RICO GW

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primary 4/16</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see Our Children's Trust, also COURTS 2

includes AG lawsuit over Exxon lies (as of 9/17 primarily here)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">also includes crypto BS ~ greenpeace

// WA big legal win children

==</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see de- fraud shareholders</font></p>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see team red and blue

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<p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> =</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">amy 12 22</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lots going on in the climate litigation space lately! The <a href="https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/6eb75ac5?m=bf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/6eb75ac5?m%3Dbf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de&source=gmail&ust=1670196031023000&usg=AOvVaw039AB8uZOVhW8zqGvmhCHY"><span style="font-weight: 700;">Supreme Court is still mulling</span></a> a jurisdictional argument in the Boulder climate liability case. Meanwhile, in September,  EPA rejected a petition asking it to commence rule-making for greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Toxic Substances Control Act. <b>Earlier this month, the petitioners (including legendary NASA climate scientist James Hansen and Carbon Majors report author Richard Heede) took their request to court, seeking to compel the agency to regulate GHGs under TSCA.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The biggest climate litigation news in a while came over the Thanksgiving holiday when 16 Puerto Rican municipalities filed the<span style="font-weight: 700;"> first-ever climate RICO complaint.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was passed in the 1970s to give the government a way to deal with organized crime. The Mafia. In the 1980s, the Supreme Court upheld the use of the law in civil cases as well, which can be brought against individuals, organizations, or corporations. If you listened to our </span><a href="https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/29f4334b?m=bf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/29f4334b?m%3Dbf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de&source=gmail&ust=1670196031023000&usg=AOvVaw03gS7k0nmPr3ovbLUFW1BU" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">season on the Chevron-Ecuador case </a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">you might remember that </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Chevron successfully sued U.S. attorney Steven Donziger under RICO. This time the complaint flows the other way, alleging that the global oil majors, their trade associations, and a network of dark money-funded think tanks and operatives were part of an organized conspiracy to mislead the public on climate change, resulting in a multitude of damages. Because the plaintiffs are 16 Puerto Rican towns, the damage is pegged specifically to 2017 Hurricane Maria, and the likelihood of more and worse storms battering the island for years to come.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I started following this case three years ago, and went to Puerto Rico in 2019 to meet with attorney </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Melissa K. Sims. Sims is senior counsel for the plaintiffs law firm, Milberg.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">She originally went to Puerto Rico while working on one of the opioid cases with them</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. "The interesting part about the opioid litigation is that really it all started in Puerto Rico</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">," she says. "We filed a class action for the municipalities in Puerto Rico early on and we filed racketeering, one of the first cases that filed racketeering in federal court. And what we found out was, you know, Puerto Rico has been kind of the guinea pig for big pharma."</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of Sims's first trips there was about a year after Hurricane Maria and she was shocked by how much devastation there still was. Then she saw an article in the newspaper shortly after about how climate change was making hurricanes more intense, and storm surge more damaging. And how much of these outcomes had been predicted decades prior by climate scientists working for oil companies. And a lightbulb went off "If it's proven that you caused it and if it's proven that you, you know, conspired with somebody else to profit off that loss to a municipality you should have to pay for it," she says.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Last week, Sims’ firm filed a RICO case on behalf of 16 Puerto Rican municipalities, against 7 oil companies, three coal companies, and hundreds of organizations and operatives, alleging “consumer fraud, racketeering, antitrust, fraudulent misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, negligent fraudulent concealment, conspiracy to defraud, products liability, strict liability failure to warn, negligent failure to warn, and unjust enrichment, as a result of the devastating storms of September 2017, and the aftermath of those storms which occurred as a result of the Defendant’s acts and omissions.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I’ll be bringing you a whole lot more on that story in the weeks and months ahead, it’s a really big deal!</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><div><div id="r1" class="" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><div id="r1c1" class="" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div id="block5" class="block block-press_release" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="record-head" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h3 class="record-info" id="record-author" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; float: left;"><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/heritage-foundation/#sheldon-whitehouse-enemies-list">https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/heritage-foundation/#sheldon-whitehouse-enemies-list</a></span></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="font-weight: 400;">
</span></font></div></h3><h2 id="sheldon-whitehouse-enemies-list" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 40px; margin-bottom: 24px; padding-bottom: 7.5px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(202, 202, 202);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sheldon Whitehouse Enemies List</font></h2><h3 class="record-info" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; float: left;"><div style="font-size: medium;"><div class="profile-main-content the-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 60px;"><p style="font-weight: 400; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During July 2016, Heritage was one of 32 free-market policy organizations that were denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate by 19 Democratic senators.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Led by Sen. </span><a href="https://www.influencewatch.org/person/sheldon-whitehouse/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">Sheldon Whitehouse</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (D-RI), <b>the campaign was aimed at passage of a Congressional resolution that would have called on the non-profit groups to cooperate with “active or future investigations” of their climate-policy positions that might be launched against them by federal or state law enforcement officials</b>. Whitehouse accused Heritage and the other organizations of work that was creating a “filthy thing in our democracy.” </span><span class="profile-referencesup" id="ref-192" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;"><a class="profile-referencelink" href="https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/heritage-foundation/#note-192" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s; font-weight: 700; margin-left: 2px; display: inline-block; opacity: 0.7;">[192]</a></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span class="profile-referencesup" id="ref-193" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;"><a class="profile-referencelink" href="https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/heritage-foundation/#note-193" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s; font-weight: 700; margin-left: 2px; display: inline-block; opacity: 0.7;">[193]</a></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Whitehouse’s proposed resolution was adding onto the work he had begun in a May 2015 opinion piece in the </span><em style="font-weight: 400; box-sizing: border-box;">Washington Post</em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, wherein he advocated for a federal lawsuit against the energy industry using the </span>Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. <span style="font-weight: 400;">Originally designed for and used in criminal cases to prosecute the mafia, RICO has a civil-lawsuit component that has since been applied to corporate targets such as cigarette manufacturers. Whitehouse admitted in the opinion piece that he did not “have enough information” to know whether “racketeering activity” had occurred with the energy industry but speculated the civil discovery in a RICO lawsuit might uncover the evidence he was seeking. In March 2016, then-U.S. Attorney General </span></span><a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Loretta_Lynch" style="font-weight: 400; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">Loretta Lynch</a><span style="font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> announced she had referred Whitehouse’s RICO concern to the FBI. </span><span class="profile-referencesup" id="ref-194" style="font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;"><a class="profile-referencelink" href="https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/heritage-foundation/#note-194" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s; font-weight: 700; margin-left: 2px; display: inline-block; opacity: 0.7;">[194]</a></span><span style="font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span class="profile-referencesup" id="ref-195" style="font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;"><a class="profile-referencelink" href="https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/heritage-foundation/#note-195" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s; font-weight: 700; margin-left: 2px; display: inline-block; opacity: 0.7;">[195]</a></span></font></p><p style="font-weight: 400; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the early summer of<b> 2016, the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands sent a subpoena to the libertarian think tank <a href="https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/competitive-enterprise-institute/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a> (CEI), </b>demanding private internal research records, communications, and donor information. Two weeks later, Whitehouse and the 18 Democratic senators launched their program demanding that Heritage and other free-market organizations fully cooperate with investigations of this type</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><span class="profile-referencesup" id="ref-196" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;"><a class="profile-referencelink" href="https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/heritage-foundation/#note-196" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s; font-weight: 700; margin-left: 2px; display: inline-block; opacity: 0.7;">[196]</a></span></font></p><p style="font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The CEI president responded, saying <b>Whitehouse had become the “new Sen. Joe McCarthy</b>,” and that it “is unhealthy for democracy and abusive when members of Congress create an enemies list based on policy positions.” <span class="profile-referencesup" id="ref-197" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;"><a class="profile-referencelink" href="https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/heritage-foundation/#note-197" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s; font-weight: 700; margin-left: 2px; display: inline-block; opacity: 0.7;">[197]</a></span> And a joint letter sent to all of the Democratic Senators from Heritage and 22 free-market think tanks stated: “Your threat is clear: There is a heavy and inconvenient cost to disagreeing with you. Calls for debate will be met with political retribution. That’s called tyranny. And, we reject it.</font></p></div></div></h3></div></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">guk</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">...</font><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Drilling down</span></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /></font></font></font></font></font></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>
</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><b>To Sharon Eubanks the conspiracy to deny science sounded very familiar. From 2000, she led the US justice department’s legal team against nine tobacco firms in one of the largest civil cases filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (Rico) Act, </b>which was designed to combat organised crime.</div><div>
</div><div>In 2006, a federal judge found that the industry had spent decades committing a huge fraud on the American public by lying about the dangers of smoking and pushing cigarettes to young people.</div><div>
</div><div>Eubanks said that when she looked at the fossil fuel industry’s strategy, she immediately recognised big tobacco’s playbook.</div><div>
</div><div>“Big oil was engaged in exactly the same type of behaviour that the tobacco companies engaged in and were found liable for fraud on a massive scale,” said Eubanks. “The cover-up, the denial of the problem, the funding of scientists to question the science. The same pattern. And some of the same lawyers represent both tobacco and big oil.”</div><div>
</div><div>The danger for the fossil fuel industry is that the parallels do not end there.</div><div>
</div><div>The legal process is likely to oblige the oil conglomerates to turn over years of internal communications revealing what they knew about climate change, when and how they responded. Given what has already come out from Exxon, they are unlikely to help the industry’s case.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Eubanks, who is now advising attorneys general and others suing the oil industry, </b>said a turning point in her action against big tobacco came with the discovery of internal company memos in a state case in Minnesota. They included language that talked about recruiting young people as “replacement smokers” for those who died from cigarettes.</span></div><div>
</div><div>“I think the public was particularly stunned by some of the content of the documents and the talk about the need for bigger bags to take home all the money they were going to make from getting people to smoke,” said Eubanks.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The exposure of the tobacco companies’ internal communications shifted the public mood and the politics, helping to open the door to legislation to curb smoking that the industry had been successfully resisting for decades.</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Farber, the Berkeley law professor, said the discovery process carries a similar danger for the oil companies because it is likely to expose yet more evidence that they set out to deceive. He said that will undercut any attempt by the energy giants to claim in court that they were ignorant of the damage they were causing.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Farber said it will also be difficult for the oil industry to resist the weight of US lawsuits, shareholder activism and shifting public and political opinion. “It might push them towards settlement or supporting legislation that releases some from liability in return for some major concessions such as a large tax to finance responses to climate change.”</div><div>
</div><div>The alternative, said Farber, is to take their chance on judges and juries who may be increasingly inclined to take the climate crisis seriously.</div><div>
</div><div>“They may think this is an emergency that requires a response. That the oil companies should be held responsible for the harm they’ve caused and that could be very expensive,” he said. “If they lose, it’s catastrophic ultimately.”</div><div>
</div><div>This story is published as part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of news outlets strengthening coverage of the climate story</div></div><div>
</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx Why did a Democratic AG kill the Flint water RICO case?</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Why did a Democratic AG kill the Flint water RICO case?</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Dana Nessel</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> Kenny Stancil and Common Dreams January 18, 2022</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">   </font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Prosecutors investigating Flint's contaminated water crisis were pursuing a racketeering case against public officials whose austerity-driven policies caused the health catastrophe, but after newly elected Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel took over in 2019, those charges were dropped.</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">That's according to investigative journalist Jordan Chariton and Pulitzer prize-winning reporter Charlie LeDuff's explosive new story, which was published Monday in The Guardian and sparked fresh questions about holding perpetrators responsible for the ongoing calamity.</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Flint water crisis began nearly eight years ago when an unelected emergency manager appointed by then-Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, made the cost-cutting decision to switch the city's tap water source from Detroit's municipal supply to the Flint River, whose highly corrosive water caused aging pipes to leak lead into thousands of homes.</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">From 2016 to 2018, prosecutors working under Michigan's Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette were reportedly preparing to use a federal anti-organized crime statute—the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act—against state and city officials who, along with JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, played a role in the poisoning of Flint. But after those investigators were dismissed and the probe resumed under a new team, the RICO case never materialized.</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Environmental justice defender Monica Lewis-Patrick said Monday that "water warriors NEED to know" why Nessel "dropped the RICO charges in the Flint water crisis."</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">When Republican Schuette was running for governor against then-Democratic candidate Gretchen Whitmer in 2018, Nessel, a Democrat, characterized the term-limited AG she was aiming to replace as "an opportunist who has used the crisis to further his political ambitions via a series of politically charged show trials" and vowed to revamp the investigation.</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Soon after winning and taking office, Nessel fired the lead prosecutors and investigators working on the Schuette-launched probe, and restarted the inquiry with a new team.</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"At that point," Chariton and LeDuff reported, "the prosecution team assembled by Schuette had been working for nearly three years—and filed criminal charges against 15 Michigan state and Flint city officials, including four officials charged with financial fraud that prosecutors said triggered the water crisis."</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"But when Nessel relaunched the investigation," the pair wrote, "her office dropped charges against top state and city officials, citing flaws in the Schuette-era investigation. In 2021, Nessel's office recharged several of those defendants—with a new round of indictments that included involuntary manslaughter, misconduct in office, obstruction of justice, extortion, and perjury. But gone were the financial fraud charges."</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Last November, a federal judge approved a $626 million settlement for thousands of lead poisoning victims in Flint, but Chariton and LeDuff wrote Monday that "the disappearance of the financial fraud charges is significant because the bond deal that allowed the city of Flint to switch its water supply had been heavily investigated by the Schuette-era prosecution."</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">According to The Guardian:</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In 2014, Flint needed to borrow nearly $100m to join the proposed Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA), a new regional system that Flint would join as both a customer and part owner. But at the time, the city was broke and at its borrowing limit.</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A state-issued environmental order allowed the city to get around its debt limit and access $85m in funding, money earmarked for an "environmental calamity"—in this case, the cleanup of a local lime sludge pit. But the prosecution under Schuette alleged that the money supplied by this order for the cleanup was redirected for other purposes instead allowing Flint to issue tens of millions of dollars in bonds to join the KWA.</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The allegedly fraudulent environmental order also mandated that the city of Flint use the Flint River as its water source while the KWA pipeline was under construction. It outlined tens of millions of dollars in upgrades needed for the city's water plant so that the plant could safely treat Flint River water for residents to drink. The problem: updates were nowhere near completed when the city switched its water supply to the Flint River in April 2014. In addition, a failure to add proper corrosion control chemicals into the Flint River water supply resulted in lead leaching off Flint's older pipes and poisoning residents' drinking water.</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Peter Hammer, a Wayne State law professor who authored an extensive civil rights report on the Flint water crisis, told The Guardian that he "never understood why the attorney general disrupted the initial investigation, dropped the initial charges, or set a different direction in her new charges that chart a course away from the issues of financing the KWA pipeline."</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"Her decisions mean that some of the most important questions relating to the crisis—the political and economic forces driving the KWA pipeline—are not being addressed," said Hammer. "This adds a new tragedy for the people of Flint who deserve to know the root causes of their suffering and to hold any financial wrongdoing accountable."</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Responding to the new reporting, progressive podcast host Krystal Ball tweeted that "political corruption poisoned Flint and political corruption shielded the wrongdoers from accountability."</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">According to Flint City Council Chair Eric Mays, who closely followed the criminal probe before and after 2018, "Nessel let it go."</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"Was it a lack of political or legal will? I cannot say," Mays told The Guardian. "But it bothers me to this day her team hasn't addressed it."</font></font></font></font></p><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13042016/exxon-virgin-islands-subpoena-climate-change-investigation-violates-rights-claude-walker" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13042016/exxon-virgin-islands-subpoena-climate-change-investigation-violates-rights-claude-walker</font></a></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">apr 2016</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><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;"><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-bff92f6e-1337-8b05-f3de-dd3df84b8c78" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>ExxonMobil Corp. sued to block a subpoena issued last month by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands seeking almost 40 years of documents on climate change.</b></font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2801453-CEI-Subpoena-From-USVI-AG-Claude-Walker-April-7.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit;">demand for records</a>, <b>Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker said Exxon may have violated the territory's<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> anti-racketeering law, </span>defrauding the government and consumers with the company's statements on climate change</b>. It is the first time a prosecutor has cited racketeering law to probe Exxon over its longtime denial of climate change and its products' role in it, according to legal authorities.</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2801448-Response.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit;">Exxon alleged</a> that the subpoena is invalid because it seeks records beyond the five-year statute of limitations, and that it <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">violates the company's constitutional rights </span>and "constitutes an abuse of process, in violation of common law." Exxon, based in Irving, Texas, filed the complaint in Tarrant County District Court in Texas. It listed Walker as a defendant, along with the Washington, D.C. lawyer and law firm representing the territory in the probe.</b></font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The subpoena is "a pretextual use of law enforcement power to deter ExxonMobil from participating in ongoing public deliberations about climate change and to fish through decades of ExxonMobil's documents with the hope of finding some ammunition," Exxon said in the suit. "The chilling effect of this inquiry, which discriminates based on viewpoint to target one side of an ongoing policy debate,<b> strikes at protected speech at the core of the First Amendment."</b></font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While companies don't usually succeed in blocking such investigative subpoenas, the court filing signals Exxon's intention to strongly contest probes by an expanding number of states. New York, California and Massachusetts are either investigating the company's behavior or considering it, and <b>Walker was among 17 attorneys general who <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/climate-change-fraud-investigation-exxon-eric-shneiderman-18-attorneys-general" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">announced</a> a coalition last month to take action on global warming</b></span><b>.</b></font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The investigations began after InsideClimate News <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">reported on the history of Exxon's emerging understanding of climate change science</a> in the 1970s and its subsequent efforts to challenge the scientific consensus. These efforts included financing research organizations such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. The CEI <a href="https://cei.org/sites/default/files/CEI%20Subpoena%20from%20USVI%20AG%20Claude%20Walker%20April%207%202016.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">also received a subpoena</a> in the Virgin Islands investigation and <a href="https://cei.org/content/cei-fights-subpoena-silence-debate-climate-change" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">said it would contest</a> the request for 10 years of Exxon-related climate change records.</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"You are suspected to have engaged in, or be engaging in, conduct constituting a civil violation of the Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act," Walker said in the subpoena to Exxon</b>.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The company may have engaged "in conduct misrepresenting your knowledge of the likelihood that your products and activities have contributed and are continuing to contribute to climate change in order to defraud" consumers and the government, he wrote.</span></font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Virgin Islands statute is one of the <b>"Baby RICO" laws adopted by more than two dozen states and territories after Congress passed the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. The laws were intended to give officials stronger weapons</b> for prosecuting organized crime. State- and territory-level measures in some cases <a href="http://www.americanbar.org/publications/gpsolo_ereport/2012/november_2012/introduction_rico_state_by_state.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">are broader</a> than the federal version, according to the American Bar Association.</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers did not respond to a request for comment.</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a statement, Walker said he would not comment on the merits of the Exxon suit, but defended the investigation and the subpoena. His statement was issued by Linda Singer, partner in the Washington law firm Cohen, Milstein, Sellers & Toll, which was named by Exxon in the suit.<b> Exxon criticizes the Virgin Islands for retaining the firm, calling it "outsourcing" the investigation, "likely on a contingency-fee basis."</b></font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"<b>The First Amendment does not shield any company from being investigated for fraud,</b>" said Walker, whose jurisdiction covers the U.S. territory's  islands in the Caribbean. "Bringing in a private law firm to assist in our investigation of this well-resourced corporation is both necessary and entirely proper. Courts have routinely rejected the arguments that ExxonMobil has raised."</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Exxon is complying with a subpoena issued last year by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in an investigation of whether the company's statements and actions on climate change over almost four decades violated consumer and investor protection statutes. Exxon has turned over more than 10,000 pages of records in the past two months, according to an official in Schneiderman's office.</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Walker issued his subpoena more than a week before participating in a press conference in New York by the attorneys general coalition on March 29, according to the Exxon complaint. "The attorneys general press conference was a politically-motivated event, urged on by activists intolerant of contrary views," Exxon says in the suit</b>.</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Walker's subpoena seeks documents and communications of all kinds from<b> Jan. 1, 1977, to the present,</b> including documents related to research Exxon conducted or funded. The 16 categories of materials include "research, advocacy, strategy, reports, studies, reviews, or public opinions regarding climate change sent to or received from" dozens of people and groups.</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In its lawsuit, Exxon said the subpoena seeks materials related to "88 named organizations, three-quarters of which have been identified by environmental advocacy groups as opposing policies in favor of addressing climate change or disputing the science in support of climate change." The subpoena also demands similar materials from 54 named scientists, professors and other professionals, Exxon says. In the copy of the subpoena filed in the suit, Exxon redacted the names of individuals and organizations.</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The subpoena "appears to target individuals and entities that hold policy views with which Attorney General Walker disagrees," Exxon says in the suit. "Eighty percent of the individuals in this request, who have been identified in the media as having a viewpoint on climate change, either oppose policies in favor of addressing climate change or dispute the science in support of climate change."</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Walker also requested Exxon communications related to articles by ICN and the Los Angeles Times on Exxon and climate change, published since last Sept. 1, as well as materials concerning investigations of Exxon's statements on global warming by "any state attorney general, other enforcement agency, or environmental or other organization."</font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and several other federal lawmakers </span><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/23092015/ExxonMobil-May-Face-Heightened-Climate-Litigation-Its-Critics-Say" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">have long advocated</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> that the Justice Department investigate whether Exxon and other fossil fuel companies violated the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">RICO</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> statute by disputing for years the role of fossil-fuel burning in global warmin</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">g.</span></font></font></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The fossil fuel effort to mislead the public relied on a complicated web of dark money and front groups that will be difficult to unravel," Whitehouse said after the scope of the Virgin Islands probe became public. "Attorneys general bringing investigative resources to bear on the question of fraud will be a big help in uncovering the truth."</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon raised some valid issues in response to the subpoena while coating it in hyperbole, said Pat Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at the Vermont Law School. Walker will have to show good reasons to suspect that the company broke the law, he said.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"The most serious question is whether the attorney general has any basis to suspect that Exxon has engaged in activities that violate the statutes about obtaining money by false pretense and frau</b>d," Parenteau said. "Hopefully there is something more than unsubstantiated suspicion to support this."</font></font></font></p></div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1em;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><label style="box-sizing: inherit; display: block; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED UNDER:</font></label></font></font><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /></font><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /></font></font></font></font></font></font></font><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/business-and-accountability-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY</font></a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/exxon-road-not-taken" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">EXXON: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/climate-litigation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">LITIGATION</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sci mag 2015</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/climate-scientist-requesting-federal-investigation-feels-heat-house-republicans"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/climate-scientist-requesting-federal-investigation-feels-heat-house-republicans</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">C</font><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">limate scientist requesting federal investigation feels heat from House Republicans</span></b></div><header class="articleheader articleheader--inline" style="box-sizing: inherit; width: 699px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p class="byline byline--article" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; width: 699px; font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/author/warren-cornwall" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Warren Cornwall</a><time style="box-sizing: inherit; white-space: nowrap; font-weight: 400; border-left: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); margin-left: 7.5px; padding-left: 7.5px;">Oct. 5, 2015 , 3:30 PM</time></font></p></header><div class="article__body" style="box-sizing: inherit; width: 699px; overflow: hidden; overflow-wrap: break-word; min-width: 0px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); margin-top: 30px; padding-top: 30px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A scientist who helped organize a call for a federal investigation of the fossil fuel industry—for allegedly orchestrating a cover-up of climate change dangers—has himself become the target of a congressional probe.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last week, Representative Lamar Smith (R–TX), the chairman of the science panel of the House of Representatives, <a href="https://science.house.gov/news/press-releases/smith-taxpayer-funded-climate-org-allegedly-seeks-criminal-penalties-skeptics" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700;">announced plans</a> to investigate a nonprofit research group led by climate scientist Jagadish Shukla of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He is the lead signer of a letter to White House officials that urges the use of an antiracketeering law to crack down on energy firms that have funded efforts to raise doubts about climate science.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a <a href="https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/10-1-15%20CLS%20to%20Shukla.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700;">1 October letter</a>, Smith asked Shukla, who is director of the independent <a href="http://www.iges.org/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700;">Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES)</a> in Rockville, Maryland, to preserve all of the “email, electronic documents, and data” that the institute has created since 2009. Smith’s panel soon may be asking for those documents, the letter suggests.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;" /><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.538em;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The flap has its origins in calls from some climate advocates for the federal government to investigate industry-funded groups that have challenged climate science.  </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D–RI) discussed the idea this past May in an </span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fossil-fuel-industrys-campaign-to-mislead-the-american-people/2015/05/29/04a2c448-0574-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.538em;">opinion piece</a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.538em;"> for </span><em style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.538em;">The Washington Post</em></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.538em;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He noted that federal prosecutors had used the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)—originally developed to combat organized crime and corrupt unions—to sue the tobacco industry for covering up the health effects of smoking. And he suggested they could do the same to investigate fossil fuel firms that he charged were “funding a massive and sophisticated campaign to mislead the American people about the environmental harm caused by carbon pollution.”</span></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Last month, 20 climate scientists, led by Shukla, picked up on the idea of using RICO. In a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20150920110942/http:/www.iges.org/letter/LetterPresidentAG.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700;">1 September letter</a> to President Barack Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and White House science adviser John Holdren, they wrote that “if corporations in the fossil fuel industry and their supporters are guilty of the misdeeds that have been documented in book and journal articles, it is imperative that these misdeeds be stopped as soon as possible.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Other signers of the RICO letter include climate researchers from George Mason as well as the University of Washington, Seattle; Rutgers University in New Jersey; the University of Maryland, College Park; and Columbia University.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shukla, a professor at George Mason, is an expert in the seasonal variability of climate, as well as how land surfaces influence climate. He helped found IGES, which has housed research projects funded with grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA, according to the group’s website.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The RICO letter was “inadvertently” posted on the IGES website, </span><a href="http://www.iges.org/letter/LetterPresidentAG.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700;">according to a statement posted on the institute’s domain</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (which also notes that “[a]ll projects by IGES  were  completed  in  July  2015,  and  the  IGES  web  site  is  in  the process  of  being  decommissioned”).  The letter eventually came to the attention of outsiders, including science policy specialist</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Roger Pielke, Jr.,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> of the University of Colorado, Boulder. Pielke, an active voice in debates over climate science and policy, called attention to the letter on Twitter, and also raised questions about IGES’s finances. Soon, journalists, including several associated with conservative news outlets, were writing about the letter and IGES.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The<b> Daily Caller, </b>for example, noted that “climate scientists asking Obama to prosecute skeptics got millions from U.S. taxpayers,” <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/21/climate-scientists-asking-obama-to-prosecute-skeptics-gets-millions-from-u-s-taxpayers/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700;">in a 21 September story</a>.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Smith cites that story and others in his letter, </b>which notes that “IGES appears to be almost fully funded by taxpayer money while simultaneously participating in partisan political activity by requesting a RICO investigation of companies and organizations that disagree with the Obama administration on climate change.” Smith notes his letter was prompted, in part, by the removal of the RICO letter from IGES’s website. Smith gives Shukla until 8 October to confirm that he is conforming to the letter’s request, as well as provide his committee with a list of IGES’s current and former employees</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shukla could not be reached for an interview, but in an email to <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Science</em>Insider expressed surprise at the storm the RICO letter has caused. “We can not believe the viciousness of attacks because we signed a letter as our civic duty with the ultimate goal of repairing our planet,” he wrote.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It’s not clear what exactly Smith’s committee will be investigating. A committee spokeswoman, Laura Crist, declined to say whether the panel was looking at whether public funds were misused for political purposes, or whether IGES might have violated its nonprofit status with political activity. [OMFG vs c4's?!]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The committee’s </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ranking Democrat, Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D–TX), said in a statement to <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Science</em>Insider that, “since the letter contains no specific allegations, I am puzzled as to the Chairman’s intent in writing it</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. To be clear about my own position, I would resist any attempt to stifle the <b>constitutionally protected right of any citizen, including the nation’s scientists, to engage in free speech</b> without interference.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The RICO letter has also drawn the attention of Christopher Horner,</b> an attorney and senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.–based libertarian think tank that has criticized climate change research. Horner recently filed public records requests with several public universities that employ authors of the RICO letter. In a letter to the University of Texas, Austin, Horner asks for any emails over a roughly 4-month period from or to Robert Dickinson, one of the letter’s signers, containing the words “‘RICO’, racketeer, racketeering, DOJ, prosecute or prosecution.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Horner has previously tangled with scientists over records requests for their emails. He was at the center of an unsuccessful effort several years ago to obtain the correspondence of climate scientist Michael Mann during his time at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Horner says he filed the requests to see how the scientists, as employees at public universities, were involved. “If they believe this is part of their job, we will not dispute that, but instead would like to see how the institutions were used in this innovative application of public education resources,” he wrote in an email.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Dickinson, a climate modeler who studies how land surfaces interact with climate, says the RICO letter isn’t seeking to squelch individuals who question the science of climate change. His intended target is corporations.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I heard energy industry scientists talking about global warming 30 years ago. And they disappeared and the lobbyists popped up,” Dickinson says. “I don’t know if anything can be done. But it seemed to me that there's been an obvious cover-up.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 15px 0px; width: 699px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment. The RICO letter scientists did get a </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">letter back from Holdren, who wrote that although such legal matters were up to the Justice Department, “the Administration shares the concern expressed in the letter about the seriousness of the threat posed by climate change.”</span></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">2/19 anti slapp fail?</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/14/energy-transfer-racketeering-claims-greenpeace-dakota-access-pipeline-dismissed">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/14/energy-transfer-racketeering-claims-greenpeace-dakota-access-pipeline-dismissed</a></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/14/energy-transfer-racketeering-claims-greenpeace-dakota-access-pipeline-dismissed">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/14/energy-transfer-racketeering-claims-greenpeace-dakota-access-pipeline-dismissed</a></font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A  North Dakota federal judge dismissed Energy Transfer’s racketeering lawsuit against Greenpeace and all its co-defendants in a sharply worded ruling issued today, finding that the pipeline builder’s allegations fell “far short of what is necessary to establish a [racketeering] claim.”</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In August 2017, Energy Transfer filed a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (<span class="caps" style="">RICO</span>) Act civil complaint against Greenpeace and other environmental groups who had opposed the company’s <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/energy-transfer-partners-bakken-oil-pipeline-through-iowa" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Dakota Access pipeline</a>, claiming that the protests had caused $300 million in damages (and requesting three times that amount from the defendants).</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today’s ruling flatly rejected Energy Transfer’s claims.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Donating to people whose cause you support does not create a <span class="caps" style="">RICO</span> enterprise,” District Judge Billy Roy Wilson wrote in a terse <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ETP.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">12-page opinion</a> dismissing all state and federal claims in the suit. “Posting articles written by people with similar beliefs does not create a <span class="caps" style="">RICO</span> enterprise.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The company labeled opponents “eco-terrorists” in its 187-page complaint</b>, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">DeSmog <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/08/22/dakota-access-trump-greenpeace-racketeering" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> at the time; Greenpeace responded that the lawsuit should be considered a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (a so-called <span class="caps" style="">SLAPP</span> suit) and was nothing more than an attempt to deter legitimate organizing work.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other civil society organizations agreed with Greenpeace’s stance.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Defendants employed time-honored, lawful means to advance their views, protected by core constitutional rights of free speech and association,” the American Civil Liberties Union (<span class="caps" style="">ACLU</span>) wrote in a friend-of-the-court <a href="https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/etp-v-greenpeace-amicus-brief" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">brief</a> objecting to Energy Transfer's (then Energy Transfer Partners, or <span class="caps" style="">ETP</span>) claims of racketeering, defamation, and conspiracy. “Under <span class="caps" style="">ETP</span>’s theories, ordinary political speech that runs counter to a corporation’s business interests could expose the speaker to enormous, unwarranted liability.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Judge Wilson ruled today that Energy Transfer’s lawsuit could not go forward, dismissing all of the federal claims with prejudice (so that they cannot be re-filed), writing that “any additional amendments [by the plaintiff] would be futile.” He also dismissed the state claims, though without prejudice.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Energy Transfer said it planned to pursue futher action in state court, given that the federal judge had declined to hear their state law claims. “We are disappointed, but because the judge dismissed the state claims without deciding their merits, we intend to quickly pursue those in the appropriate venue,” Lisa Dillinger, an Energy Transfer spokesperson, said in a Friday email to DeSmog.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The federal judge dismissed Energy Transfer’s allegations of “wire fraud and mail fraud” in a single sentence. “There appear to be problems with both causation and the fact that most (if not all) of the alleged ‘false and sensational’ claims are either subject to debate, matters of opinion, or inconsequential.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The judge’s Valentines Day 2019 ruling describes the case’s history, observing that claims against two of Greenpeace’s co-defendants were dismissed in July. Plaintiffs then added individual defendants, named in today’s ruling as “Greenpeace’s employee Charles Brown, and alleged protesters Cody Hall, Krystal Two Bulls, Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>This is a huge victory not just for Greenpeace but for anyone and everyone who has ever stood up against powerful corporate interests,” Greenpeace <span class="caps" style="">USA</span> General Counsel Tom Wetterer said in a statement.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Today’s decision to dismiss Energy Transfer's baseless lawsuit against Greenpeace and others sends a clear message to companies trying to muzzle civil society that corporate overreach will not be tolerated,” he said. “It is also a check on corporate efforts to silence dissent.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ruling comes just one month after <span class="caps" style="">RICO</span> claims against Greenpeace by Resolute Forest Products –- a case also filed by attorneys from Kasowitz Benson Torres (a law firm used by President <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/donald-trump" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Trump</a>) – were similarly dismissed in January.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greenpeace hailed the federal court decision as showing that, in their words, “[j]ustice has been served.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>We must and will continue to hold Energy Transfer accountable for its corporate behavior on current risky pipeline projects like Bayou Bridge,” Wetterer said, referring to the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/conflict-cajun-country-bayou-bridge-pipeline-louisiana-standing-rock" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Energy Transfer oil pipeline being built in Louisiana</a>, “where the company is continuing to use private security to intimidate protestors and has aggressively used eminent domain laws to secure land.”</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/27/oil-manufacturers-accountability-project-trade-group-climate-suits">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/27/oil-manufacturers-accountability-project-trade-group-climate-suits</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></div><div><b>Battling for Big Oil: Manufacturing Trade Group Leads Assault on Climate Suits</b></div><div>Read time: 12 mins</div><div>By Guest • Wednesday, February 27, 2019 - 11:09</div><div>
