Healey AG ma

neglected a bit? see team blue, rico gw, exxon knew eric schniederman

ctr sued in three states?

she went broader than NY re fraud {martin act]

bak 7 24

===

Exxon’s Conspiracy Charges Aim To Derail Climate Lawsuits - DeSmog

by David Halperin, crossposted from Republic Report

Oil giant ExxonMobil is engaged in unprecedented efforts to sue and harass in court the very people who are investigating and suing the company over global warming. Faced with determined efforts by states and localities to hold it and other fossil fuel companies accountable for contributing to, and concealing the evidence of, climate change, Exxon is crying foul, contending that it’s the victim of politically- and financially-motivated conspiracies.

But in reality there are no improper schemes behind the cases against Exxon. Instead, what’s troubling is an apparent effort by Exxon, one of the world’s wealthiest corporations, and its powerhouse corporate lawyers, to avoid a courtroom reckoning by making specious legal arguments and outspending their foes in the legal arena.

Through its attorneys at New York’s Paul Weiss Rifkin Wharton and Garrison, and Texas-based firms Haynes & Boone and Cantey Hanger, ExxonMobil has sued the attorneys general of Massachusetts, New York, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. And the company has recently targeted for depositions and document subpoenas, and threats of more lawsuits, numerous state officials, private attorneys, and advocates.

Exxon’s legal counterattack began after the Massachusetts, New York, and Virgin Islands AGs started investigating whether Exxon misled consumers and investors about the dangers of global warming and the potential impact of those dangers on the company’s bottom line. Investigative reporting in 2015 showed that Exxon scientists have known, and told Exxon management for decades, that burning fossil fuels was heating up the planet, but rather than educate the public on the dangers and change its business strategy, Exxon instead spent millions supporting efforts to question and deny the science of climate change. The state AGs also started investigating whether ExxonMobil has properly accounted for its oil reserves in the wake of global price drops and evidence of global warming.

The Massachusetts AG, Maura Healey, has explained that her investigation focuses “on whether Exxon may have misled consumers and/or investors with respect to the impact of fossil fuels on climate change, and climate change-driven risks to Exxon’s business,” in marketing energy products and in marketing Exxon securities, in violation of the state consumer protection law.

Similarly, New York’s AG, Eric Schneiderman, has indicated that he is investigating whether ExxonMobil’s public statements about climate change conflicted with its internal research, which could have led to “state law violations, including under the Martin Act,” the New York law that prohibits financial deception and fraud. (The New York AG reached settlements with Xcel Energy and Dynegy, Inc. in 2008 and with AES Corp. in 2009 based on those companies’ failures to disclose climate change risks in securities filings.)

In 2016, Exxon launched its response, suing Healey, Schneiderman, and U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general Claude Earl Walker in federal courts in its home region of Dallas-Fort Worth. The suit against Walker succeeded when his small office halted its investigation of the oil titan, but the other two AGs persisted.

U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade approved Exxon’s demand that Healey and Schneiderman submit to depositions by Exxon lawyers — an unwarranted, and virtually unprecedented move, as prosecutors aren’t normally required to face cross examination by people whom they’re investigating. Healey and Schneiderman fought back, seeking an unusual mid-case appeal to the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, after which Kinkeade backed down, cancelled the depositions, and transferred the case to a federal court in New York.

As Exxon continues its efforts to convince a Manhattan federal judge to allow it to depose the two state AGs and, ultimately, to block their probes, it faces a new wave of lawsuits: since September 2017, eight cities and counties in California, plus New York City, have sued Exxon and other fossil fuel companies, alleging harm to their communities from climate change.

The new lawsuits brought by California cities and counties — the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Richmond, and Imperial Beach, plus Santa Cruz, San Mateo, and Marin counties — could pack a powerful punch. The suits allege that ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and others knew for decades that fossil fuel-driven global warming and rising seas threatened human life, but continued to expand their production, while deceiving consumers about the risks. Asserting that this conduct violates various state tort rules — public nuisance, failure to warn, design defect, negligence, and trespass — the suits demand that the companies pay for the costs of environmental harms like damages to seawalls, and dangers from severe weather, droughts, and fires.

These new lawsuits have a stronger chance of success than a 2008 case filed against fossil fuel companies by the small Alaskan community of Kivalina, seeking to recover the cost of relocating their village, which was threatened by rising sea levels. A federal judge dismissed that case, concluding that the village could not trace its injuries to any particular defendant. But today there is much more evidence that global warming is real, accelerating, and caused by burning fossil fuels, and that oil companies knew such information, suppressed it, and sought to counter it. Also, lawyers for the California cities and counties believe that recent scientific advances will make it easier to prove that the specific defendants’ activities harmed or threaten their client communities.

Faced with these mounting challenges to its conduct, ExxonMobil is relentlessly trying to change the subject.

In legal papers and public communications attacking the New York and Massachusetts attorney general investigations, Exxon has charged that various meetings among lawyers, advocates, and charitable foundation officials to discuss climate change liability issues, and communications between such people and attorneys general offices, are evidence of an untoward conspiracy against the company. Exxon further alleges that the AG probes attack the company’s First Amendment rights. “The attorneys general have violated Exxon Mobil’s right to participate in the national conversation about how to address the risks presented by climate change,” Dan Toal, one of Exxon’s lawyers at the Paul Weiss firm told Bloomberg.

Now Exxon and its allies are aiming to tie the new California lawsuits into this alleged conspiracy. The company is seeking to depose more than a dozen California officials, plus private attorney Matt Pawa, in anticipation of a threatened lawsuit alleging violation of the company’s free speech and other constitutional rights. In a January 8 Texas court petition seeking the depositions, Exxon charges, “A collection of special interests and opportunistic politicians are abusing law enforcement authority and legal process to impose their viewpoint on climate change.”

A recent op-ed by New York business consultant John Burnett attacked some of the California cities and counties for hiring outside lawyers to sue Exxon and paying them on a contingent basis — meaning they get paid if and only if Exxon loses in court or settles — even though this consultant acknowledges that the cities and counties couldn’t afford to pay the lawyers any other way. He calls the arrangement “a perilous new frontier in the world of ambulance-chasing by elected officials.” Similarly, Linda Kelly, general counsel for the National Manufacturers Association, told a reporter, “From Richmond, California, to New York City, activist-driven lawsuits are being filed to undermine manufacturers in America without regard to the facts.”

But these counterattacks on those pursuing Exxon are themselves fueled by false information and unwarranted charges.

I’ve worked for many years in association with some of the people Exxon has claimed are part of the alleged conspiracy. They aren’t conspirators. They generally do their work and make their cases out in the open. A 2012 meeting in La Jolla, California, among private lawyers and climate experts that Exxon repeatedly cites as the birthplace of the secret plot was meticulously documented and photographed by the participants themselves.

There’s also nothing sinister or unusual about scientists, private lawyers, other experts, or simply concerned citizens providing evidence and arguments to state attorney general offices regarding potential legal violations, including, indeed especially, in complex matters involving powerful actors. There’s nothing wrong with state and local law enforcement officials working in parallel on probing a common issue or target — it happens frequently. Nor are public statements by officials regarding those probes proof of political bias or an impingement on Exxon’s First Amendment rights. And nor is it unusual or improper for local governments to hire private lawyers to protect their residents’ interests in court.

The AGs and local officials are doing their jobs — pursuing evidence of law-breaking. If Exxon believes it has behaved properly with respect to climate change, it should use its expensive and talented lawyers to defend itself on the merits, rather than harassing others over invented conspiracy theories.

===

ref

...With Exxon CEO In Trump Spotlight, A Primer On The Company's Climate Court Fight

[

By David Halperin, Contributor

Attorney, advocate, writer at RepublicReport.org

Dec 12, 2016, 05:24 PM EST

|Updated Dec 13, 2017

This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

Donald Trump's public contemplation of picking ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be U.S. Secretary of State raises a range of controversies, including Tillerson's dealmaking with Russia and close ties to Vladimir Putin. It also intensifies attention on ExxonMobil's escalating court battle with the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts over the question of whether the company improperly concealed information about climate change.

Just today, a federal judge in Texas, Ed Kinkeade, cancelled his controversial order directing the Massachusetts AG, Maura Healey, to come to his Dallas courtroom tomorrow morning to be questioned by ExxonMobil's lawyers.

Here's a summary of ExxonMobil's legal dispute with the attorneys general, so far:

Investigative reporting in the past year demonstratedthat Exxon scientists have known and had told Exxon management for decades that burning fossil fuels was heating up the planet. But rather than educate the public on the dangers and change its business strategy, Exxon instead spent millions supporting efforts to question and deny the science of climate change. There also are questions as to whether ExxonMobil has properly accounted for its oil reserves in the wake of global price drops and evidence of global warming.

Responding to those reports and other evidence, New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman issued a subpoena to ExxonMobil in November 2015. ExxonMobil has produced more than 700,000 pages of documents to Schneiderman in response to his subpoena. On October 26, 2016, a New York judge ordered ExxonMobil and its auditor, PwC, to comply with a subpoena issued by Schneiderman seeking additional information regarding PwC's auditing of the oil company.

A group of state attorneys general met in New York on March 29, 2016, and consulted with several outside lawyers and experts on climate change issues. Following the meeting, the AGs, along with former Vice President Al Gore, held a press conference under the banner "AGs United for Clean Power" and announced they had formed a coalition to investigate ExxonMobil's conduct. The coalition included the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, the District Of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Soon after, in April 2016, Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey issued a civil investigative demand (CID) to ExxonMobil. U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general Claude Walker issued a subpoena to the company the same month.

ExxonMobil promptly sued Walker in Texas state court in Fort Worth to block the Virgin Islands subpoena.

Then, on June 15, 2016, ExxonMobil sued Healey in federal court in Dallas to block her civil investigative demand.

On June 29, Walker, facing expensive litigation against ExxonMobil's legal team, agreed to withdraw his subpoena, and Exxon dropped its suit. Walker said then that he planned to continue to investigate ExxonMobil and would keep his eye on Healey's effort.

ExxonMobil argues in its suit against Healey that the Massachusetts AG is acting out of political motivation, and there is no legitimate basis for the AG probes, and that the First Amendment shields the company from scrutiny for its public statements -- a claim that leading constitutional law experts sharply dispute, because it is a settled legal principle that the First Amendment doesn't protect fraud.

