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</div><div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">2018 (October)</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Exxon Mobil announces commitment of $1 million to promote a carbon tax</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">
</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">The Wall Street Journal reports that the company, “once a powerful skeptic of global warming,</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">will now be among the first oil companies to put money into the fight to make climate change a</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">political priority in Washington. The U.S.’s largest energy producer will commit $1 million</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">over two years to promote a national tax on carbon as a way to address the environmental issue.</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">The funding will back an initiative designed to appeal to the Republicans who now control</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Washington, and may open the door for Exxon’s peers in the oil industry to follow.”</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">
</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Timothy Puko and Bradley Olson, “Exxon Puts Up $1 Million to Promote Carbon Tax,” Wall Street Journal, October 9, 2018,</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">https://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-puts-up-1-million-to-campaign-for-a-carbon-tax-1539079200</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">
</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">2018 (October)</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">New York sues Exxon Mobil on accounting for climate change</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">
</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">New York Acting Attorney General Barbara Underwood concludes a three year investigation</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">into Exxon’s accounting practices related to climate change by filing a civil suit alleging that</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">the company engaged in a “longstanding fraudulent scheme” to deceive investors, analysts and</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">underwriters “concerning the company’s management of the risks posed to its business by</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">climate change regulation.” The New York Times observes that “not only does [the suit] pose a</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">financial threat to Exxon that could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars or more, but it</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">could also strike a blow to the reputation of a company that has worked to rehabilitate its image,</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">framing itself as a leader on global warming.” Exxon Mobil spokesman Scott Silvestri, says that</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">the New York attorney general’s “baseless allegations are a product of closed-door lobbying by</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">special interests, political opportunism and the attorney general’s inability to admit that a three-year </div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">investigation has uncovered no wrongdoing.”The Editorial Board of the Wall Street</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Journal issues a strongly worded criticism: “Ms. Underwood is charging Exxon under New</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">York’s notorious Martin Act, which doesn’t require evidence of intent to prove fraud in civil</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">cases. She may be hoping that Exxon agrees to settle and pay a fine so she can declare victory.</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Yet in this case there’s not even evidence of fraudulent conduct, much less intent. The only </div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">party guilty of misrepresentation in this lawsuit is the New York AG.”* [see 2015</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">(November), 2016 (October)]</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">John Schwartz, “New York Sues Exxon Mobil, Saying It Deceived Shareholders on Climate Change,” New York Times, October 24,</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/climate/exxon-lawsuit-climate-change.html</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">*Editorial Board, “Peak Embarrassment in War on Oil,” Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/peakembarrassment-in-war-on-oil-1540509533</div></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/01/26/competitive-enterprise-institute-climate-denial-target-nbc-cities-liability-suits">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/01/26/competitive-enterprise-institute-climate-denial-target-nbc-cities-liability-suits</a>ref<a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/12/12/ucla-law-professor-ann-carlson-cara-horowitz-cei/">https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/12/12/ucla-law-professor-ann-carlson-cara-horowitz-cei/</a>Marco PoggioA conservative think tank with deep ties to the fossil fuel industry has sued UCLA to obtain email correspondence between two UCLA climate law professors and pro-environment individuals involved in climate change litigation.The <a href="http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2018/20181108_docket-18-ST-CP-02832_petition-for-writ-of-mandate.pdf?utm_source=Climate+Case+Chart&utm_campaign=4bda54ff18-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_30_02_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a721b41b2d-4bda54ff18-244003157&mc_cid=4bda54ff18&mc_eid=6a923e02cb" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">lawsuit</a> was filed last month in California Superior Court by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a libertarian group that lobbies against limits on greenhouse gas emissions and claims that CO2 is good for the environment. CEI argued the university hasn’t complied with two public record requests made in February and May under the California Public Records Act.According to the lawsuit, <a href="https://columbia.