlin’s attorney’s fees. Savage said she believes that ChemRisk never sued them in Louisiana, where Foytlin lived, because of the three states, Louisiana’s anti-SLAPP laws were the strongest, and the suit would’ve been dismissed faster and with greater consequences for the company.
That tactic of searching for the most favorable court, called forum shopping, is something Raskin’s anti-SLAPP statute would address by creating a standard applicable across the United States. At present, 32 states and the District of Columbia have anti-SLAPP laws, yet they have varying degrees of efficacy. And while the fate of a federal bill could depend on the outcome of midterm elections, most state anti-SLAPP laws have passed with bipartisan support.
Savage — who has since become a journalist and haswritten for DeSmog about being arrested by pipeline security while reporting — said she hopes Raskin’s bill would help put an end to this tactic. “If you know the truth, and you’ve got factual backup, and someone comes at you, you can’t back down on that,” Savage said. “The whole reason they’re coming at you is because they also know that you have the truth.”
While the fossil fuel industry works to stamp out the speech of environmental advocates on the one hand, it is now arguing that its climate denial is protected speech on the other. At the same time that Raskin held his hearing into the fossil fuel industry’s assault on the First Amendment, the House Natural Resources Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee held a separate hearing to examine how public relations firms market climate disinformation and delay action on behalf of Big Oil. In that hearing, chaired by Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), Republicans and their witness argued that the committee was attacking the corporations’ right to free speech.
“Taken together, the two [hearings] are a perfect illustration of the industry’s First Amendment strategy: expand free speech for corporations, curb it for citizens,” Amy Westervelt recently wrote in The Intercept. The fossil fuel industry, she explained, has been developing the argument that its public statements on climate policy are protected speech since the late 1960s, all while working to expand the right of corporations to buy influence over politics behind the scenes.
In a paradoxical twist, fossil fuel companies are even attempting to wield existing anti-SLAPP laws to shield themselves from legal accountability. After a Massachusetts court ruled that Attorney General Maura Healey’s climate fraud lawsuit against Exxon could proceed in state court, the oil giant told the state’s supreme court that the case was actually a conspiracy to silence Exxon’s views on climate policy in violation of the state’s anti-SLAPP statute.But so far, the idea that Exxon’s fraud is protected free speech has not gone over well with judges.
“We have seen that the industry is trying to build up this argument around a conspiracy against them, and it’s coming up in things like anti-SLAPP motions in courts. But they have continued to fail in that effort so far,” Herbertson of EarthRights International said. Raskin’s newly proposed federal legislation, he said, is clearly and explicitly designed to be used by real peopleand organizations that have been victim to SLAPP suits,and will be harder for corporations to use in their own defense.
But if you ask Padmanabha of Greenpeace, the industry’s tactics are on thin ice. “There is this recognition and an increasing awareness that speech should not be bought,” she said. “And I think that the [Oversight Civil Rights and Civil Liberties] hearing and the bill that followed it are really just emblematic examples of how these attempts to control the narrative are crumbling.”
Emily Sanders writes ExxonKnews, a newsletter covering climate accountability and the oil and gas industry. She is editorial lead at the Center for Climate Integrity, and is based in New York City. This piece was co-published by DeSmog and ExxonKnews, a project of the Center for Climate Integrity.
https://theintercept.com/**2022/09/**16/fossil-fuel-industry-climate-free-speech/
REPS. JAMIE RASKIN, D-Md., and Katie Porter, D-Calif., probably didn’t plan for their committee hearings to run at the exact same time this week, but the hearings sure were talking to each other.
In her Committee on Natural Resources hearing, Porter highlighted the role PR firms play in blocking climate policy. Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, and his selected witness, Amy Cooke, CEO of the conservative John Locke Foundation, expressed concern that preventing companies and their hired PR firms from spreading misinformation about climate change would have a chilling effect on free speech.
Meanwhile, the House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, chaired by Raskin, focused on free speech attacks against environmentalists, digging into the fossil fuel industry’s attempts to curb citizens’ speech rights via strategic litigation and laws that criminalize protest. Taken together, the two are a perfect illustration of the industry’s First Amendment strategy: expand free speech for corporations, curb it for citizens.
raskin’s free speech hearing focused on two key tactics: the increased filing of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs— defamation suits aimed at penalizing citizens or citizen groups for exercising their First Amendment rights — and theproliferation of so-calledcritical infrastructure bills, which pile on fines and criminal sentences for those caught trespassing or vandalizing near pipelines, power plants, railroads, or other infrastructure. These anti-protest bills were a direct industry backlash to the Standing Rock protests in 2016 and 2017. Starting with a law passed in Oklahoma in 2017, they proliferated with the help of the industry group American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which drafts and disseminates pro-corporate model legislation for adoption by state governments. Seventeen states now have critical infrastructure laws on the books, with several more considering proposals.
####
“SLAPPs and anti-protest bills are really two sides of the same coin,” said Deepa Padmanabha, deputy general counsel for Greenpeace and a witness at Raskin’s hearing. “They’re tactics used by the same corporate actors to quash dissent. They’re pushing legislation to silence us, to criminalize our critiques through anti-protest bills. And they’re also filing SLAPP suits to silence dissent.”
Greenpeace has dealt with both. Greenpeace USA activists were arrested in 2019 under Texas’s felony critical infrastructure law for unfurling banners on a bridge, which temporarily blocked shipping. The goal of the action was to highlight the connection between the oil industry and climate change.
Greenpeace is engaged in active litigation in a couple of SLAPP suits too. In one, Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, sued the organization for its role in the Standing Rock protests. The suit was initially filed in federal court and invoked the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, orRICO, a law designed to prosecute organized crime. “Energy Transfer was alleging that our advocacy work to uplift Indigenous voices at Standing Rock constituted organized crime,” Padmanabha said.
Because RICO allows for damages to be tripled if a defendant is found guilty, Greenpeace faced a $1 billion fine. Losing that suit would have had a truly chilling effect on free speech. A federal judge threw out the case, but Energy Transfer filed again in North Dakota (minus the RICO charge), a state that doesn’t have an anti-SLAPP law on the books.”
Anti-SLAPP laws allow defendants a quick way to get SLAPP suits dismissed, minimizing the time and money spent on meritless cases. Currently, 31 states and the District of Columbia have adopted anti-SLAPP statutes, which makes it fairly easy for corporate entities to go venue shopping for a court in a state without such a law. To address that gap, Raskin proposed new legislation this week to create federal anti-SLAPP protection. While some players in the fossil fuel industry may oppose Raskin’s bill, others have actually sought to avail themselves of anti-SLAPP protections. Exxon Mobil, for example, in its final attempt to thwart the fraud case against it in Massachusetts, argued that the suit was a SLAPP.