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</div><div>By Karen Savage, Climate Liability News. Crossposted from Climate Liability News.</div><div>
</div><div><b>In its fight to stave off a wave of climate change-related lawsuits, the fossil fuel industry has found a vocal and unapologetic ally in the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). </b>The 123-year old trade group represents a wide range of the nation’s manufacturing companies, but it has frequently gone to bat for select segments of its membership during major liability battles. Currently, it is Big Oil’s staunchest defender.</div><div>
</div><div>The group has filed briefs defending oil companies in liability lawsuits, launched campaigns to discredit the communities filing them, and has worked to stop shareholders from pressing the oil companies to disclose climate risks. In these roles,<b> NAM has put itself front and center in the effort to keep fossil fuel companies from being held liable for their role in climate change, and from paying for the related damages that will run in the hundreds of billions of dollars to communities across the country.</b></div><div>
</div><div>“Taxpayer resources should not be used for baseless lawsuits that are designed to enrich trial lawyers and grab headlines for politicians,” Lindsey de la Torre, executive director of NAM’s spinoff group, the<b> Manufacturers’ Accountability Project (MAP</b>), said in a statement after Rhode Island filed one of the climate liability lawsuits last year. NAM launched MAP in 2017 as a response to the increasing number of climate liability suits. </div><div>
</div><div>Those suits, according to NAM, are a result of a coordinated campaign by activists “to disparage U.S. manufacturers with a focus on America’s largest energy manufacturers.” </div><div>
</div><div>MAP is now attempting to convince the American public — as well as judges who might hear those liability cases — that attempts to hold companies accountable for their role in climate change will harm business, said Richard Daynard, president of Northeastern University Law School’s Public Health Advocacy Institute and chair of its Tobacco Products Liability Project.</div><div>
</div><div>Manufacturers' Accountability Project logo</div><div>The Manufacturers' Accountability Project (MAP) was launched in November 2017 to push back against climate-change-related lawsuits affecting the manufacturing industry. ]</div><div>
</div><div><b>“This is essentially the PR front for the defendants in climate litigation,</b>” Daynard said, adding that MAP is also working to discourage municipalities from filing future suits.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“This is all part of a long history of <b>tort reform </b>propaganda,” he said, adding that NAM has worked for decades to reign in all types of liability litigation, including against the tobacco industry.</span></div><div>
</div><div>So perhaps it’s not surprising that NAM’s defense of fossil fuel companies has begun to look increasingly like its support for the tobacco industry in the 1980s. Similar tactics were used when <b>tobacco companies were facing hundreds of lawsuits</b> and were charged with racketeering by the federal government for deceiving the public about the catastrophic health hazards of smoking. NAM has even hired the same law firm that defended the tobacco industry to launch an assault on the climate liability lawsuits.</div><div>
</div><div>NAM recently named Phil Goldberg, a former coal lobbyist as special counsel for MAP. Goldberg is a managing partner in the Washington office of Shook, Hardy & Bacon, which gained notoriety for defending the tobacco industry, and is the co-chair of the firm’s  public policy group. </div><div>
</div><div><b>Some say Shook, Hardy & Bacon went beyond defending tobacco companies, actively coordinating efforts by its clients to deliberately deceive the public about the ruinous health effects of smoking.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Judge Gladys Kessler, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who found 10 tobacco companies guilty of violating racketeering laws in 2006, </b>said the company’s lawyers “played an absolute central role in the creation and perpetuation” of the companies’ “fraudulent schemes,” calling it a “sad and disquieting chapter” in the legal profession.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Even before Goldberg was hired, MAP had launched an offensive against climate suits, filing friend-of-the-court briefs and intervening in a landmark constitutional suit brought by 21 young people against the U.S. government.</span> MAP has also submitted public records requests and coordinated a public relations campaign to discredit the municipalities behind the liability lawsuits.</div><div>
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</div><div>Sharon Eubanks, a former Department of Justice lawyer who led the government’s racketeering case against the tobacco industry, said MAP is launching a direct attack on climate litigation suits.</div><div>
</div><div>“It’s very similar what they’re doing, only the tobacco industry at least didn’t come right out and say ‘We’re going to target these lawsuits directly,’” Eubanks said. “They did so indirectly. But NAM and MAP, they’re like, ‘We’re targeting the lawsuits.’” </div><div>
</div><div>Michael Barnett, a professor of management & global business at Rutgers Business School who has studied trade associations, said groups like NAM exist to defend the interests of their industry. </div><div>
</div><div>“It’s sort of an outsourced arm of those firms, rather than doing it all on their own, there’s strength in numbers,” Barnett said. “There’s some efficiency to having one centralized legal defense that attacks on behalf of the whole industry in addition to each of the individual firms taking on these issues.”</div><div>
</div><div>No Stranger to the Liability Battlefield</div><div>
</div><div>The addition of Goldberg to MAP’s legal team indicates a continuing commitment to defending NAM’s fossil fuel defendants. In addition to being the go-to law firm for tobacco companies, Shook, Hardy & Bacon has a long history with NAM, partnering as far back as 2007 to support firms facing product liability suits. The firm worked so closelywith the tobacco industry to attack the science showing the dangers of smoking it was named in several cases along with their clients, charging them with deceiving the public by fraudulently concealing the health effects of smoking. Oklahoma’s attorney general called Shook, Hardy & Bacon an “aider and abettor” of fraud in one suit.</div><div>
</div><div>“[The Department of Justice] considered suing them and making them defendants because they were so much a part of the RICO violations we alleged,” Eubanks said.</div><div>
</div><div>“They’re not even hiding from anything, they’re just saying ‘we want to influence what’s happening in these cases the best way that we can.’” </div><div>
</div><div>She said she’s seen no evidence that MAP’s tactics are illegal, but they are similar to some of what was alleged in the tobacco cases.</div><div>
</div><div>Goldberg did not respond to a request for comment. In a NAM press release he said, “The NAM and its Manufacturers’ Accountability Project are the tip of the spear in the fight against the wave of unfounded public nuisance lawsuits targeting America’s manufacturers.” </div><div>
</div><div>Goldberg said climate liability suits get in the way of finding real solutions and “are more about politics than addressing the global challenge of climate change.” He did not elaborate on what the solutions are or how municipalities will pay for the infrastructure needed to protect their residents, costs that are projected to run into the hundreds of billions of dollars nationwide.</div><div>
</div><div>A History of Advocating for Fossil Fuel Members</div><div>
</div><div>NAM, which was founded in 1895, describes itself as the largest manufacturing association in the United States. It doesn’t publicly disclose its membership list, but its board includes some of the oil and gas industry’s most powerful executives. </div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Exxon</b> senior vice president and management committee member Neil Chapman joined NAM’s executive committee in 2015, taking over the position vacated by current Exxon chief executive Darren Woods. Chapman, who donated $10,000 to NAM’s political action committee during the 2018 election cycle, also serves as NAM’s southwest regional vice chair.  </span></div><div>
</div><div>Chapman and Exxon did not respond to a request for comment. </div><div>
</div><div>For decades, the association has promoted climate denial, founding the Global Climate Coalition in 1989 and sharing offices until 1992 while the Global Climate Coalition and its members — primarily energy companies and automobile manufacturers — worked to cast doubt on what was fast becoming overwhelming scientific evidence that the burning of fossil fuels drives climate change. The goal was to change the public’s perception and cast doubt on climate science.</div><div>
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</div><div><b>The Global Climate Coalition was disbanded in 2002 after several of its largest corporate members pulled out under public pressure to accept that climate change — and the projected catastrophic effects — was an undeniable global threat.</b></div><div>
</div><div>More recently, NAM’s focus has shifted from promoting climate deception to defending member companies from efforts to hold them accountable for years of deceiving the public and damaging the climate.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Along with the American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, NAM in 2015 joined the landmark youth climate lawsuit Juliana v. United States as an intervenor on the side of the federal government. </span></div><div>
</div><div>Calling the suit a “direct threat to businesses,” the trade associations said the “significant reduction in [greenhouse gas] emissions would cause a significant negative effect on [their] members by constraining the sale of the product they have specialized in developing and selling.” When the court asked intervenors to explain their views on climate change, NAM quickly backed out.</div><div>
</div><div>When the liability lawsuits began — and now total more than a dozen from communities across the country and one state (Rhode Island) — NAM responded by launching MAP to “set the record straight and highlight foundations and other activists who have sought to undermine and weaken manufacturing in the United States” by engaging in climate change-related litigation. </div><div>
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</div><div>MAP came out swinging, claiming that then-New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman’s use of the Martin Act to investigate Exxon for possible climate change-related fraud was “politically motivated.” It demanded New York Mayor Bill de Blasio apologize to New Yorkers for using an outside firm to file its suit against five major oil companies and launched a campaign to highlight what it called de Blasio’s “politically-motivated attacks on manufacturers.”</div><div>
</div><div>Eubanks said that rhetoric doesn’t add up.</div><div>
</div><div>“Lawsuits are to enforce the law, to ensure that people are following the law and it takes you out of a political process and puts you before a neutral person, a judge,” she said, adding that Shook, Hardy & Bacon also does a good bit of political lobbying. </div><div>
</div><div>“They say, ‘We think these matters should be handled by legislation, not litigation, and by regulations that will come out of any statutes that are enacted,” she said. “Then they fight real hard to make sure there are no statutes that come down the pike because regulations come out of regulatory authority, so it sounds real good, but that’s wholly inconsistent with their approach.” </div><div>
</div><div><b>NAM and MAP have made a big deal out of the potential for future RICO charges against the fossil fuel industry </b>— the same racketeering laws that ultimately ensnared the tobacco industry — and contend that a conspiracy is being waged on the other side by a “group of politically motivated activists” who are “trying to take down America’s energy manufacturers.” </div><div>
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</div><div>“Right now, there are groups of trial lawyers slinking around the country tantalizing elected officials in cities and states with unrealistic promises of jackpot justice if they will only agree to sue energy manufacturers over climate change,” said NAM president and chief executive Jay Timmons in NAM’s State of Manufacturing Address last week in Houston. “These lawyers — they want to get rich at the expense of manufacturing workers.”</div><div>
</div><div>Daynard said this type of messaging is used in an effort to control the narrative around — and media coverage of — climate litigation.</div><div>
</div><div>“They have this notion that if they can get continue to get news coverage and establish themselves, they can make sure when cases are filed journalists will look, go to them and they can then get in some comment on how this is all worthless crazy stuff stirred up by ‘greedy lawyers’ or ‘ideologically driven NGO’s,’” Daynard said.</div><div>
</div><div>To try and substantiate its view that litigation is part of a vast conspiracy — and in what some say is an attempt to have a chilling effect on municipalities that file lawsuits — MAP has also submitted extensive public record requests to plaintiffs in the suits, seeking documents and communication between the municipalities and their attorneys, prior records<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> requests that include those attorneys, certain communication regarding the defendant companies and communication between the municipalities and billionaire Tom Steyer, founder of NextGen, a progressive organization working to stem the risks of climate change for future generations.</span></div><div>
</div><div>When Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin filed the first state-level suit last July, MAP denounced it. </div><div>
</div><div>Eubanks said ensuring manufacturers abide by state law is exactly what attorneys general should do.</div><div>
</div><div>“We have consumer protection statutes, we have consumer protection agencies, that’s part of what makes this country great,” Eubanks said. “You can’t just come in and roll over people with deceptive and unfair methods of competition, you can’t just lie about things without consequences and we have organizations to protect that. That’s what I find so alarming about this — the whole idea that there’s something wrong with enforcing the law.”</div><div>
</div><div>NAM did not respond to a request for comment. De la Torre could not be reached for comment.</div><div>
</div><div>Perhaps NAM’s biggest attack on liability suits thus far has been its accusations against several California municipalities.  </div><div>
</div><div>Not long after the suits were filed, <b>Exxon went on the offensive, </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">accusing plaintiffs of failing to disclose climate risks to their bond investors. </span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">To try to bolster that allegation, NAM — along with the industry ally Competitive Enterprise Institute — asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether several cities and counties that filed climate suits misled investors when they stated in bond offerings that they couldn’t predict the impacts of climate change.</span> </div><div>
</div><div>A report by the former chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s municipal bonds division later found the municipalities did not mislead potential investors.</div><div>
</div><div>In another instance, NAM partnered with the Chamber of Commerce to back Exxon, filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the oil giant’s quest to stop investigations by the attorneys general of Massachusetts and New York. </div><div>
</div><div>New York has since filed a lawsuit against Exxon based on that investigation, alleging the oil giant for years deceived investors by deliberately downplaying the climate risks to its business and long-term financial health. The Supreme Court recently ruled against Exxon’s attempt to stop Massachusetts’ investigation, which now continues.</div><div>
</div><div>This is the first in a series of articles on the trade group coordinating opposition to climate liability suits.</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><header class="page-header article-header" style=""><h2><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Surge of Climate Lawsuits Targets Human Rights, Damage from Fossil Fuels</font></h2><h4 class="page-subtitle"><span class="field field-name-field-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden" style="font-weight: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cities, states and the fishing industry want courts to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for global warming. Others argue government inaction violates rights.</font></span></h4><div class="entry-meta"><div class="view view-article-authors view-id-article_authors view-display-id-article_authors_vert article-authors-vert view-dom-id-cee8c014212ba017a13dcca90128638b"><div class="view-content"><div class="author-small"><h4 class="byline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="font-weight: normal;">By Nicholas Kusnetz</font></h4><div class="author-links"><div class="twitter-follow-wrapper"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Follow @nkus</font></div></div></div></div></div><div class="posted-on"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jan 4, 2019</font></div></div></header><div class="content" style=""><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-item "><figure id="file-272006" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-jpeg with-caption"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><figcaption class="field field-name-field-image-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rhode Island in 2018 became the first state to sue the fossil fuel industry over climate change, citing the growing risks from sea level rise and extreme weather. Credit: John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images]</font></p></div></figcaption></figure></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A climate denier is in the White House, pushing policies that will boost emissions. Congress is doing nothing to stop him. So citizens and local governments who are facing the impacts of rising seas, worsening heat waves and extreme weather are increasingly looking to the courts for help.</font></p><div class="media media-element-container media-image_right_small"><figure id="file-271923" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-png"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> <span class="print-footnote">[1]</span></font></figure></div><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The past year saw a surge in new lawsuits filed against fossil fuel companies, and major developments in cases pressing governments for action in the United States and abroad. And while the plaintiffs haven't secured any substantial victories in U.S. courts, they may be scoring a different victory by drawing attention to the inaction of Congress and the Executive Branch, said Michael Gerrard, faculty director at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Lawsuits, even if unsuccessful, can help shape public opinion," he said. "Mr. Scopes lost the monkey trial, but it led to a lot more awareness about the issue of teaching evolution."</font></span></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb">In </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-deforestation-amazon/colombias-top-court-orders-government-to-protect-amazon-forest-in-landmark-case-idUSKCN1HD21Y">Colombia</a> <span class="print-footnote">[2]</span> and the <a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/10/09/urgenda-netherlands-climate-emissions/">Netherlands</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span>, citizens won rulings in 2018 ordering their governments to cut emissions and protect forests. By framing climate change in terms of human rights, those cases and similar ones filed in the U.S. and other countries are transforming how the courts address the issue, said Patrick Parenteau, senior counsel in the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic at Vermont Law School and an informal adviser to some of the plaintiffs' lawyers.</font></p><div class="widget widget-newsletter-block mc-embed-signup embed-horiz fbia-strip"><p /><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It's pushing the boundaries of law everywhere," he said. "Climate change is changing the law."</font></span></p><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There are currently a couple of dozen significant lawsuits around the world that are asking courts to order actions by governments or the fossil fuel industry in response to climate change. Here's a round-up of the various approaches.</font></span></p><h3 dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate Liability</font></span></h3><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb">What began with a handful of California cities and counties in 2017 spread across the country this past year, as </span><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10012018/new-york-city-divest-sued-big-oil-climate-change-costs-exxon-chevron-bp-shell-mayor-deblasio">New York City</a> <span class="print-footnote">[5]</span>, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20072018/baltimore-climate-change-lawsuit-inner-harbor-coastal-flooding-sea-level-rise-urban-waterfront-revitalization">Baltimore</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span>, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02072018/rhode-island-climate-change-lawsuit-fossil-fuel-industry-rising-sea-levels-heat-waves-storms">Rhode Island</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span> and local governments in <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18042018/colorado-climate-change-city-lawsuit-exxon-suncor-boulder-telluride-wildfire-drought-snowpack-water-supply-agriculture-libertarian">Colorado</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span> and <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/king-county-sues-big-oil-companies-for-downplaying-global-warming/">Washington State</a> <span class="print-footnote">[9]</span> sued fossil fuel companies.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The plaintiffs are seeking compensation to help pay the costs of protecting residents from rising seas, worsening wildfires, extreme heat and other effects of climate change. Two law firms are arguing most of these cases. They allege that energy companies knew about the dangers associated with their products, but lobbied against capping emissions anyway while sowing doubt about climate science.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb">In November, the West Coast's largest </span><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14112018/crab-fishermen-climate-change-lawsuit-fossil-fuel-companies-ocean-algae-neurotoxin-fishery-closure">commercial fishing association filed a similar suit</a> <span class="print-footnote">[10]</span>. Algal blooms tied to warming waters have led to closures of the crab fishery in recent years, and the plaintiffs are seeking compensation from the fossil fuel industry for the associated losses.</font></p><div class="media media-element-container media-image_centered_medium"><figure id="file-272007" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-jpeg with-caption"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><figcaption class="field field-name-field-image-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations sued several fossil fuel companies, seeking damages on behalf of crab fishers and local communities hurt by climate change in California and Oregon. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</font></p></div></figcaption></figure></div><p dir="ltr" /><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Parenteau said it may be harder for energy companies to dismiss the case as a political stunt, a tack they've taken against the lawsuits filed by local governments.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The 'industry versus industry' does put another spin on it," Parenteau said. "This is real cold dollars and sense."</font></span></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb">The only substantive rulings have been dismissals of cases brought by </span><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26062018/california-cities-climate-change-lawsuits-dismissed-fossil-fuels-industry-rising-sea-levels">San Francisco and Oakland</a> <span class="print-footnote">[11]</span>—whose cases were joined—and <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19072018/judge-dismisses-nyc-climate-change-lawsuit-oil-industry-global-warming-adaptation-costs">New York City</a> <span class="print-footnote">[12]</span>. The judges, both in federal district courts, wrote that it was ultimately up to Congress to regulate emissions, and that climate change, as a global issue, would be better addressed by diplomats and the Executive Branch than U.S. courts. The cities have appealed the rulings, and those appeals are some of the cases to watch this year.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb">Despite limited success so far, these liability lawsuits may continue to spread. At the annual international climate negotiations in Poland, the foreign minister of Vanuatu—a small island nation at risk of losing much of its territory to rising seas—said his country is </span><a href="http://news.trust.org/item/20181211175519-jeet5/">forming a coalition to explore legal action</a> <span class="print-footnote">[13]</span> against fossil fuel companies and governments that have supported them.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gerrard also said that worsening natural disasters tied to climate change could prompt new lawsuits.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It'll be interesting to see whether anybody brings climate claims in any of the lawsuits that will arise from the California wildfires or any of the multiple hurricanes we've been having every year," he said. "There might be claims that a company or a government agency should have anticipated these extreme events in designing or constructing buildings or other infrastructure."</font></span></p><h3 dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Constitutional and Human Rights</font></span></h3><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lawsuits filed against fossil fuel companies target one of the world's most powerful and lucrative industries. But a separate class of cases is seeking something much broader: They're arguing that governments have a legal obligation to protect their citizens from climate change.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb">A group of nearly 900 Dutch citizens and a nonprofit were among the first to make the claim, arguing that their government was failing to meet its own goals for emissions cuts and violating their rights in the process. In October, a Dutch appeals court </span><a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/10/09/urgenda-netherlands-climate-emissions/">upheld a lower court ruling</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span> ordering the government to cut emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. The government said it will appeal the most recent decision, even as it works to meet the emissions goal.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb">In the U.S., a group of children and young adults who are suing the federal government were poised to go to trial in October in a similar case. The plaintiffs are trying to establish a Constitutional right to a stable climate and are seeking a court order that the government come up with a plan to phase out fossil fuels. Simply holding a trial would be a major victory for the children, but the Supreme Court put the trial on hold less than two weeks before the scheduled opening arguments. The case is </span><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02112018/children-climate-lawsuit-supreme-court-roberts-gorsuch-thomas-trump-appeal">now in the hands of appeals court judges</a> <span class="print-footnote">[14]</span> with the Ninth Circuit, who will decide whether to allow a trial.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This is the blockbuster for the U.S.," said Melissa Scanlan, director of the New Economy Law Center at Vermont Law School. "It's the first case in the U.S. that would recognize that there's a protected Constitutional right to a climate capable of supporting human life. We never thought we needed that before."</font></span></p><div class="media media-element-container media-image_centered_medium"><figure id="file-272005" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-jpeg with-caption"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><figcaption class="field field-name-field-image-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twenty-one children and young adults are suing the federal government to force action on climate change. Their case had been scheduled for trial in October but is on hold while the Ninth Circuit Court considers a request by the Trump administration to throw the case out. Credit: Robin Loznak</font></p></div></figcaption></figure></div><p dir="ltr" /><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Similar cases have been filed in a few state courts, too. All face long odds.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"There are very, very few judges that would be willing to push these climate issues in court," Parenteau said. "But all roads lead to the Supreme Court, and that's where it would die. There's no chance."</font></span></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb">In Colombia, however, a nonprofit </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-deforestation-amazon/colombias-top-court-orders-government-to-protect-amazon-forest-in-landmark-case-idUSKCN1HD21Y">won a court order in April</a> <span class="print-footnote">[2]</span> directing the government to develop a plan for protecting the nation's Amazon forest, which saw deforestation rates rise in recent years and, along with areas in neighboring countries, is one of the planet's largest stores of carbon.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb">Human rights cases are pending in Norway, Canada, Belgium and other countries. In the Philippines, the nation's Commission on Human Rights </span><a href="http://chr.gov.ph/chr-concluded-landmark-inquiry-on-the-effects-of-climate-change-to-human-rights-expects-to-set-the-precedent-in-seeking-climate-justice/">concluded an investigation</a> <span class="print-footnote">[15]</span> into whether fossil fuel companies played a role in violating the rights of the country's citizens by knowingly contributing to climate change. The Commission will issue a report this year.</font></p><h3 dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Securities Fraud</font></span></h3><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb">In October, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood capped a three-year investigation into ExxonMobil by </span><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24102018/exxon-climate-fraud-lawsuit-new-york-attorney-general-investigation-tillerson">suing the company in state court</a> <span class="print-footnote">[16]</span>, accusing it of misrepresented the financial risks that climate change poses to its business. It may be legal to lie to the public, the case effectively argues, but not to shareholders.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lawsuit was a significant development because, unlike most of the local and state claims, it relies on a state law that gives prosecutors great powers to go after companies for financial fraud. A New York judge set a trial date for October 2019.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb">It wasn't the first case to charge Exxon with securities fraud,. In 2016, a shareholder filed a class action suit against the company in a Texas federal court, saying corporate officers had made false and misleading statements about how the company was assessing climate risks, artificially inflating the company's stock price. That lawsuit cleared a hurdle in August when a </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-exxon-mobil-lawsuit/u-s-judge-rules-securities-suit-against-exxon-executives-can-proceed-idUSKBN1L01WB">federal judge denied a motion</a> <span class="print-footnote">[17]</span> by Exxon to dismiss the case.</font></p><h3 dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tried and True Tactics Remain</font></span></h3><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As cities, states and citizens press the courts to address climate change with novel legal arguments, dozens of more conventional lawsuits continue to churn too, challenging oil pipelines and coal facilities for their greenhouse gas emissions and the Trump administration as it rolls back the nation's climate regulations.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb">Gerrard noted that it is these traditional legal challenges that, so far, have had a greater effect on the nation's greenhouse gas emissions. Rules limiting methane emissions by the oil and gas industry, for example, </span><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11092018/methane-flaring-rules-oil-gas-industry-climate-change-obama-trump-epa-rollback">remain in place for the time being</a><span class="print-footnote">[18]</span> despite efforts by the Trump administration to repeal them.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legal experts say the unconventional cases, whether cities suing oil companies, children suing the government or a state suing Exxon for fraud, may face skepticism from judges, and it's far too early to say what effect they will have.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3b7b5b3-7fff-4064-6215-1477b3701efb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Lots is happening, lots of boom and bang," Parenteau said. "But the carbon keeps going up and up. There you have it."</font></span></p></div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style=""><label style="display: block; font-weight: bold;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Published Under:</font></label><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/business-and-accountability-0" typeof="Concept" property="prefLabel" datatype="">Business and Accountability</a> <span class="print-footnote">[19]</span></font></div><div class="field-item odd"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/regulation" typeof="Concept" property="prefLabel" datatype="">Regulation</a> <span class="print-footnote">[20]</span></font></div><div class="field-item even"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/extreme-weather" typeof="Concept" property="prefLabel" datatype="">Extreme Weather</a> <span class="print-footnote">[21]</span></font></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/climate-litigation" typeof="Concept" property="prefLabel" datatype="">Litigation</a> <span class="print-footnote">[22]</span></font></div><div class="field-item odd"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/climate-change" typeof="Concept" property="prefLabel" datatype="">Climate Change</a> <span class="print-footnote">[23]</span></font></div><div class="field-item even"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/childrens-climate-lawsuit" typeof="Concept" property="prefLabel" datatype="">Children's Climate Lawsuit</a> <span class="print-footnote">[24]</span></font></div><div class="field-item odd"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/exxon-climate-change-investigation" typeof="Concept" property="prefLabel" datatype="">Exxon Climate</a> <span class="print-footnote">[25]</span></font></div><div class="field-item even"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/year-review-2018" typeof="Concept" property="prefLabel" datatype="">2018 Year in Review</a> <span class="print-footnote">[1]</span></font></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/10/25/exxon-faces-consequences-climate-denial"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/10/25/exxon-faces-consequences-climate-denial</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>ExxonMobil, the $78 billion fossil fuel giant, has been lying to its shareholders about the threats of climate change, according to New York Attorney General, Barbara Underwood, following a multi-year investigation.</b></font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New York state lawsuit, filed Wednesday, accuses Exxon of a “longstanding fraudulent scheme” to mislead investors on “the company’s management of the risks posed to its business by climate change regulation,” according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/climate/exxon-lawsuit-climate-change.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">The New York Times</em></a>. Citing messaging to the public that was inconsistent with internal practices, Underwood brought the lawsuit under the Martin Act, which empowers her to investigate and prosecute securities fraud.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has reported on Exxon’s illegal and unethical efforts to undermine climate science and hide the global impact of its operations for years.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2016, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and Common Cause <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3123646-IRS-Cover-Letter-10-05-2016.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">complained to the IRS</a> that Exxon was running an <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2016/10/06/exxon-alec-running-illegal-lobbying-scheme-irs-complaint/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">illegal scheme</a> to use the American Legislative Exchange Commission (ALEC) to promote its climate denial policies and legislative agenda “in gross violation of ALEC’s 501(c)(3) charitable status.”</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Industry Plan to Sow Doubt over Climate Science</font></h2><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3123455-ALEC-Exxon-Supplemental-Submission-With-Signature.html#document/p4" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Evidence</a> presented in the joint CMD/Common Cause IRS filing showed that Exxon had pumped more that $1.7 million into ALEC between 1998 and 2014 to finance lobbying activities that cast doubt on climate science and promoted public policies benefiting the corporation.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Exxon/ALEC scheme arose from a 1998 “<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3116140-Exhibit-78-API-Global-Clima" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan</a>,” authored by the American Petroleum Institute (API)</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The stated mission of the API plan was to “inform the American public that science does not support the precipitous actions Kyoto [International Climate Treaty] would dictate, thereby providing a climate for the </span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">right policy decisions to be made</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.” [emphasis added]</span></font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon was listed as a source of funding for the plan, while ALEC was listed as a “potential fund allocator.” Public records show that Exxon’s funding of ALEC subsequently increased.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon’s more recent efforts to rehabilitate its public image around climate change led the oil giant to <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2018/07/13368/alec-too-extreme-exxon-long-term-alec-board-member-dumps-alec-over-climate-denial" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">split with ALEC</a> in July 2018, reportedly over ALEC’s opposition to the EPA’s findings on greenhouse gases.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Collusion Between Republican AGs and Industry Lobbyists</font></h2><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2016, CMD exposed <b>secret, <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/RAGA-Exxon" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">closed-door meetings</a> between state attorneys general and fossil fuel interests to coordinate push-back against New York’s investigation of Exxon.</b></font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CMD published an audio recording of a meeting where representatives of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) — organizations historically funded in part by Exxon — discussed strategies with Republican attorneys general.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) facilitated the private sessions, a premium service that the pay-to-play organization provides to corporations that pay RAGA up to $125,000 per year.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“These documents reveal a serious conflict of interest: RAGA is facilitating secret meetings between the profit-motivated fossil fuel industry and attorneys general to engineer pushback on investigations of ExxonMobil — and then raising money from oil and gas companies to keep those same Republican attorneys general in office,” said Nick Surgey, CMD’s Research Director at the time.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">History of Misinformation Campaigns</font></h2><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Numerous investigations have shown that Exxon was fully aware of the risks of climate change from burning fossil fuels as early as the 1970s, despite funding multiple groups like ALEC that denied climate science and humans’ contribution to climate change.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f/pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Harvard University study</a> of Exxon’s communications between 1977 and 2014 found that “ExxonMobil misled the public about climate change,” even as its private and academic research acknowledged serious climate risks.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2015, the year New York launched its investigation of Exxon, Inside Climate News <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> that Exxon had been aware of climate change but “put its muscle behind efforts to manufacture doubt about the reality of global warming.” Exxon warned top executives of possible climate catastrophe, but then “led efforts to block solutions.” The <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Los Angeles Times</em> also published an <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">article</a> that year telling a similar story. Exxon dismissed those reports as “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/08/24/exxonmobil-asked-people-to-read-the-documents-it-produced-on-climate-change-so-these-harvard-researchers-did/?utm_term=.9ff52318322a" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">cherry picked</a>.”</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">New York Times</em>, this most recent lawsuit “poses a financial risk to Exxon, as well as a potential reputational blow.”</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If history is any indication, Exxon could face significant damages. Similar <b>litigation against tobacco companies found in 2006 that the industry had engaged in “a massive 50-year scheme to defraud the public,” and resulted in a $246 billion settlement</b></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not exactly rico but team red blue:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-litigation-california-big-oil-2571971191.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-litigation-california-big-oil-2571971191.html</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate Litigation Against Big Oil Heats Up</font></h1></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></span></font><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2571971191" data-authors="Sierra Club" data-headline="Climate Litigation Against Big Oil Heats Up" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Jason Mark</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Can any one group of actors be held responsible for the damages caused by global <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" style="text-decoration-line: none;">climate change</a>?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That was the central question argued in federal court on Thursday as attorneys representing <b>San Francisco and Oakland tried to beat back efforts by <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/exxon" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ExxonMobil</a>, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bp" style="text-decoration-line: none;">BP</a>, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/shell" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Royal Dutch Shell</a> to have a judge throw out a potentially groundbreaking climate change related lawsuit.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The nearly three-hour hearing was the latest round in a burgeoning effort by cities and counties nationwide to hold major <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fossil fuel</a> producers accountable for climate change-related damages. Last year, seven California cities and counties sued the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/big-oil" style="text-decoration-line: none;">oil majors</a>, claiming that their production and sale of fossil fuels—even as they were aware of the risks of CO2 emissions—constitute a public nuisance. Since then, similar suits have been filed by New York City; Boulder and two Colorado counties; and King County, Washington, home to the city of Seattle.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (For more, see SIERRA's May/June cover story, "</span><a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2018-3-may-june/feature/the-case-for-climate-reparations" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">The Case for Climate Reparations</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.")</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Thursday's hearing represented the first major test of such lawsuits</b> as Judge William Alsup considered whether the Oakland and San Francisco complaint should move forward. The defendants challenged the lawsuit on a broad range of grounds, forcing Judge Alsup, a Clinton-appointee known for being an idiosyncratic jurist, to say at one point, "There are a lot of arguments here. As soon as I focus on one, you run off to another one."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The defendants' arguments for dismissing the suit centered on two main questions: whether the Federal District Court for Northern California is an appropriate jurisdiction to decide the case, and, of larger concern, whether the lawsuits might be displaced by existing federal laws and policies.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Arguments hinged on a welter of legal terms such as "general jurisdiction" versus "personal jurisdiction" versus "specific jurisdiction," while also touching on the distinctions between a holding company and an operating company. (Lawyers for Royal Dutch Shell maintained that the Netherlands-based multinational corporation is a holding company, and therefore has no agents in California.) In the course of the arguments it became clear that the very scale of the contested issue—global climate change—further complicates the questions of jurisdiction. The defendants argued that it's hard, if not impossible, to establish direct causation for a specific harm when the source of that harm is billions of people burning fossil fuels worldwide.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"[The plaintiffs] have decided that they do not want to and cannot disaggregate the conduct that leads to their harm," Jaren Janghorbani, an attorney representing ExxonMobil, said. "They cannot attribute any of the harm they are alleging to the company's activities in California."