la jolla summit 6/12
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MERRI OK
SEE DCI EXXON HACK
SEE EID 2 BS
SEE LEGAL SUPPRESSION
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POLITICO
...HOOPLA, DANCING, CHAMPAGNE CORKS A-POPPING: The Paris Climate Agreement goes into force today, officially launching the 195-nation agreement that aims to stem the rising tide of climate change. To date, about half of those countries, responsible for 66 percent of global emissions, have ratified the agreement, more than enough to clear key accord thresholds, according to the World Resources Institute. “Humanity will look back on November 4, 2016, as the day that countries of the world shut the door on inevitable climate disaster and set off with determination towards a sustainable future,” Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and Salaheddine Mezouar, the Moroccan President of COP22, wrote in an op-ed released Thursday night.
Party’s over, now get to work:After years of urgently working toward an international climate agreement, a speedy ratification has left negotiators suddenly over their skis. The first meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement will take place on Nov. 15, but it will have to be suspended while negotiators work out the rules and guidelines for future discussions. In addition, the nations that have not yet ratified the agreement cannot participate in negotiations (though they can observe). Negotiators will work through an ad hoc group that can include these countries to lay out the rules and wait for more ratifications to take place.
The hard part:Climate negotiations that kick off next week in Marrakech, will dig deep into how best to implement the agreement. The U.S. will keep up the pace, hoping to get the procedural issues resolved in time for a key 2018 reassessment of national goals. “Paris was the beginning,” U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing said in a conference call Thursday. “We’re on a rapid time table.”
Not so fast, say GOP senators: Environment and Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe and 13 of his GOP colleagues sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry insisting that “the administration has not been forthright in acknowledging the legal limitations of the president’s domestic climate actions.” The letter says the majority of the U.S. Congress opposes the agreement, and “any future administration will have numerous options to forego President Obama’s political commitments under the Paris Agreement and the fact that it will soon be in force is of no consequence.”
ENERGY GROUPS STAY AWAY FROM POTUS RACE:Hillary Clinton raised just more than $61,000 from energy and environmentalist PACs, out of her overall haul of $513 million, while just $21,000 of Donald Trump’s $255 million total came from energy PACs. Clinton’s biggest energy donations include $10,000 from FuelCell Energy, $7,700 from Renewable Energy Systems Americas and $7,500 from St. Louis-based utility Ameren. Trump did well with coal groups, adding $10,000 to his coffers from Murray Energy’s PAC, $2,700 from coal mining equipment maker JH Fletcher & Co. and $1,000 from the Ohio Coal Association. Pro’s Alex Guillén has more on how energy and environmental interests spent their political cash in the latest edition of Energy Influence.
Speaking of campaign spending, the League of Conservation Voters is out with a memo today detailing their most extensive spending in an election cycle to date. The green group says it spent $45 million (up from an earlier estimate of $40 million), knocked on 2.5 million doors and aired more than 20 TV and digital ads.
EXXON LAWYERS WARN GROUPS: KEEP YOUR EMAILS:Lawyers with Exxon Mobil recently warned nonprofit groups targeting the company over its climate change record that all of their communications with the media could become part of the court record in its legal battle with New York’s and Massachusetts’ attorneys general, Pro’s Elana Schor reports. In an Oct. 20 letter to the Union of Concerned Scientists, Exxon lawyer Justin Anderson expressed particular interest in records between the group and “members of the press,” former Vice President Al Gore, 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, climate activist Kenny Bruno, and lawyers Sharon Eubanks, Matt Pawa and Linda Singer.
Alan Jeffers, a spokesman for Exxon, tells ME: “We have no choice but to defend ourselves against politically motivated investigations that are biased, in bad faith and without legal merit. We did not start this, but we will see it through and will vigorously defend ourselves.”
INDUSTRY SCOFFS AT DAKOTA ACCESS REPORT:Craig Stevens, a spokesman for the pro-pipeline Midwest Alliance of Infrastructure Now Coalition, is not impressed by a report released Tuesday calling the Army Corps of Engineers’ review of the Dakota Access pipeline “seriously deficient.” Dakota Access opponents released the report, prepared by a consultant who has worked with industry and environmental groups and who sits on a federal pipeline advisory committee. It would be “ludicrous” to consider those findings with the same weight as government analysis of the project, Stevens told ME in a statement. “Had this been an industry-funded screed it would be immediately dismissed. This should be given that same value,” said Stevens, a vice president at the DCI Group.
...
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Exxon’s Conspiracy Charges Aim To Derail Climate Lawsuits - DeSmog
by David Halperin, crossposted from Republic Report
Oil giant ExxonMobil is engaged in unprecedented efforts to sue and harass in court the very people who are investigating and suing the company over global warming. Faced with determined efforts by states and localities to hold it and other fossil fuel companies accountable for contributing to, and concealing the evidence of, climate change, Exxon is crying foul, contending that it’s the victim of politically- and financially-motivated conspiracies.
But in reality there are no improper schemes behind the cases against Exxon. Instead, what’s troubling is an apparent effort by Exxon, one of the world’s wealthiest corporations, and its powerhouse corporate lawyers, to avoid a courtroom reckoning by making specious legal arguments and outspending their foes in the legal arena.
Through its attorneys at New York’s Paul Weiss Rifkin Wharton and Garrison, and Texas-based firms Haynes & Boone and Cantey Hanger, ExxonMobil has sued the attorneys general of Massachusetts, New York, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. And the company has recently targeted for depositions and document subpoenas, and threats of more lawsuits, numerous state officials, private attorneys, and advocates.