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9906c7202590aac6a8bdbb7b9&id=c42f401f8e&e=6a923e02cb" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">Competitive Enterprise Institute v. Regents of the University of California, </a>the emails show environmental law professors Cara Horowitz and Ann E. Carlson discussed future meetings with others, including staffers from several attorney general offices, to discuss new legal actions against major carbon producers.The lawsuit mimics the ones filed to obtain email correspondence by several climate scientists, including prominent climatologist Michael Mann of Penn State, which was ended by the Virginia Supreme Court in 2012. Another continues to embroil University of Arizona scientists Jonathan Overpeck and Malcolm Hughes, who were <a href="https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Court-Forces-University-Arizona-Release-Climate-Scientists-Traditionally-Confidential-Emails" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">recently ordered to release</a> 13 years of emails demanded by another fossil fuel ally.“This appears to be yet another effort by hired guns funded by polluting interests to badger, intimidate, and silence scientists whose findings prove inconvenient to those who continue to profit from our dependence on fossil fuels,” Mann said of the suit against UCLA.  Among the emails Horowitz and Carlson have been asked to release are those exchanged with litigators in direct contact with offices of pro-environment attorneys general around the country. That includes former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who in 2015 began investigating Exxon for possible climate change-related fraud.Carlson told Climate Liability News that UCLA is working on complying with CEI’s record request, sorting through hundreds of emails.“I don’t feel intimidated. I don’t have anything to hide,” Carlson said, “I don’t have a problem, so far, with what I’ve been required to turn over.“I do worry that these tactics, more broadly, are designed to discourage public discourse about important topics, like climate change and who should pay for climate damages.”Specifically, CEI has asked for correspondence between the two UCLA scholars and Shaun Goho, a Harvard lecturer and environmental lawyer with a record of environmental litigation in state and federal court.Goho said the lawsuit is just an harassment tactic meant to divert the energy and resources of people fighting climate change away from their work.“I don’t see how academics speaking with government officials about matters of public concern is a conspiracy. It doesn’t seem to make sense to me,” Goho said.“This lawsuit doesn’t stand alone. It’s really part of a broader campaign by fossil fuels companies and their allies to harass people who are taking action trying to try to address climate change in various ways, whether it’s climate scientists, lawyers or others who are researching legal issues related to climate change and the relationship between climate change and the fossil fuel industry.”CEI has <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16112016/myron-ebell-climate-denier-epa-donald-trump" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">deep ties</a> to the fossil fuel industry. Exxon was its biggest funder until 2006, when public criticism pushed the company to distance itself from CEI’s climate denial campaigns.CEI has also sought emails containing the names of other pro-environment lawyers and climate scientists, including Peter Frumhoff, the director of science and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Sharon Eubanks, one of the attorneys involved in the federal tobacco litigation against Philip Morris.Additionally, CEI demanded emails regarding two separate events—one held at Harvard and one at UCLA—attended by Carlson and Horowitz and employees of various state attorney general offices, private lawyers, academics and environmental activists, who were set to discuss causes of action against major carbon producers.“Public records show that Professors Horowitz and Carlson are using their positions at your public university to coordinate with certain activists groups in organizing andpursuing law enforcement and civil investigations and litigation against private opponents of a particular political agenda. We seek correspondence and other records illuminating this use of a public university faculty position and resources,” the request’s text reads.Frumhoff declined to comment for this story.Central to the lawsuit are the UCLA and Harvard meetings, in which Carlson, Horowitz and other parties discussed legal actions against polluters.The “secret meetings” as they were described in some of the emails, were attended by Frumhoff and Matthew Pawa, a lawyer with Hagens Berman, which is involved in several climate liability suits filed by communities against the fossil fuel industry. Those meetings also included staffers from attorney general offices around the country, including those of New York and California.A CEI representative declined to comment, citing pending litigation, but referred to the organization’s website for a statement concerning the lawsuit.