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Jonathan Hughes, a lawyer representing BP, echoed that point. "The amount [of CO2 emissions from its California operations] that could be attributed to BP would be a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent. And under the but-for argument, if BP hadn't produced any fossil fuels, would they have still suffered an injury? The answer is yes. We are talking about a speck in the ocean."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In response, Benjamin Krass, a lawyer representing San Francisco and Oakland, said the oil company attorneys were "muddying up" the but-for argument—the principle of tort law that establishes liability. "The end result of the defendants' argument is that a company that does business everywhere should be held accountable nowhere."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the end, Judge Alsup said he didn't have enough information to make a decision on the jurisdiction question. He gave both sides at least 60 days for a discovery process and depositions to establish whether each of the defendants has sufficient business operations in California for the two California cities to claim injury.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That left Chevron, the only defendant headquartered in California, to argue for dismissal based on the merits of the case.</b> Chevron attorney Theodore Boutrous, Jr. began by saying that the cities' claims stretch federal common law and that "the plaintiffs are asking this court to throw caution to the wind." Boutrous went on to argue that a complex issue like climate change "should be committed to those who write the laws rather than those who interpret them." And Congress, Boutrous argued, has again and again passed laws in favor of fossil fuel production. "Congress has made clear that energy production is not a public nuisance; it is a public necessity."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a rebuttal, Steve Berman, the lead counsel for the two cities, argued that the cities' complaints are not nearly as novel as the defendants make it seem—but instead merely the application of ancient laws to contemporary circumstances. "The law of nuisance has been around forever, and it has responded to changes in mankind. What we are doing is applying hundreds of years of law to a new situation." Berman later said, "<b>We allege that this was a deliberate nuisance, based on phony science."</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The San Francisco and Oakland case has generated a great deal of attention among legal scholars and climate change activists. In March, Judge Alsup held an unusual "</span><a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/tell-it-judge-big-oil-climate-change-science-lawsuit" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">climate science tutorial</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">" as a preliminary step in the case—an event that attracted so big a crowd, the court had to reserve an overflow room. The case has also become a proxy battle of sorts. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Fifteen states with Republican attorneys general—including Indiana, Colorado, Kansas and Louisiana—filed <a href="http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2018/20180419_docket-317-cv-06011_amicus-motion-1.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">an amicus brief</a> in support of the oil corporations' position. Meanwhile, California, New Jersey and Washington filed <a href="http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2018/20180503_docket-317-cv-06011_amicus-motion-1.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">their own brief</a> backing the cities' arguments.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The federal government has also weighed in. Two weeks ago the U.S. Department of Justice filed <a href="http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2018/20180510_docket-317-cv-06011_amicus-brief-1.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a brief</a> supporting the five oil companies, and on Thursday, Eric Grant, a deputy assistant attorney general, was given time to express the federal government's opposition to the San Francisco and Oakland suits. </b>"It is upon Congress, not the courts, to prescribe policy in areas of special interest," Grant said. "As this court knows, in respect to domestic emissions, the kind of national policy-making sought by plaintiffs is inappropriate … [Climate change] is a complex issue involving trade-offs affecting a nation of more than 300 million people. Individual federal district courts lack the competence to undertake that task."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The federal government's arguments appeared to give Judge Alsup pause, even as he continued to express exasperation with the legal maneuverings of some of the defendants. "There is no court in the history of the universe that has extended this [federal common law] to global warming," the judge said. "The United States is pointing to Supreme Court language that judges like me have to move slowly … There's no doubt there will be some sea rise. But will it be in 75 years or 25 years? We don't know."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To which Berman, the plaintiff's attorney, responded, "That's what the trial is for. Today we're talking about a motion to dismiss."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whether the case will ever make it to a trial is, of course, now in the hands of Judge Alsup....</font></p></div></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">---</font></div><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">3/18 update</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04042018/climate-change-fossil-fuel-company-lawsuits-timeline-exxon-children-california-cities-attorney-general">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04042018/climate-change-fossil-fuel-company-lawsuits-timeline-exxon-children-california-cities-attorney-general</a></font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05042018/shell-knew-scientists-climate-change-risks-fossil-fuels-global-warming-company-documents-netherlands-lawsuits">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05042018/shell-knew-scientists-climate-change-risks-fossil-fuels-global-warming-company-documents-netherlands-lawsuits</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ternal company documents uncovered by a Dutch news organization show that the oil giant </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Shell had a deep understanding</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, dating at least to the 1980s, of the science and risks of global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions.</span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They show that as the company pondered its responsibility to act, Shell's scientists urged it to heed the early warnings, even if, as they said, it might take until the 2000s for the mounting evidence to prove greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were causing unnatural climate change.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"With the very long time scales involved, it would be tempting for society to wait until then before doing anything," company researchers wrote in a 1988 report based on studies completed in 1986. "The potential implications for the world are, however, so large that policy options need to be considered much earlier. And the energy industry needs to consider how it should play its part."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Otherwise, a team of Shell experts said, "it could be too late to take effective countermeasures to reduce the effects or even to stabilize the situation."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>For the next decade—as the emerging science was becoming increasingly robust, and as international efforts to curb heat-trapping emissions gained steam and calls for action grew more urgent—the company persisted in emphasizing the lingering uncertainties of climate science and the costs of ambitious policies, the documents show.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shell's own "review of the scientific uncertainty and the evolution of energy systems indicates that policies to curb greenhouse gases beyond 'no regrets' measures could be premature, divert economic resources from more pressing needs and further distort markets," a February 1995 management brief advised.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The documents were unearthed by the journalist <a href="https://decorrespondent.nl/jelmermommers" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Jelmer Mommers</a> of <a href="https://decorrespondent.nl/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">De Correspondent</a>, whose investigative article was published on Thursday in Dutch. Many of the documents, along with explanatory notes, were released on the <a href="http://www.climatefiles.com/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Climate Files website</a>, where researcher and climate advocate Kert Davies maintains extensive archives. To get their work before a broader audience, they shared embargoed copies of the documents.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What Shell Knew & What It Means for Lawsuits</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Just like researchers at other oil and gas companies, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">notably Exxon</a>, Shell's scientists and managers understood, before the general public, that uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions could eventually put its core businesses at risk—and alter ecosystems and put much of the world's population in peril.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The accretion of evidence complicates the industry's position as Big Oil defends itself in a <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04042018/climate-change-fossil-fuel-company-lawsuits-timeline-exxon-children-california-cities-attorney-general" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">broadening array of climate-related litigation</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Wednesday, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/04/friends-of-the-earth-threatens-to-sue-shell-over-climate-change-contributions" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Dutch environmentalists said they plan to sue</a> Royal Dutch Shell to force it to cut its oil and gas investments and production. Donald Pols, director of Friends of the Earth Netherlands/Milieudefensie, said the company "should take its responsibility to stop wrecking the climate."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Responding to the litigation, Shell said that it has long embraced climate change science and strongly supports the <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/paris-climate-agreement" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Paris climate agreement</a> aimed at limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius or less. But it said that meeting that target is a complex social challenge, that energy is important to the global quality of life, and that the issues should not be tackled in court. Rather, it called for sound government policy and a cultural shift toward green energy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shell is already a defendant in other court cases.</font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">brattleboro vt reformer</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.reformer.com/stories/email-ruling-exposes-think-tanks-motivations,522734">http://www.reformer.com/stories/email-ruling-exposes-think-tanks-motivations,522734</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> We applaud a recent ruling by the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Vermont Supreme Court ordering former Attorney General Bill Sorrell to turn over private emails that may contain conversations related to any of his duties as the state's top law enforcement officer.</span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>You might recall that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating whether Exxon Mobil misled the company's investors and the public about the impact of fossil fuels on climate change. Schneiderman has since been accused by the fossil fuel industry and "think tanks" funded by extraction industries of conducting a politically motivated investigation. </div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One of those "think tanks," the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, claims Sorrell was working with Schneiderman and other attorneys general to investigate the oil giant, effectively chilling free speech.<b> EELI is on a fishing expedition,</b> hoping to uncover information to prove that Sorrell conspired with Schneiderman to conduct the investigation.</span></div><div>
</div><div>"There were several states attorneys general that decided to investigate people who didn't agree with their opinion of how global warming works,"<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Institute attorney Matthew Hardin</span> told The Associated Press. "So we decided to file these public records requests to see what is going on in Vermont and why they are investigating political opponents for things that are not violations of criminal law."</div><div>
</div><div><b>"Mr. Sorrell was co-ringleader, along with New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, in a 'climate-RICO' scandal and the records we seek are essential in determining the level of his involvement and to what extent, if any, he may have violated the law,</b>" the group noted in a recent press release. RICO is the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which is frequently used to prosecute organized crime.</div><div>
</div><div>Schneiderman's spokeswoman, Amy Spitalnick, said this is just the latest effort "to distract negative attention from the fossil fuel companies who fund E&E's endless stream of baseless litigation against independent public prosecutors."</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The request from EELI for the emails is couched in all sorts of high-minded jargon about freedom of information, but as the Union of Concerned Scientists has noted, the Energy and Environment Legal Institute's tactics amount to nothing more than harassment of climate scientists. In other words, EELI is calling the kettle black when it accuses Schneiderman of attempting "to chill free speech."</span></div><div>
</div><div>To buttress our conclusion, let's take a deeper look at EELI, which, according to the Institute for Southern Studies, has "connections with the Koch brothers, Art Pope and other conservative donors seeking to expand their political influence." At one time, since purged from its website, EELI stated that it "is part of a broader network of groups with close ties to energy interests that have long fought greenhouse gas regulation."</div><div>
</div><div>EELI has gone under other names in its past — American Tradition Institute, American Tradition Partnership and the Western Tradition Partnership — and, according to DeSmog Blog, it was "associated with controversy in campaign financing during the 2010 elections." According to the Huffington Post, ATP/WTP and the American Tradition Institute (whose mission was to battle "radical environmentalist junk science head on") worked to fight laws requiring the disclosure of political contributions by corporations. In 2010, the Montana Commission of Political Practices found that the Western Tradition Partnership had broken state law by failing to report its donors and spending. The Commission found that the organization solicited unlimited contributions to support candidates and then passed them through a "sham organization" called The Coalition for Energy and the Environment that ran attack ads against Democrats.</div><div>
</div><div>According to The Guardian, EELI's core mission is actually "discrediting climate science and dismantling environmental regulations" and is "a free-market think tank that wants the public to believe human-caused global warming is a scientific fraud" that uses tactics including "filing nuisance suits to disrupt important academic research."</div><div>
</div><div>"When E&E Legal doesn't get everything it asks for, it will typically file a lawsuit and take the scientist and university to court," the Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch writes.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">DeSmog Blog noted that in March 2015, an Arizona trial court supported the University of Arizona in denying record requests by EELI, which claimed it wanted the emails for its "transparency project," though it also openly admitted that it was seeking things to embarrass climate researchers</span>. The scientific community supported the court ruling, but E&E Legal proceeded to appeal the decision.</div><div>
</div><div>It's important to note that any official business being conducted by governmental agents, such as the attorney general in this case, be conducted with the use of official channels of communication. The Vermont Supreme Court correctly noted that the state's right to know extends to private email accounts of state employees if those messages otherwise meet the state's definition of a public record. Governmental officials should be on notice following this ruling, but let's not pretend EELI's legal actions have anything to do with freedom of information. The organization has two missions — and that is to suppress the overwhelming evidence that global climate change is an anthropomorphic phenomenon, and to protect its fossil fuel funders.</div></div><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">imported from reason fdn:</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">winner of ayn rand lookalike contest: off bs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Shikha Dalmia is a senior policy analyst at Reason Foundation, a nonprofit think tank advancing free minds and free markets. She is a </span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bloomberg View</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> contributor and a columnist at the </span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Washington Examiner</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and she also writes regularly for </span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Reason</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Wall Street Journal</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">USA Today,</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and numerous other publications. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">She considers herself to be a progressive libertarian and an agnostic with Buddhist longings and a Sufi soul. [cf FIRE scam]</span></font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Americans are so focused on the outrageous presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, we've largely missed one of the biggest political stories of 2016: the left's fearsome tactics to suppress its ideological opponents. Case in point: the liberal crusade to silence climate change dissenters.]</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">About 20 Democratic attorneys general have launched a campaign to go after ExxonMobil and other "corporate polluters" for allegedly disseminating "false" information about global warming.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> What did the Democratic Party do? Mock this campaign? No. Denounce it? Nope. Tell them to knock it off? Of course not. Instead, the Dems made this stance an <b>official plank in their party platform, pledging to use the "Department of Justice to investigate alleged corporate fraud on the part of fossil fuel companies who have reportedly misled shareholders and the public on the scientific reality of climate change."</b></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eco-warriors <b>claim </b>to have internal memos that prove that ExxonMobil knew as far back as 1977, well before global warming achieved any sense of true public urgency, that doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide would produce a 2 to 3 degrees centigrade rise in global temperature. Liberals also claim that the company internally debated the impact of warming on its Arctic operations as far back as the early 1990s. But just like tobacco companies kept publicly denying the link between smoking and lung cancer even though they knew the truth, Exxon spent $30 million over the years to fund global warming "denialism" and stop action on climate change.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These claims are overblown at best.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">First of all, comparing tobacco to fossil fuels is not just absurd, but malicious, given that smoking actually directly kills smokers. Now before you argue that global warming might one day kill people too, remember that fossil fuel is a source of cheap power without which countless millions of poor people, especially in Third World countries, would perish here and now, not in some distant future when the Earth heats up.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As for those so-called <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/sep/29/is-the-fossil-fuel-industry-like-the-tobacco-industry-guilty-of-racketeering" style="text-decoration-line: none;">smoking gun memos</a>, they were <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/07/exxon-climate-change-email" style="text-decoration-line: none;">mere speculations</a> that repeatedly and correctly emphasized the deep uncertainties in climate science at the time. And when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change definitively declared in 2006 that the observed warming had human causes<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, my <em>Reason</em> colleague Ron Bailey has <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2016/06/28/climate-fraud-prosecution-follies" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a>, ExxonMobil started warning investors that both climate change and the policies it spawned posed a risk to its business. It also switched from opposing climate change action to supporting a carbon tax.[did it stop funding denial after promising congress it wd?]</span></font><p /><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But none of this matters to global warming warriors who, in a zeal reminiscent of the great Spanish Inquisition, want to <a href="http://nation.foxnews.com/2016/04/17/bill-nye-science-guy-open-criminal-charges-and-jail-time-climate-change-dissenters" style="text-decoration-line: none;">jail climate dissenters</a> and have marked Exxon for <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/jailing-climate-deniers_b_5912596.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">"corporate death."</a> To achieve that end, they are colluding with the Democratic Party and going after Exxon and any group that has had anything to do with climate change.</font></p><p id="8"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Last fall</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, a <a href="https://nofrakkingconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/letterpresidentag.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bunch</a> of climate scientists at George Mason University</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> dashed off a letter pressing the Justice Department to use the anti-mafia racketeering law called the RICO Act to investigate Exxon's alleged conspiracy of deceit. And instead of rejecting the suggestion outright, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Attorney General Loretta Lynch <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02032016/justice-department-refers-exxon-investigation-request-fbi-climate-change-research-denial" style="text-decoration-line: none;">referred</a> the issue to the FBI, which is ominous enough.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Worse, this spring, some state attorneys general who are members of </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"AGs United for Clean Power" issued <a href="http://freebeacon.com/issues/massachusetts-subpoenas-exxons-communications-nonprofit-groups/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">subpoenas</a> to Exxon for all communication since 1977 with about 100 think tanks, advocacy groups, lobbyists, and university centers that it has funded (including <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2016/05/04/reason-foundation-included-in-climate-ch" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Reason Foundation</a>, where I work, which received funding from Exxon many moons ago</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">). They also held a press conference — with none other than <b>Al Gore</b> [obligatory ox to gore] to add a touch of objectivity, no doubt — announcing their intention to get to the bottom of Exxon's conspiracy.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But the First Amendment protects all corporate lobbying — even deceptive corporate lobbying.[</b> dingdingding!] As such, this legal jihad is unlikely to result in charges. So what is its purpose? To harass Exxon to the point that it ends donations to outfits whose research and policy advocacy these AGs find threatening. When the Competitive Enterprise Institute, one of the listed groups, pointed out this gross abuse of power in an <a href="https://cei.org/blog/state-attorney-general-climate-change-investigations-are-unconstitutional" style="text-decoration-line: none;">opinion piece</a>, Claude Walker, the attorney general of the Virgin Islands, slapped it with a separate subpoena, demanding all correspondence with Exxon from 1997 to 2007.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Corporations usually succumb in the face of government harassment to avoid costly discovery and bad publicity. But this campaign is so beyond the pale that Exxon actually hinted that it would countersue and also filed for <a href="http://www.hoover.org/research/climate-wars-get-ugly" style="text-decoration-line: none;">declaratory relief</a> in a Texas district court on grounds that its constitutionally protected rights to free speech and due process, and against illegal searches and seizures, were being violated.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Meanwhile,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b> CEI filed a motion for </b><a href="https://cei.org/content/virgin-islands-ag-withdraws-dc-subpoena-cei" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><b>sanctions</b></a><b> against Walker, which would force him to pay its legal fees and possibly other damages</b>. And the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, a free market legal group, FOIAed the <a href="http://eelegal.org/2016/04/15/release-emails-reveal-schneiderman-other-ags-colluding-with-al-gore-and-greens-to-investigate-climate-skeptics/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">emails</a> of the so-called independent George Mason scientists who masterminded the missive to the Justice Department and has found <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2016/05/13/rico-climate-alarmists-foia-emails-relea" style="text-decoration-line: none;">clear evidence</a> of not just <b>collusion </b>between them, various attorney generals, and other Democratic lawmakers, but also an effort to deceive reporters about it.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Such damning revelations have <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/01/liberal-ag-global-warming-investigations-into-exxon-mobil-are-falling-apart/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">caused</a> Walker — along with the attorneys general of Massachusetts and California — to <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/06/30/the-imploding-cabal-to-criminalize-climate-dissent/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">back off</a>. The only holdout in their cabal is New York's AG Eric Schneiderman, but he's playing a losing hand.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Still, this victory for constitutional liberties will be short lived if Hillary Clinton becomes president, given that the Democratic Party has officially declared its intention to continue to wage this war to silence climate change dissenters.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is why it would behoove the GOP to put all of this centerstage in this election.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That would of course require a sane nominee interested less in himself and more in the Constitution. But Trump is so busy threatening even worse First Amendment violations to settle his own personal vendettas — for example, by threatening anti-trust action against Jeff Bezos, <em>The Washington Post</em> owner, for running "wrong" stories about him — that he has neither the interest nor the standing to expose the excesses of his political opponents.</font></p><p id="16" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Even if he loses, which, god willing, he will, this election will have been a huge missed opportunity to expose and moderate the agenda of the left.</b> As things are shaping up in this awful campaign, regardless of what happens in November, free speech rights are in for a fight of their life in this country.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>ref</b> interesting link to legit left , so no fer of contamintion w/ truth apparently</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">theguardian.XXX/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/sep/29/is-the-fossil-fuel-industry-like-the-tobacco-industry-guilty-of-racketeering</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/07/exxon-climate-change-email/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">spoke too son on bravery:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://nation.foxnews.com/2016/04/17/bill-nye-science-guy-open-criminal-charges-and-jail-time-climate-change-dissenters rolls to WT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/14/bill-nye-open-criminal-charges-jail-time-climate-c/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="byline" style="box-sizing: border-box;">By <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/valerie-richardson/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Valerie Richardson</a></span><span class="source" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic;"> - </span><span class="source" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Washington Times - Thursday, April 14, 2016</span></font></div><div class="summary" id="font-resizer" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="storyareawrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="bigtext" data-fullheight="972px" data-miniheight="436px" style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow: hidden; height: 436px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/bill-nye/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Bill Nye</a> “the science guy” says in a video interview released Thursday that he is open to the idea of jailing those who deviate from the climate change consensus.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Asked about the heated rhetoric surrounding the climate change debate, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s previous comments that some climate skeptics should be prosecuted as war criminals, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/bill-nye/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Mr. Nye</a> replied, “We’ll see what happens.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Was it appropriate to jail the guys from Enron?” <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/bill-nye/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Mr. Nye</a> asked in a video interview with Climate Depot’s Marc Morano. “We’ll see what happens. Was it appropriate to jail people from the cigarette industry who insisted that this addictive product was not addictive, and so on?”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“In these cases, for me, as a taxpayer and voter, the introduction of this extreme doubt about climate change is affecting my quality of life as a public citizen,” <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/bill-nye/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Mr. Nye</a> said. “So I can see where people are very concerned about this, and they’re pursuing criminal investigations as well as engaging in discussions like this.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/bill-nye/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Mr. Nye</a>’s comments come with a coalition of liberal attorneys general pursuing companies that challenge the consensus of catastrophic climate change. Critics fear the campaign could chill research and free speech.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude E. Walker raised concerns about a government crackdown on dissent ..</font></p></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref reason</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://cei.org/blog/state-attorney-general-climate-change-investigations-are-unconstitutional</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1/16 hans bader</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Should government officials be able to cut off donations to groups because they employ people disparaged as “climate change deniers,” even if the group in question is a think tank that studies a wide range of topics, only a few of which relate to climate change at all, and the “denial” in question includes telling politically inconvenient truths about the cost of proposed climate change legislation? Only a single-issue zealot with ideological blinders and a contempt for the First Amendment would think so. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But that hasn’t stopped New York Attorney General <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/exxon-mobil-mislead-public-climate-change-research/" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Eric Schneiderman</a> and California Attorney General <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2016/01/21/california-joins-the-effort-to-persecute-suppress-scientific-dissent-on-climate-change/" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Kamala Harris</a> investigating Exxon, partly for making donations to think tanks like the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/did-exxonmobil-just-admit_b_8625514.html" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">American Enterprise Institute</a> and groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council because these large organizations include a few people deemed “climate change deniers,” even though climate change has no relation to most of their activities. (I have been to many speeches and luncheons at AEI, and not a single one related to climate change or even energy or environmental policy.)</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The First Amendment has long been interpreted as protecting corporate lobbying and donations, even to groups that allegedly deceive the public about important issues. For example, in <a href="http://openjurist.org/46/f3d/1284/asbestos-school-litigation-pfizer-inc-v-t-giles-45" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><em>In re School Asbestos Litigation</em></a>, 46 F.3d 1284 (3d Cir. 1994), a federal appeals court ruled that the maker of an asbestos product could not be held liable for joining and financially supporting a trade association for makers of asbestos products, even though the trade association allegedly “disseminated misleading information about the danger of asbestos in schools directly to” the plaintiffs, where “at least some” of the trade association’s “activities were constitutionally protected.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So even if being a “climate denier” were a crime (rather than constitutionally protected speech, as it in fact is), a donation to a non-profit that employs such a person would not be (especially given that a think tank like AEI also contains scholars whose positions on subjects like tax policy, labor law, property rights, and lawsuit abuse would be congenial to a corporation like Exxon).</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In any event, judging from Schneiderman’s own remarks, Exxon did not engage in any deception about the health risks of its products when used (the way asbestos makers were accused of doing, and the way the <a href="http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20FDCO%2020121127J01/U.S.%20v.%20PHILIP%20MORRIS%20USA,%20INC." style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">big tobacco</a> companies <a href="http://www.tobaccocontrollaws.org/files/live/litigation/596/US_United%20States%20v.%20Philip%20Morris.pdf" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">in fact</a><a href="http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20CACO%2020110817014/BULLOCK%20v.%20PHILIP%20MORRIS%20USA,%20INC." style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">long</a> <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-10th-circuit/1026732.html" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">did</a>), much less speech unprotected by the First Amendment. What angers Schneiderman most appears to be political opposition to certain controversial environmental legislation, not deception or views at odds with sound science: He is upset that Exxon had the temerity to note that policies advocated by climate change activists have real world costs, and may not be politically viable.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schneiderman <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/exxon-mobil-mislead-public-climate-change-research/" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">complains</a> that Exxon noted that “switching over to renewables by the end of this century would raise energy costs” substantially, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/science/exxon-mobil-under-investigation-in-new-york-over-climate-statements.html?r=0" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">that</a> “Exxon Mobil essentially ruled out the possibility that governments would adopt climate policies stringent enough to force it to leave its reserves in the ground, saying that rising population and global energy demand would prevent that. ‘Meeting these needs will require all economic energy sources, especially oil and natural gas,’ it said.”  (For a discussion of Exxon’s non-misleading positions about climate science, and why Schneiderman’s own complaint about it is at odds with actual climate data over the last 30 years, see this <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/even-exxonmobil-says-climate-change-is-real-so-why-wont-the-gop/2015/12/06/913e4b12-9aa6-11e5-b499-76cbec161973_story.html" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">commentary</a> by the liberal editor of <em>The Washington Post</em>, and <a href="http://www.globalwarming.org/2015/11/12/ny-attorney-general-schneiderman-targets-exxon-mobil-climate-thuggery-part-1/" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">this commentary</a> at GlobalWarming.org.)</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Bloomberg <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-10/schneiderman-s-dangerous-crusade-against-exxon-mobil" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">put it</a>, “On the face of it, the company’s research on climate change and its previous public positions on climate policy not only fail to amount to fraud, they aren’t even necessarily at odds. You might accept the reality of man-made global warming and still argue against strict new rules on emissions -- if, for example, you believe that such restrictions would do more harm than good. . . .that position isn’t indefensible, and certainly shouldn’t be illegal.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So when I first read about state attorneys general investigating Exxon over its donations, and for allegedly minimizing the likelihood or ramifications of climate-change legislation, I wondered what was the point of such investigations, because any sanctions imposed on Exxon for such contributions would obviously run afoul of the First Amendment (as lawyers and newspapers like <em><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/exxon-deserves-criticism-but-it-didnt-commit-a-crime/2015/11/14/08dd471e-87fa-11e5-be8b-1ae2e4f50f76_story.html" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">The Washington Post</a></em>and <em><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/11/22/schneiderman-exxon-mobil-fraud-investigation-environmental-groups-editorials-debates/75900032/" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">USA Today</a></em> have noted). As the Post’s Bob Samuelson <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/exxon-deserves-criticism-but-it-didnt-commit-a-crime/2015/11/14/08dd471e-87fa-11e5-be8b-1ae2e4f50f76_story.html" target="hplink" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">noted earlier</a>, ExxonMobil is being vilified for “expressing its opinions,” and exercising its constitutional right of free speech.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In so doing, I overlooked the likelihood that these investigations are designed not to uncover any wrongdoing, but simply to harass Exxon, by subjecting it to bad publicity and the costs of producing thousands of pages of documents in response to endless demands from partisan investigators. The process is the punishment.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sadly, government officials can usually get away with this sort of abuse when they investigate <em>conduct. </em>But <em>speech</em> is a different matter. A prolonged investigation in response to someone’s speech can violate the First Amendment even when it never leads to a fine. For example, a federal appeals court ruled in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11684187750948717352&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr" target="blank" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><em>White v. Lee</em></a>, 227 F.3d 1214 (9th Cir. 2000) that lengthy, speech-chilling civil rights investigations by government officials can violate the First Amendment even when they are eventually dropped without imposing any fine or disciplinary action. It found this principle was so plain and obvious that it denied individual civil rights officials qualified immunity for investigating citizens for speaking out against a housing project for people protected by the Fair Housing Act.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Similarly, in <a href="http://openjurist.org/46/f3d/1284/asbestos-school-litigation-pfizer-inc-v-t-giles-45" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><em>In re School Asbestos Litigation</em></a>, 46 F.3d 1284 (3d Cir. 1994), a federal appeals court found that the mere pendency of a lawsuit against a company for belonging to, and contributing to, a trade association, violated the First Amendment even if it would never ultimately be found liable based on that associational activity. Accordingly, it took the extraordinary step of granting a mandamus petition to order the lawsuit dismissed, even though the trial judge had refused to dismiss the lawsuit on summary judgment, and the denial of summary judgment is not ordinarily appealable at all.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the appeals court explained, the mere existence of the lawsuit unconstitutionally chilled the company’s First Amendment rights: “while the district court’s ruling did not directly prohibit Pfizer from associating with the SBA during the remainder of the district court proceedings, there can be little question that in reality the district court ruling will powerfully inhibit Pfizer from doing so. Under the court’s reasoning, any further participation by Pfizer in SBA activities--any contributions, any attendance at meetings, etc.--would appear to constitute evidence of Pfizer’s participation in an ongoing conspiracy or concert of action and thus be admissible at trial to prove such claims.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These state attorney general investigations similarly violate the First Amendment. The mere existence of Schneiderman’s protracted investigation of Exxon discourages it from contributing to groups like the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and chills its speech about climate-related legislation and its costs, in violation of the First Amendment.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schneiderman has <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/exxon-mobil-mislead-public-climate-change-research/" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">pressured Exxon</a> not to fund groups like AEI and ALEC, complaining that “we know” Exxon has “been funding organizations that are even more aggressive climate change deniers. . . . like the American Enterprise Institute, ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These groups themselves can sue Schneiderman under the First Amendment, if Schneiderman’s pressure causes them to lose donations they would otherwise receive. Government officials cannot pressure a private party to take adverse action against a speaker. For example, the federal appeals court in New York ruled that a city official’s letter urging a billboard company to stop displaying a church’s anti-homosexuality billboard potentially violated the First Amendment, since the letter cited his “official authority as ‘Borough President of Staten Island’ and thus could constitute an “implicit” threat, even though the official lacked direct regulatory authority over the billboard company and did not explicitly threaten any reprisals. <em>See Okwedy v. Molinari</em>, 333 F.3d 339 (2d Cir. 2003). Similarly, it revived a free speech lawsuit by a businessman over a village official’s letter to Chamber of Commerce criticizing it for publishing the businessman’s ad critical of village policies in the Chamber’s publication.<em> Rattner v. Netburn, </em>930 F.2d 204 (2d Cir. 1991). For other, similar rulings, <em>see Dossett v. First State Bank</em>, 399 F.3d 940 (8th Cir. 2005), and <em>Reuber v. U.S.</em>, 750 F.2d 1039 (D.C. Cir. 1985).</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schneiderman would probably argue that the federal courts lack jurisdiction over a lawsuit against him under the First Amendment. But a court ruled against a somewhat similar argument made by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood in <em>Google v. Hood</em>, 96 F.Supp.3d 584, 594-96 (N.D. Miss. 2015). Schneiderman’s argument would be substantially weaker than Hood’s.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Government retaliation for speech does not necessarily need to include explicit threats or pressure to violate the First Amendment. For example, if the government merely reprimands a public employee for his speech, or censures a private citizen for his speech, some courts find that to be a violation of the First Amendment. <em>See, e.g., Columbus Education Association v. Columbus Board of Education,</em> 623 F.2d 1155 (6th Cir. 1980) (government employee reprimand violated First Amendment).</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.hoover.org/research/climate-wars-get-ugly</font></p><header class="article-header" style="max-width: 735px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline-block !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" 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size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4">The Climate Wars Get Ugly</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h1></div></div></div><div class="field-name-field-research-authors field-meta" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: 20px;"><span class="label-inline field-label" style="font-weight: bold; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 4px;">by </span><span class="field-items"><a href="http://www.hoover.org/profiles/richard-epstein" class="node node-5538 entityreference" style="text-decoration-line: none; position: relative;">Richard A. Epstein</a></span></div><div class="field-meta last" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: 20px;"><span class="date-display-single">Monday, April 18, 2016</span></div></header><div class="content-above" style="position: relative; float: right; top: 12px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field field-name-tweet-count"><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="margin-top: 19px; clear: both;"><div class="field-items" style=""><div class="field-item even" style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During this polarizing presidential election campaign, people seem to be more divided than ever on policy matters—a point that is especially evident in the contentious disputes over climate change, where opposing sides are now pitted against each other in litigation.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the one side of the climate debate are the “alarmists.” To this group, the only question is what should be done to contain the problem of climate change. To be sure, there is ample evidence of climate change, and even some evidence showing that some fraction of it is caused by humans. But from this modest claim, one cannot infer that all or even a majority of this change is attributable to the use of fossil fuels, or that any and all temperature increases carry with them a threat to the natural world. But these alarmists, skeptics claim, exaggerate the supposed threat of global warming to bring an end to the fossil fuel industry and force excessive and premature reliance on expensive and unreliable solar and wind energy.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the other side are the “deniers,” who dare to <a href="https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ignore the well-established truth</a> that climate change is occurring. To them, the claim that 97 percent of climate experts believe in man-made global warming is <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425232/climate-change-no-its-not-97-percent-consensus-ian-tuttle" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wholly misleading</a>, if not downright fraudulent. After all, scientists who agree that humans contribute to global warming could have huge disagreements on the source, magnitude, and consequences of the effect. Understanding the climate change literature requires <a href="http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/03/31/twilight-of-the-climate-change-movement/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">some heavy legwork</a> to take into account the interactive effects of human actions and natural events.</font></font></font></p><p style="line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The climate skeptics have a point. An <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1489105/Leading-scientific-journals-are-censoring-debate-on-global-warming.