Exxon’s legal counterattack began after the Massachusetts, New York, and Virgin Islands AGs started investigating whether Exxon misled consumers and investors about the dangers of global warming and the potential impact of those dangers on the company’s bottom line. Investigative reporting in 2015 showed that Exxon scientists have known, and told Exxon management for decades, that burning fossil fuels was heating up the planet, but rather than educate the public on the dangers and change its business strategy, Exxon instead spent millions supporting efforts to question and deny the science of climate change. The state AGs also started investigating whether ExxonMobil has properly accounted for its oil reserves in the wake of global price drops and evidence of global warming.
The Massachusetts AG, Maura Healey, has explained that her investigation focuses “on whether Exxon may have misled consumers and/or investors with respect to the impact of fossil fuels on climate change, and climate change-driven risks to Exxon’s business,” in marketing energy products and in marketing Exxon securities, in violation of the state consumer protection law.
Similarly, New York’s AG, Eric Schneiderman, has indicated that he is investigating whether ExxonMobil’s public statements about climate change conflicted with its internal research, which could have led to “state law violations, including under the Martin Act,” the New York law that prohibits financial deception and fraud. (The New York AG reached settlements with Xcel Energy and Dynegy, Inc. in 2008 and with AES Corp. in 2009 based on those companies’ failures to disclose climate change risks in securities filings.)
In 2016, Exxon launched its response, suing Healey, Schneiderman, and U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general Claude Earl Walker in federal courts in its home region of Dallas-Fort Worth. The suit against Walker succeeded when his small office halted its investigation of the oil titan, but the other two AGs persisted.
U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade approved Exxon’s demand that Healey and Schneiderman submit to depositions by Exxon lawyers — an unwarranted, and virtually unprecedented move, as prosecutors aren’t normally required to face cross examination by people whom they’re investigating. Healey and Schneiderman fought back, seeking an unusual mid-case appeal to the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, after which Kinkeade backed down, cancelled the depositions, and transferred the case to a federal court in New York.
As Exxon continues its efforts to convince a Manhattan federal judge to allow it to depose the two state AGs and, ultimately, to block their probes, it faces a new wave of lawsuits: since September 2017, eight cities and counties in California, plus New York City, have sued Exxon and other fossil fuel companies, alleging harm to their communities from climate change.
Related DeSmog investigation: “There is no doubt”: Exxon Knew CO2 Pollution Was A Global Threat By Late 1970s
The new lawsuits brought by California cities and counties — the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Richmond, and Imperial Beach, plus Santa Cruz, San Mateo, and Marin counties — could pack a powerful punch. The suits allege that ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and others knew for decades that fossil fuel-driven global warming and rising seas threatened human life, but continued to expand their production, while deceiving consumers about the risks. Asserting that this conduct violates various state tort rules — public nuisance, failure to warn, design defect, negligence, and trespass — the suits demand that the companies pay for the costs of environmental harms like damages to seawalls, and dangers from severe weather, droughts, and fires.
These new lawsuits have a stronger chance of success than a 2008 case filed against fossil fuel companies by the small Alaskan community of Kivalina, seeking to recover the cost of relocating their village, which was threatened by rising sea levels. A federal judge dismissed that case, concluding that the village could not trace its injuries to any particular defendant. But today there is much more evidence that global warming is real, accelerating, and caused by burning fossil fuels, and that oil companies knew such information, suppressed it, and sought to counter it. Also, lawyers for the California cities and counties believe that recent scientific advances will make it easier to prove that the specific defendants’ activities harmed or threaten their client communities.
Faced with these mounting challenges to its conduct, ExxonMobil is relentlessly trying to change the subject.
In legal papers and public communications attacking the New York and Massachusetts attorney general investigations, Exxon has charged that various meetings among lawyers, advocates, and charitable foundation officials to discuss climate change liability issues, and communications between such people and attorneys general offices, are evidence of an untoward conspiracy against the company. Exxon further alleges that the AG probes attack the company’s First Amendment rights. “The attorneys general have violated Exxon Mobil’s right to participate in the national conversation about how to address the risks presented by climate change,” Dan Toal, one of Exxon’s lawyers at the Paul Weiss firm told Bloomberg.
Now Exxon and its allies are aiming to tie the new California lawsuits into this alleged conspiracy. The company is seeking to depose more than a dozen California officials, plus private attorney Matt Pawa, in anticipation of a threatened lawsuit alleging violation of the company’s free speech and other constitutional rights. In a January 8 Texas court petition seeking the depositions, Exxon charges, “A collection of special interests and opportunistic politicians are abusing law enforcement authority and legal process to impose their viewpoint on climate change.”
A recent op-ed by New York business consultant John Burnett attacked some of the California cities and counties for hiring outside lawyers to sue Exxon and paying them on a contingent basis — meaning they get paid if and only if Exxon loses in court or settles — even though this consultant acknowledges that the cities and counties couldn’t afford to pay the lawyers any other way. He calls the arrangement “a perilous new frontier in the world of ambulance-chasing by elected officials.” Similarly, Linda Kelly, general counsel for the National Manufacturers Association, told a reporter, “From Richmond, California, to New York City, activist-driven lawsuits are being filed to undermine manufacturers in America without regard to the facts.”
But these counterattacks on those pursuing Exxon are themselves fueled by false information and unwarranted charges.
I’ve worked for many years in association with some of the people Exxon has claimed are part of the alleged conspiracy. They aren’t conspirators. They generally do their work and make their cases out in the open. A 2012 meeting in La Jolla, California, among private lawyers and climate experts that Exxon repeatedly cites as the birthplace of the secret plot was meticulously documented and photographed by the participants themselves.