In August 2016, fourteen attorneys general -- from Maryland, New York, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, the District of Columbia, and Virgin Islands -- filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Healey, while eleven AGs -- Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Utah, and Nevada -- filed a brief supporting ExxonMobil.

On October 13, citing ExxonMobil's arguments, U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade issued an order permitting ExxonMobil to take limited discovery regarding attorney general Healey's comments and actions, in order to examine whether Healey served the CID in bad faith. Armed with this ruling, ExxonMobil, on October 24, served on attorney general Healey more than a hundred discovery requests.

Exxon also asked Judge Kinkeade for permission to add New York attorney general Schneiderman as a defendant in the case, a motion the judge granted. On November 4, ExxonMobil sought depositions of Healey, Schneiderman, and two assistant attorneys general in each of their offices.

On November 17, Judge Kinkeade issued an order directing Healey and Schneiderman to come to his courtroom in Dallas on December 13 to face depositions from ExxonMobil's legal team.

On November 29, Exxon withdrew its deposition notice for Schneiderman; it continues to seek other discovery from Schneiderman's office, including depositions of two top environmental enforcement officials in that office.

ExxonMobil also has subpoenaed in the Texas lawsuit some of the non-profit organizations and lawyers who have provided Healey and Schneiderman with information and expertise regarding the matter.

Healey said she would "vigorously oppose" Judge Kinkeade's order for her to be deposed. "Our position in this ligation is that the authorities in Texas, and specifically the federal court down there, has no jurisdiction over state attorneys general and the work of their offices," Healey told reporters in Boston on November 21. "It's been disappointing to see Exxon fight the request for basic information. Our job as attorneys general is to be able to ask questions."

Healey filed amotion asking the judge to reconsider his rulings. On December 6, 2016, Healey petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit for a writ of mandamus to reverse the order.

Schneiderman, as well as the outside groups and lawyers, are also opposing Exxon's efforts to take discovery in the Texas case. (Disclosure: I have advised some of these groups.)

On December 9, Judge Kinkeade denied Healey's motion to suspend Exxon's discovery in the case pending review by the 5th Circuit and also denied Schneiderman's motion to quash discovery.

On December 9, Schneiderman filed a motion with Judge Kinkeade to stay discovery against him pending appellate review -- the same type of motion that Kinkeade had denied Healey earlier that same day. In his papers, Schneiderman said that he intended to seek mandamus before the 5th Circuit on December 12.

On December 12, Judge Kinkeade issued a one-line order cancelling his prior order that Healey be deposed on December 13. The judge did not block any other discovery or indicate whether or when he would revisit the issue of deposing Healey.

ExxonMobil's lawsuit is a virtually unprecedented effort by a corporation to sue and investigate state prosecutors who are conducting an investigation of that corporation. Although Judge Kinkeade stated that he found sufficient grounds for ExxonMobil to investigate whether the AGs had acted in bad faith, in fact the AGs have been engaged in activities that are commonplace and entirely appropriate for state prosecutors: (1) cooperating with AGs from other states, (2) consulting with experts about possible unlawful activity, (3) seeking documents to investigate that activity, and (4) speaking in public about the matters under review.

To the extent that ExxonMobil has substantive and procedural objections to the attorneys general demands for information, it has every right to raise those objections in the Massachusetts and New York state courts, and indeed ExxonMobil is already doing just that.

ExxonMobil now also faces an investigation from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, initiated in August 2016, examining a similar set of issues. In addition, in January 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice, responding to a congressional request to investigate ExxonMobil, referred the matter to the FBI.

Meanwhile, U.S. Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Science Committee, has subpoenaed documents from Healey, Schneiderman, and other state attorneys general, as well as lawyers and outside groups connected to the ExxonMobil matter. Over the summer, Smith held a committee hearing regarding his demands. For the most part, the AGs, groups, and attorneys have declined to provide any information in response to the subpoenas.

UPDATE 12-14-16: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit yesterday dismissed Healey's mandamus petition and motion for a stay of Judge Kinkeade's orders as moot, meaning overtaken by events. It's unclear how the 5th Circuit judges think Healey's claims are moot, when all Judge Kinkeade did was cancel the deposition of Healey set for December 13; he didn't expressly stop all the other discovery that was part of Healey's motion. However, when he cancelled the Healey deposition, Judge Kinkeade issued a separate order directing all parties to submit new briefs by January 4 on the issue of whether his court has personal jurisdiction over the two AGs -- suggesting he might be reconsidering issues in the case.

UPDATE 12-15-16: This morning Judge Kinkeade has issued a one-line order: "The Court hereby stays all discovery pending further order from this Court." Coupled with his order Monday cancelling Exxon's deposition of Attorney General Healey, this represents a dramatic reversal by Judge Kinkeade of his unusual prior rulings favoring ExxonMobil. The reversal came after Healey had petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals to block Kinkeade's orders (and of course after Trump's nomination of Tillerson increased public scrutiny of the matter). But this could be only a temporary reversal while Judge Kinkeade reconsiders some of the legal issues, including whether he has jurisdiction over the AGs in the first place.

*This article also appears on Republic Report.

===

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/exxon-loses-home-field-advantage-climate-change-lawsuit/

Exxon Loses Home Field Advantage In Climate Change Lawsuit

A federal judge kicked the case from Texas to New York.

By Leif Reigstad

April 6, 2017

[ PIX Activists rally outside of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office to support the New York state investigation into whether the oil giant Exxon covered up its knowledge about climate change on February 22, 2017 in New York City.Spencer Platt/Getty

Exxon suffered a major blow late last week in its attempt to stymie state investigations by attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts into the company’s alleged climate change fraud. The Dallas-based oil giant no longer has a home field advantage after a federal judge kicked the case out of Texas and over to a New York court, according to Reuters.

Last Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Ed Kinkeade in Dallas ruled that the case should be heard in New York rather than Texas, largely because Exxon’s argument hinges on a press conference held by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman last year, in which he announced that a coalition of state attorneys general focused on combatting climate change and holding the oil industry accountable.

Schneiderman’s announcement came about six months after New York began investigating Exxon for supposedly misleading investors by downplaying the dangers of climate change. Massachusetts opened its own investigation shortly after that press conference. Exxon claims the press conference proved that the investigations by New York and Massachusetts “are politically motivated” and are meant to “pressure Exxon to change its position in the policy debate about climate change,” Kinkeade wrote in the transfer order. Since the press conference occurred in New York, however, Kinkeade decided it would be better if the case were heard there.

As InsideClimate News notes, this is not good news for Exxon. Kinkeade, a 2002 appointee of President George W. Bush, has been fairly sympathetic to Exxon’s case, which had been in his court for almost a year. For example, in an unprecedented move last year, Kinkeade ordered Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey to appear in Dallas for a deposition. But he rescinded the order shortly before Healey was scheduled to appear.

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gov mass

an 7 24

the calls for President Joe Biden to step aside that began in the media and spread to Democratic members of Congress are now also coming from statehouses, after a recent statement by a blue state governor.

On Friday, Politico columnist Jonathan Martin tweeted a statement from Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey (D), which he characterized as a way to "publicly nudge Biden to the exits." He noted that Healey was officially the first Democratic governor to join the chorus of voices urging the 81 year-old Biden to hand off the reins and allow someone else to be the party's 2024 presidential nominee.

"President Biden saved our democracy in 2020 and has done an outstanding job over the last four years. I am deeply grateful for his leadership. And I know he agrees this is the most important election of our lifetimes," Healey stated. "The best way forward right now is a decision for the President to make. Over the coming days, I urge him to listen to the American people and carefully evaluate whether he remains our best hope to defeat Donald Trump."

"Whatever President Biden decides, I am committed to doing everything in my power to defeat Donald Trump," she added.

So far, Biden and his inner circle have been unable to stem the tide of Democrats stepping up to call for the president to hand off his 2024 campaign to a younger and more capable candidate to face Trump in November. The octogenarian's poor performance against the former president during last week's debate unleashed a tsunami of concern that the White House was criticized for poorly handling by both journalists and fellow elected Democrats.

Healey's statement comes notably a day after Martin reported that an unnamed Democratic governor confided that multiple governors were "not supportive" of Biden continuing his campaign through the fall "and want a change" at the top of the ticket. Martin also wrote that "a majority" of Democrats in Congress also wanted Biden to step aside over fears that a poor performance by the president in November could drag down-ballot Democrats down with him.

The most popular alternative to Biden so far is Vice President Kamala Harris. In addition to being 59 years old, Harris is notably the only Democrat who could immediately access the campaign's $240 million in cash on hand over the last four months of the election cycle. Any other nominee would have to start from scratch.

Earlier this week, Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Raúl Grijalva (D-Arizona) called on Biden to suspend his campaign and elevate someone else. While both Democrats maintained they would support Biden if he was the nominee, they both expressed reservations about Democrats' chances if Biden was the party's standard-bearer in November.

Along with elected officials, some Democratic National Convention (DNC) delegates pledged to Biden also indicated they would prefer Harris if the opportunity arose for her to become the nominee. Currently, pledged delegates are bound by party bylaws to cast their vote for Biden. However, if the president were to step aside prior to the Democratic National Convention and free his delegates, they would be free to vote for Harris or anyone else.

If Biden were to step aside, he would have to do it soon, given that the DNC kicks off next month in Chicago between August 19th and 22nd. After the party officially selects its nominee, having someone else replace them would be essentially impossible.

Click here to read Healey's statement on X/Twitter.

---

https://www.alternet.org/**2022/05/**massachusetts-court-exxon-trial-climate/

The Massachusetts high court on Tuesday rejected ExxonMobil's attempt to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the state, meaning the biggest oil giant in the U.S. must stand trial for allegations that it lied to the public about the climate emergency and the fossil fuel industry's role in driving it.

The lawsuit filed in 2019 by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey accuses Exxon of violating the state's consumer protection laws through a decades-long effort to conceal what it knew about the negative environmental impacts of burning fossil fuels.

In particular, the complaint says, Exxon deceived investors about the risks that global warming poses to its business and misled consumers by downplaying the dangerous effects of its products and overstating what the company is doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As The Guardian reported, GUK"Exxon claimed the lawsuit was in breach of legislation against what are known asstrategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPS, used by wealthy individuals and corporations to silence critics."