The oil company’s attorney Justin Anderson maintained that Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s fraud complaint against Exxon was not valid because the company’s public statements on climate policy should be considered political opinion (“petitioning activity,” in legal parlance), not misleading advertising — even when Exxon falsely claimed that climate change wasn’t real and overstated the company’s investments in low-carbon technology.
When one judge asked why Exxon would file an anti-SLAPP complaint rather than make a First Amendment argument in court, Anderson made clear that the point was to avoid discovery, when the corporation would be asked to hand over files and make its executives available for depositions. “The anti-SLAPP statute provides a mechanism to have a case that is brought against someone for petitioning activity dismissed at the outset before burdensome discovery is imposed on the party,” he argued.
The “petitioning activity” argument is one that the industry and its allies have trotted out repeatedly, both in court and in congressional hearings like those held this week. It’s a broad interpretation of free speech rights for corporations, the very sort of protection these same companies are opposed to extending to individuals. In his testimony before Raskin’s subcommittee, Daren Bakst, a senior research fellow on environmental policy and regulation for the Heritage Foundation, said, “The chilling effects are states bringing lawsuits against people for their speech.” It’s hard to tell because he said “people,” but he meant oil companies. Which he made clear by immediately referencing “what municipalities are doing, the government is doing against these fossil fuel companies. And I also see that Massachusetts is doing.”
This view of an oil company as a person who is being silenced for simply sharing their views on climate policy is the basic argument oil companies are making in dozens of cases across the country. These cases, brought by both municipalities and states, hinge either on fraud or nuisance claims and effectively ask that fossil fuel companies pay up for delaying action on climate, which increased both the impacts of the climate crisis and the price of adapting to a warming world. In all of them, the corporate defendants make some version of a free speech argument. They maintain that their public speech about global warming differed from their internal knowledge because their public statements were “petitioning speech,” related to their political views and desires and thus, protected. The industry has been building the foundation for such an argument for about as long as it has known about climate change — since the late 1960s.
The argument arose out of a situation not unlike the one playing out today, with war driving up prices at the pump and oil companies desperate to control public perception.
According to documents from Mobil’s corporate archive at the University of Texas at Austin, the company’s longtime PR whiz Herbert Schmertz and then-CEO, Rawleigh Warner, came up with an idea to help wrestle back control of the narrative. Using Mobil’s PR and advertising budget, they would create “idea advertising” to push the company’s take on key issues of the day and create the sense of Mobil as a citizen with a distinct personality.
They ran weekly :{advertorial:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:s in the New York Times as well as regular placements in a wide range of other publications, from the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal to Time and Fortune. Then Schmertz proposed TV and radio too. Why not?
In the early 1970s, Mobil took their TV and radio advertorials to all the big broadcast stations and only one, NBC, agreed to run them. CBS and ABC said they preferred to have their journalists cover energy issues. For Schmertz and Warner, it was a battle they had to win. What if the newspapers, or PBS, started to rethink playing nice with Mobil? In a media blitz, the two blasted CBS and ABC from every angle, in their NYT spot, on radio and TV programs, at events. Warner went to various business clubs to talk about the importance of protecting corporate free speech. Schmertz testified before Congress in 1978, urging First Amendment protection for Mobil’s ads and arguing that there was no difference between Mobil advertorials and New York Times editorials, because after all the Times was a business too.
Mobil helped rally support and funding for the first big Supreme Court case on the matter, First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the precursor to Citizens United. The court ruled that corporations could spend whatever money they wanted to influence politics, overruling a Massachusetts statute that said otherwise. “If the restricted view of corporate speech taken by the Massachusetts court were accepted,” Justice Lewis A. Powell wrote, “government would have the power to deprive society of the views of corporations.”
Related
How the Media Launders Fossil Fuel Industry Propaganda Through Branded Content
“I don’t think people really appreciate how big of a deal that was in shifting the rules of speech in the public space,” environmental sociologist Robert Brulle said. “Now, suddenly, corporations could use their budgets — which are enormous, you know, much larger than individuals — to advocate their position in the public space. … It allowed for a systematic distortion of the public space that gives corporations basically a loudspeaker to amplify their voice above everybody else’s.”
The 2010 Citizens United ruling, of course, intensified that dynamic. Whereas Bellotti allowed corporations to publicly campaign for particular ballot initiatives or candidates, Citizens United allowed political speech of any sort without disclosure of who was paying, who was actually speaking. Oil companies have been working to broaden corporate free speech rights even more in recent years, as their arguments in climate litigation and before Congress show.
“They will try to defend their misinformation efforts as political speech covered by the First Amendment and not subject to false advertising laws,” said Brulle, who has co-authored briefs in some of these cases.
Robert Kerr, who’s researched Mobil’s role in the corporate free speech movement for years, said to side with the oil companies’ arguments in these cases, the Supreme Court would have to turn its back on about a century’s worth of legal precedent. “It’s really deeply established even by some of the members of the current Supreme Court that the First Amendment will never protect expression that is fraud,” he said. “The worry now is that with this court there seems to be a majority that wants to say yes to almost any question the corporate interests raise.”
It makes sense then, that the industry and its allies would be working hard to rebrand climate denialism as simply a difference of opinion, to put some distance between greenwashing and fraud, to collectively gasp about the “chilling effect” (a phrase that came up so often in minority witness testimony this week that it’s hard to believe someone somewhere wasn’t disseminating talking points) that tackling misinformation might have on free speech. The fact that those efforts are happening alongside coordinated attempts to criminalize protest is more of the same: corporations drowning out the public.
no lnx an 922
'Hero' and 'national treasure': Jamie Raskin lauded for fiery rebuke of GOP hostility to January 6th panel
David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement September 22, 2022
U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has once again achieved “national treasure” and “hero” status to the many Americans who watched his unrelenting destruction of Republican talking points and conspiracy theories about the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, on which he serves.
Congressman Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, was the lead impeachment manager for the second impeachment of Donald Trump, and has repeatedly been the subject of praise for his passionate defense of democracy.
On Wednesday, as many were focused on the New York Attorney General’s announcement of a civil fraud lawsuit against Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, other Trump associates and several of the former president’s businesses, and still others focused on President Joe Biden’s historic speech before the United Nations,Congressman Raskin was sitting in a House Judiciary Committee hearing fielding a conspiratorial question from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), as Mediaite reported.
[READ MORE: In Scathing Rebuke DOJ Wins Stay of Trump Judge’s Ruling in National Security Appeal Over Classified Documents
Massie is perhaps best known for his conspiracy theories, along with his Christmas photo he posted of him, his wife, and their children, all photographed holding assault rifles.