There’s also nothing sinister or unusual about scientists, private lawyers, other experts, or simply concerned citizens providing evidence and arguments to state attorney general offices regarding potential legal violations, including, indeed especially, in complex matters involving powerful actors. There’s nothing wrong with state and local law enforcement officials working in parallel on probing a common issue or target — it happens frequently. Nor are public statements by officials regarding those probes proof of political bias or an impingement on Exxon’s First Amendment rights. And nor is it unusual or improper for local governments to hire private lawyers to protect their residents’ interests in court.
The AGs and local officials are doing their jobs — pursuing evidence of law-breaking. If Exxon believes it has behaved properly with respect to climate change, it should use its expensive and talented lawyers to defend itself on the merits, rather than harassing others over invented conspiracy theories.
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How Exxon Uses The Courts To Silence Opponents
3 years agoSteve Hanley
CleanTechnica
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This is a simple story. Imperial Beach, California, is a small, working class community near San Diego that is experiencing more frequent flooding as sea levels rise and more powerful storms push ocean water inland. According to The Guardian, without extensive mitigation measures that will cost tens of millions of dollars, rising sea levels will eventually swamp some of the city’s neighborhoods, routinely flood its two schools, and overwhelm its drainage system.
An analysis of the city’s vulnerability to rising sea levels has determined that nearly 700 homes and businesses valued at more than $100 million in Imperial City are threatened. It said that flooding will hit about 40% of the city’s roads, including some that will be under water for long periods. Two elementary schools will have to be moved. The city’s beach, regarded as one of the best sites for surfing on the California coast, is being eroded by about a foot a year.
The mayor of Imperial City is Serge Dedina, a laid back surfer dude who looks like he could have played a part in the movie The Big Lebowski. But he is no pushover. In July, 2017, Imperial City sued Exxon and 30 other oil companies seeking compensation that would help it pay to protect itself from rising sea levels. The city’s suit alleges the oil giants committed fraud by covering up research showing that burning fossil fuels destroys the environment. The industry then lied about the evidence for climate change for decades, deliberately delaying efforts to curb carbon emissions.
Imperial City’s annual budget is $20 million. It doesn’t have the money to prepare for the ravages of a warming planet. “We don’t have a pot to piss in in this city. So why not go after the oil companies?” Dedina says. “The lawsuit is a pragmatic approach to making the people that caused sea level rise pay for the impacts it has on our city.”
The Empire Strikes Back
Exxon has responded to the suit by unleashing an infestation of Gucci shod lawyers upon the city. It claims Imperial Beach and several other communities are engaging in a giant conspiracy to extort money from it and its fossil fuel buddies. The root of the conspiracy is a meeting that took place 9 years ago at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla that was organised by the Climate Accountability Institute and the Union of Concerned Scientists. That meeting produced a report outlining how legal strategies used by US states against the tobacco industry thirty years earlier could be used to bring lawsuits against fossil fuel companies.
“A collection of special interests and opportunistic politicians are abusing law enforcement authority and legal process to impose their viewpoint on climate change. ExxonMobil finds itself directly in that conspiracy’s cross hairs,” Exxon says.
Exxon is attempting to use a Texas law that allows corporations to go on a phishing expedition for incriminating evidence before any legal action is filed against them. The company is trying to force Dedina, two other members of Imperial Beach’s government, and officials from other jurisdictions to submit to questioning on the grounds they had joined in a conspiracy against the oil industry.
Chutzpah
Chutzpah is a Hebrew word that is used to describe someone who has overstepped the boundaries of accepted behavior. According to Wikipedia, “in traditional usage, the word expresses a strong sense of disapproval, condemnation and outrage.” In legal circles, they like to describe chutzpah as a person who murders both parents and then begs the court for mercy because he is an orphan. No matter how you define it, Exxon and its fellow climate killing comrades have it in abundance.
The conspiracy, if there is one, is the agreement made between the oil companies 40 or more years ago when their own scientists warned them that rising carbon emissions would lead to a warming planet. The industry took those warnings and shoved them under the rug, telling the public there was nothing to worry about while keeping the truth a secret. They have engaged in a massive conspiracy to convince the public *they* are responsible for global heating, not the oil industry.
Pipeline Protests
Exxon’s tactics are a mirror of those used by Energy Transfer Partners to harass protesters involved in the Standing Rock movement. ETF filed a lawsuit alleging Greenpeace and its partners are engaged in a criminal network of fraud and misinformation. The complaint includes references to “wolfpacks of corrupt” environmental nongovernmental organizations.
Here’s where it gets really weird. The suit is based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act of 1070 that targeted organized crime. It also relies on defamation law to wage a scorched earth campaign against nonprofits that dared spoke out against the pipeline’s construction near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota according to the ACLU.
More recently, hundreds of people were arrested in Minnesota for daring to protest the Line 3 pipeline being built by Enbridge. A report by The Guardian reveals that Enbridge paid police $2.4 million to arrest and conduct surveillance on hundreds of those demonstrators. If there are conspiracies afoot, it is fossil fuel companies who are engaging in them.
How is this any different that Andrew Carnegie sending the Pinkertons to beat and murder workers who dared try to organize a union at his Homestead Mill in 1892? The people who should be arrested are not the protesters who are trying to stop the destruction of the environment but the corporate leaders who are engaging in a concerted, coordinated campaign to commit crimes against humanity for personal gain.
Keep On Keepin’ On
Serge Dedina is not intimidated by the legal guns trained upon him by Big Oil. “The only conspiracy is [that] a bunch of suits and fossil fuel companies decided to pollute the earth and make climate change worse, and then lie about it,” he says. “People ask, how did you go against the world’s largest fossil fuel companies? Isn’t that scary? No. What’s scary is coastal flooding and the idea that whole cities would be under water. Honestly, bring it on. I can’t wait to make our case. I can’t wait to take the fight to them because we have nothing to lose.”