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, however, ruled unanimously that the state's "anti-SLAPP" law is not applicable to government enforcement actions, affirming a lower court's decision to deny Exxon's special motion to dismiss the case.

"Once again, Exxon's attacks on my office and our case have been rejected by the courts," Healey said in a statement.

Tuesday's ruling, said the Massachusetts AG, "is a resounding victory in our work to stop Exxon from lying to investors and consumers in our state."

"Exxon's repeated attempts to stonewall our lawsuit have been baseless, and this effort was no different," added Healey. "We look forward to proceeding with our case and having our day in court to show how Exxon is breaking the law and to put an end to the deception once and for all."

During a congressional hearing in October, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods told lawmakers that the company's public statements on climate "are and have always been truthful" and that it has "long acknowledged the reality and risks of climate change" and "devoted significant resources to addressing those risks."

In reality, however, Exxon is one of several fossil fuel corporations that have spent years spreading disinformation to delay climate action and prolong coal, oil, and gas extraction even as the consequences of doing so grow increasingly deadly.

To take just one example, several U.S. government scientists working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were replaced or forced into retirement following an intervention by Exxon lobbyists in the early days of former President George W. Bush's administration, as detailed in Frontline's new three-part docuseries, "The Power of Big Oil."

The Massachusetts lawsuit states that Exxon undertook a "sophisticated, multi-million dollar campaign" to sow doubt about the links between fossil fuels and the climate crisis, which is "reminiscent of the tobacco industry's long denial campaign about the dangerous effects of cigarettes."

According to Healey's office, Exxon also engaged in greenwashing by marketing and selling its products as pollution-reducing and "falsely promoting itself as an environmentally responsible clean energy leader working to address climate change."

"Rather than honestly disclose and mitigate climate change risks," the lawsuit states, "ExxonMobil's misrepresentations about and failures to disclose those risks have delayed the needed transition to clean energy around the world and make these existential climate-driven threats to the global economy more likely to occur."

Since 2017, the AGs of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia as well as 20 city and county governments in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, and Washington have filed lawsuits to hold oil, gas, and coal companies accountable for lying to the public about how they are fueling the planetary emergency.

---

wgbh

Meg Woolhouse

October 29, 2021

Updated August 07, 2023

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey on Friday rebuked the oil industry's argument that its denial of climate change decades ago was protected speech under the First Amendment.

Healey has sued ExxonMobil for deceiving shareholders and consumers about the effect its products had on the environment by hiring scientists who denied climate change.

“I can assure you that whoever the CEO is doesn't begin to know the first thing about the First Amendment,” Healey said on Boston Public Radio. “For far too long these, these corporations have tried to use the First Amendment to shield unlawful activity, serious fraud and misrepresentation both to the investor and shareholder, public as well as to consumers, which is what we allege that ExxonMobil did. So we're gonna continue to fight on.”

A parallel with investigations of Big Tobacco

The attorneys general embarked on investigations on behalf of their citizens, asking whether Exxon was guilty of selling products and equity while concealing information about their risks.

The similarity of these allegations to the illegal conspiracy of the tobacco industry — a cover-up of internal corporate knowledge about deadly consequences of continued consumption of its products — did not escape notice. In January 2016, the Department of Justice asked the FBI to investigate whether Exxon should be prosecuted under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, as the tobacco industry was. The investigations by the Massachusetts and New York attorneys general, focusing on whether Exxon had been forthright in its disclosures to investors, soon followed.

Given identified sources and specific studies cited in news reports, it is not surprising that chief law enforcement officers of federal and state governments would investigate. Indeed, it would be extremely troubling if they did not.

But rather than show that the allegations of investor and consumer fraud are baseless, Exxon Mobil is misusing the Constitution to continue to conceal what it knew about the connection between catastrophic climate change and continued fossil fuel use, and when.

It is not uncommon, of course, for companies to resist subpoenas from attorneys general on a variety of legal grounds. For example, Exxon could have filed a motion in Massachusetts asking a judge to set aside the subpoena on the grounds that it was overly broad, and arguing that the investigation exceeded the jurisdiction of the attorney general. (In fact, Exxon did just that, and lost.)

Until fairly recently, no US court would have entertained free speech claims by a corporation that wanted to strike down regulation

But Exxon has gone much further. It has filed a federal “civil rights” lawsuit in its home court of Texas against the New York and Massachusetts attorneys general. The multibillion-dollar global corporation claims that the state investigations violate a previously unrecognized corporate right under the Constitution both to “speak” and to “not speak” about climate change any way it wants, however deceptive that speech may be.

This is where the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is taking the country. That 2010 ruling is infamous for opening the floodgates of big, dark money in our elections by deciding that any limits on supposedly “independent” political ads violate the speech rights of corporations, unions, and billionaires. What is less well-known about Citizens Unitedis how radically it empowers corporations to misuse the First Amendment in other ways — ways we now see playing out in the Exxon case, and elsewhere.

Citizens United was the capstone on a remarkable series of cases, dating only to the 1970s, that revolutionized the application of the First Amendment in the corporate context. Very few people realize just how quickly this constitutional revolution has occurred; very few people realize that American corporations thrived for the first two centuries of American history with virtually no First Amendment protections.

In the early 20th century, First Amendment cases involving firms tended to involve media companies, as when Louisiana Gov. Huey Long imposed special taxes on newspapers (a clear attempt to punish them). It was generally assumed that the “speech” of business corporations was no more free from court scrutiny than the language of their contracts or their SEC filings.

:{:{

}:}:Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. was an architect of the corporate “free speech” revolution.

After his appointment to the high court in 1971, however, Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., a former business lawyer who ardently believed that corporate America was being undermined by the public’s support for reformers like Ralph Nader, helped reinvent the Court’s doctrine in this area. In Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council (1976), the Court said, on First Amendment grounds, that the state could not forbid pharmacists from advertising prescription drug price — a remarkable departure from precedent.

That finding was then broadened and expanded in National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti(1978), which held that corporations can contribute to ballot initiatives, and again in Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission(1980), which asserted that a utility could run advertisements promoting the use of electricity. Those two cases continue to be cited in almost all commercial speech cases — and they are cited more and more frequently. Citizens United affirmed those cases and extended them to campaign finance laws.

Despite the “free speech” rhetoric, corporations are not simply seeking to offer opinions about public policy issues. They do that all the time, routinely spending millions to fund ads, research, policy papers, and lobbying activities. Today corporations are claiming that their “rights” to speak clash with longstanding forms of regulation of business activity. Whenever they are required to disclose information to consumers, regulators, the public, or enforcement officials, they argue, their First Amendment rights are implicated. Whenever they seek or transmit information, they say, they are “speaking,” and the First Amendment gives them the right to do that without fear of consequences.

A growing number of constitutional challenges to reasonable regulations

In recent years, large corporations have been emboldened to argue that corporate speech rights entitle them to strike down state health care prescription information laws — those forbidding pharmaceutical companies from selling information about the prescribing patterns of individual doctors, for example. They have argued that speech rights forbid certain securities regulations — specifically, those requiring investigation and disclosure of whether a company sells “conflict minerals” from the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have said that the First Amendment gives them a right to decline to say on product labels that the meat they sell comes from foreign countries, or that food products contain genetically modified ingredients.

In a related egregious constitutional expansion, corporations have even attacked minimum wage laws as violating their rights under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause — when, as is typical, such laws treat firms differently based on size (or form of organization). The corporate misuse of the First Amendment and the Constitution more broadly, has gone viral. It now might be considered corporate legal malpractice not to take a swing at challenging, on constitutional grounds, any law that gets in the way of the largest corporate profits.

Investigations by public agents, including attorneys general, are a necessary component of law enforcement. Efforts by public agents to ascertain facts in such investigations should not create constitutional controversy, provided the agents respect due process and other constraints on how they perform these duties. If corporations can invoke “free speech” as a way to conceal relevant information about allegedly false statements — if they can effectively create immunity from investigation by playing a constitutional trump card — then we are on a slippery slope to the civic incapacity and relative weakness in both rule of law and economic growth that characterizes Russia and other regimes that collapse the distinction between economic and political power.

That’s why Exxon’s attack on the state investigations says so much about the damage to our constitutional framework wrought by the Supreme Court’s invention of these new corporate rights. In our federal system, attorneys general are the highest law enforcement officers in the state, generally elected directly by people, and charged with protecting the public interest and checking the abuse of corporate power. Yet in the post–Citizens United world, Exxon — with a virtually unlimited budget — can summon any officials with the temerity to do their job into physically distant courts. Trumped-up “civil rights” litigation of this kind has self-evident potential for the harassment and intimidation of would-be investigators.

Even the majority of justices in Citizens United did not argue that corporate speech rights protected fraudulent statements. Yet unless the Court revisits its First Amendment doctrines, Exxon’s attack on efforts by the states to investigate its conduct shows that such nuances may not matter. Whether Exxon wins or loses its “free speech” claims, it has already delivered its real message: Those who stand up for the public interest will face a high cost.

Jeff Clements is the president of :{American Promise:(style="box-sizing:border-box;vertical-align:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, a national nonpartisan group of American citizen leaders working for the 28th Amendment to secure government of the people, not money. He previously was a partner in a Boston law firm and served as chief of the Public Protection Bureau in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.

John Coates is the John F. Cogan Jr. professor of law and economics, as well as research director of the Center on the Legal Profession, at Harvard Law School. Before joining Harvard, he was a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz specializing in financial institutions and mergers and acquisitions.

https://desmog.co.uk/:{2020/05:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:/20/exxon-sued-misleading-advertising-beyond-pesticides

exxonMobil is facing yet another lawsuit challenging the corporation’s allegedly deceptive behavior related to climate change. The latest suit, filed May 15 in the D.C. Superior Court, claims the oil major is misleading consumers with “false and deceptive” advertising about its investments in “clean” fuels and technology.

The Washington, D.C.-based environmental nonprofit Beyond Pesticides alleges that Exxon’s deceptive marketing and advertising violates the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act. According to the organization, Exxon portrays itself as an environmentally friendly company in ads without revealing the true extent of its business that remains overwhelmingly invested in exploiting fossil fuels to the detriment of the environment and the climate.