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">incident</a> from a decade ago shows how tricky the analysis of the science can get. Professor Naomi <b>Oreskes, </b>then at the University of California, analyzed some thousand papers on global warming and concluded that over 75 percent of them backed the view that global warming was largely attributable to human intervention. But when Dr. <b>Benny Peiser </b>of Liverpool University looked at the same data, he concluded that only one-third could be read to support the consensus view, and that, of those, only one percent did so explicitly. Oreskes’s paper has been cited from President Obama on down while Peiser’s paper has been rejected not because it was wrong, but because its conclusions were, so it was said, already widely known. More <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/obama-ups-climate-change-consensus-paris-995-scientists" style="text-decoration-line: none;">recent studies</a> in line with Peiser’s have been met with a similar skeptical response.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In principle, it should be possible to separate the scientific issues from the political ones. But in today’s overheated political environment, that is difficult to do. The latest example of the politicization of climate change comes via twenty state Attorney Generals, led by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who are bringing civil and criminal legal actions against ExxonMobil. A similar course of action has been proposed by Rhode Island Senator <a href="http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/time-to-wake-up-saying-one-thing-and-doing-another" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Sheldon Whitehead</a>, who advocates investigations of fossil fuel companies for possible violations of the civil and criminal law.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To folks like Schneiderman, progressive forces of good must vanquish the reactionary forces of evil, like ExxonMobil. In articulating his <a href="http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/0000exxon%20suit.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">view at a press conference recently</a> in New York, Schneiderman starts from a position of legal strength because the 1921 <a href="https://www.dechert.com/files/Publication/a4def5dd-77bf-48ae-bead-491bfcb9142c/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/dbeb2852-2e00-49d6-971f-4c2db9674658/FS_2004-04.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">New York Martin Act</a>, passed to deal with financial manipulation, gives the state Attorney General exceptional powers to sue to stop fraudulent behavior in financial markets. The distinctive feature of the law is that it dispenses with the need of the New York Attorney General to prove three of the five elements of common law fraud—scienter (knowledge), reliance and damages—so that all that is left to prove is a false statement of some material fact.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet even the Martin Act has its limitations. Some material false statements are easy to spot: consider the CEO who publicly states that his corporation has gold in its safe when the safe is empty. But it is a very different matter to claim that arguments about the complex causes of the current climate trends, and projections of future climate, are “facts” that can easily be branded as false. The usual way in which to hash these matters out is to have an intelligent debate on the pros and cons of each side. And a debate over these matters should receive the highest level of constitutional protection, given that it would be about finding the truth, and using that information to guide political action. The Martin Act aside, a theory of freedom of speech that denies an opportunity for scientific and political debate restricts the core of “high value” speech that is entitled to constitutional protection. Given its endless set of interlocking presumptions, the Martin Act may well be unconstitutional on its face.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet Schneiderman does not see the world that way. In his view, “The First Amendment, ladies and gentlemen, does not give you the right to commit fraud.” The Martin Act conveniently gives the New York Attorney General enormous leverage by allowing him to speak out of both sides of his mouth. In court, he can take advantage of the expansive liability under the Act. But in public discussions, he can brand the companies he opposes as fraudulent.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The most notable attendee of Schneiderman’s press conference was Al Gore, who insisted that Hurricane Sandy was in part caused by climate change—and, specifically, by abnormally high temperatures over the Atlantic Ocean. But there have been major hurricanes for decades, if not centuries, so it is unclear if the natural variability in weather could explain this particular event. In any case, the attempt to infer from long-term climate trends a causal role for particular weather events is deeply problematic.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Gore also attracted attention</b> by saying, “temperatures are breaking records almost every year now. 2015 was the hottest year measured since instruments had been used to measure temperature. 2014 was the second hottest. 14 of the 15 hottest have been in the last 15 years.” But note that there are no actual temperature figures in this statement, probably because temperature increases have plateaued, albeit at a high level, over the past 18 years, notwithstanding substantial increases in carbon dioxide emissions.</font></font></font></p><p style="line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Indeed, one troublesome part of this debate is the weak correlation between temperature increases and the rise in carbon dioxide concentrations. Data presented by climate scientist </span><a href="https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/christyjr.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">John </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Christy</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> shows that the standard models</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> have not done well against actual data for the past 37 years. These climate models have predicted temperature increases three-fold that of those that have been observed, and the greatest errors in the models were where the increases in carbon dioxide concentrations were the largest. Models, as Christy warned, “are properly defined as scientific hypotheses or claims—model output cannot be considered as providing proof of the links between climate variations and greenhouse gases.” That is especially true for models whose predictions have been falsified over a forty-year period. It seems even clearer that these models should never be used as the basis of criminal prosecutions or civil investigations.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Which brings us back to ExxonMobil. Shortly after the 20 Attorney Generals met in New York to renew their pledges against climate change,<b> Claude Earl Walker, Attorney General of the United States Virgin Islands, hired the crack law firm of Cohen Milstein to mount a huge civil investigation of ExxonMobil’</b>s activities in the area of climate change. The suit was especially piquant since ExxonMobil does no business in the Virgin Islands. The gist of the charges was that ExxonMobil systematically misled the public over the past forty years in order to improve its ability to extract oil and gas around the globe.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A moment’s reflection reveals how bizarre this fraud suit is. First, it is unlikely that the company adopted any kind of consistent policy over a forty-year period. Second, it is difficult to believe that policymakers have been misled by the company’s alleged misrepresentations. For years now, the opponents of fossil fuels have denounced ExxonMobil and other companies for their perfidy—and these firms have been under close scrutiny as a result. It is odd to think that any corporate scheme could have duped political leaders who were inundated day after day with information intended to expose the falsehoods that ExxonMobil is said to have perpetuated.</font></font></font></p><p style="line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In this connection, moreover, I am somewhat unhappy that the ExxonMobil defense rests in part on the view that it has cooperated with government officials in dealing with global warming. That may well be true, but it is also beside the point for the <b>First Amendment </b>analysis. The company is entitled to express its own views, even if they are in opposition to the government’s</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Nonetheless, to its lasting credit, ExxonMobil has chosen to counterattack. Normally, the demands for discovery, no matter how onerous, are met with a variety of defensive motions. But in this instance, ExxonMobil took to the offense by bringing its own action for declaratory relief in Texas State District Court, in which it insisted that the entire effort by the Virgin Islands (and its lawyers) ran afoul of a variety of constitutional guarantees, including those involving freedom of speech, protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and violations of procedural due process.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 19px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The common theme behind these defenses is that this sprawling issue is not amenable to litigation, but only to debate. It is simply impossible to have a fair debate on any question if one side to the dispute is able to haul its opponents into court with potential civil or criminal litigation. Ominously, for example, Walker is also going after think tanks.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> He served a <a href="https://cei.org/blog/cei-will-surmount-crimethink-persecution" style="text-decoration-line: none;">subpoena</a> to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, demanding that it turn over a large collection of documents relating to its climate change work between 1997-2007, which is done clearly with the desire to sniff out potential criminal activity from an organization that has published a number of powerful critiques of government action. If this is not a violation of free speech, then I don’t know what is.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Climate change may be real, but the First Amendment should not be pushed aside by the high political theater of ideologues like Eric Schneiderman and Charles Earl Walker.</span></font></font></font></p></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/san-francisco-sue-2487934170.html" class="external text" title="https://www.ecowatch.com/san-francisco-sue-2487934170.html" rel="nofollow" lock_icon.gif="lock_icon.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" font-family="font-family" georgia="Georgia" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" verdana="Verdana" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; background: url(">Bay Area is First Major U.S. City to Sue Fossil Fuel Industry Over Costs of Climate Change</a><span lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" verdana="Verdana" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> 9/17.</span></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" verdana="Verdana" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4">San Francisco Becomes First Major U.S. City to Sue Fossil Fuel Industry Over Costs of Climate Change</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h1></div></span></font></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px;"><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px;"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2487934170" data-headline="San Francisco Becomes First Major U.S. City to Sue Fossil Fuel Industry Over Costs of Climate Change" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">San Francisco and Oakland are suing <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chevron" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Chevron</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conocophillips" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">ConocoPhillips</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/exxon" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">ExxonMobil</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bp" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">BP</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/shell" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Royal Dutch Shell</a>—the five biggest investor-owned <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">fossil fuel</a> producers in the world—over the costs of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">climate change</a>.</span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The two Californian cities join the counties of Marin, San Mateo and<b> San Diego</b> and the city of Imperial Beach that have taken similar legal action in recent months, the <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-Oakland-sue-major-oil-companies-12215044.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">San Francisco Chronicle</a> reports.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><b>San Francisco city attorney Dennis Herrera and Oakland city attorney Barbara J. Parker </b>filed separate lawsuits on Tuesday in the superior courts of San Francisco and Alameda County on behalf of their respective cities.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;">They seek to hold the companies responsible "for the costs of sea walls and other infrastructure necessary to protect <span style="background-color: initial;">San Francisco</span> and <span style="background-color: initial;">Oakland</span> from ongoing and future consequences of climate change and sea level rise caused by the companies' production of massive amounts of fossil fuels," according to a joint <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/san-francisco-and-oakland-sue-top-five-oil-and-gas-companies-over-costs-of-climate-change-300522988.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">announcement</a>from the attorneys.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;">They claim that the oil and gas giants have <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/exxon-harvard-study-2476138068.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">known about the link</a> between fossil fuels and climate change for decades but continue to sell their products anyway, thus creating "an ongoing public nuisance that is causing harm now, and in the future risks catastrophic harm to human life and property, including billions of dollars of public and private property in Oakland and San Francisco."</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Herrera accused the fossil fuel companies of copying a page from the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/internal-documents-expose-fossil-fuel-industrys-decades-of-deception-o-1882064444.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Big Tobacco playbook</a> by launching a "multi-million dollar disinformation campaign to deny and discredit what was clear even to their own scientists: global warming is real, and their product is a huge part of the problem."</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;">"Now, the bill has come due," Herrera said. "It's time for these companies to take responsibility for the harms they have caused and are continuing to cause.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;">Oil industry representatives called the lawsuits unproductive.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;">"Chevron welcomes serious attempts to address the issue of climate change, but these suits do not do that," company spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie told the San Francisco Chronicle in an email. "Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a global issue that requires global engagement and action."</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;">Eric Wohlschlegel, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute trade group, added to the publication that the industry has already made climate change a priority and will "play a leading role in driving down U.S. greenhouse gas and other emissions."</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;">But the California city attorneys they want the courts to "hold the defendants jointly and severally liable for creating, contributing to and/or maintaining a public nuisance and to create an abatement fund for each city to be paid for by defendants to fund infrastructure projects necessary for San Francisco and Oakland to adapt to global warming and sea level rise."</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;">"The total amount needed for the abatement funds is not known at this time but is expected to be in the billions of dollars," they said....</p></div></div></div></span><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/court-reject-exxon-2484751312.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/court-reject-exxon-2484751312.html</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>New York's highest court dealt <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/exxon" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ExxonMobil</a> a major blow Tuesday when it declined to hear the oil giant's appeal to block New York Attorney General <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/eric-schneiderman" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Eric Schneiderman</a>'s subpoena seeking audit documents in an <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/exxon-climate-research-2190240911.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ongoing fraud investigation</a> of what "<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/exxon-harvard-study-2476138068.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Exxon Knew</a>" about the link between fossil fuels and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">climate change</a>.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Court of Appeals refused to hear Exxon's assertion that the documents were protected under "accountant-client confidentiality" under state law in Texas, where the company is headquartered.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The order affirms that state officials<b> can demand Exxon's auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), to immediately turn over the subpoenaed documents.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A memo from the Attorney General's office states:</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The New York Court of Appeals denied Exxon's request for further review of its claim that an accountant-privilege under Texas law allowed Exxon to withhold documents responsive to a subpoena issued to Exxon's independent auditor, PwC. The Court of Appeals also dismissed as moot Exxon's motion for a stay pending appeal. Exxon's legal claims had been rejected twice previously by lower state courts."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The court did not include an explanation of its decision.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The finding affirms a Manhattan court's ruling last year that: "New York does not recognize an accountant-client privilege, and controlling authority holds that: 'The law of the place where the evidence in question will be introduced at trial or the location of the discovery proceeding is applied when deciding privilege issues,'" as Judge Barry Ostrager wrote.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon has not yet released a comment.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Today's Court of Appeals order affirms that Exxon and its outside auditor have an obligation to produce all the documents that our office rightfully subpoenaed," Schneiderman said in a statement.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"As we've said from the start, Exxon had no legal basis to interfere with PwC's production," he added. "Our fraud investigation continues to move full speed ahead, despite Exxon's continued strategy of delay."</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12092017/exxon-loses-pwc-auditor-ruling-climate-fraud-investigation-new-york-schneiderman-court" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">InsideClimate News</a>, "Schneiderman's subpoena seeks PwC records from 2010 to the present related to risks to Exxon's profits from regulations limiting the emission of greenhouse gases, policies discouraging the use or development of fossil fuels; and the potential effects of climate change on the price of oil, gas, and other hydrocarbons."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The court's decision comes shortly after Harvard released a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/exxon-harvard-study-2476138068.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">breakthrough study</a> of Exxon's internal and external communications on climate change, including scientific research, internal company memos and paid editorial features in the New York Times.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Climate Nexus <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/exxon-harvard-study-2476138068.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">noted</a> from the study: "The analysis showed a 'quantifiable discrepancy' between internal and external communications, with 81 percent of external advertisements casting doubt on the link between human activity and climate change despite 80 percent of internal communications acknowledging climate <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/science/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">science</a>."...</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/scientific-breakthroughs-climate-lawsuits-2482945732.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/scientific-breakthroughs-climate-lawsuits-2482945732.html</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Elliott Negin</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What can you do when the president of the U.S. says <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">climate change</a> is a hoax and Congress is gridlocked by fossil fuel industry-funded climate science <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-denier" style="text-decoration-line: none;">deniers</a>?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Look to the courts for redress—with a major assist from science.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Using sophisticated computer analyses, scientists can now determine what percentage of an <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather" style="text-decoration-line: none;">extreme weather</a>event can be attributed to climate change. This emerging field of "<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-storm-harvey-climatechange/hurricane-harveys-aftermath-could-see-pioneering-climate-lawsuits-idUSKCN1BG2NI" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">climate attribution</a>" science offers courts a powerful new tool for apportioning responsibility in cases brought by victims of extreme weather events—<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-harvey" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Hurricane Harvey </a>comes to mind—or other climate-induced damages, such as <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" style="text-decoration-line: none;">sea level rise</a>, against municipalities and private real estate developers for failing to protect them from foreseeable damages.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Likewise, companies responsible for producing and marketing fossil fuels—BP, Chevron, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/exxon" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ExxonMobil</a> and the like—may find themselves in legal crosshairs thanks to a first-of-its-kind <a href="https://link.springer.com/journal/10584" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">study</a> definitively linking global climate changes to carbon emissions directly associated with them.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Published Thursday in the journal Climatic Change, the study calculated the amount of sea level rise and global temperature increase resulting from carbon dioxide and methane emissions from products marketed by the largest coal, gas and oil producers and cement manufacturers as well as their extraction and production processes.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We've known for a long time that fossil fuels are the largest contributor to climate change," said Brenda Ekwurzel, lead author and climate science director at the <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Union of Concerned Scientists</a> (UCS). "What's new here is that we've verified just how much specific companies' products have caused the Earth to warm and the seas to rise."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ekwurzel's study builds on a groundbreaking <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-013-0986-y" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">study</a> one of her co-authors, geographer Richard Heede, published in Climatic Change in 2014. Closely tracking the oil, gas and coal extracted since the Industrial Revolution, Heede found that just 90 private and state-owned companies are responsible for two-thirds of human-caused carbon emissions since then. What's more, Heede's research showed that more than half of these carbon emissions occurred since 1988, when NASA scientist <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/james-hansen-hurricanes-2479572165.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">James Hansen</a> sounded the alarm about climate change in well-publicized congressional testimony.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ekwurzel et al.'s study quantified climate change impacts of each company's carbon and methane emissions during two time periods: from 1880 to 2010 and from 1980 to 2010, because internal industry <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/fight-misinformation/climate-deception-dossiers-fossil-fuel-industry-memos#.WbCfaoqQzGY" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">documents</a> show fossil fuel companies were well aware of the threat posed by global warming at least 25 years ago.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the new study, emissions traced to the 90 largest carbon producers contributed approximately 57 percent of the upsurge in atmospheric carbon dioxide, nearly 50 percent of the increase in global average temperatures, and about 30 percent of global sea level rise since 1880. Meanwhile, emissions attributed to just the 50 investor-owned carbon producers, including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Peabody and Shell, were responsible for roughly 16 percent of the global average temperature increase and around 11 percent of the global sea level rise from 1880 to 2010. Between 1980 and 2010, the same 50 companies contributed approximately 10 percent of the global average temperature increase and about 4 percent of the sea level rise.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State-owned companies also have played a significant role. Emissions linked to 31 majority state-owned companies, including Coal India, Russia's Gazprom, Kuwait Petroleum, Mexico's Pemex, Petroleos de Venezuela, National Iranian Oil Company and Saudi Aramco, were responsible for about 15 percent of the global temperature increase and approximately 7 percent of sea level rise from 1880 to 2010.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Until a decade or two ago, no corporation could be held accountable for the consequences of their products' emissions because we simply didn't know enough about what their impacts were," explained Myles Allen, a study co-author and professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford in England. "Our study provides a framework for linking fossil fuel companies' product-related emissions to a range of impacts, including increases in ocean acidification and deaths caused by heat waves, wildfires, and other extreme weather-related events. We hope the results of this study will inform the debate over how best to hold major carbon producers accountable for their contributions to the problem."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As climate change impacts worsen and become more expensive to address, the question of financial responsibility will become more urgent. In New York City alone, local officials <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/sirr/html/report/report.shtml" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">estimate</a> that it will cost more than $19 billion to adapt to climate change. Globally, adaptation cost projections are equally astronomical. The U.N. Environment Programme <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2016/05/unep-report-cost-of-adapting-to-climate-change-could-hit-500b-per-year-by-2050/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">calculates</a> that developing countries will require $140 billion to $300 billion per year in 2030 and a whopping $280 billion to $500 billion per year by 2050.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Fossil fuel companies could have taken any number of steps to address climate change, such as investing in clean energy or carbon capture and storage," said Peter Frumhoff, a study co-author and director of science and policy at UCS. "Instead, many of them spent millions of dollars to try to deceive the public about climate science and block sensible limits on carbon emissions. Taxpayers alone, especially those living in vulnerable coastal communities, shouldn't have to bear all the costs of these companies' irresponsible decisions."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pending lawsuits by three California coastal communities could benefit immediately from Ekwurzel et al.'s findings. San Mateo and Marin counties and Imperial Beach, a city in San Diego County, filed <a href="https://www.sheredling.com/press-room/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">complaints</a> in July against 37 major coal, oil and gas companies, including BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell, claiming higher sea levels triggered by their products is putting billions of dollars of property at risk. The study also may embolden other municipalities and states to take similar legal action in the absence of leadership from the Trump administration and Congress. It then will be up to the courts to do what too many of our elected officials have so far failed to do: acknowledge scientific reality.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/about/staff/staff/elliott-negin.html#.WbKjKtOGPpA" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Elliott Negin</a> is a senior writer at the <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Union of Concerned Scientists</a>.</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">evil perversion:</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"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-28/how-a-canadian-timber-company-is-using-u-s-racketeering-law-to-go-after-greenpeace" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-28/how-a-canadian-timber-company-is-using-u-s-racketeering-law-to-go-after-greenpeace</a></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);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Racketeering Law to Go After Greenpeace</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> And how Hustler Magazine may help the defense.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Paul Barrett</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b> July 28, 2017,</b> 6:00 AM PDT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For several years, Greenpeace has been mounting a multimedia campaign against Canada's Resolute Forest Products, one of the largest timber-and-paper companies in the world. Called “Resolute: Forest Destroyer,” the campaign accuses the company of endangering the Boreal Forest, a vast evergreen swath that covers a third of northern Canada.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In response, Resolute has taken the extreme step of suing Greenpeace in the U.S. for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The suit, filed last year and pending in federal court in San Francisco, home to Greenpeace’s forest campaigners, seeks to prove that the<b> environmental group is akin to a mob syndicate. </b></span><b>The company says it has suffered a $100 million hit to its reputation.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Given that damages can be tripled under RICO, a decision in Resolute’s favor would endanger Greenpeace’s very existence</span>. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The suit has strong support in communities tied to the forestry industry. “This is the first time a company has stood up to an outside group and said we won’t take this anymore,” says David Canfield, the mayor of Kenora, a town in northwestern Ontario.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Resolute isn’t the first corporation to try this strategy. Chevron recently used the racketeering act against environmental activists who had sued it over oil pollution in Ecuador. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court left in place a lower-court ruling that protected the company from having to pay damages in the U.S. related to the Ecuadorian mess. <b>Chevron proved that its activist foes had transformed their suit against the company into an extortion plo</b>t featuring bribery, fabrication of evidence, and the ghostwriting of judicial opinions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By comparison, Greenpeace’s alleged offenses seem less dire, but that isn’t to say its assertions have been airtight. For one thing, Resolute isn’t “destroying” the Boreal. According to the government agency Natural Resources Canada, less than 0.5 percent of the country’s forest acreage is harvested annually (and only a minority of that is taken by Resolute). </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With the exception of logging roads, 100 percent of forest that’s harvested is regenerated naturally or by seeding or planting, the agency says. “‘Destroying’ means something: It's going away and not coming back,” Resolute’s lawyer, Michael Bowe, says. The Boreal, he adds, isn’t disappearing in that fashion. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The idea that we’re the ones doing damage is patently false and malicious,” says Seth Kursman, Resolute’s spokesman. The company accuses Greenpeace of other distortions—misrepresenting trees felled by natural causes as having been illegally cut down; predicting that Resolute activities will lead to a caribou “death spiral,” when the animals at risk are in western Canada, far from Resolute’s operations in the east; and blaming the company for hastening climate change when, Resolute claims, the old-growth forest that loggers take down absorbs dramatically less carbon dioxide than young forest growth that results from seeding, planting, or natural regeneration. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In keeping with RICO, the suit holds that Greenpeace has run something like a protection racket by threatening the company’s corporate customers with boycotts if they don’t cut ties with Resolute over these issues.</span> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Resolute says it has lost $100 million in revenue because of such threats—the basis of its damages claim. The company also accuses Greenpeace of fraudulently inducing “many millions of dollars” in donations from “regular working-class people who have been duped” into believing their money prevents forest loss, climate change, and caribou suffering</span>. When I question whether Resolute has standing to vindicate the rights of Greenpeace contributors, Bowe responds that donors were harmed by the racketeering “enterprise” and are therefore properly included as victims. While he acknowledges that his evidence may not have the earmarks of traditional organized crime,  he hastens to add, “I don’t think you have to have a Chevron case to have a RICO case.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Greenpeace General Counsel Tom Wetterer says that the group stands behind its past statements and actions. But in its legal papers, the organization claims it can win the case without having been error-free in its claims about Resolute. The defense argument begins with the idea that <b>Resolute has dressed up a garden-variety defamation suit as a racketeering case. </b></span><b>When viewed properly under U.S. defamation law, the defense says, Greenpeace’s attacks on the company—including boycott threats—constitute protected free speech.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And when statements relate to issues of public concern, the First Amendment protects accusatory language employed “in a loose figurative sense.” That last point comes from the holding of a 1974 Supreme Court decision on labor organizing, which also said “rhetorical hyperbole” and “vigorous epithet” are protected. Activists, Greenpeace adds, aren’t obliged to “hew to strict literalisms or scientific precision.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">So, even if Resolute hasn’t literally “destroyed” the forest or pushed caribou into a “death spiral,” Greenpeace feels entitled to say that it did—and the U.S. judiciary may agree. “We’re doing legitimate advocacy work,” says Wetterer. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 11 other media organizations have filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Greenpeace. They point to a 1988 Supreme Court decision that protected Hustler’s right to publish a parody ad depicting the late conservative Christian evangelist Jerry Falwell as an incestuous drunk. “In the world of debate about public affairs,” the court’s unanimous ruling read, “many things done with motives that are less than admirable are protected by the First Amendment.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A federal judge is expected to hear Greenpeace’s motion to dismiss the Resolute suit this fall. Unsettling though it may be to watch a litigant wrap its free-speech fate in a revolting porn magazine, I predict Greenpeace will have the better of the constitutional argument. The First Amendment offers activists a strong shield.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a final observation, though, it’s<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> worth noting that in a different context, Greenpeace has taken a narrower view of protected expression. On ExxonSecrets.org, a website it sponsors, the organization says that the oil company ’s past support for climate-change denial doesn’t deserve First Amendment insulation. There is a “responsibility that goes with freedom of speech, which is based around honesty and transparency,” Greenpeace asserts. “Freedom of speech does not apply to misinformation and propaganda.” Those lines sound an awful lot like something Resolute would say.</span></font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">===</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">see cei 2 for nyt letter (names below)</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/2/14/14601932/exxon-first-amendment-free-speech-citizens-global-warming" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/2/14/14601932/exxon-first-amendment-free-speech-citizens-global-warming</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p id="YICgHK" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">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?</font></p><p id="aF4dvi" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the latest instance of the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2566785" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;">corporate takeover</a> of the First Amendment — and other constitutional rights — Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest oil and gas corporation, has invented a constitutional right to obstruct state investigations into allegations of fraud.</font></p><p id="V3EYHm" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Investigations by the Massachusetts and New York attorneys general began late last year after <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;">the Los Angeles Times reported</a> that Exxon scientists and executives have known for decades about the connection between fossil fuel consumption and the likelihood of catastrophic changes in the Earth’s atmosphere and climate.</font></p><p id="Viu75r" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The report alleged that as early as the 1980s, Exxon scientists were warning the company in internal communications that global climate change could "indeed be catastrophic (at least for a substantial fraction of the earth's population)." According to the journalists’ report, Exxon’s internal teams used that information for purposes of assessing the potential for profitable investment in new oil exploration and production. Yet these were the same climate models that Exxon “dismissed as unreliable and based on uncertain science” in statements to investors, consumers, and the general public.</font></p><div class="m-ad m-admobile_article_body" style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><div id="div-gpt-ad-mobile_article_body" class="dfp_ad" data-cb-dfp-id="unit=mobile_article_body" data-cb-ad-id="Mobile article body" style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><h3 id="q4aWaB" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.6rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A parallel with investigations of Big Tobacco</font></h3><p id="cEBpAI" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">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.</font></p><p id="0P3dJA" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">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.</font></p><p id="gAKNkq" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">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.</font></p><div class="m-ad m-adnative_ad_mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><div id="div-gpt-ad-native_ad_mobile" class="dfp_ad" data-cb-dfp-id="unit=native_ad_mobile" data-cb-ad-id="Native ad mobile" style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p id="AEVTGn" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">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.</font></p><p id="XSQWDg" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">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.)</font></p><h3 id="MTpjvC" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.6rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Until fairly recently, no US court would have entertained free speech claims by a corporation that wanted to strike down regulation</font></h3><p id="ntdDk4" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">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.</font></p><p id="RFqGrZ" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is where the Supreme Court’s decision in <em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission</em> 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 <em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Citizens United </em>is 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.</font></p><p id="dgzvtb" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Citizens United</em> 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.</font></p><p id="lSkCmG" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">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.</font></p><div class="c-float-right" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36.3125px; padding: 0px; float: right; width: 326.875px;"><figure class="e-image" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2.2rem; padding: 0px;"><span class="e-imageimage " data-original="https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7979343/US_Supreme_Court_Justice_Lewis_Powell1976_official_portrait.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: block; width: 326.875px;"><span class="e-image__meta" style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 8px 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(209, 209, 209); display: block; width: 326.875px;"><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">n.</font></figcaption></span></span></figure></div><p id="hO9QXg" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">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 <em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council</em> (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.</font></p><p id="XNYWTH" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That finding was then broadened and expanded in <em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti </em>(1978), which held that corporations can contribute to ballot initiatives, and again in <em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission </em>(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. <em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Citizens United</em> affirmed those cases and extended them to campaign finance laws.</font></p><p id="rwhB24" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Despite the “free speech” rhetoric<em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">,</em> 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.</font></p><p id="rwhB24" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...</font></p><p style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span id="docs-internal-guid-06608171-4c4b-2369-9712-b0a5ab0bae48" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span id="docs-internal-guid-06608171-4c4b-2369-9712-b0a5ab0bae48" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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 <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/climate-change-fraud-investigation-exxon-eric-shneiderman-18-attorneys-general" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">AGs United for Clean Power</a>.  </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span id="docs-internal-guid-06608171-4c4b-2369-9712-b0a5ab0bae48" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By pulling those attorneys general into the fight, Exxon could trigger years of legal wrangling over disclosure of its understanding of climate risks.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span id="docs-internal-guid-06608171-4c4b-2369-9712-b0a5ab0bae48" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-06608171-4c4b-2369-9712-b0a5ab0bae48" style="box-sizing: inherit;">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, </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3215561-Healeys-No-Holds-Motiont-Nov-2016.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">according to a motion</a> her office filed in the Texas case.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span id="docs-internal-guid-06608171-4c4b-2369-9712-b0a5ab0bae48" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neither an Exxon spokesman nor company lawyers returned calls for comment.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-06608171-4c4b-2369-9712-b0a5ab0bae48" style="box-sizing: inherit;">This recent round of saber rattling is the latest in a year of escalation since the </span><a href="about:blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">New York attorney general's office hit Exxon with a subpoena</a> for records spanning four decades of Exxon's research findings and communications about climate change. The subpoena came in the wake of reporting, including <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">an InsideClimate News investigative series</a>, 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.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span id="docs-internal-guid-06608171-4c4b-2369-9712-b0a5ab0bae48" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-06608171-4c4b-2369-9712-b0a5ab0bae48" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The three are </span><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/climate-change-fraud-investigation-exxon-eric-shneiderman-18-attorneys-general" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">part of a coalition</a> 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.</font></p><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-06608171-4c4b-2369-9712-b0a5ab0bae48" style="box-sizing: inherit;">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 </span><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16062016/exxon-sues-massachusetts-attorney-general-climate-change-fraud-investigation" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">is battling Massachusetts</a>.</font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">To allow Exxon the opportunity to explore whether Healy was prejudiced against the company, </span>Kinkeade granted the company's request for the discovery order. </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That appeared to set the stage for an extensive review of Healey's internal records associated with her investigation.</font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">But </span>Wells, the Exxon lawyer, told a New York judge last month that the company was interpreting Kinkade's order more broadly.</font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">"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 </span><span id="docs-internal-guid-06608171-4c4b-2369-9712-b0a5ab0bae48" style="box-sizing: inherit;">March 29th conference," Wells said, </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3214367-Document-16-Hearing-Transcript.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">according to a transcript of the hearing</a>.</font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We are going to try to take depositions of the state AGs."</font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">If the court endorses Exxon's effort, Healey said in her latest motion in Texas court, it will likely achieve </span><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">"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."</span></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">"We believe that you may have documents that are relevant to pending and </span><span id="docs-internal-guid-06608171-4c4b-2369-9712-b0a5ab0bae48" style="box-sizing: inherit;">potential litigation involving the investigations of ExxonMobil, including but not limited to materials concerning the events and communications leading up to the investigations," </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3215192-Exxon-Letter-to-NGOs-to-Preserve-Communications.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">according to the letter to</a> the Union of Concerned Scientists.</font></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09112016/exxon-climate-change-investigation-research-scandal-state-attorneys-general"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09112016/exxon-climate-change-investigation-research-scandal-state-attorneys-general"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09112016/exxon-climate-change-investigation-research-scandal-state-attorneys-general</font></a></div><p style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">==</font></p><p style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left; margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">vs green 17</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">13 AG: <b times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" line-height="line-height" px="px" style=" font-family: ;">Alabama, Michigan, Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and South Carolina </b></font>