In the words of Haile Sellasie, “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
We as a society owe a debt of gratitude to people like Serge Dedina, and the protesters at Standing Rock and in Minnesota who refuse to be intimated by the oil barons and their highly paid legal prostitutes. We should all have such courage.
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https://www.expressnews.com/business/eagle-ford-energy/article/Inside-Exxon-Mobil-s-fight-to-stop-climate-12994450.php
BUSINESS
Inside Exxon Mobil’s fight to stop climate change litigation in its tracks
James Osborne
Staff Writer
June 15, 2018
[FILE - In this May 31, 2006 file photo, an ice sculpture fashioned by protesters, to demonstrate their view of how the company's policies are affecting the environment, slowly melts outside the Exxon Mobil shareholders meeting in Dallas. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled Friday, April 13, 2018, that Exxon Mobil must hand over documents for Attorney General Maura Healey's probe into whether the company misled investors and consumers about what it knew about the link between fossil fuels and climate change. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)]
WASHINGTON — Imagine this storyline: One of the largest oil companies in the world becomes the victim of a left-wing conspiracy, funded by wealthy liberals who convince Democratic attorneys general across the nation to sue the company to stop it from offering different views about climate change.
What sounds like the stuff of a bad Hollywood thriller is, in fact, the narrative Exxon Mobil’s attorneys are telling as they seek to defend the company from mryiad lawsuits and investigations into what oil companies knew about climate change and when they knew it. With a surprising procedural victory in a Texas court recently, Exxon is attempting to gain greater latitude in what it and other oil companies can say — or not say — about climate change and the impact on their businesses, seeking to build on legal rulings that have expanded corporations’ rights of free speech in recent years, legal scholars say.
The U.S. government has long limited First Amendment protections for corporations, prohibiting them from making false statements to further business interests — a staple of U.S. consumer protection laws going back to the days of snake-oil salesmen peddling so-called magic elixirs. But Exxon’s case could test how far the courts are willing to go to uphold governments’ ability to regulate commercial speech.
Exxon is arguing that the state and local governments suing the company have gone too far, trying to impose an Orwellian code of conduct to drown out those who call attention to uncertainties about how climate change will play out over the long term and affect the global economy.
“Exxon is framing (climate change) as a legitimate political debate in which they are a participant, rather than a for-profit company trying to make a buck,” said Tamara Piety, a law professor at University of Tulsa. “There has been a growing movement (among corporations) to raise the First Amendment. If something can be proven to be unconstitutional it’s completely off the table”
Over the past two decades, companies have successfully used the free speech strategy to challenge government regulations on everything from the placement of workplace signs explaining employee rights to the distribution of patients’ medical data. A key win for corporate America came in 2010 Citizens United case, when the Supreme Court ruled that limits on corporate spending in political campaigns violated companies’ free speech rights.
Now Exxon is seeking to expand corporate rights one step further, arguing that the government legal action, based on the company’s past statements, is little more than leverage to get oil companies to agree to a wide-arching climate change deal that would restrict what they can say about the issue — in violation of “of Exxon Mobil’s constitutional rights.” That includes investigations launched by the New York and Massachusetts attorneys general into whether Exxon lied to shareholders and consumers about the risks of climate change to the environment and its business, and lawsuits filed by cities and counties in California and Colorado, which are seeking damages from Exxon and other oil companies for the costs of rising sea levels and increased wildfires.
Exxon in January asked a state court in Fort Worth to order more than a dozen city and county officials from California to sit for depositions by Exxon’s attorneys to determine whether they are conspiring with plaintiffs’ attorneys and environmentalist activists to force Exxon into accepting a deal. A New York federal judge in March dismissed a similar request by Exxon to depose the New York and Massachusetts attorneys general, ruling it was based on “extremely thin allegations and speculative inference,” but the Texas judge, R.H. Wallace Jr., decided to give the company more room to prove its claim, ruling in April that Exxon could begin making requests to depose specific officials.
Exxon declined to comment. But James Coleman, a law professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and a contributor to the conservative Federalist Society, said Exxon, which has come out in support of the Paris climate accords and a national carbon tax, is simply protecting its First Amendment rightsto communicate about climate change and the effects on its finances as it sees fit.
“It’s an unusual claim (by Exxon) but it doesn’t mean it’s wrong,” he said. “The government can make you give accurate information, but the government can’t force you to say things you disagree with. For instance, the government couldn’t make Exxon say climate change is the defining challenge of our time, even if they consider it a fact.”
San Francisco and other California communities are challenging Wallace’s ruling in the Texas 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, potentially setting the case on a path to the Texas Supreme Court. And considering the political makeup of the state’s high court, Exxon stands a good chance of winning its argument, said Tom McGarity, a law professor at the University of Texas, who sits on an advisory board to the California plaintiffs.
“It presents a very sympathetic venue,” he said. “It’s a pro-business Supreme Court.”
Conspiracy
The case in Texas comes three years into a legal campaign against Exxon and other oil companies. In Exxon’s telling, it all stems from meeting of environmental activists in the beach town ofLa Jolla, California, in 2012.
Activists and attorneys discussed a strategy for addressing climate change based on the tobacco lawsuits of the 1990s, which successfully argued tobacco companies were liable for smokers’ deaths because executives knew the risks but still claimed publicly they did not, according to an account of the meeting published by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group that helped organize the event
If Exxon and other oil companies could be shown to have known the risks to health and safety of climate change but did nothing to warn the public and investors, then perhaps activists could create a groundswell of public outrage to change the political and economic landscape for oil companies, much as they had for tobacco companies.