“ExxonMobil’s advertising and marketing mislead the public by presenting ExxonMobil’s clean energy activities as a significant proportion of its overall business,” the complaint states. “In contrast to ExxonMobil’s representations, its investments and activities in clean energy constitute only a very small percentage of its total business, the majority of which continues to be based in traditional fossil fuels and in petrochemicals, including those used in environmentally harmful pesticides.”

“The claims are baseless and without merit,” Exxon spokesperson Casey Norton told DeSmog. “We will defend the company in court.”...[pix twt}

The lawsuit points to Exxon’s own numbers depicting the company’s investments in cleaner alternatives and compares them with the company’s total capital expenditures.

For example, over the last 20 years Exxon says it invested over $9 billion in what it calls “lower-emission solutions,” while its total capital expenditures during that time were over $465 billion. That equates to less than 2 percent spending on these technologies in the past two decades. Another figure Exxon touts is investing up to $100 million in lower-emissions technologies over 10 years, or an average of $10 million a year. This comes out to annual investments of only 0.03 percent of the company’s total annual spending, which in 2019 was $31.1 billion.

“Nowhere in its advertisements touting clean energy production does ExxonMobil state what percentage of the company’s investment is in oil and gas compared to how much is invested in clean energy,” the complaint argues....

The “clean” solutions that Exxon portrays in marketing and advertising include carbon capture and storage, next-generation biofuels such as algae, and natural gas. But as the lawsuit explains, these technologies and fuels have their own limitations and problems. This is particularly true for gas, a fossil fuel comprised almost entirely of the potent greenhouse gas methane, which consistently leaks into the atmosphere during production and delivery.

Exxon and Shell, as part owners of a Dutch petroleum company, have already faced censure in the Netherlands for advertising natural gas as climate friendly. The Dutch Advertising Code Authority previously ordered Shell to withdraw a misleading ad claiming the company’s greenhouse gas emissions were being recycled and used to grow flowers in greenhouses. Major oil companies have been reprimanded for misleading greenwashing advertising elsewhere in Europe as well.

In December last year, the UK-based environmental law organization ClientEarth filed a legal complaint against BP over the company’s recent ad campaigns, claiming the ads misled consumersover BP’s investments in and commitment to clean energy. That was the first known complaint filed with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for deceptive advertising by a fossil fuel company. Earlier this year, as part of the company’s net zero announcement, BP withdrew one of the ad campaigns, which was targeted in the complaint and which represented the oil major's first global marketing blitz since before the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

Exxon Facing Multiple Lawsuits Over 'Deceptive' Behavior

States, municipalities, and shareholders have all sued Exxon in recent years alleging deceptive behavior in communicating climate risks. Exxon is a defendant along with other fossil fuel companies in climate liability suits filed by over a dozen local governments seeking monetary damages to help pay for climate adaptation costs. But Exxon alone has also faced lawsuits from its own shareholders and from the states of New York and Massachusetts, claiming the oil giant misled investors over its accounting of climate risks to its business.

A judge dismissed New York’s lawsuit last fall following a high-profile trial. Massachusetts’ case, filed last October, is proceeding. That case also includes claims of deceptive marketing and advertising, alleging Exxon misled consumers in violation of the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act. According to the Massachusetts complaint, Exxon’s deceptive behavior has gone on for decades and continues to this day.

[twt] maura h

An illuminating 2017 study by Harvard researchers Naomi Oreskes and Geoffrey Supran examined Exxon’s internal and external communications on climate change between 1977 and 2014. The pair of researchers found that the more public the company’s communications were, the more they expressed doubt about the climate crisis. The study concluded that Exxon had misled the public.

Lawsuits like the Massachusetts attorney general’s case against Exxon and the new Beyond Pesticides suit argue that Exxon’s alleged deception is ongoing and is unlawful under consumer protection laws.

“We cannot afford to be misled by corporations that are tinkering with solutions to the environmental crises of climate change and biodiversity devastation, which threaten our future over an ever-shortening time horizon,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides. “Deceiving the public into believing that one of the largest petroleum companies in the world is committed to solving the climate crisis, while it continues to devastate the planet, is dangerous and inexcusable, especially given what’s at stake.”

https://theintercept.com/:{2019/:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:10/31/exxon-mobil-massachusetts-climate-change-lawsuit-greenwashing/

eXXON MOBIL’S RELATIONSHIP with the New York Times is a case study in how the fossil fuel industry’s climate denialism has evolved over the past 20 years. Beginning in the 1970s, Exxon Mobil published an “advertorial” every Thursday on the New York Times editorial page. The quarter-page, essay-style ads were designed to mimic a Times op-ed. Starting in the 1980s, doubt about the seriousness of human-driven climate change was a repeated theme. The ads came with titles including “Apocalypse no,” “Reset the alarm,” “Less heat, more light on climate change,” and “Climate change: a degree of uncertainty.”

According to a lawsuit Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey filed against Exxon Mobil last week, the oil company’s use of the New York Times editorial section “to shift public perception was among the most significant and longest regular — in this case, weekly — uses of media to influence public and stakeholder opinion in modern U.S. history.”

The ads failed to mention that Exxon’s products’ emissions risked effects that would be “catastrophic (at least for a substantial proportion of the earth’s population),” as an Exxon scientist advised in 1981.

How the Media Launders Fossil Fuel Industry Propaganda Through Branded Content

Today, the message has changed, but the method is the same. Exxon Mobil’s contemporary equivalent is native ads produced by T Brand Studio, which sells “the New York Times’s proven recipe for storytelling” created by “talent that’s drawn from media, marketing and journalistic backgrounds.”

A recent Exxon ad published on the New York Times website was titled “The Future of Energy? It May Come From Where You Least Expect.” The heavily designed, article-style ad focused on Exxon’s biofuels research. “We’re aiming to have the technical ability to produce 10,000 barrels of algae-based biofuel a day by 2025,” Rob Brown, an algae researcher, is quoted as saying.

The ad does not mention that the goal only equates to 0.2 percent of the corporation’s current refinery capacity, nor does it note Exxon’s plans for fossil fuel production in the years to come. Last March, the company estimated that by 2024, it would produce 1 million barrels per day of oil and gas in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico — five times more than what it produces today. And it certainly doesn’t mention scientists’ assertion that governments and corporations need to cut carbon emissions by 45 percent before 2030 to have a shot at avoiding catastrophic climate impacts.

According to Healey, Exxon ads like the one by T Brand Studios are “false and misleading” and violate the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act.

[A native advertisement for Exxon on the New York Times website, which focuses on Exxon’s biofuels research.

Screenshot: The Intercept

Exxon’s Evolving Denialism

On October 24, Healey became the second state attorney general to file a climate liability lawsuit against Exxon Mobil. The suit is broader than similar litigation in New York, where a trial began last week, centered on alleged Exxon securities fraud. Healey alleges that, in addition to the Times ads, the corporation’s marketing of “green” petroleum products under brands like Mobil 1 and Synergy illegally deceives consumers into believing that Exxon’s products can protect the world against the ravages of carbon emissions, without disclosing that the corporations’ products are an existential threat to humanity.

Like the New York case, the Massachusetts case highlights the way the corporation has deceived investors by using a misleading proxy cost of carbon. The cost of carbon is a price meant to account for the regulatory expense of carbon emissions. Exxon told investors it was deciding which projects to invest in according to one carbon price, while it actually used a different, lower price. In effect, investors believed that Exxon was taking climate change more seriously than it actually was, as it invested in some of the most carbon-emitting projects in the world.

Exxon’s history of denialism is key to the two climate liability cases. The corporation’s predecessor conducted serious climate research as early as the 1950s, and by the late 1970s, Exxon was well aware of coming crisis and its cause. In fact, in 1982, the corporation predicted with incredible accuracy 2019’s disturbingly high atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and the 1 degree Celsius temperature rise we’ve already met. Yet by the 1990s, its CEO was making statements that flew in the face of that research, sowing doubt about whether climate change was real and funding a wide network of politicians and institutions meant to challenge regulatory regimes that might have prevented extinctions, cultural collapses, hydrological crises, and generations of death and suffering.

The suits center on a more insidious form of modern-day denialism, though. Today, corporations like Exxon spend vast amounts of resources dressing up as climate realists, while at the same time obstructing climate policy behind the scenes and accelerating the crisis by continuing to pull oil out of the tar sands of Canada, the shale formations of Texas, and the deep-water oil deposits of the Gulf of Mexico. The Massachusetts complaint describes Exxon Mobil’s evolving deception playbook.

The “green” Mobil 1 brand — a motor oil dyed a garish green — is a case in point. In 2018, Exxon Mobil was part of a coalition that fought and killed federal policy that would have increased car fuel efficiency and significantly cut down on fossil fuel emissions from the transportation sector. Meanwhile, the corporation has promoted its Mobil 1 product as key to increasing fuel efficiency, by using a new low-viscosity formula. Exxon says another brand, Synergy, which includes an additive to all gasoline in Massachusetts, can “help customers reduce their emissions and improve their energy efficiency” in part by reducing engine deposits.

According to Sharon Eubanks, who led the Justice Department’s racketeering litigation against Big Tobacco, the moment is reflective of Tobacco’s turn to “light” or “mild” cigarettes. “After they realized there was this huge scare, they thought their product was going to become extinct,” Eubanks said. “They were afraid people would quit.”

Greenwashing Petroleum Products

The five largest publicly traded oil majors — Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Total, and Chevron — together invested more than $1 billion in climate branding and lobbying in the three years after the landmark Paris climate agreement was signed, according to a study by the British nonprofit InfluenceMap. Exxon spent at least $56 million on climate messaging.

“The Paris Climate Accord was a watershed in terms of corporate engagement and investor engagement,” said Ed Collins, the report’s author. Many shareholders began pressuring the corporations to account for their climate impact, and it became increasingly unviable to explicitly advertise climate doubt.

Exxon Mobil began touting its support for a carbon tax (but only under a very specific set of circumstances), and in 2018, it joined the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, a coalition of oil and gas CEOs who promote climate solutions like voluntary methane reductions, carbon capture and storage, and energy efficiency — all approaches that would allow them to continue producing oil and gas.