“This ‘secret meeting’ agenda shows UCLA faculty briefed the attorneys general and prospective donors on potential legal actions they could pursue. Attorneys general are now pursuing the types of investigations urged by UCLA faculty,” Chris Horner, a senior fellow at CEI who signed the petition, wrote in the statement.“This donor-funded scheme of using law enforcement to pursue a failed political agenda, raises significant constitutional and other legal issues, as well as ethics concerns. With the revelation that this involves the use of public institutions in this mercenary campaign, the public has a right to know what their employees are doingin their name, and on their dime,” Horner’s statement said the statement continues.In its lawsuit, CEI claimed the subject matter contained in the emails is of  “great public interest” and that the university has violated the California Constitution because delays in handing over the records practically meant a refusal to comply with the request.The lawsuit presents new challenges to law practitioners in the field of environmental litigation, paving the way for an aggressive use of public record access law that some fear would stymie the process of accountability of carbon producers.“I don’t know exactly where this is all leading. I do think it’s part of a broader campaign to try to divert attention away from oil industry’s own activities and own efforts to try to dissuade the public about the legitimacy and validity of climate science, and I worry about that,” Carlson said.The use of public record access laws as a tool to hit back critics in the academic world is a fairly recent practice <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/us/politics/freedom-of-information-requests.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Felizabeth-williamson&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">embraced by trade groups</a> of several industries, not just oil and gas, to target opponents.“Requests can be burdensome on government agencies,” said David Snyder, an expert in California public record access law who directs the <a href="https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/about/our-staff/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">First Amendment Coalition</a>, a nonprofit nonpartisan advocacy group that promotes free speech and public access to government information.The law effectively puts academics in the same position as public officials that might have strong interests in not having their communications disclosed to the public.“It seems like an odd fit, I acknowledge, for a college professor to sit in the same category as officials at city hall or at the governor’s office,” Snyder said. “Nonetheless, UCLA is a public agency, and employees of that public agency are subject to the public records act.”A <a href="https://www.csldf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/CSLDF-Research-Protections-in-State-Open-Records-Laws.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">study</a> compiled by the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit providing legal assistance to researchers, ranked each of the 50 states based on the level of protection from open records laws they grant to scientists working at publicly-funded institutions.Only three states, Delaware, Maine, and Pennsylvania, exclude some forms of scientific and academic research from their open records laws. Laws in four other states, including Arkansas, Montana, New Mexico and North Carolina, contain no protection for researchers whatsoever. The remaining states guarantee different types of statutory exemption, deliberative process exemption and balancing tests that offer different degrees of protection.“The breadth and strength of state open records laws and the federal equivalent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) have made them powerful tools, but have also made them vulnerable to misuse and abuse by groups who try to harass researchers and stifle scientific research they dislike,” the study reads.The right to exemption from having to turn over documents is often hard to balance with the right to access public records, which is critical to ensure transparency in institutions, Snyder said.“It’s tricky,” Snyder said. “Under the public records act, by design, government agencies are not allowed to single out the requesters based on the reasons for which they want the records.”“They can’t say, ‘we’re not gonna give you the records because we know that you espouse these views, because you want to use the records for this purpose,’ that’s expressly forbidden,” Snyder said. “You don’t want the government picking sides.”ref<a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/12/10/ny-attorney-general-underwood-exxon-ethics/">https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/12/10/ny-attorney-general-underwood-exxon-ethics/</a>Karen SavageA nonprofit with ties to the fossil fuel industry has filed <a href="https://www.govjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/JCOPE-181207.pdf?utm_source=Government+Justice+Center&utm_campaign=1cbfc8de9e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_10_21_10_49_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_89e1c296a5-1cbfc8de9e-290615533" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">an ethics complaint</a> against the New York attorney general’s office, alleging that Attorney General Barbara Underwood and two special assistant attorneys general are violating state ethics laws in their climate-related litigation against Exxon.The Government Justice Center, led by board members who work for organizations that have received funding from oil industry and climate denial groups, alleges that Underwood is “accepting funding from an entity to conduct litigation by New York State on that entity’s behalf.”The complaint alleges that