“We wrote up a report so other lawyers and policymakers could pick up on those lessons (from tobacco) and use them, like you would any science you would hope is actionable,” said Peter Frumhoff, head of policy and science at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The first tenet of good science is being transparent.”
But the activists also gave Exxon a potential weapon to counterattack.
The company’s lawyers have focused on one line in the Union of Concerned Scientists account, in which activists describe how they could could use litigation for “maintaining pressure on the industry that could eventually lead to its support for legislative and regulatory responses to global warming.” That game plan, Exxon lawyers said, was then adopted by government prosecutors, including former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who recently resigned amid allegations of sexual abuse.
Wallace, the Texas judge, agreed with the company lawyers, writing that environmentalists who attended the La Jollameeting “aimed to chill and suppress Exxon Mobil’s speech.”
California and Colorado officials dismiss Exxon’s legal maneuvers as little more than intimidation tactics aimed at frightening and bogging them down in paperwork. A spokesman for the New York Attorney General’s Office called Exxon’s strategy an attempt to “distract and deflect from the facts at hand.”
Public opinion
Within conservative circles, Exxon’s conspiracy message seems to be gaining traction.
Earlier this year, David Bookbinder, an attorney with the libertarian Niskanen Center, filed suit against Exxon and the Canadian oil company Suncor,claiming they were responsible for the costs sustained by Colorado local governments in fighting wildfires and other effects of climate change.
A few weeks later, he began seeing his name pop up on conservative websites, including theDaily Caller and one owned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Articles suggested Bookbinder and his colleagues were part of a conspiracy funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a New York charity with more than $800 million in assets that is overseen by the descendants of the late oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, whose Standard Oil was the precursor to Exxon Mobil.
The claim was based on a $200,000 grant the Niskanen Center received shortly before the Colorado lawsuit was filed. Bookbinder said the grant had nothing to do with the lawsuit and scoffed at the idea his plaintiffs were part of a conspiracy to damage Exxon.
“My clients don’t want Exxon out of business,” he said. “Then they don’t get paid.”
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund said in a statement that it does consider a willingness to take oil companies to court in awarding grants to climate activists. “Litigation is one tool that can help to level the playing field by leaning into legal standards that are meant to serve the common good,” the statement said.
In its legal filings, Exxon maintains that the Rockefellers and the hedge fund billionaireTom Steyer, who is funding a campaign to impeach President Donald Trump, are behind the wave of litigation. Exxon lawyers cited a $30,000 campaign donation Steyer made to a former mayor of San Francisco shortly before that city filed suit, as well as a Columbia Journalism School investigation into how Exxon’s past statements questioning climate science conflicted with what its scientists were saying internally.
The Rockefeller Family Fund, another charity controlled by Rockefeller descendants, funded the Columbia investigation.
There’s nothing illegal about using money to try to influence a company’s behavior. But that’s besides the point for Exxon. Just as climate activists succeeded in convincing more Americans that climate change is a large and growing threat, Exxon wants to promote the idea of a liberal conspiracy to undermine a fossil fuel industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people and literally fuels the U.S. and global economies.
Exxon is now considering an appeal of a ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that found the state’s attorney general’s office had not violated the company’s constitutional rights when it demanded the company turn over documents. Such an appeal would go to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Exxon’s success in convincing the public of its liberal conspiracy narrative could make the difference between winning and losing.
“I don’t think the Supreme Court is completely oblivious to public opinion,” said Piety, the Tulsa law professor, “and the more Exxon can marshal public opinion, the better chance they have of convincing the courts.”
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spencer walrath
https://**eid**climate.org/obscure-activist-emerges-as-key-player-in-climate-litigation-campaign/
ref
aug 2018 obscure...
In recent months, a newcontroversial climate activisthas surfaced in the media. Richard Wiles has quickly become the go-to commentator for news stories surrounding a series of copycat lawsuits seeking to hold fossil fuel companies liable for the effects of climate change. On the surface, Mr. Wiles appears to be a well-meaning climate expert. But an Energy In Depth investigation reveals his involvement in the larger coordinated scheme to attack energy companies and force the industry to pay for global warming.[WHICH IS REAL?]
Wiles is involved in all aspects of the climate litigation campaign – from running a news outlet dedicated to promoting the lawsuits and coordinating a social media effort to attack the industry, to overseeing the research utilized in many of the lawsuits and pressuring additional cities to bring cases of their own.
Richard Wiles heads Climate Liability News (CLN), a dark-money “news” site set up in 2017 to promote climate lawsuits across the country. Though CLN doesn’t disclose its funders, its founding editor is Lynn Zinser, a transplant from InsideClimate News who worked on the original #ExxonKnew articles, which were paid for by the Rockefeller Family Fund and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The Rockefellers are key players behind both the #ExxonKnew and climate litigation campaigns. Coincidentally, CLN just happens to have a unique page on its website dedicated to advancing this fringe environmentalist effort.
Kert Davies and Alyssa Johl, a former attorney for theCenter for International Environmental Law (CIEL), serve alongside Wiles on the CLN board of directors. Davies and members of CIEL attended a secret meeting at the Rockefeller Family Fund in January 2016, which sought to “delegitimize” ExxonMobil and portray it as a, “corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm.”
Behind the scenes, Wiles facilitates this “news” site through a 501(c)3 organization called Climate Communications & Law. Established in 2017, the organization has no website and no publicly available financial disclosures to the IRS (form 990s). It appears to serve as a shell organization for other powerful players to funnel undisclosed funds to CLN, which means it serves as a de facto public relations component of #ExxonKnew. CC&L is operated out of Wiles’ own home.