Ultimately, behind the new branding is the same deadly advocacy for deregulation that the corporations have always carried out. In a new InfluenceMap report on advertising by the oil majors on Facebook, Exxon Mobil was far and away the biggest spender, investing $9.6 million, 10 times more than any other oil company, in political ads. A large proportion was spent to defeat state ballot initiatives in the 2018 midterm elections, including a carbon tax in Washington and limits to oil and gas development in Colorado.

Collins argues that deceptive climate messaging matters. “It mixes up the public knowledge and conversation enough to have a detrimental impact on the overall efforts to try to tackle climate change,” he said.

In the federal racketeering case against Big Tobacco, Justice Department lawyers were able to prove that the corporations knew that light cigarettes offered no clear health benefit compared to regular cigarettes. A judge agreed in 2006 that they were designed to “keep smokers smoking; to stop smokers from quitting; to encourage people, especially young people, to start smoking; and to maintain or increase corporate profits.” She forced tobacco companies to publish corrective statements in newspapers and on TV stating that “there is no safe cigarette” and the corporations had “deliberately deceived the American public.” She also ordered companies to stop branding their products as light, mild, or low tar. Corresponding legislation finally went into effect in 2010, banning the labels.

Prior to the federal lawsuit, the four largest tobacco companies signed a massive settlement agreement with state attorneys general. Eubanks is optimistic about the Exxon cases. “If they’re not prepared to come to the table at all, this will go on for quite some time, and I think you’re going to see success in some of these state cases,” she said. “We’re not going to have to wait 50 years to see one of these companies lose.”

Of course, Big Tobacco ultimately survived the litigation. There’s far less room for the oil industry to do the same. Tobacco companies may have continued to cause users to develop cancer, but continued oil production at anywhere near today’s rates will mean, as the lawsuit puts it, “a substantial increase in deadly extreme weather events, coastal property damage, disruptions of fisheries, the spread of vector-borne diseases, large-scale ecosystem disruption, and other unprecedented threats to human populations.”

chevron takes lead in defense b/c exxon and others KNEW; using 1st amend defense cf drilled season 2

attack BS

https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/hans-bader/liberal-ags-climate-change-witchhunt-expands-include-more-innocent-victims

commentary (prophyactiv?]

Liberal AG’s Climate Change Witch-Hunt Expands to Include More Innocent Victims

By Hans Bader | June 22, 2016 | 3:35 PM EDT

###

A climate-change witch-hunt is expanding to include conservative groups that have never received a penny from Exxon. Attorney General Maura Healey is part of a multistate investigation of “climate change deniers” brought by 20 Democratic state attorneys general. As the Daily Callernotes, last week she issued a sweeping broad subpoena that

“demands decades worth of records from prominent conservative think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation and activist group Americans for Prosperity, and also from smaller, lesser known state-based right-leaning groups, such as Boston’s Beacon Hill Institute and the Acton Institute … At least two of the groups the subpoena demands records from have not received any money from Exxon. Beacon Hill and Americans for Prosperity have not gotten any Exxon funding, but are still being targeted.”

This is revealing, because, as Zero Hedge notes, all of these subpoenas are “anchoredin the claim that Exxon has lied to shareholders and consumers about the risks of global warming in its communications and shareholder filings.” That rationale obviously provides no justification for a subpoena aimed at the Beacon Hill Institute, which has no connection to Exxon. Instead, it looks like a pretext for harassing conservative non-profits like the Beacon Hill Institute, whose free-market views make it a dissenter in a state whose legislature and judiciary are dominated by leftists.

The investigation is brought by people who are know-nothings when it comes to the First Amendment.

As I previously explained, the attorney general spearheading the multistate investigation, New York’s Eric Schneiderman, has publicly gotten basic First Amendment principles wrong (such as citing a dissenting view rejected by the Supreme Court as if it were the law), and Exxon does not appear to have told any lies about climate change (a company’s prudence in taking into account worst-case climate scenarios in hedging against future risks, and planning for the future, does not prove its belief in such scenarios, anymore than buying fire insurance proves you know that your home will burn down in the future). And speech by nonprofits funded by Exxon remains protected, as does Exxon’s decision to fund them, under court rulings like *Pfizer v. Giles* (1994)

Subjecting a person, or a non-profit like the Beacon Hill Institute, to burdensome document demands based on its viewpoint violates the First Amendment. Such demands violate free speech when they are in retaliation for the target’s viewpoint or past speech. (See*Taoh v. Freeh* (1994)). They also violate free speech when they are so burdensome that they would chill the speech of a reasonable person. (See*White v. Lee* (2000)). And they violate the First Amendment by demanding sensitive internal communications. (See *Perry v. Schwarzenegger* (2009)).

Shortly after Healey’s subpoena, 13 mostly conservative state attorneys general such as Luther Strange of Alabama and Craig Richards of Alaska sent a June 15 letter to their fellow attorneys general, arguing that “this effort by our colleagues to police the global warming debate through the power of the subpoena is a grave mistake.” Quoting Justice Jackson’s concurrence in Thomas v. Collins (1945), they noted that our “‘forefathers did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us.’” They also pointed outthat the 20-state investigation of “climate change deniers” reflects viewpoint discrimination, since “’clean energy’ companies have funded non-profits who exaggerated the risks of climate change,” yet this “fraud” is not being investigated, only the purported “fraud” alleged against non-profits that have supposedly minimized the risks of climate change. The Supreme Court has said that even unprotected speech should not be regulated in a viewpoint-discriminatory fashion, in its decision in *R.A.V. v. St. Paul* (1992), which ruled that a city could not ban even unprotected “fighting words” based on the speaker’s viewpoint.

As part of the multistate climate-change investigation, an incredibly burdensome subpoena was sent to CEI on April 7, demanding 10 years of its records relating to a wide range of topics (CEI’s First Amendment objections to that subpoena are found here). We received that subpoena shortly after CEI’s Myron Ebell and I had publicly criticized the investigation. (The subpoena came in just as I was drafting an even longer commentary criticizing the investigation, which is found here).

Last month, CEI filed a motion for sanctions against the attorney general who sent us that subpoena, Claude Walker of the U.S. Virgin Islands, under the District of Columbia’s anti-SLAPP law. The attorney general had belatedly withdrawn the DC version of the subpoena, but reserved the right to reinstate it at any time (the underlying Virgin Islands subpoena remains in place), essentially forcing CEI to live under a sword of Damocles. On June 2, the attorney general filed his opposition to our motion for sanctions, along with a transparently lame demand for sanctions against CEI unsupported by facts and caselaw. A hearing is pending in DC Superior Court next week, but it is not yet clear whether that hearing will adjudicate the merits of our motion, or defer its resolution until a later date.

Hans Bader practices law in Washington, D.C. After studying economics and history at the University of Virginia and law at Harvard, he practiced civil-rights, international-trade, and constitutional law.

CNSNews Reader,

The liberal media are terrified of the truth, especially when it leads to uncomfortable questions about their own leftist worldview.

CNSNews covers the stories that the liberal media are afraid to touch. It drives the national debate through real, honest journalism — not by misrepresenting or ignoring the facts.

CNSNews relies on the support of our loyal readers to keep providing the news and commentary that matter to the American people, not just stories that prop up the liberal agenda.

Liberal AG's Climate Change Witch-Hunt Expands to Include More ...

https://www.cnsnews.com/.../liberal-ags-climate-change-witchhunt-expands-include-m...

:{:(style="border-color:#006621;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-4px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

:{Jun 22, 2016 - Attorney General Maura :{Healey:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: is part of a multistate investigation of “climate ... all of these subpoenas are “anchored in the claim that :{Exxon:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: has lied to ... lies about climate change (a :{company's:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: prudence in taking into account worst-case ... Subjecting a :{person:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, or a non-profit like the Beacon Hill Institute, ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

no lnx cnbc

UPDATE 2-

U.S. top court rejects Exxon in climate change document dispute

Nate Raymond

Jan 7 (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the attorney general of Massachusetts to obtain records from Exxon Mobil Corp to probe whether the oil company for decades concealed its knowledge of the role fossil fuels play in climate change.

The justices declined to hear Exxon's appeal of a ruling by the top court in Massachusetts holding that state Attorney General Maura Healey, a Democrat, had jurisdiction to seek records to probe whether the company misled consumers and investors.

The high court's action marked the latest setback for Exxon in its efforts to halt the Massachusetts investigation and a similar one by New York's attorney general, who in October filed a lawsuit against the company.

New York's lawsuit accused Exxon of engaging in a systematic scheme to deceive investorsabout the impact that future climate change regulations could have on its business. Exxon has called the claims "meritless."

The Massachusetts and New York investigations were launched following 2015 news reports that Exxon's own scientists had determined that fossil fuel combustion must be reduced to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Those news reports, by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times, were based on documents from the 1970s and 1980s. Exxon said the documents were not inconsistent with its public positions.

Healey in 2016 issued a civil investigative demand to Exxon seeking documents to investigate whether it had violated the state's consumer-protection law through its marketing and sale of fossil fuel products.

Exxon said that because it is incorporated in Texas and New Jersey, Healey had no basis to seek documents to conduct a Massachusetts-based investigation.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in April held that jurisdiction existed because of Exxon's control over advertising conducted for about 300 franchise gas stations operating under the Exxon and Mobil brands in Massachusetts.

Exxon has called the Massachusetts and New York investigations politically motivated.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond and Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

**Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has handed ExxonMobil another defeat in the company's legal battle to head off climate investigations into whether it misled investors and the public about the risks of climate change.**

The court ruled Friday that Attorney General Maura Healey has the authority to compel Exxon to turn over records showing whether the oil company's marketing or sale of fossil fuel products violated the state's consumer protection law.

In its 32-page opinion, the state's highest court ruled that Healey may proceed with enforcing a civil investigative demand—similar to a subpoena—for Exxon documents related to climate change dating back four decades. Her office issued the demand nearly two years ago.

The court rejected each of Exxon's arguments that Healey's investigation should be stopped. Among other things, Exxon had claimed that Healey was biased based on her participation in a coalition of attorneys general formed to look into the fossil fuel industry's actions, and that the company was outside of Healey's reach because the corporation did not do business in the state, though it has 300 Exxon and Mobil franchise gas stations in Massachusetts.