Matthew Eisenson and Gavin McCabe, two special assistant attorneys general working on the office’s securities fraud case against Exxon as well as other work, are violating state law because they are paid through the NYU School of Law’s<a href="http://www.law.nyu.edu/centers/state-impact" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;"> State Energy & Environment Impact Center</a>.Known as the State Impact Center, it was<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;"> established last year</a> with funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, a nonprofit founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to support state attorneys general in “defending and promoting clean energy, climate and environmental laws and policies.”Eisenson and McCabe were both hired by the New York attorney general’s office through the State Impact Center’s fellows program. According to the Center’s website the Center “has offered all state attorneys general the opportunity to hire NYU Law Fellows to work under their direction as special assistant attorney generals on clean energy, climate change, and environmental issues.”The Government Justice Center contends that Underwood’s office hired Eisenson and McCabe specifically to “help pursue a private party’s political and litigation agenda.” The Center says the use of the NYU fellows program also violates the law by giving the impression that Underwood’s office can be improperly influenced by Bloomberg.The attorney general’s office said the arrangement <a href="https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/In-latest-effort-to-hamstring-AG-s-Exxon-suit-13449932.php" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">violates no ethics laws</a> and has been cleared by the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics.The Government Justice Center said the alleged violations stem from Eisenson’s and McCabe’s names being included in signature blocks of recent climate change-related litigation, including Underwood’s <a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/10/24/new-york-attorney-general-exxon-climate-fraud/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">suit against Exxon</a> for securities fraud, and a friend-of-the-court brief supporting New York City’s climate liability <a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/01/10/new-york-city-climate-lawsuit-liability-bill-de-blasio/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">suit</a> against five major oil companies.“The presence of the special assistants in those cases, funded by Mr. Bloomberg, raises questions regarding whether Mr. Bloomberg and the Center are unduly influencing decision-making and litigation,” wrote Cameron J. Macdonald, executive director and general counsel for the Government Justice Center, who wrote the complaint.Paul Nolette, a political science professor at Marquette University who studies state attorneys general and their role in national policy making, said it is common for attorneys general to tap into the expertise of various interest groups.“Overall I don’t see it [the complaint] as a particularly strong argument, in part because this type of arrangement has been very common amongst AGs for quite some time and that includes situations where AGs have worked with private class action attorneys on a contingency fee basis, which has also raised ethics concerns, but generally speaking, courts across the country have allowed that arrangement to occur,” Nolette said.“Clearly the [State Impact] Center has an agenda of ‘we want to fight climate change’ but that alone is not particularly unusual or what I would consider unethical,” he said.“We don’t hide anything that we do,” said Christopher Gray, communications director for the State Impact Center. “We are not securities lawyers, we work on environmental policy. The idea that we’re directly involved in a meaningful way, doesn’t meet the facts.”“This is another attempt by what appears to be a dark money group to de-legitimize the ExxonMobil investigation, which pre-existed the founding of the State Impact Center and which we don’t have any oversight or influence over,” Gray said.According to its charity registration statement, the Government Justice Center was founded in 2016 to provide “public interest litigation focused on government waste, negligence, misappropriation and other improper actions.”The organization’s board members include director <a href="https://www.manhattan-institute.org/expert/james-r-copland" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">James Copeland</a>, a senior fellow and director of legal policy at the Manhattan Institute. Exxon <a href="https://cdn.exxonmobil.com/_{/media/global/files/worldwide-giving/2017-public-policy-worldwide-giving.pdf}" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">gave $115,200</a> to the Manhattan Institute in 2017 for public information and policy research. The group <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=103&v=AkoP6bNj-Yg" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">posted</a> a Youtube video in March that was made to look like a real news story titled “The ‘Overheated’ Costs of Climate Change.” It featured former TV newscaster John Stossel, who interviewed senior fellow Oren Cass, who <a href="https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/overheated-how-flawed-analyses-overestimate-costs-climate-change-10986.html" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">maintains</a> that the costs of the climate crisis are overestimated.Treasurer for the Government Justice Center is Brandon Muir, who is <a href="https://www.reclaimnewyork.org/about/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">also</a> the executive director of Reclaim New York, an organization <a href="https://www.reclaimnewyork.