Wiles also directs the Center for Climate Integrity, a project that “supports meritorious climate cases aimed at holding fossil fuel companies and other climate polluters liable for the damages they have caused.” This support includes coordinated social media posts with #ExxonKnew, an initiative by 350.org, and a PR campaign that is pressuring other cities like Houston and Miami to bring lawsuits of their own. These tactics seem to stem directly from the agenda at the aforementioned Rockefeller Family Fund meeting in 2016:[doc wiget?]
Not only is Wiles leading a PR campaign in support of these lawsuits, he also oversaw the research utilized in many of the cases seeking damages from fossil fuel companies. Wiles is the founder of Climate Central, a Rockefeller-funded organization that researches and reports on the impacts of climate change. Between 2008-2017, Wiles served as the organization’s Sr. Vice President for Strategic Communications and Research, where he supervised numerous studies cited in the lawsuits represented by Sher Edling.
Climate Central has been involved in the conspiracy to delegitimize the fossil fuel industry from the very beginning: Claudia Tebaldi, a climate statistician for Climate Central, attended thenow infamousLa Jolla conference on behalf of the organization in 2012.
Portrayed by the media as a dispassionate expert, Richard Wiles is a deeply ingrained collaborator in the climate conspiracy against the energy industry. He is facilitating a coordinated PR campaign and running a “news” organization to further these baseless attacks, alongside some of the most well-documented #ExxonKnew conspirators. He even oversaw research conducted after the La Jolla Conference that was later used in the very lawsuits he continues to promote.
Wiles has managed to operate multiple facets of the campaign to undermine the industry, while maintaining a public perception as an outside expert. It’s unclear if Mr. Wiles has any other notable affiliations with the climate litigation campaign, but additional investigation may yet reveal more to this story.
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forbes mag
bs
California officials who are suing large energy companies are telling two contradictory stories while taking part in a targeted effort featuring state attorneys general, private lawyers and Rockefeller money, a Texas judge has found.
On April 24, Tarrant County District Judge R.H. Wallace, Jr. signed off on proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, changing little from what Exxon is claiming – that lawsuits from California cities and counties are the product of an alleged conspiracy and assert that near-certain, climate change-caused doom is coming, even though previous bond offerings made to potential investors say such catastrophes can’t be predicted.
The judge’s filingwas obtained by Energy In Depth, a research program of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
“While the California municipalities alleged in their complaints against the energy companies that the impacts of climate change were knowable, quantifiable and certain, they told their investors the exact opposite,” Wallace's filing says.
“These contradictions raise the question of whether the California municipalities brought these lawsuits for an improper purpose.”
The California counties of Marin, Santa Cruz and San Mateo and the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Richmond and Imperial Beach have filed suit against several energy companies - including Exxon, Chevron and BP - over climate change. The company is also being targeted by the attorneys general of Massachusetts and New York.
Exxon took the fight to Texas in January by asking that it be allowed to depose the officials who filed these cases, as well as Hagens Berman lawyer Matt Pawa. The firm is representing some of the plaintiffs on a contingency fee.
The depositions could lead to a lawsuit alleging the California cases were brought in bad faith.
Statements made to potential investors contradict allegations made by the municipalities when they sued the energy industry, Exxon argued. For example:
San Mateo County’s complaint says it is “particularly vulnerable to sea level rise” and that there is a 93% chance the county experiences a “devastating” flood before 2050. However, bond offerings in 2014 and 2016 noted that the county “is unable to predict whether sea-level rise or other impacts of climate change or flooding from a major storm will occur."
At a recent American Enterprise Institute event, an attorney representing Colorado governments in climate change cases noted that the bond offerings came with a statement regarding a final paper from the California Climate Change Center that said property in San Francisco Bay is vulnerable to impacts associated with sea-level rise.
But the cities did not present an opinion on the accuracy of those claims, which was noted by Competitive Enterprise Institute attorney who attended the event.
The California cases came five years after a “playbook” was discussed at a **2012 conference in La Jolla, CA**. It is being carried out by Pawa, the AGs of New York and Massachusetts and the California local governments, Exxon said.
The judge’s findings of fact agree.
“During the conference, participants discussed strategies to ‘[w]in [a]cess to [i]nternal [d]ocuments’ of energy companies, like ExxonMobil, that could be used to obtain leverage over these companies,” the filing says.
“The conference participants concluded that using law enforcement powers and civil litigation to ‘maintain[] pressure on the industry that could eventually lead to its support for legislative and regulatory responses to global warming.’ One commentator observed, ‘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.’"
In 2016, Pawa met with members of the philanthropic Rockefeller Family Fund. The draft agenda said the goals of his campaign included convincing the public that Exxon is a corrupt institution that “has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm,” as well as forcing public officials to distance themselves from the company by refusing campaign donations and rejecting requests for meetings.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund recently awarded a $200,000 grant to the Niskanen Center, which is representing the City of Boulder in its lawsuit against Exxon and another company.
“The draft agenda notes that participants planned to use ‘AGs’ and ‘Tort()’ suits to ‘get() discovery’ and ‘creat(e) scandal,’” the judge’s filing says.
Those AGs attempted to hide their coordination with Pawa, the judge says.
"At the press conference, Attorney General Schneiderman discussed the need to regulate the energy industry's speech on climate change, just as Potential Defendant Pawa had urged at La Jolla and at the Rockefeller meeting," the filing says.
The judge also found that this effort was done to chill Texas-based free speech (Exxon’s statements public statements about climate change), so jurisdiction is proper in his court.