The court also made a strong statement about climate change, writing: "The Attorney General's investigation concerns climate change caused by manmade greenhouse gas emissions—a distinctly modern threat that grows more serious with time, and the effects of which are already being felt in Massachusetts. More particularly, the investigation is premised on the Attorney General's belief that Exxon may have misled Massachusetts residents about the impact of fossil fuels on both the Earth's climate and the value of the company."

A spokesman for Exxon did not respond to a request for comment.

...

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13042018/exxon-climate-change-investigation-massachusetts-supreme-court-ruling-refuses-block-attorney-general-healey

apr 13

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122017/exxon-investor-fraud-2017-year-review-climate-change-investigation-tillerson-new-york-attorney-general

stalemate? change?

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122017/exxon-climate-change-disclosure-state-investor-fraud-investigations-court-documents

ExxonMobil's recent announcement that it will strengthen its climate risk disclosure is now playing into the oil giant's prolonged federal court battle over state investigations into whether it misled shareholders.

In a new court filing late Thursday, Attorney General Maura Healey of Massachusetts, one of two states investigating the company, argued that Exxon's announcement amounted to an admission that the company had previously failed to sufficiently disclose the impact climate change was having on its operations.

Healey's 24-page filing urged U.S. District Court Judge Valerie E. Caproni to dismiss Exxon's 18-month legal campaign to block investigations by her office and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's.

Exxonagreed last week to disclose in more detail its climate risks after facing pressure from investors. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it wrote that those enhanced disclosures will include "energy demand sensitivities, implications of 2 degree Celsius scenarios, and positioning for a lower-carbon future."

Healey and her staff of attorneys seized on that SEC filing to suggest it added weight to the state's investigation of Exxon.

"This filing makes clear that, at a minimum, Exxon's prior disclosures to investors, including Massachusetts investors, may not have adequately accounted for the effect of climate change on its business and assets," Healey's filing states.

This is the latest round of legal maneuvering that erupted last year in the wake of subpoenas to Exxon by the two attorneys general. They want to know how much of what Exxon knew about climate change was disclosed to shareholders and potential investors.

Coming at a point thatthe once fiery rhetoric between Exxon and the attorneys general appears to be cooling, it nonetheless keeps pressure on the oil giant.

Exxon has until Jan. 12 to file replies with the court.

In the documents filed Thursday, Healey and Schneiderman argue that Exxon's attempt to derail their climate fraud investigations is a "baseless federal counter attack" and should be stopped in its tracks.

"Exxon has thus attempted to shift the focus away from its own conduct—whether Exxon, over the course of nearly 40 years, misled Massachusetts investors and consumers about the role of Exxon products in causing climate change, and the impacts of climate change on Exxon's business—to its chimerical theory that Attorney General Healey issued the CID (civil investigative demand) to silence and intimidate Exxon," the Massachusetts filing states.

Exxon maintains the investigations are an abuse of prosecutorial authority and encroach on Exxon's right to express its own opinion in the climate change debate.

Schneiderman scoffs at Exxon's protests, noting in his 25-page filing that Exxon has freely acknowledged since 2006 there are significant risks associated with rising greenhouse gas emissions.

"These public statements demonstrate that, far from being muzzled, Exxon regularly engages in corporate advocacy concerning climate change," Schneiderman's filing states.

The additional written arguments had been requested by Caproni and signal that the judge may be nearing a ruling.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

OIL/TAR SANDS

EXXON CLIMATE

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/1/massachusetts_ag_maura_healey_on_why

GOODMAN: I also spoke to Maura Healey, who participated in the elected leaders’ news conference, attorney general of Massachusetts, and asked her about her role in a suit filed by a coalition of attorneys general against ExxonMobil.

ATTORNEY GENERAL MAURA HEALEY: Well, it was just a year ago where we—when we sent subpoenas to Exxon to ask them a simple question: Tell us what you knew, when, about climate change and the impact that burning fossil fuels was going to have on the environment, because based on widely reported, publicly available information, we had concern that Exxon may not have told the truth to the public, to consumers, to its shareholders, about what it knew. We sent those subpoenas. They turned around, they sued us to try to stop us from investigating this.

So far, we’ve been fighting it out in court. So far, we’ve been winning. And I hope that soon we will get the documents from Exxon, so that we can have our questions finally answered. That’s where we’re at right now. We won in Massachusetts courts. We won in New York courts. And recently, the court in Texas dismissed the case from Texas and moved it back to New York. And we had a good hearing the other day, and we’re awaiting a decision from the court, Amy. But hopefully we’ll be in a position soon where we can continue to go forward with our investigation, so that Exxon will finally have to answer the questions that we’ve asked.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain what was the smoking gun for you. Why did you get involved with the Exxon probe?

ATTORNEY GENERAL MAURA HEALEY: Well, there was information publicly reported that detailed some of what Exxon’s executives and scientists knew decades ago about what the effect of burning fossil fuels was going to have and going to be on the environment. And based on that information—and there was other information about oil executives flying in regularly to meet with one another to talk about how they were going to handle this as a public relations matter, and concern that there was a cover-up about this information. We were then led to do what we always do, which is, when you’re faced with that kind of information, you ask questions as a state attorney general, because this is a question about: Was there fraud perpetrated on the public, on consumers, on even Exxon’s shareholders? Did they fail to disclose things that they should have disclosed because they knew certain things? And so, that’s what this investigation has been about. Unfortunately, Exxon has taken the tack of trying to stop us, state AGs, from investigating

AMY GOODMAN: How? ATTORNEY GENERAL MAURA HEALEY: Well, interestingly enough, they say that our asking questions, our sending subpoenas to them, which is something that we do regularly as state AGs—that’s our job, is to ask questions, to investigate, go where the facts take us. Instead, they sued us, claiming that our investigation interfered with Exxon’s corporate free speech rights. I don’t understand that theory. I don’t credit that theory. But that’s the theory that they’ve advanced. They’ve also, of course, tried to use Congress to shut us down, as state AGs. The House committee has been led by Lamar Smith, has been very aggressive in attempting to subpoena me and really attempting to bully us into stopping us from doing our work. And these are questions that need to be asked, and they need to be answered....

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19072016/exxon-climate-investigation-subpoenas-lamar-smith-maura-healey-eric-schneiderman

how subpoena war could play out

see cei 2 for nyt letter (names below)

http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/2/14/14601932/exxon-first-amendment-free-speech-citizens-global-warming

Why is the attorney general of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, being forced to justify to a Texas judge why and how she is doing her job?

A parallel with investigations of Big Tobacco

The attorneys general embarked on investigations on behalf of their citizens, asking whether Exxon was guilty of selling products and equity while concealing information about their risks.

Until fairly recently, no US court would have entertained free speech claims by a corporation that wanted to strike down regulation

...

big win on docs

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12012017/mass-judge-ruling-climate-investigation-exxon-tillerson

A Massachusetts Superior Court judge has refused to block the climate fraud investigation of ExxonMobil opened last year by state Attorney General Maura Healey.

The ruling Wednesday means Exxon must comply with Healey's civil investigative demand for company records. Healey requested the documents as part of an investigation to determine if Exxon misled consumers about the risks climate change posed to its business.

Exxon had argued Healey lacked the jurisdiction to pursue the investigation and maintained Texas was the proper venue for any legal action because the company is headquartered in Dallas.

But Judge Heidi Brieger disagreed.

"This matter involves the Massachusetts consumer protection statute and Massachusetts case law arising under it about which the Massachusetts Superior Court is certainly more familiar than would be a federal court in Texas," according to Brieger's ruling.

The parallel legal battle Exxon is waging in a federal court in Texas to derail Healey's investigation remains under way.

The Massachusetts court ruling affirms the authority of the attorney general to investigate fraud, said Chloe Gotsis, a spokeswoman for Healey.

"Exxon must now end its obstructive tactics and come clean about whether it misled Massachusetts consumers and investors about what it knew about climate change, its causes and effects," Gotsis said.

A spokesman for Exxon did not respond to a request for comment.

Healey opened the investigation in April under the state's consumer protection laws seeking documents back to 1976 related to Exxon's understanding of climate change and the effects it could have on its business.

The civil investigative demand—similar to a subpoena—included a request for documents detailing the company's decades of climate research, how it was preparing for sea-level rise and materials prepared for potential investors.

The demand also sought statements by Exxon officials, including by the company's then-chief executive, Rex Tillerson, who was questioned Wednesday about climate change during his Senate confirmation hearing to become secretary of state.

The company argued that Healey's investigation amounted to an "arbitrary and capricious" abuse of power and was politically motivated.

But the judge said that under state law Healey was empowered to open the investigation based on her belief that a person or company was engaged in unfair or deceptive business practices in the state and that she should have "broad access" to Exxon records to determine if there were any violations of law.

Brieger also rejected Exxon's contention that the company was targeted by Healey because of its views on global warming.

"The court finds that the Attorney General has assayed sufficient grounds her concerns about Exxon's possible misrepresentations to Massachusetts consumers—upon which to issue the CID," said the 14-page ruling.

"In light of these concerns, the court concludes that Exxon has not met its burden showing that the Attorney General is acting arbitrarily or capriciously toward it."

PUBLISHED UNDER:

BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

EXXON CLIMATE

CLIMATE CHANGE

Heidi Brieger is an associate justice for the Massachusetts Superior Court.^[1] She was nominated to the court by former Governor Deval Patrick on June 5, 2012, and was confirmed by the Governor's Council, on a vote of 6-1, on June 23, 2012.^[2] Her term expires when she reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70.^[3]

Education

Brieger received her undergraduate degree from Smith College in 1979 and a master's degree from Claremont College in 1982. She earned her J.D. from the Boston College Law School, graduating cum laude, in 1986.^[2]

Career

2012-Present: Associate justice, Massachusetts Superior Court
1992-2012: U.S. Attorney's Office, Massachusetts

2007-2012: Chief, Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force
2004-2007: Assistant U.S. attorney, Organized Crime Strike Force
2004-2012: Former chair, Substantial Assistance Committee
1992-2004: Assistant U.S. attorney, Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force

1987-1990: Attorney, Hale and Dorr
1986-1987: Law clerk to former Chief Judge Andrew A. McCaffrey, United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts^[2]

Awards and associations

Awards

2004: Recipient, National Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Award for Outstanding Prosecution^[2]

Associations

Lecturer/instructor, Department of Justice Advanced Trial Advocacy, National Advocacy Center
Instructor, Department of Justice Trial Advocacy Training, Ukraine
Former member, United States District Court Crack Cocaine Re-Sentencing Committee
Former participant, Kids Court Program
Former instructor, Trooper Training Program, Massachusetts State Police Academy
Former member, Hale and Dorr Hiring Committee
Former pro bono counsel, Volunteer Lawyer's Project
Former pro bono counsel, Judicial Consent for Minors Program, Women's Bar Association^[2]

External links

==-

James E. Kinkeade (born 1951) is a United States federal judge.