Raskin’s destruction of GOP conspiracy theories and talking points started with Massie dredging up Ray Epps. Mediate explains the background:
:{
}:
“The theory holds that Epps was acting as an agent provocateur working for the deep state who was at the Capitol to rile up supporters of Donald Trump and get them to cause mayhem. Trump himself held a rally that morning and encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol as the 2020 presidential election was being certified by members of Congress. The former president falsely claimed the election was stolen from him.”
Raskin wasn’t having it.
Massie claimed they “were told” a transcript of the January 6 Committee’s interview with Epps “would be released, but it’s never been released.”
Raskin blasted Massie in response.
[READ MORE: ‘Lacks Courage’: Experts Question Why Alvin Bragg ‘Stood Down’ on Trump Criminal Case After Bombshells in Civil Suit
“None of the transcripts have been released so you don’t need a conspiracy theory about that,” he replied. “We’ve done more than a thousand interviews. You guys are trying to make this poor schmuck who showed up to your protest into something a lot bigger than he is. He’s just trying to survive and he’s on your side. You don’t have many voters left, you might want to try to hang on to them without demonizing and vilifying your own people.”
Raskin was unrelenting.
“That’s the Donald Trump way. Sell everybody else down the road. Unless you can get a pardon,” Raskin continued. “Most people have opened their eyes about what he’s done to our country. What he’s done to his family.”
But the back-and-forth did not end there.
Congressman Raskin took Massie on a walk through recent history over the creation of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
Blasting House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Raskin said, “After we went back and conveyed our agreement to the GOP proposal,” about the formation of a committee to investigate the January 6 attack, “it was vetoed by the fourth branch of government,” meaning Donald Trump, who Raskin has previously referred to in that manner.
“It was vetoed by the cult leader, Donald Trump, who said he wanted no investigation at all! That’s your guy! Donald Trump, he said he wanted no investigation. And so, you pulled the plug on the investigation you originally advocated because Donald Trump didn’t want it. Let’s tell some truth! You’re talking about the truth? I’m giving you the truth! I’m giving you the facts about it!”
[READ MORE: NY AG Referring Criminal Charges Against Trump to the Feds, Alleges He ‘Grossly Inflated’ Net Worth by ‘Billions’
“And then when Speaker Pelosi said, ‘well in that case the House of Representatives will conduct our own investigation,’ then, again, you guys boycotted because you wanted to put pro-insurrection members on the committee. And so, we ended up with a bipartisan committee of people really interested in getting the facts,” Raskin reminded Massie.
“And you know what? This is what you guys can’t stand: America listened to it because we had real congressional hearings,” he said proudly, noting that “25, 30 million Americans [were] watching because we told the truth about Donald Trump’s assault on democratic institutions and the right to vote in America.”
Raskin launched in to a near-rendition of the courtroom scene in “A Few Good Men,” declaring, “maybe you can’t handle the truth, but that’s the reality and nobody’s laid a glove on any of the testimony that has come out during those hearings.”
“So, we hear this absurd whining about ‘Ray Epps,’ who has absolutely nothing to do with any of it. And all of these conspiracy theory allegations have been debunked – up and down. Up and down! You think you’ve got something? Bring him in and talk to him or send us a letter. But why don’t you deal with the reality of the situation?”
Once again, Raskin is receiving high praise for his defense of democracy.
Noted political scientist Norm Ornstein declared Raskin a “national treasure.”
Journalist, author, Emmy-Award winning producer Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family, responded to the video by saying, “Damn, I love this. It’s so good.” Rep. Raskin is “speaking truth to power and the other side can’t handle it.”
Podcaster and political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen called it an “absolute masterclass by Jamie Raskin.”
Mary Trump, also a podcaster and relative of the former president called Raskin “the best congressman we have.”
Journalist, CEO, and foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst David Rothkopf said he’s “Always so grateful” that Raskin “is a member of our Congress.”
Award-winning screenwriter, film-and-television producer and director Mark Frost says “Raskin is an American hero. This is thrilling stuff; you couldn’t WRITE a better speech and he’s winging it.”
Social media influencer and former NBA player Rex Chapman called Rep. Raskin “a superstar.”
Van Badham, Australian writer and columnist for The Guardian (Australia), pointing to a clip of Raskin offered this summation: “If you’re unfamiliar with Jamie Raskin; this is a man who has survived cancer, January 6 and the tragic death of his adult son. He’s someone whose shown a strength of character and personal resilience that puts him far beyond anything the Republicans could try to lay on him.”
Watch the videos above or at this link.
6 22
united States Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) appeared on a recent edition of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia)'s podcast and suggested that Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) is unable to do his job because his son committed suicide.
Raskin served as the House of Representatives' manager of former President Donald Trump's second impeachment for inciting the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection. Raskin also sits on the Select Committee investigating the attack, which was triggered (at least in part) by Republican lawmakers refusing at Trump's behest to acknowledge President Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election.
Now, with just 24 hours remaining before public hearings revealing what the bipartisan congressional commission has found begin, Gaetz and Greene have launched a new and unusually cruel offensive against Raskin.
"When people encounter trauma, they often associate a lot of the other things around that trauma with it, even if they don't naturally or even rationally associate. And what I worry about for the Congress and for Jamie Raskin, you know, no one would ever want to lose a child, particularly to suicide," said Gaetz.
"As human beings, our hearts go out to him. But I think that he takes that trauma and he associates it now with his work in the Congress to such an interwoven way that he's unable to do the congressional experience outside of just the dungeon of that personal trauma," Gaetz continued, "and I think it makes him look at everything in these very like, dark and severe ways."
Greene agreed.
"You know, we try to come to the job to uplift people," Gaetz resumed.
"We're here to serve the people," Greene interjected.
"Well and we love this country," Gaetz added.
"Absolutely," said Greene.
"We're not here out of a sense of grievance or hatred. We love America," Gaetz said.
"No we love it," Greene chimed in again.
"And we want to vindicate the rights of our citizens and we want to champion their causes and battle their dislikes," Gaetz remarked.
"Yes that's right," Greene said.
"But I think for Jamie Raskin, it's really like, his service in the Congress has almost become like inextricably attached to this sad personal trauma he's had," Gaetz proclaimed. "And I do think it clouds his judgment and you could see that, that very darkness and that pain manifest on Thursday in a way that's not particularly relevant to the challenges that we've talked about, but it might be deeply relevant to what he's going through. And the country shouldn't have to go through all that with him."
Greene then stated the quiet part out loud.
"Well my goodness, it's a horrible thing, what he went through, but it doesn't change the fact of, uh, his political beliefs," she said, "and I believe he's a communist and I believe what he's doing on the January 6th Committee is completely wrong."