<b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alabama, strange</font></b>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michigan, scheutte</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Oklahoma, pruitt</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> and South Carolina alan wilson</font>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/06/16/climate-inquisition-exxonmobil-sues-massachusetts-ag-civil-rights-violations/</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://insideclimatenews.org/news/16062016/<b>exxon-sues-massachusetts-attorney-general</b>-climate-change-fraud-investigation</font>

<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ExxonMobil has sued to derail a second attorney general's investigation of the oil giant's climate record.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The company filed a complaint in federal district court in Fort Worth on Wednesday against Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. Her office <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2862196-Exxon-Subpoena-Massachusetts.html" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent;">subpoenaed Exxon records going back 40 years</a> in an investigation of whether the company committed consumer or securities fraud by misrepresenting its knowledge of climate change.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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 <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/climate-change-fraud-investigation-exxon-eric-shneiderman-18-attorneys-general" style=" box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent;">coalition of Democratic attorneys general</a> 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 <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/05112015/new-york-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman-subpoena-Exxon-climate-documents" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent;">an Exxon inquiry</a> last year.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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," <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2861634-Exxon-Fights-MASS-Investigation.html" style=" box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent;">according to the lawsuit</a>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon asked the court to either issue an injunction halting the investigation or rule that the investigation is without legal merit.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"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.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"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.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"For many months<strong style=" box-sizing: inherit;">, </strong>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.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"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."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Healey complaint closely mirrors Exxon's <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/13042016/exxon-virgin-islands-subpoena-climate-change-investigation-violates-rights-claude-walker" style=" box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent;">court battle against</a> 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.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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 href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2861575-CEI-Virgin-Islands-Withdraw.html" style=" box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent;">a letter to CEI's lawyers</a>, 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.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"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, <a href="https://cei.org/content/virgin-islands-ag-withdraws-dc-subpoena-cei" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent;">said in a statment</a>. 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.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon has not balked at a <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/05112015/new-york-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman-subpoena-Exxon-climate-documents" style=" box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent;">subpoena from New York Attorney General Schneiderman</a> issued last year seeking documents on what Exxon knew about climate change and what it told shareholders and the public.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"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."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By filing its lawsuits in Fort Worth, Texas-based Exxon may be seeking a home-court advantage, <a href="https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/tom56/" style=" box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent;">according to Thomas McGarity</a>, 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."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also on Wednesday, the attorney general of Texas and of 12 other states,<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2862197-AG-Coalition-Resp-Letter-2016-06-15.html" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent;">wrote a letter to the coalition of the 17 attorneys general working on climate change issues</a>, urging them to drop any climate fraud investigations of fossil companies.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"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.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We think this effort by our colleagues to police the global warming debate through the power of the subpoena is a grave mistake."</font></p>