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2018-03-29
EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. Eric Tradd SCHNEIDERMAN, Attorney General of New York, in his official capacity, and Maura Tracy Healey, Attorney General of Massachusetts, in her official capacity, Defendants.
https://casetext.com/case/exxon-mobil-corp-v-schneiderman
Ralph H. Duggins, Alix Dean Allison, Philip A. Vickers, Pro Hac Vice, Ralph Hereford Duggins, Cantey Hanger LLP, Fort Worth, TX, Daniel E. Bolia, Patrick Joseph Conlon, Pro Hac Vice, Exxon Mobil Corporation, Houston, TX, Daniel John Toal, Pro Hac Vice, Michele S. Hirshman, Pro Hac Vice, Theodore Von Wells, Jr., Pro Hac Vice, Paul Weiss, New York, NY, Justin Anderson, Pro Hac Vice,Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP, Washington, DC, Nina Cortell, Pro Hac Vice, Haynes & Boone LLP, Dallas, TX, for Plaintiff.
Christophe Courchesne, Pro Hac Vice, Melissa Ann Hoffer, Richard Alan Johnston, Pro Hac Vice, I. Andrew Goldberg, Pro Hac Vice, Massachusetts Attorney General's Office,Richard A. Johnston, Pro Hac Vice, Wilmerhale, Boston, MA, Douglas A. Cawley, Richard Alan Kamprath, McKool Smith PC, Peter D. Marketos, Tyler J. Bexley, Reese Gordon Marketos LLP, Jeffrey Mark Tillotson, Lynn Tillotson Pinker & Cox, LLP,Dallas, TX, Peter Charles Mulcahy, Pro Hac Vice,Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, Worcester, MA, Leslie Byrne Dubeck, S. Jason Brown, Andrew Rhys Davies, Eric Del Pozo, Roderick Leopold Arz, New York State Office of the Attorney General, John Daniel Castiglione, Smith Valliere PLLC, New York,NY, for Defendants.
VALERIE CAPRONI, United States District Judge
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...2. Exxon's Lawsuit
At this stage, the Court assumes as true the factual allegations in the Complaint and the SAC.
Exxon brought this lawsuit on June 15, 2016, two months after receiving the CID and eight months after receiving the Subpoena. The Complaint alleges that the CID and the Subpoena are part of a conspiracy to "silence and intimidate one side of the public policy debate on how to address climate change." Compl. at 1. The overt portion of this campaign is a coalition of state attorneys general, including Healey and Schneiderman, called the"AGs United for Clean Power" or "Green 20." Compl. ¶ 27. The AGs United for Clean Power held a conference andpress event with former Vice President Al Gore in New York on March 29, 2016, to announce a plan to take "progressive action to address climate change." Compl. ¶ 27.
Schneiderman spoke at the March 29, 2016, press event and said that the conference's purpose was to "com[e] up with creative ways to enforce laws being flouted by the fossil fuel industry and their allies...." Anderson Decl. Ex. A (Tr. of March 29, 2016, press conference) at 1.
He described climate change as the "most important issue facing all of us," and described the conference as a "collective of states working as creatively, collaboratively and aggressively as possible." Anderson Decl. Ex. A at 2. Schneiderman also linked the AGs United for Clean Power conference to inaction at the federal level to address climate change: "[W]e know that in Washington there are good people who want to do the right thing on climate change but everyone ... is under a relentless assault from well-funded, highly aggressive and morally vacant forces...." Anderson Decl. Ex. A at 4.
Schneiderman went on to explain that his office had recently reached a settlement with Peabody Energy, a coal company, which agreed to restate its financial disclosures to provide clarification regarding Peabody's internal modeling of the cost to its business of government regulation of emissions. Anderson Decl. Ex. A at 3. Schneiderman said that the NYAG was pursuing a similar theory against Exxon. Anderson Decl. Ex. A at 3. Seemingly anticipating this lawsuit, Schneiderman stated:
There have been those who have raised the question: aren't you interfering with people's First Amendment rights? The First Amendment, ladies and gentlemen, does not give you the right to commit fraud. And we are law enforcement officers, all of us do work, every attorney general does work on fraud cases.And we are pursuing this as we would any other fraud matter. You have to tell the truth. You can't make misrepresentations of the kinds we've seen here.
Anderson Decl. Ex. A at 3-4. The transcript of the March 29, 2016 conference is quoted extensively in the Complaint.
According to the SAC, Schneiderman has previously made public statements regarding the "importance of ‘challenging those who refuse to acknowledge that climate change is real.’ " SAC ¶ 28 (quoting Anderson SAC Decl. Ex. S5 at 7).
Healey also spoke at the March 29, 2016, press conference and said that "[c]limate change is and has been for many years a matter of extreme urgency.... Part of the problem has been one of public perception, and it appears, certainly, that certain companies, certain industries, may not have told the whole story, leading many to doubt whether climate change is real and to misunderstand and misapprehend the catastrophic nature of its impacts." Anderson Decl. Ex. A at 12; Compl. ¶ 32.
Referencing Schneiderman's earlier comments regarding Exxon's disclosures (quoted supra n. 6), Healey said "[t]hat's why I, too, have joined in investigating the practices of [Exxon].We can all see today the troubling disconnect between what Exxon knew, what industry folks knew, and what the company and industry chose to share with investors and with the American public." Anderson Decl. Ex. A at 12; Compl. ¶ 37.
In a wild stretch of logic, Exxon contends that the AGs' "overtly political tone," Compl. ¶ 38, and comments on public "confusion" relative to climate change show that their intent is to chill dissenting speech, Compl. ¶ 31; see also id. ¶ 31 ("To [Schneiderman], there was ‘no dispute but there is confusion and confusion sowed by those with an interest in profiting from the confusion and creating misperceptions in the eyes of the American public....’ ").And, Exxon alleges, the AGs' comments demonstrate that they have prejudged the outcome of their investigations, presuming Exxon's guilt from the get-go. Compl. ¶¶ 36-37.