Watch below via PatriotTakes:
https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/jamie-raskin/
john stauber edit bd
Guy Reschenthaler’s face looked beat up. I almost felt sorry for him. The Pennsylvania congressman was forced to explain Thursday what he and his conference were doing in the House after Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, in short order, tore three of them down.
By the time Raskin was finished with Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, the carnage was so bad Reschenthaler demanded that Raskin’s word “be taken down.” That’s a House rule disciplining members who use “inappropriate words in debate.”
(In this case it was over passage of the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend Lease Act, a $33 billion aid package requested by the president to continue helping Ukraine fight and repel the invading Russian army.)
Raskin conceded that he used “unparliamentary language to make my point.” Though Raskin was scolded, it was Reschenthaler who looked warmed over. Before moving on, he explained that his conference wasn’t debating the substance of the bill. (It has majority support, he said.) His conference was merely debating the rule leading to passage.
OK then.
In truth, Elise Stefanik of New York, James Comer of Kentucky and Greene of Georgia were following a play devised by colleague Jim Jordan. The idea, according to a leaked memo, was making everything about immigration for the benefit of the viewers of rightwing media. So they were long on “open border policy” and the “invasion of the southern border” and short on anything having to do with Ukraine.
It was like Raskin saw that bullshit coming.
In what looked like a masterclass on defusing and dismantling rightwingers and their fascist rhetoric, Raskin 1) put the Republicans in a broad context with the highest of stakes, in this case Ukrainian democracy against Russian autocracy; and 2) found a Republican, in this case Marjorie Talyor Greene, who has said things you say only when your love of democracy is subordinate to your lust for power.
Raskin boxed them in.
Then he stomped the box.
The following is a lightly edited transcript of Raskin's response to statements made by Stafanik, Comer and Greene, in that order.
Responding to Elise Stefanik
I think that all of these efforts to distract us from the issue at hand are meant to cover up the very clear pro-Russian and pro-Putin faction at the heart of their side of the aisle.
Last month, the very distinguished gentlelady fromGeorgia went on a radio show called The Voice of Rural America. She followed Donald Trump’s sickening appeasement of Vladimir Putin and blamed Ukraine for the situation.
She said, “You see, Ukraine just kept poking the bear and poking the bear, which is Russia, and Russia invaded. There is no win for Ukraine here. Russia is successful in this invasion.
When members of Congress, who are cheerleaders for Vladimir Putin, and are voices have nothing but defeatism, fatalism and pessimism for democracy in Europe – so they try to distract us with a lot of phony rhetoric about other issues.
She also said, “NATO has been supplying the neo-Nazis in Ukraine with powerful weapons and extensive training on how to use them. What the hell is going on with these NATO Nazis?”
My friends, we got to decide which side we're on.
When Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt looked at what was happening in Europe during World War Two and they saw Nazis marching down the street, they did not see very fine people on both sides of the street.
They did not start cheerleading for Mussolini and Hitler and Franco.
Yet we have people here who speak on the side of Vladimir Putin and on the side of Russia. Let's pass this Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend Lease Actto show where America is.
We are not cheerleaders for Vladimir Putin.
We are not going to follow the Trump-Putin axis down the road towards autocracy and kleptocracy and sedition and insurrection and corruption and coups in the United States.
That's not where we're going.
This is the land of the free, the home of the brave.
We stand for democracy here.
Not Vladimir Putin.
Responding to James Comer
We're here to talk about aid to Ukraine, how to streamline and expedite aid to defend the people of Ukraine. And they will talk about anything but.
I was willing to believe the distinguished gentlelady from Georgia, and several other members, were isolated in their conference.
Now I'm starting to think maybe they're speaking for the whole conference.
I wonder if my good friend from Pennsylvania would explicitly repudiate some of these statements made by the gentlelady from Georgia.
Does the minority conference agree that NATO has been supplying “neo-Nazis in Ukraine” with powerful weapons?
Does the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania support or dissociate himself from the argument that the aid that we sent to Ukraine falls “into the hands of Nazis”? – a statement made by the gentlelady from Georgia echoing Putin’s filthy claim that his war on the sovereign democracy of Ukraine is in fact an attempt to de-Nazify the country.
We hear distinct echoes in everything that we get from the erudite gentlelady from Georgia.
Does the minority agree that Putin invaded because Ukraine repeatedly poked the bear?
I can't understand why they won't talk about defending Ukraine. That's what this legislation is about. That's what this rule is about.
They want to talk about anything other than that. We can debate all of those other important issues in other contexts at the right time. This is how the House of Representatives works.
But why are they covering up for the pro-Putin faction within their conference? I would like them to dissociate themselves from the people who were blaming Ukraine for Russia's bloody imperial invasion and war of human rights violations and atrocities against the people.
Responding to Marjorie Taylor Greene
Mr. Speaker, the United States of America just witnessed the most astonishing spectacle.
We are here to debate aid to the people of Ukraine defending themselves against a massive invasion by Vladimir Putin and his army.
Then, the minority puts up the distinguished gentlelady from Georgia who does not mention Ukraine once. She does not mention the thousands of Ukrainian civilians who’ve been slaughtered by Putin's army.
She does not mention more than 100 Ukrainian children who've been shot and killed by the [Russian] army.
Instead, she talks about a massive invasion at the border, a massive invasion which their own speakers have said today hundreds of thousands of people have been apprehended in.
That's very different from a military invasion.
The one in Ukraine, of course, the gentlelady is not going to talk about that.
She had a lot to say the other day when she heckled me continuously. When I came to the floor, it was like the Rocky Horror Picture Show in here with her chanting about the Russia hoax and Russia this and Russia that.
Now she has the opportunity to tell the world what her views about Russia are. I put them out there, exactly what she said.
She said that the aid that the taxpayers of America are sending to the people of Ukraine to defend themselves against Vladimir Putin and the Russian Army falls into the hands of Nazis.
I want to see her proof.
Where's her evidence?
She talks about NATO Nazis.
Does the minority believe our allies in NATO, who are trying to defend the people of Ukraine, are Nazis?
Has it come to this?
Gentlelady talks about a massive invasion – we had a massive invasion of our own chamber.
She continued to be a cheerleader for the insurrection.
biden beat by oil corps:
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/oil-lobbying-powerhouse-api-notes-concerns-with-fed-pick-raskin
Oil Lobby Powerhouse API Voices Concerns on Fed Pick Raskin
Jan. 31, 2022,
The top U.S. oil and gas trade group expressed concerns aboutSarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination for vice chair for supervision of the Federal Reservebut stopped short of opposing her candidacy, in a break with some industry leaders.