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<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ctr attack on Rico 20 shukula etc pielke mcIntyre on "double dipping"</font></p>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" /><div style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">==</span></font></div><div style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">rivkin fedsoc 2008</span></div>

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</div><span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">...</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/state-ags-on-global-warming-litigation" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">https://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/state-ags-on-global-warming-litigation</a></div>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>In the short term, however, there seems little doubt that California's Attorney General, former Governor and Democrat presidential hopeful Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown, Jr., will be leading the global warming charge. With its Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32)</b>, the California legislature has commanded that the State's greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 1990 levels by the year 2020. The law requires California's Air Resources Board to establish a statewide GHG emissions cap by January 1, 2008, and to promulgate implementing regulations by January 1, 2011. In advance of these measures, <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Attorney General Brown </b></span>has initiated his own campaign to force immediate GHG emissions reductions. In particular, he has embarked upon a statewide effort, pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), to force California's counties to adopt global climate change plans.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Most recently, Brown announced the settlement of a suit he brought against San Bernardino County challenging its general CEQA plan. The county agreed to undertake a 30-month "Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan," including inventories of GHG emission sources and targets for reductions in emissions attributable to the county's land use decisions and other governmental operations. Brown, who has filed CEQA comments on the plans of at least eleven other California counties, has indicated that the San Bernardino plan is a "model that I encourage other cities and counties to adopt." See <a href="http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1453&year=2007&month=8" title="Brown Announces Landmark Global Warming Settlement">Brown Announces Landmark Global Warming Settlement Press Release</a> (Aug. 21, 2007).</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Similarly, Brown appealed a decision by Contra Costa County (in the San Francisco Bay Area) to permit the expansion of an existing ConocoPhillips refinery</b> and thereby obtained an agreement from the company to adopt a GHG reduction plan. This plan includes a multi-million dollar "offset" program in the Bay Area and elsewhere in California. On the federal level, Attorney General Brown has petitioned EPA to establish carbon dioxide limitations for all ocean going vessels entering American ports and threatens to sue the Agency if it fails to approve California's pending request for a section 209(b) Clean Air Act waiver. This provision permits California - once a waiver is granted - to impose new motor vehicle and engine emissions standards that may be more stringent than comparable federal regulations. In this instance, it would permit California to regulate GHG emissions from new motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines sold in the State, and grant of the waiver would also permit other States to adopt the California standards; fourteen have indicated a desire to do so.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">There is every reason to believe that Attorney General Brown, along with many other state Attorneys General, will continue to be active in this area.</font></p>

<b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="http://lamarsmith.house.gov/">Lamar Smith</a>, Texas*</b></b></div>

<div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="http://www.house.gov/lucas/">Frank D. Lucas</a>, Oklahoma</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="http://sensenbrenner.house.gov/">F. James Sensenbrenner</a>, Wisconsin+</b></div>

<b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="http://rohrabacher.house.gov/">Dana Rohrabacher</a>, California</b></b></div>

<div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="http://www.randy.house.gov/index.html">Randy Neugebauer</a>, Texas</b></div>

<div style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="http://mccaul.house.gov/" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Michael T. McCaul</a><span style="font-style: inherit;">, Texas</span></div>

<b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="http://brooks.house.gov/">Mo Brooks</a>, Alabama</b></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://hultgren.house.gov/" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Randy Hultgren</a><span style="font-style: inherit;">, Illinois</span></div>

<b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="http://posey.house.gov/">Bill Posey</a>, Florida</b></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://massie.house.gov/" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Thomas Massie</a><span style="font-style: inherit;">, Kentucky</span></div>

<b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="http://bridenstine.house.gov/">Jim Bridenstine</a>, Oklahoma</b></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="http://weber.house.gov/">Randy Weber</a>, Texas</b></div>

<b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="https://moolenaar.house.gov/">John R. Moolenaar</a>, Michigan</b></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://knight.house.gov/" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Steve Knight</a><span style="font-style: inherit;">, California</span></div>

<b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="https://babin.house.gov/">Brian Babin</a>, Texas</b></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://westerman.house.gov/" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Bruce Westerman</a><span style="font-style: inherit;">, Arkansas</span></div>

<div style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="https://comstock.house.gov/" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Barbara Comstock</a><span style="font-style: inherit;">, Virginia</span></div>

<div style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="https://palmer.house.gov/" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Gary Palmer</a><span style="font-style: inherit;">, Alabama</span></div>

<b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="https://loudermilk.house.gov/">Barry Loudermilk</a>, Georgia</b></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="https://abraham.house.gov/">Ralph Lee Abraham</a>, Louisiana </b></div>

<div style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><a href="https://lahood.house.gov/" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Darin LaHood</a><span style="font-style: inherit;">, Illinois ==</span></div><span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">https://science.house.gov/news/letters/gop-member-letter-enviromental-activist-organizations-coordinated-efforts-deprive</span></div></span><span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">lamar smith</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">On Wednesday, 13 House Representatives sitting on the Science, Space and Technology Committee sent letters to </span><a href="https://science.house.gov/news/letters/gop-member-letter-state-attorneys-general-coordinated-efforts-deprive-scientists-first" target="blank" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">17 state attorneys general</a><span style="font-style: inherit;"> and </span><a href="https://science.house.gov/news/letters/gop-member-letter-enviromental-activist-organizations-coordinated-efforts-deprive" target="blank" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">eight non-governmental organizations</a><span style="font-style: inherit;">, including </span><a href="https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/05.18.16%20SST%20Letter%20to%20Greenpeace.pdf" target="blank" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Greenpeace USA</a><span style="font-style: inherit;">. These letters come as a reaction to the announcement by the </span><a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/03/30/climate-change-investigation-exxon/" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">attorneys general</a><span style="font-style: inherit;"> to coordinate efforts around </span><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">climate change</a><span style="font-style: inherit;"> related actions, following the NGOs’ revelations that </span><a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=exxon" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">ExxonMobil</a><span style="font-style: inherit;"> implemented a colossal climate denial operation to deceive its shareholders and the public for decades.</span></div></span><p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">America’s least-respected <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-congress-approval-rating-drops-to-11-percent/" target="blank">politicians</a> have now courageously stepped up to defend one of America’s <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-05/america-s-most-loved-and-most-hated-companies" target="_blank">most-hated corporations</a> from scrutiny. If these representatives, who have historically low approval ratings, think they’re somehow helping Exxon’s public image with this nonsense, then they need to take some time away from lobbyist mixers and meet the people. American citizens believe in climate change and want a better future. Exxon knows now and has known for decades that its work has contributed to catastrophic climate change. The issue here is whether or not it lied to its shareholders and the public.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">If Exxon knew its work made climate change worse and hid this information for profit, it should be held accountable, not protected by elected officials who are there to represent the American people, not corporations. Since 1999, these 13 elected officials have been paid millions in campaign contributions from coal, oil and gas companies, so this letter is more proof that the system works—for corporations.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The list of groups that received the letter </b>includes <a href="http://350.org/" target="_blank">350.org</a>, Climate Accountability Institute, Climate Reality Project, Greenpeace USA, Pawa Law Group PC, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Family Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists. The 17 attorneys general are the elected officials of California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Iowa, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, U.S. Virgin Islands, Virginia, Vermont and Washington State.</font></p>

<div style="text-align: left;"><b>
</b></div><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">New FOIA’d Emails Tell a Very Different Story About How NY AG’s RICO Campaign Started Off</b></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">7:07am EDT May 17, 2016</span></div></span><span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">by Katie Brown, PhD</span></div></span><span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">katie@</span><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">energyindepth.org,</b><span style="font-style: inherit;"> Washington, D.C.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">note no links or images, see</span><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"> http://energyindepth.org/national/new-foiad-emails-tell-a-very-different-story-about-how-ny-ags-rico-campaign-started-off/</b></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">A new batch of emails, released late Friday afternoon, pulls back the curtain further on the level of collusion and coordination between anti-fossil fuel activists, their funders, and the attorneys general that have launched climate investigations into people, companies, and think tanks with which they disagree on the issue.</b></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">
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<b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">These emails, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">(FOIA) request by The Competitive Enterprise Institute and Chris Horner, </span></b><span style="font-style: inherit;">show that key activists behind this campaign had hoped they could make a case for prosecuting climate “deniers” under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. But, due to multiple warnings from experts that such a case would have no chance to actually succeed, they decided instead to shift their strategic focus to state-level attorneys general to get the job done. Interestingly, these emails date back to last summer, months before the Rockefeller-funded InsideClimate News and the Columbia School of Journalism published their #ExxonKnew investigations.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">The key players that emerge from this latest batch of emails are </span><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">George Mason University (GMU) professors Jagadish Shukla and Edward Maibach</b><span style="font-style: inherit;">, who spearheaded a letter in September 2015 with several other colleagues to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and President Obama asking them to explore RICO charges against climate “deniers” and their funders.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Here are some other key revelations that come from these emails:</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">#1: Activists were colluding with state AGs much longer than initially thought</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">The activists pushing for the climate RICO investigations have been claiming that the “investigative reporting” by </span><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">InsideClimate News (ICN) and the Columbia School of Journalism </b><span style="font-style: inherit;">were what spurred them to action. But as these new emails reveal, the master plan was already in place and well under way before those articles were published.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">In one email, </span><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">GMU professor Ed Maibach reached out to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)</b><span style="font-style: inherit;"> to enlist its help in getting activists from every congressional district to sign on to their letter. Peter Frumhoff of UCS replied to that request by saying his organization would not join the effort — because UCS did not think the case was strong enough to have a chance of eliciting the intervention of the federal attorney general. Frumhoff went on to admit that they were already pursuing a possible path via state AGs, noting “we think there’ll likely be a strong basis for encouraging state (e.g. AG) action forward, and in that context, opportunities for climate scientists to weigh in.”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Email 1</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">That this email comes from Frumhoff is particularly interesting considering that he was one of the activists who briefed the attorneys general launching the RICO investigations just ahead of their March 29 press conference with Al Gore. After newly released emails revealed his attendance, Frumhoff admitted he was there: “I was invited to brief the attorneys general that gathered on March 29 on my work, and that is what I did.”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Frumhoff also organized and attended a now</span><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"> infamous 2012 workshop in La Jolla, Calif., hosted by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Climate Accountability Institute (CAI</b><span style="font-style: inherit;">). The meeting brought together activists in order to brainstorm the various ways they could help hasten an investigation into ExxonMobil in particular, which led to the publication of a report called, “Establishing Accountability for Climate Change Damages: Lessons from Tobacco Control.”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Frumhoff’s email isn’t the only indication that collusion between activists and AGs has been going on for a while. Here are just a few more examples:</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">    On January 11, 2016, the Huffington Post published an op-ed by Lyn Davis Lear, co-founder of Environmental Media Association, who notes that “In the spring of 2014, I was having lunch with one of my heroes, Attorney General of New York, Eric Schneiderman, and his head of the Environmental Protection Bureau, Lemuel Srolovic…We were also discussing the possibilities of a state Attorney General suing oil and coal companies for being implicit in causing climate change. Through a friend, I found a few, obscure studies from some major universities showing links between the two.” By the way, Lem Srolovic is one who told</span><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"> anti-fossil fuel lawyer Matt Pawa not to tell a Wall Street Journal reporter that he had briefed the AGs ahead of their press conference: “My ask is if you speak to the reporter,” Srolovic said, “to not confirm that you attended or otherwise discuss the event.”</b></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">    November 5, 2015, ICN admitted that the plan to have New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman spearhead investigations had been in the works for at least a year: “New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office demanded that ExxonMobil Corporation give investigators documents spanning four decades of research findings and communications about climate change, according to a person familiar with the year-long probe.” (emphasis added) That same article also admitted that activists had their sights on Schneiderman as the man to launch this plan for quite some time: “Some climate advocacy groups have long urged that Schneiderman, a second-term Democrat, investigate Exxon and other companies under the 1921 statute.”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">    On September 30, 2015, an article by ICN suggests that there was already an effort underway to use the Martin Act through Schneiderman rather than RICO to achieve their goal: “Whitehouse, for one, has outlined the case for a Justice Department probe of whether Exxon violated the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. The advocacy group Climate Hawks has mounted an online petition drive to urge Attorney General Loretta Lynch to open such an investigation. Prosecution under that law, which was used against the tobacco industry in the 1990s, would require evidence of a conspiracy. Another frequently mentioned option is for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of New York to invoke the state’s powerful stock-fraud statute, the Martin Act, as the state has done in recent years to force other fossil fuel companies to disclose more about the financial risks they face from climate change.”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">    The report that came out of the La Jolla conference in 2012 singles out the AG option this way: “State attorneys general can also subpoena documents, raising the possibility that a single sympathetic state attorney general might have substantial success in bringing key internal documents to light. In addition, lawyers at the workshop noted that even grand juries convened by a district attorney could result in significant document discovery.” (emphasis added)</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">#2. Activists were told by numerous experts that RICO wasn’t going to work</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">What’s also interesting about these emails is that that Maibach and Shukla were told on multiple occasions that the RICO law just wasn’t going to cut it. The email mentioned above from Frumhoff also notes,</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">    “In reaching out to climate scientists to sign on, we feel that we’d need to give them some firmer grounding for believing that a federal investigation under the RICO statute is warranted – enough so that they’d be able to explain their rationale for signing to reporters and others. As you know, deception/disinformation isn’t itself a basis for criminal prosecution under RICO. We don’t think that Sen Whitehouse’s call gives enough of a basis for scientists to sign on to this as a solid approach at this point.”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Maibach responds to Frumhoff that “Shukla has been consulting with lawyers so it is possible that – with their input – we too may decide that Senator Whitehouse’s proposal is not viable.”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Email 2</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Seeking legal counsel, Maibach contacted a friend at Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), who told him that the odds of getting the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate under RICO were “slim to none.”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Email 3</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Maibach then emails Shukla, saying, “Perhaps it would be best if we first found a lawyer with RICO experience to give us an independent opinion on the basis – or lack thereof – of a RICO investigation. If there really is no basis, then I feel we would be unwise to engage other scientists in recommending a baseless action. Do you know of anyone with RICO experience?”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Email 4</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">In another email, Mark Cane from Columbia Earth Institute writes to a group of scientists as well as a Sheldon Whitehouse staffer explaining, “I do have misgivings about invoking RICO, which may too easily lead to civil liberties abuses.”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Email 5</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">#3. Senator Whitehouse was emailing with activists, too</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">There is even an email in the batch from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who has been spearheading the RICO campaign in Congress. Whitehouse states, “So we’re all clear: the tobacco case was a CIVIL RICO case, not criminal, so jailing and imprisoning have nothing to do with it. Just a forum where you can’t lie and can be cross-examined in front of a neutral judge. And the govt won fair and square and soundly, just as I believe they would here.”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Email 6</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">#4. Activists warned: “You’re talking about prosecuting conservatives”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Maibach contacted Alex Bozmoski of RepublicEN, which describes itself as a group of conservatives concerned about climate change, about his letter as well</b><span style="font-style: inherit;">. Bozmoski tells Maibach his draft “screams hard-core left” and warned him that he’s “talking about prosecuting conservatives.”</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Email 7</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">#5. Surprise! More Rockefeller funding</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
</div>

<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">After a media firestorm ensued from the letter, Maibach contacted Jeff Nesbit of an environmental communications firm called Climate Nexus to ask for help. According to its website, Climate Nexus is “a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, a 501(c)3 organization.” In other words, the folks spearheading this letter were also getting communications support from a group that is bankrolled by the same funders (the Rockefellers) pouring millions into the organizations aggressively pushing the #ExxonKnew narrative.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
</div>

<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">The e-mail chain below shows </span><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Maibach stonewalling an interview request from Fox News and forwarding the Fox producer’s e-mail to Chris Mooney of the Washington Post</b><span style="font-style: inherit;"> (sort of a no-no in this business). To wit:</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
</div>

<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Email 8</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
</div>

<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">InsideClimate News has repeatedly cited its own work as the impetus that prompted Schneiderman’s probe, in addition to several other actions taken by Democratic politicians. So eager were they to take credit, they cited the actions in the cover letter attached to their Pulitzer Prize submission as justification for why they deserved to win the Prize (they didn’t). What this latest batch of emails show is that Schneiderman and activist groups were colluding to lay the groundwork for the climate RICO investigations long before the ICN and Columbia School of Journalism stories ever hit.</span></div></span><span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">==</span></div></span><span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">thorough blog attack</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
</div>

<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">https://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/rico-teering/</span></div></span><div style="text-align: left;">
</div>

<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">you know where the line on how ‘fossil fuel companies ‘knew’ they were doing wrong but yet did it’ comes from. The cries of ‘it’s a conspiracy!’ are planned and pre-meditated, on lawyers’ advice.</span></div></span><p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is where RICO came in:</font></p>

<p style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Ayres, an experienced environmental attorney, suggested that the RICO Act, which had been used effectively against the tobacco industry, could similarly be used to bring a lawsuit against carbon producers.</font></p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Ayres is<a href="http://www.ayreslawgroup.com/attorneys/Richard-E.-Ayres/" target="blank"> no slouch</a>. A prominent environmental lawyer, he is <a href="http://www.ayreslawgroup.com/attorneys/Richard-E.-Ayres/" target="blank">co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council</a> (NRDC).</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ayres knew starting lawsuits against productive companies wouldn’t look good. They needed to be spun:</font></p>

<p style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It has to be something positive</font></p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How? By dressing it up as injury ‘compensation’</font></p>

<p class="p1" style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="s1">“</span>Even if your ultimate goal might be to shut down a company, you still might be wise to start out by asking for compensation for injured parties.”</font></p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The suggestions appeared to grow outlandish at every turn. <a href="http://www.climatemitigation.com/rick-heede-bio.html" target="blank">Richard Heede</a>, one of CAI’s members, had come up with a <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-013-0986-y" target="blank">system for blaming individual companies</a>:</font></p>

<p class="p1" style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heede is working to derive the proportion of the planet’s atmospheric carbon load that is traceable to the fossil fuels produced and marketed by each of these companies</font></p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heede’s bizarre formulas, we learn, were received ‘positively’ by ‘most of the workshop’s participants’. One UCS participant felt that ‘it could potentially be useful as part of a coordinated campaign to identify key climate “wrongdoers.” Another felt it was useful in blaming faceless corporate entities instead of countries thereby bypassing provoking patriotic impulses in international negotiations.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heede’s work was funded by Greenpeace. Of note, Greenpeace counsel <a href="https://twitter.com/Patagorda" target="_blank">Jasper Teulings</a> was present at the meeting.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An inspired Oreskes then appears to have proposed blaming sea level rise on corporations:</font></p>

<p class="p1" style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Picking up on this notion, Naomi Oreskes suggested that some portion of sea level rise could be attributed to the emissions caused by a single carbon-producing company</font></p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The oil company Exxon made its appearance in her example:</font></p>

<p class="p1" style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She suggested, “You might be able to say, ‘Here’s Exxon’s contribution to what’s happening to Key West or Venice.’”</font></p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This was a strategy Glantz liked:</font></p>

<p style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">…Stanton Glantz expressed some enthusiasm about such a strategy, based on his experience with tobacco litigation. As he put it, “I would be surprised if the industry chose to attack the calculation that one foot of flooding in Key West could be attributed to ExxonMobil.</font></p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The conspiratorial tide did not recede. Former computer scientist John Mashey claimed collusion between ‘climate change deniers’ and fossil fuel companies:</font></p>

<p style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Mashey] presented a brief overview of some of his research, which traces funding, personnel, and messaging connections between roughly 600 individuals …</font></p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The penultimate section in the report is on how delegates planned to win ‘public opinion’. Even with RICO, some felt it was ‘not easy’ (‘RICO is not easy. It is certainly not a sure win’ – Ayres) and others were wary of drawing the attention of “hostile legislators who might seek to undermine them”.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With public opinion, the delegates were <em>clearly</em> divided. PR mavens, lawyers and activists wanted to cry fraud, paint up villains and create outrage:</font></p>

<p style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To mobilize, people often need to be outraged.</font></p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Daniel Yankelovich a ‘public opinion researcher’ involved in ‘citizen education’ appears to have balked at the ‘sue, sue, sue’ chanting. Court cases are useful only after the public had been won over, he said.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is not clear he grasped the activists and lawyers aimed for the same with a spectacular legal victory or headlines generated by court cases and bypass the whole issue of ‘citizen education’ .</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The workshop ended and there was ‘agreement’. ‘Documents’ needed to be obtained. Legal action was needed both for ‘wresting potentially useful internal documents’ and ‘maintaining pressure on the industry’.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A consensus had emerged</font></p>

<p style=" text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">… an emerging consensus on a strategy that incorporates legal action with a narrative that creates public outrage.</font></p>

</blockquote>

<p style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The participants, we learn</font></p>

<p style=" text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">…made commitments to try to coordinate future efforts, continue discussing strategies for gaining access to internal documents from the fossil fuel industry and its affiliated climate denial network…</font></p>

</blockquote>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Photo (c) Brenda Ekwurzel, from the report</font>

<strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Postscript:</font></strong>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why is the report important? Because climate activists have done <em>everything</em> the delegates said they wanted done, in the report.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Everyone from <a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/10/30/skeptical-climate-scientists-fire-back-at-rico-20-colleagues-demand-investigations-against-their-accusers/" target="blank">climate skeptics like Roy Spencer</a>, columnists like <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/its-always-exxons-fault-1445986332" target="blank">Holman Jenkins Jr</a> and even a <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2015/10/10/it-could-have-endorsed-sensible-policies/" target="_blank">consensusist like William Connolley</a> has been left scratching their head. However, from RICO to ‘Exxon knew’ — the twin defibrillator paddles in use to reanimate a moribund climate Frankenstein — the <em>present actions</em> of climate activists have been none but the pre-meditated ones presented in the report.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These include the<a href="http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/senators-to-exxon-are-you-still-funding-climate-denial" target="blank"> latest letter from US Senators to Exxon</a>, the conspiratorial ‘Exxon Knew’ campaign with the <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming" target="blank">portrayal of old Exxon reports by InsideClimateNews</a> as ‘internal documents’, the <a href="https://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/klinger-rico-debacle/">RICO letter from scientists</a> and much more. Particularly, w<span style=" line-height: 1.6em;">ith the <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken" target="_blank">pathetic ‘journalism’ of InsideClimateNews</a> it is almost as if climate activists have willed these ‘documents’ into existence – just as they were advised.</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The CAI are free to plot the downfall of their opponents. But it is somewhat of a surprise to see the <em>entirety</em> of their ideas to be picked up and translated into action by the intellectually bankrupt climate activist movement.</font>

<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">http://www.alternet.org/environment/climate-deception-investigations-gain-momentum-exxonmobil-plays-victim</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"> </span></font></div>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">With several state attorneys general now investigating whether ExxonMobil misled its shareholders and the public about climate change risks, it was more than a little ironic when the company recently cried foul.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“Collaboration, collusion, conspiracy,” <a data-beacon="1}}" href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/18/ags-activists-accused-collusion-on-exxon-probe-amid-new-emails.html" target="_hplink">charged</a> ExxonMobil spokesman Alan Jeffers, “pick a word.” </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Pick a word? How about nonsense? If anyone could be accused of collusion and conspiracy, it’s ExxonMobil. But more on that later. </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">What prompted Jeffers’ ludicrous allegation was a meeting that took place on March 29. <b>My colleague Peter Frumhoff, lead climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists,</b> and environmental attorney Matt Pawa briefed a handful of state attorneys general, including New York’s Eric Schneiderman, who launched an investigation of ExxonMobil last November. Later that day, Schneiderman and 16 other attorneys general joined former Vice President Al Gore at a <a data-beacon="2}}" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/attorneys-exxon-probe_us_56fab959e4b0a372181b113d" target="_hplink">press conference</a> to declare their support for more aggressive government action on climate change. During the event, AGs from the U.S. Virgin Islands and Massachusetts announced that they, too, would initiate investigations of ExxonMobil. </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">On April 15, Reuters broke the story that Frumhoff and Pawa had met behind closed doors with the state prosecutors before the press conference. The news organization had obtained <a data-beacon="3}}" href="http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Master-VT-OAG-docs-of-note.pdf" target="_hplink">emails</a> disclosing the meeting through an open records request filed by a group called the<b>Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal).</b> </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“The previously unknown level of coordination with outside advisers offered a glimpse behind the scenes in an increasingly pitched battle between Exxon and environmental groups,” Reuters <a data-beacon="4}}" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-exxonmobil-states-idUSKCN0XC2U2" target="_hplink">reported</a>. “Exxon has said it has been unfairly singled out and that climate activists are conspiring to rally public opinion against it.” </font>

<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Unfortunately, not only did the Reuters story fail to adequately identify E&E Legal, it also mischaracterized what amounted to a routine meeting in an ongoing legal investigation.</font></span>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>Confidentiality is standard operating procedure</strong></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Reuters described E&E Legal, a small, three-person nonprofit, as a “free-market think tank with ties to the Competitive Enterprise Institute [CEI], whose website says it opposes U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.” What it didn’t mention is that E&E Legal — which could hardly be called a think tank — is at least partly <a data-beacon="5}}" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/coal-companies-secret-fun_b_9663368.html" target="_hplink">funded</a> by the coal industry and has repeatedly harassed prominent climate scientists, including Katharine Hayhoe and Michael Mann, by filing intrusive open records requests that have tied them up for weeks and wasted hundreds of thousands of public university dollars.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">What’s more, the story didn’t explain that the group’s connection with CEI is through CEI staff attorney <a data-beacon="6}}" href="http://www.desmogblog.com/chris-horner" target="hplink">Chris Horner</a>, who handles E&E Legal’s open records filings. CEI has been <a data-beacon="7}}" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/unreliable-sources-how-th_b_3273274.html" target="hplink">peddling lies</a> about climate science on behalf of fossil fuel interests for decades, and Horner is associated with other climate science denier groups as well as the coal industry, a relationship that was recently <a data-beacon="8}}" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/coal-companies-secret-fun_b_9663368.html" target="_hplink">revealed</a> by coal company bankruptcy filings. </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">More important, Reuters failed to clarify that the attorneys general were merely doing their jobs. By their very nature, legal investigations can entail gathering information privately from a wide variety of sources. </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>This is a key point. State attorneys general have the authority to meet with anyone they choose — be it a scientist, an environmental lawyer or a corporate official — in the course of an investigation on a confidential basis</b>. In other words, there was no hint of collusion or conspiracy. Meeting privately with experts is part of the legal discovery process. Moreover, in New York — under the state’s <a data-beacon="9}}" href="http://www.jonesday.com/files/Publication/cc6cfc9e-1517-4707-958d-8ea80d2042c2/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/9be275fc-e882-499c-9045-9a429519ab82/FebMar15%20NYSupplement_MartinActFeature.pdf" target="hplink">Martin Act</a> — the attorney general can initiate a completely confidential investigation of potentially fraudulent practices.</font>

<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But that didn’t stop <a data-beacon="10}}" href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/18/ags-activists-accused-collusion-on-exxon-probe-amid-new-emails.html" target="hplink">FoxNews.com</a>, the <a data-beacon="11}}" href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/18/new-york-ag-tried-to-cover-up-activist-involvement-in-exxon-probe/" target="hplink">Daily Caller</a>, the <em><a data-beacon="12}}" href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ny-atty.-general-sought-to-keep-lawyers-role-in-climate-change-push-secret/article/2588874" target="hplink">Washington Examiner</a></em> and the <em><a data-beacon="13}}" href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/17/democratic-ags-climate-change-groups-colluded-on-p/" target="hplink">Washington Times</a></em> — the climate science denial echo chamber — from providing ExxonMobil and E&E Legal a platform to make bogus charges about “collusion” and “conspiracy” in subsequent stories.</font></span>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>ExxonMobil’s disinformation network</strong></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Schneiderman’s investigation, and one launched in January by California’s attorney general, followed the release of documents by the <a data-beacon="14}}" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/internal-documents-show-f_b_7749988.html" target="hplink">Union of Concerned Scientists</a> and reporters at<em> <a data-beacon="15}}" href="http://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken" target="hplink">InsideClimate News</a> </em>and <a data-beacon="16}}" href="http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/page/1184-the-energy-and-environment-reporting-fellowship/8" target="_hplink">Columbia Journalism School</a> revealing that Exxon scientists conducted cutting-edge climate research decades ago and warned top management of the potentially catastrophic risks posed by global warming. Schneiderman’s staff is now reviewing the company’s statements to investors regarding those risks to see if they contradicted what it was hearing from its own scientists. </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The New York AGs office also is taking a close look at ExxonMobil’s support for a network of think tanks and advocacy groups that has been spreading disinformation about climate science for nearly 20 years. Here is where questions about “collusion” and “conspiracy” come into play.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">That network was exposed back in 2007 when UCS <a data-beacon="17}}" href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/exxonmobil-report-smoke.html#.Vx1-0Bi9at8" target="hplink">documented</a> that ExxonMobil had spent at least $16 million between 1998 and 2005 on more than 40 climate science denier groups. The group that got the most money? CEI, which received more than $2 million. Despite the fact that it had no scientists on its staff, CEI established itself as the go-to group to provide “the other side” of a manufactured scientific debate. It is perhaps best remembered for reassuring Americans that global warming is nothing to worry about in a <a data-beacon="18}}" href="http://globalwarmingwatch.blogspot.com/2006/05/carbon-dioxide-spot-they-call-it-ad-we.html" target="hplink">TV commercial</a> extolling the virtues of carbon dioxide. The spot’s unforgettable tagline: “They call it pollution. We call it life.”</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ExxonMobil publicly ended its direct support for CEI in 2005, but the company <a data-beacon="19}}" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/exxonmobil-is-still-spend_b_7810880.html" target="hplink">continues to spend</a> millions of dollars annually on denier groups and congressional climate science denier political campaigns. CEI, meanwhile, may have lost ExxonMobil as a benefactor, but according to the most recent available tax records, it is still <a data-beacon="20}}" href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/competitive-enterprise-institute/?order_by=year+DESC" target="hplink">receiving money</a> from billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, co-owner of the coal, oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries. </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In any case, it is difficult to determine just where CEI gets its <a data-beacon="21}}" href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/competitive-enterprise-institute/?order_by=year+DESC" target="hplink">funding</a> these days. Much of it comes from a secretive, pass-through foundation called Donors Trust and its affiliate Donors Capital Fund. Since 2002, the intertwined funds have laundered more than <a data-beacon="22}}" href="http://conservativetransparency.org/org/donorstrust-donors-capital-fund/" target="hplink">$457 million</a> from anonymous corporations, foundations and individuals and distributed that money to hundreds of anti-regulation groups, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Heartland Institute, and of course, CEI. </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>The First Amendment doesn’t protect fraud</strong></font>

<div style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">As one of ExxonMobil’s top climate science denier grantees, CEI now finds itself in the hot seat. U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker not only launched an investigation of ExxonMobil for defrauding investors and the general public, he also subpoenaed communications between ExxonMobil and many of its denier network groups. He specifically asked CEI for all its climate change and energy policy materials, as well as its donor lists, over a 10-year period beginning in 1997.</span></div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="">
</font></div>

<span style="font-style: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">CEI has filed to quash the subpoena and pushed back in an April 23 </span><a data-beacon="23}}" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an-environmental-campaign-that-punishes-free-speech/2016/04/22/e2eafd88-07bc-11e6-b283-e79d81c63c1b_story.html" target="hplink" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">op-ed</a><span style="font-style: inherit;"> in the </span><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Washington Post</span><span style="font-style: inherit;">. CEI president Kent Lassman and his general counsel, Sam Kazman, insisted that their organization and ExxonMobil are being unfairly harassed for exercising their First Amendment rights. A week later, the </span><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Wall Street Journal</span><span style="font-style: inherit;"> editorial board chimed in, </span><a data-beacon="24}}" href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-climate-police-escalate-1461968775#:Yo8l7Qr3C_wuzA" target="hplink" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">calling</a><span style="font-style: inherit;"> Walker’s subpoena of CEI documents “a form of harassment” and “a dangerous turn for free speech.” </span></div></span>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But the real issue is not CEI’s or ExxonMobil’s First Amendment rights. CEI, which has been exercising its right to mislead the public about climate change for quite some time, is being investigated to determine the extent to which it functioned as ExxonMobil’s paid surrogate. ExxonMobil, meanwhile, is being investigated to ascertain if it is guilty of fraud. As Attorney General Schneiderman has <a data-beacon="25}}" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/science/new-york-climate-change-inquiry-into-exxon-adds-prosecutors.html" target="_hplink">noted</a>, “The First Amendment, ladies and gentlemen, doesn’t give you the right to commit fraud.”</font></p>

<span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">four-year, coordinated strategy by environmental organizations to hold ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel corporations legally accountable for climate change denial has come to fruition, as state attorneys general have </span><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/climate-change-fraud-investigation-exxon-eric-shneiderman-18-attorneys-general" target="blank" style="font-style: inherit;">teamed up to launch investigations</a><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"> into possible climate fraud.</span></div></span><p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">The advocacy efforts stretch back to at least 2012, when the <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/" target="blank">Union of Concerned Scientists</a> and the <a href="http://www.climateaccountability.org/" target="_blank">Climate Accountability Institute</a> brought together about two dozen </span>scientists, lawyers and legal scholars, historians, social scientists and public opinion experts for a two-day workshop in La Jolla, Calif., titled "Climate Accountability, Public Opinion, and Legal Strategies.</span>" They discussed a strategy to fight industry in the courts, after years of concentrating on public relations and policy fights, and they sought to use "the lessons from tobacco-related education, laws, and litigation to address climate change," according to <a href="http://www.climateaccountability.org/pdf/Climate%20Accountability%20Rpt%20Oct12.pdf">a report on the 2012 workshop</a>.  </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">There was "nearly unanimous agreement on the importance of legal actions," the report said, with some participants stating, "pressure from the courts offers the best current hope for gaining the energy industry's cooperation in converting to renewable energy."</span></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">"It is possible," the report concluded, "to see glimmers of an emerging consensus on a strategy that incorporates legal action [for document procurement and accountability] with a narrative that creates public outrage."</span></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">Recent developments gave them something to seize on, and in January, the green groups met again in a strategy meeting. New York's attorney general, <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/05112015/new-york-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman-subpoena-Exxon-climate-documents" target="_blank">Eric Schneiderman, had issued a subpoena to Exxon two months before</a> seeking four decades of climate-related documents. The subpoena was spurred by investigations by</span><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken"> InsideClimate News</a> and later <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/">the Los Angeles Times</a> revealing how Exxon <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken">conducted climate research in the 1970s before later questioning </a>the role that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels plays in global warming.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">Another meeting took place in March between two environmental advocates</span>—<span>one of whom attended the January strategy meeting</span>—<span>and state attorneys general. According to <a href="http://Energy%20%26%20Environment%20Legal%20Institute" target="blank">newly released emails</a>, that meeting wrapped up just before <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/climate-change-fraud-investigation-exxon-eric-shneiderman-18-attorneys-general" target="blank">a coalition of </a></span><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/climate-change-fraud-investigation-exxon-eric-shneiderman-18-attorneys-general" target="_blank">17 attorneys general announced</a> they were teaming up to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for potential duplicity on climate. Exxon and industry groups cited the meet as evidence of a conspiracy.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">The emails were obtained through public records requests by the pro-industry </span><a href="http://eelegal.org/" target="_blank">Energy & Environment Legal Institute</a> and published on April 15. E&E Legal</span> criticized the meeting as "secret" and said the AGs were "colluding" with the green groups. The group's website says it seeks to "correct onerous federal and state governmental actions."</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">One email shows that</span> environmental attorney <a href="http://www.pawalaw.com/profiles/pawa.php" target="blank">Matthew Pawa</a> sought advice on March 30 from the New York attorney general's office about how to respond to a journalist's questions about the meeting. Lemuel Srolovic, assistant attorney general, <a href="http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/NY-OAG-wants-Pawa-to-not-confirm-participation-to-WSJ.pdf" target="blank">asked Pawa "to not confirm" that he attended</a> "or otherwise discuss the event."</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465"><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/about/staff/staff/peter-frumhoff.html#.VyBqpHowCQc" target="_blank">Peter Frumhoff</a>,</span> director of science and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, also participated. Both he and Pawa played leading roles in the 2012 La Jolla workshop. Frumhoff helped organize the event and Pawa was a presenter.  </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">In response to the conspiracy accusations, the activists said their cooperation was not improper.</span></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">"I'm a scientist," Frumhoff said. "I do research on</span>—<span>and have been writing about</span>—<span>the question of contribution of emissions from fossil fuel companies to climate change, and their role in questions of their responsibilities. I was invited to brief the attorneys general that gathered on March 29 on my work, and that is what I did."</span></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">Like-minded environmental groups had been working separately for more than a decade to show how the oil giant was spreading misinformation about climate change. </span><a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/index.php">In 2004, Greenpeace launched ExxonSecrets</a>, which tracks the amount of money Exxon and its foundations have spent funding climate denial. The Union of Concerned Scientists and the Government Accountability Project <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/22102015/Exxon-Sowed-Doubt-about-Climate-Science-for-Decades-by-Stressing-Uncertainty">published three reports</a> in 2007 detailing Exxon's campaign of doubt on climate change</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">"Things are happening at an incredible speed now," said <a href="http://www.ciel.org/about-us/ciel-staff/carroll-muffett-president-and-ceo/" target="_blank">Carroll Muffett</a>, president of </span>the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), who attended the January strategy meeting. There are "overlapping groups of movements and groups of campaigns coming together because they share a common interest in bringing the truth to light."</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">The momentum has prompted them to step up efforts to pressure more attorneys general to investigate, and sway public opinion using op-eds, social media, and  </span><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/08042016/rope-line-questions-push-hillary-clinton-address-climate-energy-issues">rope line questioning of presidential candidates</a> at campaign stops. Environmental advocates delivered <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/19112015/petition-exxon-mobil-climate-change-federal-probe-attorney-general">a petition with more than 350,000 signatures</a> to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch in November, seeking a federal probe of Exxon.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">Activist Bill McKibben, Pawa and others put on a </span><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2015/12/31/the_people_vs_exxon_as_fossil">"mock trial" of Exxon for alleged "climate crimes"</a> during the Paris climate talks in December.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">Exxon didn't respond to a request for comment. The company <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/13042016/exxon-virgin-islands-subpoena-climate-change-investigation-violates-rights-claude-walker" target="_blank">sued to block a subpoena issued last month</a> by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands seeking almost 40 years of documents on climate change. It called the </span><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/13042016/exxon-virgin-islands-subpoena-climate-change-investigation-violates-rights-claude-walker">demand for records</a> a violation of its constitutional rights.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c60ab442-56a4-1301-1b04-21be6bf36eac">The environmentalists' January meeting </span><span>was hosted by the Rockefeller Family Fund, The Wall Street Journal first </span><a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-fires-back-at-climate-change-probe-1460574535">reported</a>. (The Rockefeller Family Fund awarded ICN a grant of $25,000 for general support in July 2015.)</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">Those attending considered the significance of the ICN and LA Times reports on what Exxon research discovered about climate change decades ago, said Lee</span> Wasserman, director and secretary of the fund.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">Possible </span>common goals the group was meeting to discuss included establishing "in the public's mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm," according to a draft agenda for the meeting reported by the Journal and later <a href="http://freebeacon.com/issues/memo-shows-secret-coordination-effort-exxonmobil-climate-activists-rockefeller-fund/">published by The Washington Free Beacon</a>. Other potential goals were to "delegitimize [Exxon] as a political actor," "force officials to disassociate themselves from Exxon," "drive divestment from Exxon" and "drive Exxon and climate into [the] center of [the] 2016 election cycle."</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">Without naming anyone, Wasserman said the draft agenda reflected just one person's suggestions. The </span><a href="http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/scan0003.pdf">email was written by Kenny Bruno</a>, a longtime coordinator of environmental activist campaigns.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">"That was in no way the purpose of the meeting," Wasserman said. "People put out thoughts about what these revelations meant for the advocacy landscape now that it was clear that Exxon knew about climate science for 20 to 30 years."</span></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">Earlier this month, CIEL  released documents showing </span><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/13042016/climate-change-global-warming-oil-industry-radar-1960s-exxon-api-co2-fossil-fuels">the oil industry has been aware of carbon dioxide's role in global warming since at least the 1960s</a>.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">Green groups are now encouraging more state attorneys general to launch full investigations of whether Exxon violated fraud statutes. </span>In addition to New York and the Virgin Islands, the AGs of California and Massachusetts have confirmed they, too, have opened Exxon inquiries.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ae669c49-5473-1bb5-8529-6e0f87491465">"We want them to confirm that they are doing everything within their power to bring Exxon and fossil fuel companies to justice," said </span>R.L. Miller, president of the advocacy group Climate Hawks Vote.</font></p>

<div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/exxon-using-tobaccos-failed-free-speech-defense-decades-deception-climate-change" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; font-style: inherit;">http://www.alternet.org/environment/exxon-using-tobaccos-failed-free-speech-defense-decades-deception-climate-change</a></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"> </span></font></div>

<p style="" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><b style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">he past week has seen a barrage of opinion pieces carrying water for the fossil fuel industry, defending against the ongoing fraud investigations. The Washington Post had two pieces, Newsweek had one and the Financial Times had an editorial, in addition to op-eds in a couple of other conservative outlets. Of those six, half were penned by groups funded at least in part by fossil fuel companies.</b></font></div>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The arguments are all by and large the same, claiming that the investigations infringe on fossil fuels companies’ right to free speech</b></span> while steadfastly ignoring the fact that <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=exxon">ExxonMobil</a> funded climate denial to protect their business model.<b> Only the <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/936011b4-087e-11e6-b6d3-746f8e9cdd33.html#axzz46r98Erf4" target="blank">Financial Times editorial</a> actually acknowledges the “misleading claims from fossil fuel interests and their allies”</b> but concludes that it is “because the stakes [of the debate] are so high that all arguments must be heard.” While that sounds fair at first <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanton_Glantz" target="blank">Glantz</a>, it quickly sounds silly when applied to a recent example: the tobacco industry’s denial of the fact that its carcinogenic <a href="https://climatecrocks.com/2016/04/25/defending-exxons-denial-its-their-right-to-free-speech/" target="_blank">product is addictive</a>.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">All but one of the pieces similarly ignored the tobacco industry precedent and the <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/climate_alarmism_and_the_muzzling_of_independent_science.html" target="_blank">only person who mentioned it</a> was one of the few voices not plugged into the professional denial apparatus.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>As for the pros, Newsweek ran a blog post from the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Hoover_Institution_on_War,Revolution_and_Peace#Funding" target="blank">Hoover Institution</a>, which rambled on about climate science that’s supposedly still uncertain,</b> lamenting that fair debate is impossible if one side can bring the other to court. Not mentioned is how a fair debate can be possible if one side launches multi-million dollar PR campaigns to mislead the public about the science.</font></p>

<p dir="ltr" lang="en" style="text-align: left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Feds Refer Exxon <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Climate?src=hash">#Climate</a> Investigation to FBI: <a href="https://t.co/MS5BfY7PNp">https://t.co/MS5BfY7PNp</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch">@EcoWatch</a> <a href="https://t.co/mBWybUPmVb">pic.twitter.com/mBWybUPmVb</a></font></p>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">— DeSmogBlog (@DeSmogBlog) </span><a href="https://twitter.com/DeSmogBlog/status/706866373939429376" style="font-style: inherit;">March 7, 2016</a></font></div></blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky’s <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/20/has-von-spakovsky-prosecuting-climate-change-denie/" target="blank">piece in the Washington Times</a> </span>misses the tobacco precedent, but went all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition for his First Amendment fear mongering.<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> George Will used <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-settled-science-consensus-du-jour/2016/04/22/46acd802-07de-11e6-a12f-ea5aed7958dc_story.html" target="blank">his column in the Washington Post</a> </span>to offer a lesson on how this campaign is part of a larger progressive strategy to shut down debate. But apparently it’s Will that needs a history lesson, as he uses as evidence a story about a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/29/irs-sued_n_3354502.html" target="blank">2013 IRS investigation</a> accusing the agency of targeting conservatives. But that investigation “<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/23/politics/lois-lerner-no-charges-doj-tea-party/" target="blank">found no evidence</a>” that the IRS actions were politically motivated. No doubt his column is similarly bereft of evidence.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an-environmental-campaign-that-punishes-free-speech/2016/04/22/e2eafd88-07bc-11e6-b283-e79d81c63c1b_story.html" target="_blank">also gave space</a> to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (<b>CEI) </b>to defend itself by pretending it is being investigated for political dissent, not its years of Exxon funding for climate denial.</span> Worth noting CEI’s careful phrasing about its relationship with Exxon, which CEI says “publicly ended its support for us after 2005.” With Donors Trust and others making it possible to anonymize giving, the key word is “publicly.”</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Ironically, despite the admission that its Exxon funding is a perfectly legitimate reason to look into its communications, CEI considers its subpoena to be a fishing expedition. <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meanwhile, CEI’s own <a href="https://theintercept.com/2015/09/30/coal-mining-ceo-defends-financing-harassment-of-climate-scientists/" target="_blank">coal-funded</a> Chris Horner continues to engage in nuisance FOIAs for climate scientists.</span></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Exxon’s defense is a hot topic in denierland, as it advances the narrative that the fossil fuel industry is an embattled population facing government persecution. But <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/apr/25/berta-caceres-murder-honduras-death-threats-hitman-agua-zarca-dam?CMP=share_btn_tw" target="_blank">here’s a reality check</a>: Before Honduran activist <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/03/03/berta-caceres-murdered/">Berta Cáceres</a> was murdered on March 2, she reported receiving 33 death threats after years of intimidation. Instead of investigating a man who had previously bragged about his plans to murder her, authorities claim the prime suspects are two of her fellow activists.</font></p>

<p dir="ltr" lang="und" style="text-align: left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Heartbreaking! <a href="https://twitter.com/goldmanprize">@GoldmanPrize</a> Activist Berta Cáceres Murdered in Honduras <a href="https://t.co/Zj97cmwQi3">https://t.co/Zj97cmwQi3</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/FoEint">@FoEint</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Greenpeace">@greenpeace</a> <a href="https://t.co/tAujvEGtMR">pic.twitter.com/tAujvEGtMR</a></font></p>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) </span><a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/705452661236228096" style="font-style: inherit;">March 3, 2016</a></font></div></blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Looks like the fossil fuel industry isn’t the one facing persecution after all.</font>

<div style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122015/exxon-mobil-oil-industry-peers-knew-about-climate-change-dangers-1970s-american-petroleum-institute-api-shell-chevron-texaco" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; font-style: inherit;">http://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122015/exxon-mobil-oil-industry-peers-knew-about-climate-change-dangers-1970s-american-petroleum-institute-api-shell-chevron-texaco</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">...</font></div>

<div>

<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a6f04c2c-cad5-ea4f-9a7d-9f4fa53872c6" style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The group was initially called the CO</span><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; bottom: -0.25em;">2</span> and Climate Task Force, but changed its name to the Climate and Energy Task Force in 1980, Nelson said.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a6f04c2c-cad5-ea4f-9a7d-9f4fa53872c6" style=" box-sizing: border-box;">A background paper on CO</span><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; bottom: -0.25em;">2</span> informed API members in 1979 that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was rising steadily, and it predicted when the first clear effects of climate change might be felt, according to a memo by an Exxon task force representative.  </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a6f04c2c-cad5-ea4f-9a7d-9f4fa53872c6" style=" box-sizing: border-box;">In addition, API task force members appeared open to the idea that the oil industry might have to shoulder some responsibility for reducing CO</span><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; bottom: -0.25em;">2</span>emissions by changing refining processes and developing fuels that emitted less carbon dioxide.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a6f04c2c-cad5-ea4f-9a7d-9f4fa53872c6" style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Bruce S. Bailey of Texaco offered "for consideration" the idea that "an overall goal of the Task Force should be to help develop ground rules for energy release of fuels and the cleanup of fuels as they relate to CO</span><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; bottom: -0.25em;">2</span>creation," according to the <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/documents/AQ-9%20Task%20Force%20Meeting%20%281980%29.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">minutes of a meeting on Feb. 29, 1980</a>.</font>

<span id="docs-internal-guid-a6f04c2c-cad5-ea4f-9a7d-9f4fa53872c6" style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/documents/AQ-9%20Task%20Force%20Meeting%20%281980%29.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">minutes also show</a> that the task force discussed a "potential area" for research and development that called for it to "'Investigate the Market Penetration Requirements of Introducing a New Energy Source into World Wide Use.' This would include the technical implications of energy source changeover, research timing and requirements."</font></span>

<span id="docs-internal-guid-a6f04c2c-cad5-ea4f-9a7d-9f4fa53872c6" style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Yet by the 1990s, it was clear that API had opted for a markedly different approach to the threat of climate change. It joined Exxon, other fossil fuel companies and major manufacturers in the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), a lobbying group whose objective was to derail international efforts to curb heat-trapping emissions. In 1998, a year after the Kyoto Protocol was adopted by countries to cut fossil fuel emissions, API crafted a campaign to convince the American public and lawmakers that climate science was too tenuous for the United States to ratify the treaty....</font></span></p>

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<div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">==</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.democracynow.org/2015/10/21/prison_for_exxon_execs_calls_grow</font></div>

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</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font><p style="text-align: left; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> We begin with the latest in the Exxon climate change cover-up that some compare to the deceptions of Big Tobacco. Recent exposés by <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;"><em>InsideClimate News</em></a> and the <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;"><em>Los Angeles Times</em></a> revealed that for decades Exxon concealed its own findings that fossil fuels cause global warming, alter the climate and melt the Arctic ice. Exxon scientists’ earliest known warnings on climate change date as far back as 1977. Toward the end of the 1980s, the company radically changed course and openly embraced climate denial. Since then, it has spent millions of dollars funding efforts to reject the climate science its own experts once advanced. Still, even as it spread climate doubt and lobbied against environmental regulation, Exxon’s denial wasn’t across the board. In internal planning kept from the public, the oil giant’s researchers and engineers incorporated climate change projections to determine how best to adapt their operations to a warming planet.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font>

<strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> The bombshell news of Exxon’s climate deception is now sparking calls for a federal investigation. On Tuesday, presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders wrote to Attorney General Loretta Lynch urging a Department of Justice probe of Exxon. Another Democratic hopeful, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, <a href="https://twitter.com/martinomalley/status/655116504699027456" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;">tweeted</a>, quote, "We held tobacco companies responsible for lying about cancer. Let’s do the same for oil companies & climate change." Two House Democrats from California, Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier, also want a <span class="caps">DOJ</span> probe. In a letter to Lynch, they write, quote, "If these allegations against Exxon are true, then Exxon’s actions were immoral. We request the <span class="caps">DOJ</span> investigate whether ExxonMobil’s actions were also illegal."

