TJ donovan atty gen
<p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not the epa attack: </font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">September 13, 2021</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Rob Schilling</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Executive Director</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Energy Policy Advocates</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By e-mail to: Schilling@allhookedup.com</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Re: Vermont Public Records Act Request</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dear Mr. Schilling:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I write in response to your Vermont Access to Public Records Act</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">request dated September 7, 2021, which this office received on September 8,</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">2021. In that request, on behalf of Energy Policy Advocates, you sought:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I. all electronic correspondence . . . and any accompanying</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">information . . . including also any attachments, a) sent to or from or</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">which copies (whether as cc: or bcc:) i) C</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">harity Clark, ii) Robert</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">McDougall and/or ii) Nick Persampieri, that b) was also sent to or from</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">or which copies (whether as cc: or bcc:), or which includes anywhere</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">in the correspondence, i) enckj@aol.com, ii) any email address ending</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">in @<b>climateintegrity.</b>org, iii) any email address ending in @vtcha.org,</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and/or iv) <b>pparenteau@vermontlaw.edu</b>, which c) is dated from October</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">1, 2020 through today, inclusive; and</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">II. any i) “COMMON INTEREST AGREEMENT REGARDING THE</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SHARING OF INFORMATION RELATED TO<b> STATE LAWSUITS</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>AGAINST FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES FOR DECEPTIVE ACTS </b>AND</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PRACTICES AND OTHER STATE LAW CLAIMS” signed by OAG</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">since October 1, 2020, and of ii) any fee, representation, consulting, pro </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">bono, non-disclosure, confidentiality and/or common interest agreement</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">signed between your office and Pat Parenteau and/or Vermont Law</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">School that is presently in effect.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Please be advised that we have no records that are responsive to your</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>request.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">If you feel any information or records have been withheld in error, you</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">may appeal to Deputy Attorney General Joshua Diamond at the following</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">email address: Joshua.Diamond@vermont.gov.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sincerely,</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">/s/Nicholas F. Persampieri</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nicholas F. Persampieri</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Assistant Attorney General</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">several state attorneys general, advocacy groups and philanthropic foundations have refused to comply with a broad request from a group of House Republicans for documents that might be related to state investigations of ExxonMobil Corp. over <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/climate-change" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">climate change</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In their letters to Rep. Lamar Smith, the Republican chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee,<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"> </span>most of<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"> </span>the organizations said the lawmakers were overstepping the panel’s jurisdiction in order to conduct a partisan fishing expedition while threatening the groups’ First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Last month, 13 Republican members of the Smith committee issued letters to <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19052016/house-republicans-assail-climate-fraud-investigations-exxon-lamar-smith" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">17 state attorneys general and eight environmental groups and philanthropies</a>. </b>They demanded records on whether the groups and the state attorneys general worked together in coordinating probes of Exxon or other fossil fuel companies.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The right to petition government and to disagree with certain government officials is a core value protected by the First Amendment,” said lawyers for 350.org, a nonprofit environmentalist group, in a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2850492-350Letter-to-Lamar-Smaith.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">letter to the committee</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Because your letter does not and cannot provide any legitimate justification for this infringement upon First Amendment rights, our client respectfully declines to provide documents in response,” the 350.org letter said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prosecutors in New York, Maryland, California and the Virgin Islands are investigating whether Exxon’s statements and actions on climate change violated consumer or investor protection laws or racketeering statutes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">InsideClimate News and later the Los Angeles Times, as well as other journalists, have <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">reported on the history of Exxon’s emerging understanding of climate change science</a> in the 1970s and 1980s. Those reports also detailed Exxon’s subsequent efforts to undermine the scientific consensus that combustion of fossil fuels was leading to potentially catastrophic global warming.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);">In addition to 350.org, organizations rejecting the Republican lawmakers’ request included Greenpeace, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and the attorneys general offices of <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2850680-NYOAG-Response-to-House-SST-Commitee.