American Petroleum Institute senior vice president of policy Frank Macchiarola said Monday that the group has concerns over some of Raskin’s comments on addressing climate-related financial risk
“We believe that climate-related stress testing and restrictions on capital could undermine our industry’s efforts to deliver affordable and reliable energy while addressing the climate challenge,” Macchiarola said in an emailed statement
Macchiarola said ...
To read the full article log in.
an 3 22 tom b raw story
According to a report from Politico, attorney John Eastman -- who was leading the charge to overturn 2020 presidential election results that ousted Donald Trump from the White House -- is receiving new scrutiny over his relationship with Justice Clarence Thomas.
In light of revelations about texts being exchanged between Ginni Thomas and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, where the wife of the Supreme Court justice was passing on conspiracy theories and urging the Trump's inner circle to do what they could to remain in power, one member of the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th insurrection said he has some questions for Eastman.
As Kyle Cheney reports, "Eastman spent the final weeks of Trump’s presidency driving a strategy to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory, a plan that relied on legal theories so extreme the Jan. 6 select committee says they could amount to criminal conspiracy and fraud," before adding, "The select committee has evidence that when a top Pence aide challenged Eastman’s plan on Jan. 4, 2021, Eastman initially told him he believed two Supreme Court justices would back him up. One of them was Ginni Thomas’ husband, Justice Clarence Thomas."
Politico is reporting that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is raising concerns about Eastman and Justice Thomas.
"Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told POLITICO that the new details raise important questions about whether Eastman had a specific reason to believe Justice Thomas would support his radical gambit, or if he was simply voicing a hunch," Cheney wrote before noting, "Eastman’s attorney Charles Burnham did not respond to questions about whether Eastman maintained ties to the Thomases or communicated with either of them in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 defeat. There’s no known evidence that Eastman was directly in touch with either of the Thomases during his campaign to pressure Pence to subvert the results."
According to Politico, "Eastman had reason to know Thomas’ views well: He clerked for the George H.W. Bush appointee in the 1990s before becoming a mainstay in deeply conservative legal circles."
The report goes to note that when investigators asked Eastman if he had any reason to believe that the Supreme Court would support his plan to have former vice president Mike Pence refuse to certify the election and throw it back to the states, his response was to plead the 5th Amendment.
What has raised red flags was testimony from Pence lawyer Greg Jacob who told the committee that Eastman had told him that at least two Supreme Court justices might support his plan, with Jacob saying he couldn't recall if Eastman named the other justice.
You can read more here.
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republicans and Democrats have been having heated debates for generations, but in recent years, the divide between the United States' two major political parties has grown much more ugly and bitter than it was during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. And on Thursday, March 11, reporter Kyle Cheney stresses in an article published by Politico later that day, a two-hour hearing showed just how nasty that divide has become.
The March 11 hearing was held by members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which Cheney describes as "an academic review of lawmakers' ability to punish or expel one another under House rules." The hearing, Cheney notes, "quickly devolved into a tidal wave of outrage, a snapshot of the increasingly toxic environment that has enveloped Capitol Hill since a mob of pro-Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and sent them fleeing for their lives."
Cheney is not exaggerating when he uses the word "toxic" to describe the environment on Capitol Hill following the victory of President Joe Biden in 2020's presidential election. Trump and many of his GOP sycophants in Congress refused to accept the democratic election results, making bogus, totally debunked claims of widespread voter fraud. And on January 6, a violent mob of pro-Trump extremists — including QAnon supporters, members of the Proud Boys, White nationalists and militia members — stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in the hope of stopping Congress from certifying Biden's Electoral College victory.
NEW: Post-Jan. 6 tensions flared today at a Judiciary hearing, where Democrats accused some Republican colleagues o… https://t.co/N5YRvAycqq
— Kyle Cheney (@Kyle Cheney) 1615509644.0
Cheney explains, "Democrats continue to seethe over their GOP colleagues who countenanced Trump's efforts to discredit the election, and blame them for contributing to the atmosphere that inspired the mob. Republicans have largely sidestepped that debate, but as Democrats have begun ramping up tactics to marginalize the 138 House Republicans who voted to reject some of the 2020 results, some are beginning to bristle more vocally. And at Thursday's hearing, the dam broke."
The Politico reporter goes on to describe some examples of how contentious things became during that hearing. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the Maryland Democrat who served as lead impeachment manager during Trump's second impeachment trial, slammed Republicans for their "waterfall of counterfeit outrage and indignation" and described Republicans as a "religious cult" devoted to mindlessly worshipping Trump.
Raskin declared, "You invented cancel culture. This right-wing cancel culture has run amok." And he denounced the former president as a "snowflake," using a derogatory term that conservatives often used to attack liberals and progressives they view as hypersensitive. And Rep. Mike Johnson, a far-right Louisiana Republican, indignantly told Raskin, "The name-calling of the former president…. obviously violates the rules."
"The exchanges were emblematic of the whole hearing, where the testimony of four witnesses was largely an afterthought," Cheney observes. "The witnesses largely agreed that the House has the power to punish and even expel its own members under the Constitution, but that the process should be deployed only in exceedingly rare and clear-cut cases when a supermajority — and not just one political faction — deems it necessary. Republicans, though, viewed the hearing itself as part of an increasingly clear effort by Democrats to begin seeking ways to punish those they view as responsible for the January 6 insurrection."
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720 an portland
...Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Wednesday led 116 of his colleagues in a letter (pdf) demanding Barr and Wolf answer their questions on the ongoing Portland deployment and any planned expansion of federal law enforcement programs in U.S. cities.
“This is not legitimate law enforcement under our Constitution but a shocking slide into authoritarianism and police state tactics,” the letter reads, adding that “these new tactics are an outrageous assault on the liberties of the people and the police powers and political sovereignty of the states.”...
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/citizens-united-and-corporate-court/
raskin 9/12
no lnx
“And may the odds be ever in your favor.”
—Effie Trinket, announcer for the corporate state in The Hunger Games
We live in what will surely come to be called the Citizens United era, a period in which a runaway corporatist ideology has overtaken Supreme Court jurisprudence. No longer content just to pick a president, as five conservative Republicans on the Rehnquist Court did in 2000, five conservative Republicans on the Roberts Court a decade later voted to tilt the nation’s entire political process toward the views of moneyed corporate power.
In Citizens United (2010), the Court held that private corporations, which are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution and are not political membership organizations, enjoy the same political free speech rights as people under the First Amendment and may draw on the wealth of their treasuries to spend unlimited sums promoting or disparaging candidates for public office. The billions of dollars thus turned loose for campaign purposes at the direction of corporate managers not only can be but—under the terms of corporate law—must be spent to increase profits.If businesses choose to exercise their newly minted political “money speech” rights, they must work to install officials who will act as corporate tools.