Born in Denton, Texas, Kinkeade received a B.A. from Baylor University in 1973, a J.D. from Baylor Law School in 1974, and an LL.M. from the University of Virginia in 1998. He was a law clerk, Private practice, Texas from 1974 to 1975. He was in private practice in Texas from 1975 to 1980. He was an Associate municipal judge, City of Irving, Texas from 1976 to 1980. He was a judge on the Dallas County Criminal Court No. 10, Texas in 1981. He was a judge on the Texas 194th District Court from 1981 to 1988. He is an Adjunct professor, Texas Wesleyan School of Law from 1981 to present. Judge Kinkeade is also the Jurist in Residence at Baylor University School of Law. He was a Justice, Fifth District Court of Appeals, Texas from 1988 to 2002.

Kinkeade is a federal judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Kinkeade was nominated by President George W. Bush on July 18, 2002, to a seat vacated by Elton Joe Kendall. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on November 14, 2002, and received his commission on November 15, 2002.

Sources

James E. Kinkeade at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

Legal offices	Legal offices	Legal offices
Preceded by Elton Joe Kendall	Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas 2002–present	Incumbent

Legal offices

Preceded by

Elton Joe Kendall

Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas

2002–present

Incumbent

[show]

Current active district judges of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

Categories:

UPDATE (December 12):The deposition of Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey by lawyers for ExxonMobil has been canceled. The Texas federal court judge who approved the deposition voided it without explanation Monday in a one-sentence order.

Dec. 9—Without waiting for a ruling by a federal judge in Texas who has consistently sided with ExxonMobil, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has filed an appeal to block her deposition scheduled for Tuesday.

Healey explained in a motion filed Thursday with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that a stay is warranted because the judge who issued the deposition order has refused to properly consider her arguments and has not ruled on her pending motion to stay her deposition.

That judge, U. S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade,had earlier sided with Exxon in its request to depose Healey. He said he suspected the attorney general's climate fraud investigation of the company may be biased.

"That action is completely without precedent, turns basic law enforcement practice on its head, and constitutes a clear abuse of discretion," according to Healey's motion.

A spokesman for Exxon did not respond to a request for comment.

Healey has asked the appeals to court to make a ruling by Monday.

Exxon had gone to court in June seeking an injunction to halt Healey's investigation and asked that a judge rule the investigation was without legal merit.

Healey's office had issued a civil investigative demand—similar to a subpoena—for Exxon records going back 40 years as part of her investigation of whether the company committed consumer or securities fraud by misrepresenting its knowledge of climate change.

At the same time Healey appealed the deposition order, she also filed an appeal to toss out Exxon's entire case that seeks to block her investigation.

A key component to Exxon's case rests on its assertion that Healey cannot conduct an impartial investigation.

"Requiring the Attorney General to explain her investigatory rationale at this stage would make a shambles of the investigation and stifle her gathering of facts," according to the motion to dismiss the case.

"The only likely outcome of the discovery that the court has ordered is an improper and vexatious investigation into privileged or protected information."

Exxon also has filed a lawsuit in Texas to block an investigation by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, saying his investigation is politically motivated.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

EXXON: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

CLIMATE CHANGE

12/7/16

A federal judge reaffirmed an order that Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey must submit to questioning by lawyers for ExxonMobil over her investigation of the oil industry giant.

U.S. District Court Judge Ed Kinkeade on Monday rejected Healey's motion to cancel a deposition he had previously ordered, a virtually unprecedented decision that could expose the investigative tactics of a law enforcement agency to its target.

Kinkeade has ordered Healey to answer Exxon's questions in a Dallas courtroom deposition Dec. 13. The mandate is part of a sweeping discovery order issued by the judge in October that also could open the door for Exxon to plow through Healey's internal records related to her investigation.

Healyfiled a motionTuesday asking Kinkeade to stay his order until she has time to file an appeal with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Tom McGarity, a University of Texas law professor, said the deposition order is unprecedented based on a judge believing a state prosecutor has allowed political bias to drive a case.

"I've never heard of such a thing," he said. "The court certainly has the power to order a deposition, but I have never heard of that happening in anything like this."

That bold order flowing from a Texas court has allowed Exxon wide latitude in defending itself against multiple investigations. It also foreshadows a new legal standard that could have chilling consequences on attorneys general across the county, McGarity and other legal experts warn.

"That's a message to AGs that if they are considering bringing a case against industry, they could be open to questioning about their motive," McGarity said. "That's a message the AGs will hear. They may not be intimidated, but it is something that will be a factor in their decisions about what cases, what industry to pursue."

Healey has been pushing back on the judge's order that she both open her records to inspection by Exxon as well as travel to Texas to be interrogated by Exxon lawyers, saying that not only does Texas lacks jurisdiction but the order is extraordinary because it allows the target of her investigation to investigate her agency.

"Well-established precedent requires that depositions of high-ranking officials only occur in exceptional circumstances that are not present here," attorneys for Healey argued in a motion to vacate the deposition order.

Healey had asked the judge to withdraw his deposition order, requesting it be stayed until a hearing could be conducted on all of the arguments being raised.

Saying only that he was rejecting Healey's requests after "careful consideration," Kinkeade let stand the deposition order in a one-page decision.

The judge earlier had ordered Healey to submit to Exxon's written questions and appear in person for a deposition over her probe of the oil giant's climate changeresearch, saying it will allow him to determine whether "bias or prejudgment" influenced her decision to launch her investigation last April.

Legal experts say Healey likely would refuse to answer most questions. They also say that Exxon could agree to schedule the deposition in Massachusetts to better accommodate Healey's schedule.

The deposition is part of a larger Exxon legal maneuver in which the company has asked Kinkeade for an injunction blocking both Healey's investigation and the investigation underway by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who also has been put on notice that he may have to appear for a deposition.

Exxon did not respond to a request to comment on Monday's ruling.

Schneiderman filed a motion Monday to block the deposition and discovery orders, saying they would undermine the integrity of an ongoing law enforcement investigation.

"The discovery requests seek privileged, protected testimony, because the deposition of the Attorney General and Senior NYOAG attorneys would necessarily elicit privileged information, and the document requests and written discovery plainly seek privileged information,"according to the motion.

Healey has vowed to fight all of Exxon's maneuvers.

"Allowing discovery to go forward here would set a troubling precedent by allowing the target of a state government investigation to confound and effectively halt state law enforcement efforts by filing suit in the target's favored federal forum and permitting the target to 'investigate the investigator,'" Healey's attorneys said in a memorandum of law filed in support of the motion to dismiss the deposition.

Healey's attorneys also said Exxon has betrayed its "contentious, even baiting" strategy for questioning Healey by asking her in written questions previously authorized by the judge to "State, identify, and describe the basis for Your belief that investigating a single company will help combat or limit climate change."

"It illustrates precisely why depositions of high ranking officials is heavily disfavored."

Exxon has argued that it should be allowed to question Healey to expose her alleged abuse of prosecutorial authority and her personal biases.

"The Attorney General has no discretion to misuse her prosecutorial powers to stifle ExxonMobil's speech in an attempt to place a thumb on the scale of an ongoing policy debate," according to the company's response to Healey's motion.

Allowing Exxon to question Healey in the midst of her investigation is like letting a mob figure question investigators about their probe of underworld crime, said Brad Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation.

"It turns law enforcement on its ear," he said. "It removes the advantage of conducting an investigation without the subject of that investigation being privy to law enforcement's strategy and tactics."

That's one reason federal courts do not generally interfere with state prosecutors, he said.

"What this ruling does is create a special set of rules for Exxon and presumably any other company with Exxon's resources to second guess an attorney general's ability to conduct investigations," Campbell said.

...The ruling is not just a huge win for Healy, it also raises significant questions over the country's next presumptive secretary of state. On the same day of the court's decision, former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson faced off with the U.S. Senate over his nomination as Donald Trump's top foreign affairs adviser.

At one point during the rocky all-day hearing, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia asked Tillerson, "Are these conclusions about ExxonMobil's history of promoting and funding climate science denial, despite its internal awareness of the reality of climate change during your tenure with the company, true or false?"

Tillerson, despite working for half of his 42 years at Exxon as an executive, said he could not answer the question since he no longer worked for the company.

Kaine, however, pressed on. "I'm not asking you on behalf of ExxonMobil. You have resigned from ExxonMobil. I'm asking you whether those allegations about ExxonMobil's knowledge of climate science and decision to fund and promote a view contrary to its awareness of its science, whether the allegations are true or false."

Tillerson again did not answer.

"Do you lack the knowledge to answer my question, or are you refusing to do so?" Kaine asked.

Tillerson finally responded, "A little of both."

...

http://www.ecowatch.com/exxon-climate-research-2190240911.html

Attorneys for ExxonMobil have revealed a plan to ratchet up pressure on state attorneys general who have vowed to hold Exxon and fossil fuel companies accountable for their conduct on climate change.

Exxon attorney Theodore Wells told a New York judge that the company is working on deposing at least 17 attorneys general and their staffs who earlier this year joined with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman under the banner of AGs United for Clean Power.

By pulling those attorneys general into the fight, Exxon could trigger years of legal wrangling over disclosure of its understanding of climate risks.

That plan came to light during a hearing in Exxon's battle with Schneiderman over his office's investigation into whether the company violated consumer fraud laws in connection with climate change-related disclosures.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who is locked in a court battle with Exxon in Texas over her investigation of the company, said Exxon's legal strategy is "calculated to initiate no-holds-barred discovery" against the attorneys general, according to a motion her office filed in the Texas case.