The Attorneys General involved in the AGs United for Clean Power coalition have entered into a common interest agreement, which includes a confidentiality provision. Compl. ¶¶ 52-53. Exxon contends, ipse dixit , that the AGs' interest in confidentiality is evidence of the coalition's intent to chill protected speech. Compl. ¶ 53.
The Complaint alleges that the March 29, 2016, conference was the culmination of a behind-the-scenes push by climate change activists. Among the activists allegedly involved are Peter Frumhoff, Director of Science and Policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, Compl. ¶ 42, who previously contributed to a report titled "Smoke, Mirrors, and Hot Air: how ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science," Compl. ¶ 44. Also allegedly involved is Matthew Pawa, a self-described specialist in "climate change litigation." Compl. ¶ 45.
The Complaint describes the development by Pawa, Frumhoff, and the private Rockefeller Family Fundof a strategy to promote litigation against fossil fuel producers, including, in particular, Exxon. Compl. ¶¶ 46-49. Pawa and Frumhoff allegedly made presentations to the AGs United for Clean Power at the March 29, 2016, conference, Compl. ¶¶ 44-45, but when Pawa was asked for comment by a Wall Street Journal reporter, a member of the NYAG's office requested that he "not confirm" his attendance at the conference. Compl. ¶ 50.
The SAC adds detail to the Complaint's allegations regarding Pawa and Frumhoff and the Rockefeller Family Fund. According to the SAC, Pawa, Frumhoff, and others hatched a scheme to promote litigation against Exxon at a June 2012 conference in La Jolla, California. SAC ¶ 44.
These activists saw litigation as a means to uncover internal Exxon documents regarding climate change and to pressure fossil fuel companies like Exxon to change their stance on climate change. SAC ¶ 45.
In January 2016, at a conference at the offices of the Rockefeller Family Fund, the activists discussed the " ‘the main avenues for legal actions & related campaigns,’ including ‘AGs,’ ‘DOJ,’ and‘Torts,’" and which options "had the ‘best prospects’ for (i) ‘successful action,’ (ii) ‘getting discovery,’ and (iii) ‘creating scandal.’ " SAC ¶ 53 (quoting Anderson SAC Decl. Ex. S1 at 1-2).
Exxon connects this strategy to a few meetings attended by staff from various state attorneys general, SAC ¶¶ 39, 46, 48, and records of communications and information-sharing between the activists, the NYAG, and other state attorneys general, SAC ¶¶ 48, 56-58, 67-69.
For example, there was a conference atHarvard Law School in April 2016 entitled "Potential State Causes of Action Against Major Carbon Producers: Scientific, Legal and Historical Perspectives," which included an hour-long session on "state causes of action" such as "consumer protection claims" and "public nuisanceclaims." Anderson SAC Decl. Ex. S47 at 1-2.
The other two meetings at which Exxon alleges there was commingling of environmental activists and staff from the AGs occurred in June 2015 and on the day of the March 29, 2016, conference.
The Complaint also alleges the document requests themselves demonstrate that the investigations are politically motivated. Exxon contends that the AGs' legal theories are so flawed—in terms of a factual or jurisdictional basis—that the only rational explanation is that the AGs are motivated by animus towards Exxon, rather than by a good faith belief that Exxon may have violated state law. It argues, for example, that the statutes cited by the NYAG have six-year statutes of limitations at most, but the Subpoena requests documents dating to 1977. This is evidence, according to Exxon, of an intent to harass rather than to conduct a good faith investigation of potential violations of law. Compl. ¶¶ 62-63.
And, according to Exxon, with limited and irrelevant exceptions, it has not sold any products or securities in Massachusetts during the applicable limitations period. Compl. ¶ 70; see also Compl. ¶¶ 68, 71 (alleging the Subpoena and CID seek documents with no connection to Exxon's activities in New York and Massachusetts). Both the Subpoena and CID demand Exxon's communications with oil and gas interest groups, which, according to Exxon, demonstrates the AGs' political bias because communications with private parties have no relevance to Exxon's public disclosures. Compl. ¶¶ 66, 73.
Exxon believes that the NYAG's shift in theories—from whether Exxon made misleading disclosures regarding its knowledge of climate change to whether it appropriately disclosed the value of assets likely to be stranded or impaired because of climate change—is evidence of an investigation in search of a crime, further demonstrating the NYAG's improper purpose. Compl. ¶ 76.According to Exxon, the stranded assets theory is also inconsistent with SEC guidance regarding disclosure of proved reserves. Compl. ¶¶ 77-81.
Based on these allegations, Exxon alleges the NYAG and MAG are retaliating against Exxon for its speech relative to climate change and the "policy tradeoffs of certain climate initiatives." SAC ¶ 123; see also SAC ¶¶ 120-124 (elaborating on Exxon's current position regarding climate change).
Exxon asserts seven causes of action: for conspiracy to deprive Exxon of its constitutional rights pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1985, Compl. ¶¶ 105-08; for violations of Exxon's free speech rights pursuant to the First Amendment, and right to be free from unreasonable searches pursuant to the Fourth Amendment, Compl. ¶¶ 109-11, 112-14;for violations of Exxon's right to due process pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, Compl. ¶¶ 115-17;
for violations of the Dormant Commerce Clause, Compl. ¶¶ 118-21; preemption of Massachusetts and New York law to the extent they conflict with applicable SEC regulations, Compl. ¶¶ 122-26; and common law abuse of process, Compl. ¶¶ 127-28. As revised in the SAC, Exxon demands broad relief, including a declaratory judgment that the AGs' investigations violate Exxon's constitutional rights, SAC at 58, and an injunction "halting or appropriately limiting the investigations," SAC at 59.
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