The Court, transformed by the addition of Chief Justice Roberts and Samuel Alito, who were nominated by that lucky winner in Bush v. Gore, took this giant step to the right of all prior Courts without even being asked to do so. The petitioner, Citizens United, sought only a ruling that the electioneering provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (better known as McCain-Feingold) didn’t apply to its on-demand movie about Hillary Clinton. But the conservatives sent the parties back to brief and argue the paradigm-shifting constitutional question they were so keen to decide. As dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens observed, the justices in the majority “changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.”
Before Citizens United came down, corporations were already spending billions of dollars lobbying, running “issue ads,” launching political action committees and soliciting PAC contributions. Moreover, CEOs, top executives and board directors—the people whose income and wealth have soared over the past several decades in relation to the rest of America—have always contributed robustly to candidates. But there was one crucial thing that CEOs could not do before Citizens United: reach into their corporate treasuries to bankroll campaigns promoting or opposing the election of candidates for Congress or president. This prohibition essentially established a wall of separation—not especially thick or tall, but a wall nonetheless—between corporate treasury wealth and campaigns for federal office.
The Roberts Court’s 5-4 decision to demolish most of this wall also bulldozed the foundational understanding of the corporation that had governed American law for two centuries. The Court had always regarded the corporation not as a citizen with constitutional rights but as an “artificial entity” chartered by the states and endowed with extraordinary privileges in order to serve society’s economic purposes. The great conservative Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819), “A corporation ?is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those ?properties which the charter of creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence.”
This “artificial entity” understanding of corporate law prevailed until Big Tobacco lawyer and corporate-state visionary Lewis Powell, of Richmond, Virginia, joined the Court. In First National Bank of Boston v.Bellotti (1978), the key forerunner to Citizens United, Powell assembled a bare majority to give corporations and banks the right to spend without limit to influence public opinion in ballot issue campaigns. The decision, which approved the desire of banks in Massachusetts to campaign against progressive tax measures, unveiled the key doctrinal move of what would later become the Citizens United era: “If the speakers here were not corporations, no one would suggest that the State could silence their proposed speech,” Justice Powell wrote. “The inherent worth of the speech in terms of its capacity for informing the public does not depend upon the identity of its source.”
The Bellotti decision cracked open the door of campaign finance law, and the Citizens United majority blew that door off its hinges. The Court announced that, when it comes to campaign spending rights, the “identity of the speaker” is irrelevant and an impermissible basis upon which to repress the flow of money speech. What matters is the “speech” itself, never the speaker—a doctrine that would have come in handy for the public employees, public school students, whistleblowers, prisoners and minor-party candidates whose free-speech rights have been crushed by the conservative Court because of their identity as (disfavored) speakers.
Taken seriously, the Citizens United doctrine has astonishing implications for campaign finance.If it’s true that the “identity of the speaker” is irrelevant, the City of New York—a municipal corporation, after all—should have a right to spend money telling residents for whom to vote in mayoral races. Maryland could spend tax dollars urging citizens to vote for marriage equality in November, and President Obama could order the Government Printing Office to produce a book advocating his re-election. Surely the Supreme Court would never ban a book containing campaign speech!
Further, under the new doctrine, churches—?religious corporations—would have a First Amendment right not only to promote candidates from the pulpit but to spend freely on television ads advocating their election or trashing their opponents. The claim that churches surrender their right to engage in electioneering when they accept 501(c)(3) status is obsolete after Citizens United, which rejected the view that groups can be divested of their right to participate in politics when they receive incorporated status and special legal and financial privileges. If the identity of the speaker is truly irrelevant, there should be nothing to stop the Church of Latter-Day Saints or Harvard University from bankrolling political campaigns.
In the real world, the claim that the identity of the speaker is irrelevant cannot be taken seriously, and it is already being disregarded by the justices who signed on to it. The Court has so far declined to strike down the ban on foreign spending in American politics and the century-old ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates, laws that the new doctrine logically should invalidate. A total wipeout of campaign finance law appears to be just a step too far—at least right now—for a Court already facing plummeting public legitimacy.
But even if this incoherent doctrine goes no further, the surging stream of corporate and billionaire spending has already made a sweet difference for the Republican Party, which despairs of the nation’s demographic and cultural changes and depends on a mix of right-wing propaganda and voter suppression to confuse and shrink the electorate. Indeed, the potency of Citizens United became clear in the same year the decision was released.
The 2010 election should have been framed by three recent corporate catastrophes: the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which inflicted billions of dollars in damage; Massey Energy’s collapsing coal mines in West Virginia, which cost twenty-nine people their lives and were enabled by the corporation’s aggressive lobbying and corruption of government; and the subprime mortgage meltdown brought on by the misconduct and power plays of AIG and Wall Street, which cost the American people trillions of dollars in lost homes and home values, ravaged pension and retirement funds, and destroyed stock equity.
But the infusion into the campaign of hundreds of millions of dollars from corporate and personal sources through secretive 501(c)(4) advocacy groups, 501(c)(6) trade associations and eighty-three new Super PACs completely changed the subject. The theme of the propaganda-soaked campaign became, remarkably, the urgent importance of deregulating corporations. The Republicans and the Koch brothers–funded Tea Party captured control of the House, bringing near paralysis to the government.
Citizens United did not accomplish this feat alone; it had a junior partner in SpeechNow.org v. FEC. This decision came from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, which struck down limits on what individuals can give to independent expenditure campaigns, a ruling that turbo-charged the Super PACs. While Citizens United freed the corporations, SpeechNow.org emancipated billionaires like Sheldon Adelson, the casino king who bets large on right-wing causes. Adelson’s millions kept the floundering Newt Gingrich afloat for the Dixie primaries. After Gingrich’s campaign went craps, Adelson sent $10 million to a pro-Romney Super PAC and vowed to spend as much as ?$100 million to defeat Obama as president.
Today there are 844 Super PACs and countless 501(c) vehicles; experts say billions of dollars, much of it untraceable, will flood the 2012 election. We will never know for sure whose money is paying for the show, because the front groups easily conceal their donors, including foreign corporations. Moreover, right-wing lawyers are now challenging campaign finance disclosure requirements as unconstitutional compelled speech, like making Jehovah’s Witness schoolchildren pledge allegiance to the flag. They argue that corporations should be free to keep their political spending secret because they may face intimidation and even—God forbid—boycotts from consumers who dislike their politics. In other words, corporations have a right to speak because they are like people, but they should be completely insulated from the speech reactions of natural people. This is some “marketplace of ideas” the champions of corporate power have in mind for us.