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Reclaim-New-York-2016-Form-990.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">chaired</a> by Rebekah Mercer. Since at least 2015, the Mercer Family Foundation<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/01/12/trump-kingmaker-billionaires-robert-rebekah-mercer-pouring-millions-climate-science-denial" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"> has funded</a>numerous organizations known for<a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/201982204/201723199349104262/IRS990PF" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"> promoting</a> climate denial, including the Manhattan Institute and the Heartland Institute.Tim Hoefer is president of the Government Justice Center and director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, which was a<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130725041149/http:/www.empirecenter.org/AboutUs/EmpireCenter/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"> project</a> of the Manhattan Institute.Government Justice Center director and retired judge Robert S. Smith, spent more than 25 years as<a href="https://www.fklaw.com/attorneys-Robert-Smith.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"> partner</a> at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, the firm hired by Exxon to defend itself against a growing number of climate change-related lawsuits, including Underwood’s securities fraud case.The ethics complaint echoes a <a href="https://cei.org/AGclimatescheme" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">report</a> published earlier this year by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which relied on public records requests to allege that attorneys general are involved in a coordinated scheme by private interests to persuade elected officials to hold oil giants responsible for climate change. That alleged conspiracy includes Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who is also investigating Exxon for possible fraud.“This seems to me to be just one additional part of this massive brawl between the New York attorney general’s office, the Massachusetts attorney general and ExxonMobil. I’m not terribly surprised that they filed this ethics complaint, but it doesn’t strike me as something that’s really going to go anywhere,” Nolette said.whoohoo  <a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/new-york-brings-new-fraud-case-against-exxon-lying-about-climate-change-and-ex">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/new-york-brings-new-fraud-case-against-exxon-lying-about-climate-change-and-ex</a>After a three-year probe and amid mounting demands that the fossil fuel industry be held accountable for driving the climate crisis, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood on Wednesday <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/ag-underwood-files-lawsuit-against-exxonmobil-defrauding-investors-regarding-financial" style="text-decoration-line: none;">filed suit</a> against ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil and gas company, for defrauding investors by downplaying the financial threat of regulations crafted to mitigate human-caused global warming."Big oil may finally face some consequences for its role in wrecking the climate," <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2018/10/24/350orgs-bill-mckibben-new-york-attorney-general-filing-lawsuit-against" style="text-decoration-line: none;">declared</a> 350.org co-founded Bill McKibben. "The New York Attorney General is standing up for investors who may have been swindled, and indirectly for the seven billion of us who will suffer from Exxon's lies."<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wow wow wow. Big oil may actually face some consequences. This is huge news <a href="https://t.co/MGhDjBPt8D" style="text-decoration-line: none;">https://t.co/MGhDjBPt8D</a>— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) <a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/1055146760522358784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">October 24, 2018</a></blockquote>"Investors put their money and their trust in Exxon—which assured them of the long-term value of their shares, as the company claimed to be factoring the risk of increasing climate change regulation into its business decisions. Yet as our investigation found, Exxon often did no such thing," Underwood said in a <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/ag-underwood-files-lawsuit-against-exxonmobil-defrauding-investors-regarding-financial" style="text-decoration-line: none;">statement</a>.  New York investigators, she said, concluded that "Exxon built a facade to deceive investors into believing that the company was managing the risks of climate change regulation to its business when, in fact, it was intentionally and systematically underestimating or ignoring them, contrary to its public representations."The <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/summons_and_complaint_0.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">complaint</a> (pdf) details years of troubling actions by Exxon's leaders—including former CEO Rex Tillerson, who <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/features/rex_tillerson_exxon_trump_secretary_of_state.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">spent</a> more than 40 years at the company prior to his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/13/rex-tillerson-fired-what-happened-trump-secretary-state" style="text-decoration-line: none;">short-lived tenure</a> as the President Donald Trump's first secretary of state.<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The fraud alleged in today’s suit reached the highest levels of Exxon management, including former Chairman & CEO Rex Tillerson.