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">New York</a>, <a href="http://www.seattlepi.com/local/politics/article/AG-Ferguson-to-climate-deniers-in-Congress-Drop-7958033.php" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Washington</a>, <a href="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/contattafiles/insideclimate/moenE6LLRa_aCxb/Letter%20to%20Congressman%20Smith.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Massachusetts</a>, <a href="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/contattafiles/insideclimate/bouRZbm3maMaV0w/CA%20Response%20to%20Rep.%20Smith.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">California</a>, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2851453-Committee-on-Science-Space-and-Technology.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Maryland</a>, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2851448-Jepsen-SST-Response.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Connecticut</a>, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2851575-New-Mexico-AG-to-Lamar-Smith-Letter.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">New Mexico</a>, <a href="http://https//www.documentcloud.org/documents/2851739-Virginia-AG-to-Lamar-Smith-Letter.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Virginia</a>, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2851584-Oregon-to-Lamar-Smith-Letter.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Oregon</a>,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2851766-Vermont-AG-to-Smith-Letter.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">Vermont</a>,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span><a href="http://https//www.documentcloud.org/documents/2851860-Maine-Response.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">Maine</a><span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> and </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2851447-DCOAG-Response-to-SST.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">Washington D.C.</a><span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> Smith is a 15-term Texas Republican with a record of challenging the validity of climate science.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Smith’s office referred questions to the committee. A committee spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment. It’s unclear whether the other organizations or attorneys general responded.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2850680-NYOAG-Response-to-House-SST-Commitee.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Schneiderman’s office</a> wrote the lawmakers’ demands were “premised on a series of incorrect statements and assumptions” and presented “serious constitutional concerns, including the lack of congressional jurisdiction over state law enforcement activities.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In refusing to cooperate, Oregon’s Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum made it clear that her office would not be bowed by Smith.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“In sum, the Oregon Attorney General intends to continue to look into possible violations of state law, and she will continue to work, when appropriate, with other states’ law enforcement officials,” according to <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2851584-Oregon-to-Lamar-Smith-Letter.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">a letter written by Frederick M. Boss</a>, a deputy attorney general.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In separate letters to Smith Wednesday, the non-profit organizations cited the First Amendment in objecting to the demand for their documents, arguing that the committee members were standing up for Exxon’s free speech rights while trampling theirs.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“To be clear, Greenpeace will always cooperate with any authorized and legitimate inquiry of Congress or anyone else into one of the most pressing issues of our time, one that will affect our children and their children for generations to come,” <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2850396-Greenpeace-to-Lamar-Smith-Letter.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">wrote Greenpeace</a>’s attorney, Abbe David Lowell, a prominent Washington defense lawyer.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Greenpeace letter blasted the lawmakers for seemingly concluding in advance that “the activities of the state attorneys general ‘were efforts to silence speech.’” Citing published reports that the prosecutors are investigating whether Exxon violated securities and consumer fraud laws by “making false statements,” Lowell wrote that “the law does not protect the dissemination of false statements.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“These alleged false statements occurred in public and were made to affect the behavior of consumers and investors,” according to the letter. “In other words, while Greenpeace’s work on climate change has been to follow the science, the fossil fuel industry is being investigated for trying to cover up that science.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Rockefeller Brothers Fund likewise told Smith it was refusing the request because the documents were protected by the First Amendment.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It appears like a partisan effort by a group of Republicans in the House trying to shut down public debate on a vital public matter on behalf of the fossil fuel industry,’’ said Stephen Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, in an interview.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the foundation’s <a href="http://www.rbf.org/news/fund-declines-comply-request-members-house" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">official response</a>, attorney Harry Sandick said: “It is not clear to us what valid legislative purpose lies behind the request for documents to the extent that the committee seeks to regulate the conduct of state attorneys general.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Union of Concerned Scientists said in its four-page letter that the lawmakers’ request exceeded the powers of Congress.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> The organization acknowledged that the Science Committee does have jurisdiction over environmental and scientific programs. But the lawmakers’ request goes far beyond any such mandate, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2850539-UCS-to-Lamar-Smith-Letter.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">UCS said in its letter</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0.75rem; grid-column: 4 / span 6; word-break: break-word; z-index: 1; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman">“To permit legislative inquiry to proceed on less than an adequate foundation would be to sanction unjustified and unwarranted intrusions into the very heart of the constitutional privilege to be secure in associations in legitimate organizations engaged in the exercise of First and Fourteenth Amendment rights,” the UCS attorney wrote. The Fourteenth Amendment deals with due process and relations between states and the federal government.</font></p>