Support for a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United is growing because, as Justice Stevens objected, ?”A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.” An amendment to allow for reasonable regulation of campaign expenditures and contributions would empower Congress to return corporations to the economic sphere. It would also solidify the public’s interest in campaign disclosure and, as Harvard professor Laurence Tribe has observed, the much-eroded interest in building a public financing system that makes participating candidates at least minimally competitive with privately financed candidates. This is an interest that the Roberts Court has trashed, in cases like Davis v. FEC (2008) and Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett (2011).
In these decisions, the Court, in essence, ruled that privately financed candidates backed by wealthy interests not only have a right to spend to the heavens to win office but also a right, in states with public financing laws, to lock in their massive financial advantage over publicly financed candidates, whose campaign speech may not be even modestly amplified by public funding when they get outspent. Here, as distorted beyond recognition by the Roberts Court, the First Amendment becomes not the guardian of democratic discussion but the guarantee of unequal protection for well-born and wealth-backed politicians. Today, corporations can saturate the airwaves and billionaires can spend to their hearts’ content, but government cannot create even a modest megaphone to help poorer candidates be heard.
A constitutional amendment to correct these distortions may seem impossible now, but all amendments seem impossible until they become inevitable. Most amendments since the Bill of Rights have expanded democracy or, like the Twenty-Fourth Amendment banning poll taxes, removed obstacles to democracy authorized by the Supreme Court. President Obama’s recent statement of support for mobilizing a campaign to amend the Constitution suggests a coming surge of political engagement on the issue. FIND THIS]
Defenders of our new plutocracy point out that there are many thousands of corporations in America, most of them small, but this bit of faux small-business populism is an irrelevant distraction from how the corporate “wealth primary” works in the real world.Major industries that have an “extractive” character and a parasitic relationship with government—Wall Street, Big Oil, Big Pharma, the military-industrial complex—have cultivated a pervasive financial dependency on elected officials that permits them to continue the exploitative symbiosis that economists call “rent-seeking.” Avoiding the hazardous risks of innovation, investment and competition, many conglomerates prefer playing power politics in Washington. They don’t increase the pie; they just grab ever larger slices of it.
These arrangements operate on a simple return-on-investment basis: corporations devote millions to electing and lobbying politicians and then collect hundreds of millions in tax breaks, corporate welfare, sweetheart contracts, bailouts, deregulation and inside deals. This squalid form of “public policy,” which even Republicans call “crony capitalism” (in the primaries anyway), works splendidly for those involved but dismally for everyone else, including businesses that lack the finance capital to invest in the political system.A plutocratic state denies us both political justice and a fair economy.
When a bristling Justice Antonin Scalia went on CNN in July and defended Citizens United, which is considered a recipe for corruption by nearly 70 percent of Americans, he enlisted everyone’s favorite founder. “I think Thomas Jefferson would have said, ‘The more speech, the better,’” Scalia opined.
One must charitably assume Scalia’s utter ignorance of Jefferson’s political philosophy and how much the Sage of Monticello feared the rise of a “single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations,” which he foresaw “riding and ruling over the plundered ploughmen and beggared yeomanry.” The Citizens United era bears a disturbing resemblance to Jefferson’s nightmare vision of what might happen if corporate power swallowed the government. But Justice Scalia and the other juriscorporatists managing our scales of justice know just what good wishes to offer the “plundered ploughmen and beggared yeomanry” of our day, and the rest of the people we call the 99 percent: “May the odds be ever in your favor.”
ALSO IN THIS FORUM
Bill Moyers and Bernard A. Weisberger: “The 1 Percent Court”
William Yeomans: “How the Right Packed the Court”
Dahlia Lithwick: “One Nation by and for the Corporations”
Michael Greenberger: “The Roberts Court and Wall Street”
Craig Becker and Judith Scott: “Isolating America’s Workers”
Herman Schwartz: “Rewriting Antitrust Law”
Sherrilyn Ifill: “A Court Out of Touch”
Nan Aron: “The Way Forward”
Jamie Raskin, a professor of constitutional law at American University, is a member of the Maryland State Senate, where he serves as majority whip. He recently led the successful floor fight in the Senate to repeal the death penalty in his state.
420 random grab drilled
fossil Fuel Companies Try Again to Shake Baltimore’s Climate Liability Suit
ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP, along with nearly two dozen other fossil fuel defendants named in a climate liability suit by the city of Baltimore, have asked a state court to dismiss the case, in part because they maintain it is a violation of their First Amendment right to free speech. Story coming soon!
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https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/07/20/baltimore-climate-damages-liability-lawsuit/
Baltimore became the second East Coast city to file a climate liability lawsuit against fossil fuel companies. Its suit, announced Friday, becomes the 12th suit filed across the country aiming to hold the industry accountable for flooding and other harms caused by climate change.
The mayor and city council of Baltimore filed a complaint in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City that ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and 23 other fossil fuel producers and distributors violated Maryland laws, including its consumer protection law.
“These oil and gas companies knew for decades that their products would harm communities like ours, and we’re going to hold them accountable,” Baltimore City Solicitor Andre M. Davis said. “Baltimore’s residents, workers, and businesses shouldn’t have to pay for the damage knowingly caused by these companies.”
Baltimore, the largest city in Maryland and the fifth-largest on the East Coast, is already experiencing the effects of sea level rise and extreme weather driven by climate change. The city absorbed a 7 ½-foot storm surge from Hurricane Isabel in 2003, causing a devastating flood, and had Superstorm Sandy’s track changed slightly, a 20-foot storm surge could have inundated the city in 2012. The city’s Inner Harbor, a tourist hub and a key economic driver for Baltimore, faces frequent flooding even without storms of that size. Nearby Ellicott City, 12 miles to the west, has been devastated by flash flooding twice in the last three years, with 1,000-year floods striking that community after extreme downpours in 2016 and earlier this year.
Baltimore needs to upgrade infrastructure to be ready for future flooding, although city officials are not yet certain what that will cost. “The City is in the final stages of its latest Disaster Preparedness and Planning Project, which be out for public comment in August and will have more details about the kinds of projects that Baltimore will have to undertake to address rising seas and other consequences of climate change,” Suzanne Sangree, chief of the Baltimore City Law Department’s public safety practice group, wrote in an email.
“All cities are behind in this kind of preparation, in large part because the fossil fuel industry has been burying information and preventing meaningful regulation and preparation,” Sangree said.
The city filed its suit in state court, where most legal experts say it has a better chance for success. New York City, the first East Coast city to sue the oil industry for climate damages, had its case dismissed by a federal judge on Thursday. San Francisco and Oakland also had their cases thrown out of U.S. District Court. All are expected to appeal those decisions, but have not yet done so.
Those roadblocks have not deterred other communities from joining the wave of suits, however. Rhode Island recently became the first state to file a suit. And now Baltimore joins the list of cities that believe the industry should pay for the damages it says have been overwhelmingly driven by its products.