On Tuesday, the prosecutor who won the massive 2006 racketeering case against Big Tobacco for hiding the dangers of smoking agreed. Sharon Eubanks, a former Justice Department attorney now in private practice, told <em>ThinkProgress</em>, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/20/3713761/exxon-climate-denial/" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;">quote</a>, "It appears to me ... that there was a concerted effort by Exxon and others to confuse the public on climate change. They were actively denying the impact of human-caused carbon emissions, even when their own research showed otherwise. ... I think a <span class="caps">RICO</span> action is plausible and should be considered."

We’re joined now by two guests: Democratic Congressmember Ted Lieu of California, who co-signed that letter calling for a federal probe of Exxon, and Bill McKibben, co-founder of <a href="http://350.org/" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;">350.org</a>, one of the nation’s leading environmental activist groups. His recent <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/exxon-knew-everything-there-was-to-know-about-climate-change-by-the-mid-1980s-and-denied-it/" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;">piece</a> for <em>The Nation</em> is "Exxon Knew Everything There Was to Know About Climate Change by the Mid-1980s—and Denied It." McKibben was just arrested last week after staging a one-man protest at a local Exxon station, in protest of Exxon’s climate denial. He held a sign reading, "This pump temporarily closed because ExxonMobil lied about climate."

We welcome you both to <em>Democracy Now!</em> Congressmember Lieu, we’ll start with you. Talk about what you’re calling for right now.

<strong><span class="caps">REP</span>. <span class="caps">TED</span> <span class="caps">LIEU</span>:</strong> If the facts are true, I believe Exxon’s actions are shocking and outrageous. And it’s difficult to think of a company that could have set back humanity for decades, and perhaps permanently, but that’s what happened here. In this case, Exxon scientists knew that climate change was happening, that fossil fuels were causing climate change, and not only did they deny that and spread uncertainty and confusion about the science, they then took actions to plan and take advantage of global warming. This is beyond hypocrisy. I’m not even sure what to call it. But I do believe there should be investigation under the <span class="caps">RICO</span> racketeering statutes of the federal government to see if they should be prosecuted for their actions.

<strong><span class="caps">JUAN</span> GONZÁLEZ:</strong> And, Congressman Lieu, what most stunned you in terms of the information that’s come out now in the recent exposés?

<strong><span class="caps">REP</span>. <span class="caps">TED</span> <span class="caps">LIEU</span>:</strong> That their scientists were on the cutting edge of research on climate science, that they had done tremendous work, that they confirmed global warming was happening, and then top executives essentially shut that down and embarked on a disinformation and confusion campaign simply for profits, at the same time knowing that this could really damage all of humanity. And to me, just how shocking this was really was what stood out to me.

<strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> A recent <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;">investigative series</a> by the Pulitzer Prize-winning news organization, <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;">[InsideClimateNews.org]</a>, has uncovered that decades ago Exxon was actually on the cutting edge of climate research. This is a clip from the <span class="caps">PBS</span> series<em>Frontline</em>, which partnered with <em>InsideClimate News</em> on the project.</p>

<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span class="caps">NEELA</span> <span class="caps">BANERJEE</span>:</strong> We found the trail of documents that go back to 1977. Exxon knew carbon dioxide was increasing in the atmosphere, that combustion of fossil fuel is driving it, and that this posed a threat to Exxon. At that time, Exxon understood very quickly that governments would probably take action to reduce fossil fuel consumption. They’re smart people, great scientists, and they saw the writing on the wall.</p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span class="caps">NARRATION</span>:</strong> One Exxon research project outfitted an oil tanker with equipment to measure CO2 levels in the atmosphere and the ocean.</p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left;"><strong>ED <span class="caps">GARVEY</span>:</strong> We were collecting data, the southern Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and the western Indian Ocean. Basically every hour, we would get several measurements. So we had—I called it a data monster.</p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span class="caps">NARRATION</span>:</strong> Today Exxon says the study had nothing to do with CO2 emissions. But scientists involved remember it differently.</p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left;"><strong>ED <span class="caps">GARVEY</span>:</strong> We were committed. We were doing some serious science. It was a significant budget, I would say on the scale of a million dollars a year. I mean, that was a lot of money in 1979.</p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; line-height: 27px;"><strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> That was Ed Garvey. From 1978 to 1983, he was a researcher at Exxon, where he helped start the company’s greenhouse gas research program. <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2015/9/24/inside_exxons_great_climate_cover_up" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;">Last month</a>, he appeared on <em>Democracy Now!</em> and talked about how he felt when Exxon started funding climate deniers.</p>

<p style="text-align: left;"><strong>ED <span class="caps">GARVEY</span>:</strong> I just think it was an opportunity that was missed, that having developed this knowledge in-house, Exxon was in position to lead the discussion as how to deal with the problem, and instead they really chose to deny the problem. And I think that was really a missed opportunity.</p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; line-height: 27px;"><strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Again, that was Exxon scientist Ed Garvey, which brings us to Bill McKibben, who—well, Bill, it’s nice that you’re back home after your arrest at your local Exxon station for protesting the information—protesting what you’ve learned from the information that’s come out in both the <em>Los Angeles Times</em> series as well as<em>InsideClimate [News]</em>. Talk about what has most surprised you. I mean, you’re hard to surprise. You’ve been working on this issue for years now. What is most chilling, if you will, in these documents that have been released?

<strong><span class="caps">BILL</span> McKIBBEN:</strong> For me, Amy, the thing that really gets me is the kind of realization that Exxon is probably the one institution on Earth that could have short-circuited this 25 years of pretend, faux debate that we’ve been having about climate change. If in 1989, when Jim Hansen from <span class="caps">NASA</span> had stood up before Congress and said, "Yeah, the planet is warming," if Exxon at that point had said, "You know what? He’s right. Our internal science, which is very strong in this field, confirms everything that he’s saying. The world has a terrific problem," well, we wouldn’t have solved global warming by now, but we’d be well on the way. We would not have engaged in a quarter-century of denial and debate. Instead, that’s precisely what Exxon funded and underwrote. The most compelling moment of that probably came in, I think, 1997, when the <span class="caps">CEO</span> of Exxon stood up before the most powerful people in China and told them that the planet was probably cooling and that the computer models, which Exxon was using at that very moment to guide their own investments—he told them the computer models didn’t work. This was tragic. And the results we now—

<strong><span class="caps">JUAN</span> GONZÁLEZ:</strong> Bill, if I can interrupt a second, we have a clip from 1996, around that time, of the Exxon <span class="caps">CEO</span>, Lee Raymond, speaking about global warming. Let’s hear that.</p>

<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span class="caps">LEE</span> <span class="caps">RAYMOND</span>:</strong> Proponents of the global warming theory say that higher levels of greenhouse gases are causing world temperatures to rise and that burning fossil fuels is the reason. The scientific evidence remains inconclusive as to whether human activities affect the global climate. ... Many scientists agree there’s ample time to better understand climate systems and consider policy options. So there’s simply no reason to take drastic action now.</p>

</blockquote>

<p style="text-align: left; line-height: 27px;"><strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> We’re going to go to Bill McKibben for his response, as well as Congressmember Ted Lieu. This is <em>Democracy Now!</em> We’ll go to them in a minute.

[break]

<strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> "Global Warming," recorded in 2009 by a group of musicians from the small island nation of Tuvalu, a country already threatened by climate change. This is <em>Democracy Now!</em>, democracynow.org, <em>The War and Peace Report</em>. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Our guests are 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben in Vermont, at home after his arrest at his local Exxon station for saying that Exxon lied, and Los Angeles Congressmember Ted Lieu. Juan?

<strong><span class="caps">JUAN</span> GONZÁLEZ:</strong> Bill McKibben, before the break, we were playing that clip of the speech from the Exxon <span class="caps">CEO</span>. Looking back at that now, and also thinking about the reality that in a few weeks there will be a new round of international climate change talks in Paris, the impact of this scandal coming at this time?

<strong><span class="caps">BILL</span> McKIBBEN:</strong> Well, look, the impact of what Exxon did has played out over 25 years and will play out over geologic time. There’s 47 people dead in the Philippines today after the record 20th strong typhoon in the Northern Hemisphere dropped four feet of rain—almost unimaginable—across the Philippines. But something like that happens every day now. We’ve melted the Arctic. We’ve changed the chemistry of the oceans. This is their legacy.

As we move forward, still trying to keep this from getting any more out of control than it is, it’s going to be incredibly important to break the power of the fossil fuel industry. That’s why there’s this huge divestment campaign, that California just joined their retirement funds in participating in. That will help begin to break their power. That’s why we do things like fight pipelines and fracking wells and things, to try and reduce their power.

But, man, if only they had told the truth to begin with. That’s why—I mean, I went to get arrested just because I was afraid that these remarkable exposés at<a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;"><em>InsideClimate News</em></a> and the <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;"><em>L.A. Times</em></a> would disappear into the media clutter of our lives. This is one of the, if not the most important, investigative coups in decades. And these reporters’ remarkable work deserves to become part of the kind of common understanding of the entire planet about the most significant crisis human beings have ever wandered into.

<strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Well, Bill, can you explain exactly what you did? This action was what? Last Thursday?

<strong><span class="caps">BILL</span> McKIBBEN:</strong> It was last week. Amy, it was not—this was, you know, not the bridge at Selma. You know, I just sat down in front of the ExxonMobil station, not far away in Vermont, and with a very kind owner, who I was not trying to cause problems to—in fact, I gave him a hundred bucks to make up for any income he might have lost while I was blocking his pump. And eventually the police came and took me away and charged me with trespass. And all it was, you know, as I said at the time, was an effort to get people to read these stories. I’m not sure how well it worked. But later that day, my wife told me that it had been the number one trending thing on Facebook, but then, you know, a couple hours later, she told me it had been replaced by a video of a Corgi dog barking at a miniature pumpkin. So, you know, who knows? But we’re going to do everything we can, everyone who’s working on these issues, to try and make sure that this doesn’t somehow disappear.

Such gratitude to the congressman and his colleague in California, and, of course, to Bernie Sanders, for pressing hard for what needs to happen next, which is a full-on investigation by our Department of Justice—and by the departments of justice all over the world—into the conduct of this, remember, largest corporation in the world. Exxon has made more money three of the last four years than any company in the history of money, OK? So, it’s not like this is some small exception or some outlier or whatever. This is the dead-on heart of the fossil fuel industry, the people who have done everything they can to keep us from addressing climate change.

<strong><span class="caps">JUAN</span> GONZÁLEZ:</strong> Well, I’d like to—you mentioned Congressman Lieu. I’d like to bring him back into the conversation. A spokesman for Exxon, Richard Keil, has rejected the allegations contained in Congressman Lieu and—in his letter to the Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Keil told <em>The Guardian</em>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/16/exxonmobil-congress-climate-change-federal-investigation" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;">quote</a>, "This is complete bull-[bleep]. We have a 30 year continuous uninterrupted history of researching climate change and the LA Times for whatever reason chose to ignore that fact." Meanwhile, Exxon continues to demand favors from the government, most recently a lifting of the long-standing ban on exporting American crude. Exxon’s vice president for public and governmental affairs, Kenneth Cohen, told <em>The New York Times</em>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/business/energy-environment/oil-industry-gaining-in-push-for-repeal-of-us-ban-on-petroleum-exports.html" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;">quote</a>, "The sooner this happens, the better for us." Congressman Lieu, your reaction to the Exxon response to your letter?

<strong><span class="caps">REP</span>. <span class="caps">TED</span> <span class="caps">LIEU</span>:</strong> The ExxonMobil spokesperson is out of his mind. He must not have read what his top executives were saying. Exxon appears now to be denying that they were denying climate change. And if you look at what your clips had shown, that’s simply not history. And I want to thank Bill McKibben for his tremendous environmental activism. And what Bill said is correct: There is an issue here not just of taking carbon out of the air—it’s a race. We need to take greenhouse gases out of the air quickly, because at some point we’re going to cross a line—and we may have already crossed it—where it’s going to be very hard to reverse the effects of climate change. And Exxon scientists knew that. They said that there were going to be catastrophic effects if we don’t stop this quickly.

<strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> You know, this <em>L.A. Times</em> <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;">piece</a>, in addition to the <em>InsideClimate [News]</em> <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming" style="text-decoration: none; border: 0px;">piece</a>, is fascinating, "What Exxon Knew About the Earth’s Melting Climate"—"About the Earth’s Melting Arctic." And it says, "Ken Croasdale, senior ice researcher for Exxon’s Canadian subsidiary, was leading a ... team of researchers and engineers that was trying to determine how global warming could affect Exxon’s Arctic operations and its bottom line." It says, from '86 to ’92, "Croasdale's team looked at both the positive and negative effects that a warming Arctic would have on oil operations, reporting its findings to Exxon headquarters in Houston and New Jersey. The good news for Exxon, he told an audience of academics and government researchers in 1992, was that 'potential global warming can only help lower exploration and development costs' in the Beaufort Sea. But, he added, it also posed hazards, including higher sea levels and bigger waves, which could damage the company’s existing and future coastal and offshore infrastructure, including drilling platforms, artificial islands, processing plants and pump stations. And a thawing earth could be troublesome for those facilities as well as pipelines."

Now, Congressmember Lieu, this is fascinating. It could benefit Exxon because the global warming would melt the Arctic ice and open up the window for them to drill, what, three, four, five months. But, of course, it could also damage them severely.

<strong><span class="caps">REP</span>. <span class="caps">TED</span> <span class="caps">LIEU</span>:</strong> I believe there needs to be a new word in the English language created for what Exxon did. They confirmed climate change was happening with their scientists, then their top executives denied it, and then they planned to take advantage of it. That is way beyond hypocrisy. They were doing all of this in the name of profits, and they set back humanity—and may have, in fact, doomed humanity. This is just one company. And it’s just very shocking that they did that.

<strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> So let’s talk about the parallels to Big Tobacco, what exactly a Justice Department investigation would mean. Bill McKibben has said no corporation has ever done anything this big and this bad. Congressmember Lieu, explain what happens if, as you’re calling for and the presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is demanding, an actual investigation into Big Oil, into Exxon.

<strong><span class="caps">REP</span>. <span class="caps">TED</span> <span class="caps">LIEU</span>:</strong> Well, I think it’s tremendous that the former Department of Justice prosecutor who went after Big Tobacco—and won—now believes that the Department of Justice should do an investigation of ExxonMobil and Big Oil. And what happened with tobacco is the federal government used what’s called the <span class="caps">RICO</span>statute—it’s a racketeering statute—and they went after tobacco companies for knowing that tobacco products were causing cancer and killing people, and then denying that was happening, making profits from the products that they were selling. There’s a very good parallel here with what Exxon did. They knew that fossil fuels were causing global warming, then their top executives denied the science, spread uncertainty about it, and they profited from that. And I think the Department of Justice should investigate and then prosecute, if the facts warrant prosecution.

<strong><span class="caps">AMY</span> <span class="caps">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Exxon officials go to jail?

<strong><span class="caps">REP</span>. <span class="caps">TED</span> <span class="caps">LIEU</span>:</strong> It would depend on what the investigation shows. But, you know, setting back humanity for decades, and maybe permanently, seems like a pretty high crime to me.

<strong><span class="caps">JUAN</span> GONZÁLEZ:</strong> And, well, certainly, any kind of a Justice Department investigation or even civil lawsuits that might arise in the future would have the benefit of discovery, of being able to get at the internal records of Exxon, in terms of what the—what the executives knew, when they knew it, and what they did specifically. Bill McKibben, the prospects of that?

<strong><span class="caps">BILL</span> McKIBBEN:</strong> Good reporters were able to get this much from the outside. You’re absolutely right, Juan. It’s the—that depositions and that discovery process will bring to light things that we need to know, that we deserve to know. This is like tobacco, but, in a sense, it’s much, much larger. You never had to go near a gas pump to be the victim of this particular deception. If you live in some island in the Pacific, if you live in Tuvalu or Vanuatu; or in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean; if you live on low ground in Bangladesh; if you live in the sub-Saharan Africa, where drought is now spreading; or in the Fertile Crescent, not so fertile anymore as it dries out; if you lived in Pakistan, where we saw the most epic flooding the world has ever seen in 2010; if you live in California, where we’re now ping-ponging between severe drought and once-in-a-thousand-year rainfall events that are plugging the highways with mudflows—any of these places and a million more, then you should have standing to say what Exxon did is deeply wrong. And we need to demand that they be somehow made to be part of the solution. They shouldn’t be asking for more favors, more subsidies, more lifting of the oil export ban. Instead, we should be figuring out how to make sure that they and the rest of Big Oil use the money that they’ve piled up to help fund the transition quickly to renewable energy, a transition that would have happened long ago without them in the way, without them dominating our political lives.</p>

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<p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Two California congressmen have called on U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to open an investigation into whether ExxonMobil violated federal laws by "failing to disclose truthful information" about climate change.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Democratic Reps. </span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mark DeSaulnier and Ted Lieu</span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, both members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said they were "alarmed" by the possibility that Exxon withheld significant climate change information and went so far as to try to discredit the science confirming global warming.</span></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The congressmen requested a federal inquiry following disclosures in a<a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">series of articles</a> published by InsideClimate News beginning on Sept. 21. Based on documents and other evidence from an eight month investigation, ICN described how Exxon scientists were warning of potentially catastrophic effects of a buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide from fossil fuels as early as 1977. The lawmakers' letter also cited an article <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">published on Sunday by the Los Angeles Times</a> addressing Exxon's research into melting Artic ice.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"Investigations by the Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News allege that Exxon scientists confirmed fossil fuels' role in climate change decades ago, but top executives decided to hide the truth and instead embarked on a massive campaign of denial and disinformation," <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2461620-2015-10-15doj-exxonmobil.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">according to the Oct. 14 letter to the attorney general.</a></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The attorney general's office did not respond to a request for comment.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Exxon officials have consistently denied the company tried to obfuscate the science of climate change.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">DeSaulnier and Lieu drew a parallel between Exxon and cigarette companies that denied harm from tobacco and spread uncertainty and misleading information to the public. Federal and state prosecutors eventually sued the tobacco companies.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"We ask that the DOJ similarly investigate ExxonMobil for organizing a sustained deception campaign disputing climate science and failing to disclose truthful information to investors and the public," according to the letter. "We request the DOJ investigate whether ExxonMobil violated RICO, consumer protection, truth in advertising, public health, shareholder protection or other laws." RICO is the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, which makes certain conspiracies illegal.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_2100367150" tabindex="0" style=" box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On Friday</span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, former governor</span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Martin O'Malley</span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> of Maryland, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, joined in the call for an investigation of Exxon. "We held tobacco companies responsible for lying about cancer," he said </span><a href="https://twitter.com/MartinOMalley/status/655116504699027456" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">in a message</a><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> on Twitter. "Let's do the same for oil companies and climate change."</span></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In addition to possible federal litigation, <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/23092015/ExxonMobil-May-Face-Heightened-Climate-Litigation-Its-Critics-Say" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">legal experts have said Exxon also could face lawsuits</a> from states, private plaintiffs in the U.S. or abroad, or shareholders.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The InsideClimate News series shows Exxon's own models confirmed a "clear scientific consensus" of the severity of climate change, and warned that by the time the rise in temperatures became unmistakable it might be irreversible.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/search_documents?field_related_project=41124" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">Exxon documents</a> obtained by ICN show that top corporate managers were informed by their own scientists about carbon dioxide's potentially severe effect on the climate as far back as the late 1970s. Yet after a decade of internal discussions and research on global warming, Exxon spent more than 20 years discrediting climate change science.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"In this case, Exxon scientists knew about fossil fuels causing global warming and Exxon took internal actions based on its knowledge of climate change," according to DeSaulnier and Lieu's letter.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"Yet Exxon funded and publicly engaged in a campaign to deceive the American people about the known risks of fossil fuels in causing climate change. If these allegations against Exxon are true, then Exxon's actions were immoral.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"We request the DOJ to investigate whether ExxonMobil's actions were also illegal."</font></p>

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<p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We are standing up for every American’s First Amendment right to speak freely. We hope you will join us. This is a critical battle, and it will determine whether our society encourages spirited debate or tolerates only government-approved opinions.</font>

<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Kent Lassman</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President & CEO, Competitive Enterprise Institute</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">C. Boyden Gray</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Former White House Counsel</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Andrew C. McCarthy</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Former Chief Assistant United States Attorney, Southern District of New York</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Michael B. Mukasey</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">U.S. Attorney General, 2007-2009; U.S. District Judge, 1988-2006</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Ross McKitrick</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Professor of Economics, University of Guelph</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Ronald D. Rotunda</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence, Chapman University</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Richard S. Lindzen</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences, MIT</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">William Happer</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Emeritus Professor of Physics, Princeton University</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Jim DeMint</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, The Heritage Foundation</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">James H. Amos, Jr.</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President & CEO, National Center for Policy Analysis</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">John A. Baden</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Chairman, Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Lisa B. Nelson</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">CEO, American Legislative Exchange Council</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Paul Driessen</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Author & Energy Policy Analyst</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Thomas J. Pyle</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, Institute for Energy Research</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Steven J. Allen</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Vice President & Chief Investigative Officer, Capital Research Center</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">David Ridenour</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, National Center for Public Policy Research</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Steven J. Milloy</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Publisher, JunkScience.com</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Brooke Rollins</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President & CEO, Texas Public Policy Foundation</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Paul Gessing</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, Rio Grande Foundation</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Ron Arnold</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Researcher & Author</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">William Perry Pendley  </span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, Mountain States Legal Foundation</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Adam Brandon</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President & CEO, FreedomWorks</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Hank Campbell</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, American Council on Science and Health</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Craig Rucker</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Executive Director, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Tom McCabe</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">CEO, Freedom Foundation</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Richard B. Belzer</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Economist</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Heather R. Higgins</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President & CEO, Independent Women's Voice</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Joseph G. Lehman</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, Mackinac Center for Public Policy</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Sabrina Schaeffer</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Executive Director, Independent Women's Forum</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Joseph Bast</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, The Heartland Institute</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">John C. Eastman</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Founding Director, The Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Robert Alt</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President & CEO, The Buckeye Institute</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Michael Pack</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President & CEO, The Claremont Institute</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Josh Blackman</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Assistant Professor, South Texas College of Law</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Lynn Taylor</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, Tertium Quids</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">David Rothbard</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Tracie Sharp</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President & CEO, State Policy Network</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Kenneth Haapala</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, Science and Environmental Policy Project</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Tim Phillips</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, Americans for Prosperity</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Myron Ebell</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Director of the Center for Energy & Environment, Competitive Enterprise Institute</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">George Landrith</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">President, Frontiers of Freedom</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">John Tillman</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">CEO, Illinois Policy Institute</span></font></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Craig D. Idso</span></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; text-decoration-line: inherit;">Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change</span></font></div>

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