The law is clear: corporations must tell investors the truth. My office will hold accountable those who don’t.— NY AG Underwood (@NewYorkStateAG) <a href="https://twitter.com/NewYorkStateAG/status/1055148351006609409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">October 24, 2018</a></blockquote>The state's probe, launched by Underwood's predecessor Eric Schneiderman, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/science/exxon-mobil-under-investigation-in-new-york-over-climate-statements.html?module=inline" style="text-decoration-line: none;">came to light</a> in 2015 after the <a href="https://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Los Angeles Times </a>and <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken" style="text-decoration-line: none;">InsideClimate News</a> reported that the company had "conducted cutting-edge climate research decades ago and then, without revealing all that it had learned, worked at the forefront of climate denial."Since those reports, Exxon has been named in multiple climate liability lawsuits brought by <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/07/20/front-lines-climate-change-baltimore-lawsuit-aims-hold-26-fossil-fuel-companies" style="text-decoration-line: none;">city</a>, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/09/21/first-two-major-cities-sue-big-oil-climate-crimes" style="text-decoration-line: none;">county</a>, and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/07/02/watershed-moment-climate-liability-rhode-island-files-historic-lawsuit-against-21" style="text-decoration-line: none;">state</a> officials across the country as advocacy groups and the public have increasingly pressured politicians to hold oil and gas companies accountable for contributing to the climate crisis and lying about the devastating long-term impacts of dirty energy.Exxon's "colossal climate denial operation"—which was also <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/23/harvard-study-confirms-exxonknew-and-misled-public-about-climate-threat-decades" style="text-decoration-line: none;">detailed</a> in a Harvard study published last year—"significantly impacted how the climate change debate played out in business, science, and politics," noted Naomi Ages of Greenpeace USA.And as Richard Wiles, executive director of the Center for Climate Integrity, observed, "Climate change deception is central to Exxon's business model." The company pocketed immense profits while it "bankrolled a 30-year, multi-million denial campaign, manufacturing doubt about climate science when it knew there was none."While Exxon continues to make money from oil and gas production, coastal communities are facing the mounting financial and environmental costs of the climate crisis. Wiles, like many others who support the ongoing litigation against fossil fuel firms, said Wednesday that Exxon "needs to pay investors they misled and the cities and states now facing massive climate expenses."In addition to making the companies pay for the consequences of their products, climate campaigners are demanding a worldwide transition to renewable energy. Referencing the recent <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/08/un-experts-warn-climate-catastrophe-2040-without-rapid-and-unprecedented-global" style="text-decoration-line: none;">IPCC report</a> that stated the international community must take rapid action to prevent climate catastrophe, Ages pointed out: "The stakes have never been higher in capping carbon emissions."
<div>=</div>==eric quit:<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09052018/new-york-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman-assualt-allegations-resigned-exxon-climate-investigation-environment-lawsuits">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09052018/new-york-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman-assualt-allegations-resigned-exxon-climate-investigation-environment-lawsuits</a>
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's abrupt resignation after allegations surfaced that he had physically assaulted four women has complicated, but probably not derailed, a series of high-profile environmental investigations and lawsuits that his office spearheaded.<div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Being the chief law enforcement officer for the state of New York gave Schneiderman a bully pulpit from which he attacked the environmental policies of the Trump Administration and challenged ExxonMobil and its political allies.His admirers had seen him as a guardian of environmental and social justice—including protections for women. But the detailed allegations, published May 7 in <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/four-women-accuse-new-yorks-attorney-general-of-physical-abuse" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">The New Yorker magazine</a>, that he assaulted and emotionally abused women in several relationships have sunk his reputation. He announced a few hours after publication that he was resigning. <a href="http://ag.ny.gov/press-release/statement-attorney-general-eric-t-schneiderman" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Schneiderman wrote</a> that he contests the women's accounts, but that he cannot continue in office.It may be too early to assess the damage to the environmental causes he was pursuing. Much depends on who replaces him as attorney general, how robustly his staff carries on, and how effectively other state officials take up the slack....</div></div></div></div>