Neither an Exxon spokesman nor company lawyers returned calls for comment.

This recent round of saber rattling is the latest in a year of escalation since the New York attorney general's office hit Exxon with a subpoena for records spanning four decades of Exxon's research findings and communications about climate change. The subpoena came in the wake of reporting, including an InsideClimate News investigative series, that the company was warned by its own researchers in the late 1970s about the possible catastrophic consequences of climate change and then led efforts to block solutions.

Schneiderman was first to open an investigation under the state's consumer protection laws. Massachusetts' Healey and Claude Walker, attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, followed, although Walker has since suspended his investigation.

The three are part of a coalition announced by Schneiderman during a news conference in March. Members of the coalition—known as the Green 17—also include the attorneys general from California, Maryland, Vermont, Oregon and nine other states and the District of Columbia.

Although until recently Exxon had been cooperating with New York investigators, turning over 1.2 million pages of records, it now seeks to block the investigation through the same Texas court where it is battling Massachusetts.

Now Exxon is using a discovery order issued by the judge overseeing the Texas case as a weapon in a possible wide-ranging attack on its opponents.

In a ruling last month, Judge Ed Kinkeade said Healey may have acted in "bad faith" when she issued a criminal investigation demand, an order similar to a subpoena, to the oil company for 30 years of documents.

To allow Exxon the opportunity to explore whether Healy was prejudiced against the company, Kinkeade granted the company's request for the discovery order.

That appeared to set the stage for an extensive review of Healey's internal records associated with her investigation.

But Wells, the Exxon lawyer, told a New York judge last month that the company was interpreting Kinkade's order more broadly.

"Right now we have the right, as we read the order, to take the deposition of both the Mass. AG, people and really everybody, as we read it, that was at that March 29th conference," Wells said, according to a transcript of the hearing.

"We are going to try to take depositions of the state AGs."

Wells was speaking during a hearing to contest a subpoena Schneiderman's office issued to the company's auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), for records related PWC's review of Exxon's books.

Exxon wanted to prohibit disclosure of the documents based on auditor-client privilege, but the New York judge ordered PWC to comply with the subpoena. The decision has been appealed by Exxon and PWC.

So far Exxon has only targeted the New York and Massachusetts attorneys general and their staffs, but Healey predicts other state attorneys general will "vigorously object" if Exxon uses the Texas ruling to go on a wider fishing expedition.

If the court endorses Exxon's effort, Healey said in her latest motion in Texas court, it will likely achieve "Exxon's goal of putting off as long as possible any investigation into the critically important question of whether Exxon broke the law and deceived consumers and investors about the role of its products in causing climate change."

The company has also instructed non-governmental groups, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, to keep communications related to climate change they have had with the attorneys generals coalition, other environmental groups, former Vice President Al Gore and the media.

"We believe that you may have documents that are relevant to pending and potential litigation involving the investigations of ExxonMobil, including but not limited to materials concerning the events and communications leading up to the investigations," according to the letter to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09112016/exxon-climate-change-investigation-research-scandal-state-attorneys-general

vs green 17

13 AG:

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/16062016/**exxon-sues-massachusetts-attorney-general**-climate-change-fraud-investigation

xxonMobil has sued to derail a second attorney general's investigation of the oil giant's climate record.

The company filed a complaint in federal district court in Fort Worth on Wednesday against Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. Her office subpoenaed Exxon records going back 40 years in an investigation of whether the company committed consumer or securities fraud by misrepresenting its knowledge of climate change.

In the same court, Exxon has a similar suit pending against Claude Walker, the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, who has launched a similar probe. Healey and Walker are part of a coalition of Democratic attorneys general trying to hold fossil fuel companies legally accountable for their conduct on climate change. The group was organized by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, whose office initiated an Exxon inquiry last year.

In its lawsuit, Exxon said the Massachusetts investigation under consumer and securities fraud statutes is "nothing more than a weak pretext for an unlawful exercise of government power to further political objectives." The attorney general is "abusing the power of government to silence a speaker she disfavors," according to the lawsuit.

Exxon asked the court to either issue an injunction halting the investigation or rule that the investigation is without legal merit.

Exxon strikes the same themes in the suit against Healey as it does in its action against Walker: The investigation is a violation of the company's constitutional rights, including the First and Fourth amendments that protect free speech and prohibit unreasonable searches.

"The CID (civil investigative demand) is an impermissible viewpoint-based restriction on speech, and it burdens ExxonMobil's political speech," according to the lawsuit. "Attorney General Healey issued the CID based on her disagreement with ExxonMobil regarding how the United States should respond to climate change.

"And even if the CID had not been issued for that illegal purpose, it would still violate the First Amendment, because it burdens ExxonMobil's political speech, and its demands are not substantially related to any compelling governmental interest," Exxon argued in the filing.

In addition, Exxon said the investigation violates Massachusetts' four-year statute of limitations. Exxon argued there is nothing to investigate because the company hasn't sold fuel, owned a retail location or sold securities in Massachusetts in the past four years.

"For many months,Exxon Mobil has engaged in an unprecedented effort to limit the ability of state attorneys general to investigate fraud and unfair business practices," said Cyndi Roy Gonzalez, Healey's communications director.

"Our investigation is based not on speculation but on inconsistencies about climate change in Exxon documents which have been made public," Gonzalez said. "The First Amendment does not protect false and misleading statements in the marketplace. Exxon's assertion that we cannot investigate it because the company has not engaged in business here in Massachusetts is completely preposterous."

In the Healey suit, Exxon also continued to criticize the alliance of attorneys general, saying the prosecutors were caving in to "thoroughly political goals" of climate activists.

The Healey complaint closely mirrors Exxon's court battle against a subpoena issued in March by the Virgin Islands' Walker. The demand covers a broad swath of records as part of an investigation into whether the oil company conspired to cover up its understanding of climate change in violation of the territory's anti-racketeering law.

Virgin Islands authorities are conducting their probe under the territory's "Baby RICO" statute. After Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, in 1970, the Virgin Islands was one of more than two dozen states and territories that adopted similar legislation. The laws were intended to give officials stronger weapons for prosecuting organized crime.

Exxon contends that subpoena is invalid because it seeks records beyond the baby RICO law's five-year statute of limitations, violates the company's constitutional rights and "constitutes an abuse of process."

Walker recently revoked a related subpoena to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington that received Exxon funding while leading efforts to sow doubt about climate change. In a letter to CEI's lawyers, the law firm representing Walker said the subpoena will be reissued if Walker decides to pressure CEI to surrender documents. The subpoena of a third-party supporting industry had been criticized by CEI and its allies, and some legal experts, as a violation of its First Amendment rights.

"This subpoena was a constitutional outrage from the very beginning, violating our right to free speech and our donors' right to confidentiality," CEI's general counsel, Sam Kazman, said in a statment. It "was an abuse of process, plain and simple, and we're determined to see that Walker faces sanctions for his illegal actions that he refuses to recognize," he said.

Exxon has not balked at a subpoena from New York Attorney General Schneiderman issued last year seeking documents on what Exxon knew about climate change and what it told shareholders and the public.

Matt Mittenthal, a spokesman for Schneiderman, said Exxon is continuing to cooperate with New York's investigation, which delves back four decades into the company's climate history. The company has turned over thousands of pages of documents in response to the subpoena, he said.

"It is deeply troubling that Exxon has taken the extraordinary step of refusing to comply with a lawful subpoena sent in the course of a serious fraud investigation," Mittenthal said in response to the suit against Healey. "The law is clear: The First Amendment does not give any corporation the right to commit fraud."

By filing its lawsuits in Fort Worth, Texas-based Exxon may be seeking a home-court advantage, according to Thomas McGarity, a University of Texas at Austin law professor. "You would expect to see more business-favorable judges on the bench in Texas than you might in Massachusetts. That's a legal realism."

Also on Wednesday, the attorney general of Texas and of 12 other states,wrote a letter to the coalition of the 17 attorneys general working on climate change issues, urging them to drop any climate fraud investigations of fossil companies.

"Investigatory subpoenas were issued to at least one company and one non-profit believed to have made statements minimizing the risks of climate change," they wrote.

"We think this effort by our colleagues to police the global warming debate through the power of the subpoena is a grave mistake."

PUBLISHED UNDER:

BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

EXXON: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/18/1527955/-The-fossil-fuel-industry-lied-to-us-about-climate-change-In-California-we-re-fighting-back

http://ecowatch.com/2016/03/30/climate-change-investigation-exxon/

“This is about facts, and science, and transparency,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who spoke at a press conference alongside New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, former Vice President Al Gore and seven other Attorneys General.

“Fossil fuel companies that deceived investors and consumers about the dangers of climate change should be, must be held accountable,” Healey continued, saying there is a “troubling disconnect between what Exxon knew, what industry folks knew and the company and industry chose to share with investors and the American public.”

The coalition of Attorneys General from 16 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands was convened by Schneiderman, who in November announced a state investigation into Exxon after reporting revealed that the oil giant had for decades known and suppressed evidence about the dangers that fossil fuels posed to the environment and then purposely disseminated false information in order to boost its profits.

California has also launched an investigation and on Tuesday Healey and U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Earl Walker confirmed their states have as well. Schneiderman said that additional states were pursuing similar action and that the purpose of the coalition is to work together in this “common interest.”...

http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/15/global-warming-skeptic-responds-to-massachusetts-ags-subpoena-fk-off-fascist/

Epstein had a terse response to a subpoena sent by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey Wednesday.

Healey demanded the oil giant ExxonMobil hand over 40 years of documents, including information pertaining to the company’s dealings with about a dozen think tanks and trade associations, which have been targeted by environmental groups for opposing left-wing global warming policies.

Healey’s subpoena targeted the Center for Industrial Progress (CIP),a for-profit think tank founded by Epstein. Epstein wasn’t exactly happy about being targeted for disagreeing with Healey on global warming, so he sent the AG’s office the following response:

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/15/global-warming-skeptic-responds-to-massachusetts-ags-subpoena-fk-off-fascist/#ixzz4Bs3xP7np}:

Healey AG ma

Exxon Loses Home Field Advantage In Climate Change Lawsuit

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A parallel with investigations of Big Tobacco

Until fairly recently, no US court would have entertained free speech claims by a corporation that wanted to strike down regulation

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