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https://www.ecowatch.com/off-act-tulsi-gabbard-2479880368.html
9/17
Rep.Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) introduced the Off Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act (OFF Act) last week. This visionary bill comes as the nation bears witness to the devastation being brought by the climate change-super charged storm Harvey to Texas and Louisiana and braces for Irma's impacts. Storms like this and other extreme weather events will become all the more frequent and intense unless bold action is taken. Gabbard's bill—the strongest yet introduced in Congress—will put us on a path towards avoiding increased climate chaos: It will place a moratorium on new fossil fuel projects and move the country to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035, with a focus on a rapid transition in the next ten years. The bill is co-sponsored by Representatives Nanette Barragan (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Raskin
Jamin Ben "Jamie" Raskin (born December 13, 1962) is an American author and politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Maryland's 8th congressional districtsince 2017. The district is located in Montgomery County, an affluent suburban county northwest of Washington, D.C., and extends through rural Frederick County to the Pennsylvania border.
Prior to his election to Congress, he was a law professor who taught constitutional law at American University Washington College of Law, where he co-founded and directed of the LL.M. program on Law and Government and co-founded the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project.[1][2]
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Early life
Raskin was born in Washington, D.C. on December 13, 1962 to a Jewish family.[3][4][5] He is the son of progressive activist Marcus Raskin—a former staff aide to President John F. Kennedy on the National Security Council and co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies—and Barbara (née Bellman) Raskin, a journalist and novelist. He graduated from Georgetown Day School in 1979, and received a B.A. from Harvard College (magna cum laude) in 1983 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School (magna cum laude) in 1987. He is a past editor of the Harvard Law Review.[6] He represented Ross Perot in 1996 when Perot sued over being excluded from the Presidential Debates and Raskin also wrote a Washington Post op-ed which strongly condemned the Federal Election Commission and the Commission on Presidential Debates.[7]
Maryland legislature
In November 2006, he was elected as a Maryland State Senator for District 20, representing parts of Silver Spring and Takoma Park in Montgomery County.[8] In 2012, he was named the Majority Whip for the Senate and was the Chairman of the Montgomery County Senate Delegation, Chairman of the Select Committee on Ethics Reform, and a Member of the Judicial Proceedings Committee.[4]
Raskin was a strong proponent of liberal issues in the Maryland Senate and worked well with Republicans and moderate Democrats.[9]
He was the sponsor of bills advocating the repeal of the death penalty in Maryland, the expansion of the state ignition interlock device program, and the establishment of the legal guidelines for benefit corporations, a type of for-profit corporation that include a material societal benefit in their bylaws and decision-making processes.[10][11][12][13]
Raskin helped lead the fight to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland.[9] On March 1, 2006, during a Maryland State Senate hearing regarding same-sex marriage, Raskin was noted for his response to an opposing lawmaker: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."[14][15][16][17]
Raskin long championed efforts to reform marijuana laws and legalize medical marijuana in Maryland.[18][19] Raskin introduced a medical marijuana bill in 2014 that was signed by Martin O'Malley and went into effect in January 2015.[20]
A former board member of FairVote, Raskin introduced and sponsored the first bill in the country for the National Popular Vote, a plan for an interstate compact to provide for the first popular presidential election in American history.[21]
U.S. House of Representatives
2016 campaign
On April 19, 2015, The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post reported that Raskin announced his campaign for Congress and stated, "My ambition is not to be in the political center, it is to be in the moral center." The district's seven-term incumbent, fellow Democrat Chris Van Hollen, gave up the seat to make an ultimately successful run for the United States Senate.[22][23]
Raskin won the crowded seven-way Democratic primary—the real contest in this heavily Democratic district—with 33 percent of the vote.[24] He was viewed as the most liberal candidate in the race.[9] The primary election was the most expensive House race in 2016, and Raskin was heavily outspent.[25] He went on to win the general election, defeating Republican Dan Cox with 60 percent of the vote.[26]
Tenure
As his first action in Congress, Raskin and several other members of House of Representatives objected to certifying the election of Donald Trump as President because of Russian interference in the election and voter suppression efforts. Vice President Joseph Biden ruled the objection out of order because it had to be sponsored by at least one member of each chamber, and it had no Senate sponsor.[27]
In late June 2017, Raskin was the chief sponsor of legislation to establish a congressional "oversight" commission with the authority to declare a President "incapacitated" and removed from office under the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution.[28]
In April 2018, Raskin, along with Jared Huffman, Jerry McNerney, and Dan Kildee, launched the Congressional Freethought Caucus. Its stated goals include "pushing public policy formed on the basis of reason, science, and moral values," promoting the "separation of church and state," and opposing discrimination against "atheists, agnostics, humanists, seekers, religious and nonreligious persons."[29] Huffman and Raskin are co-chairs.
Raskin supports banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2019, he voted in favor of the Equality Act and urged Congress members to do the same.[30][31]
Committee assignments
- Committee on House Administration (Vice Chair)
- Committee on the Judiciary
- Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Party leadership and caucus membership
- House Democratic Caucus, Senior Whip
- House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, Freshman Representative
- Congressional Progressive Caucus,[33] Vice Chair and Liaison to New Members
- Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus
- House Pro-Choice Caucus
- House Public Education Caucus
- House Quiet Skies Caucus
- House 115th Class Caucus
- House Baltic Caucus[34]
- Congressional Freethought Caucus
- Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus[35]
- Congressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus[36]
- **Congressional Solar Caucus**[37]
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Raskin is married to Sarah Bloom Raskin, who served as the Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation from 2007–2010, and was nominated by President Barack Obama to the Federal Reserve Board on April 28, 2010.[38] On October 4, 2010, she was sworn in as a governor of the Federal Reserve Board by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.[39] She served as the United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury from March 19, 2014 to January 20, 2017.[40]
Raskin has been vegetarian since 2009.[41] He is a colon cancer survivor, having been diagnosed in May 2010. Raskin received six weeks of radiation and chemotherapy, and surgery to remove part of his colon, followed by more chemotherapy through early 2011.[42]
Publications
Raskin is the author of We the Students: Supreme Court Cases for and about Students[43] and Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court versus the American People.[44] Raskin co-authored Youth Justice in America with Maryam Ahranjani and Andrew G. Ferguson.[45] In 1994, Raskin and John Bonifaz co-authored The Wealth Primary: Campaign Fundraising and the Constitution.[46]
See also
Julie Tagen. Chief of Staff Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD-08) T: 202-225-5341 E: julie.tagen@mail.house.gov
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Chief of StaffJulie Tagen
SchedulerJames Montfort
Legislative DirectorLauren Doney
Press SecretaryJacob Wilson