Climate Leadership cncl clc

Climate Leadership cncl

exxon got booted after McCoy disaster

see patton boggs lott breau, boehner lobby (do i need to distinguish org from plan?

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off bs

https://www.clcouncil.org/

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HMMMM

...Climate Leadership Council, a coalition of corporations, environmental groups and former government officials—would levy a carbon fee starting at $40 a ton in exchange for dropping all “stationary source” (non-transportation) carbon pollution regulations and granting the fossil fuel industry immunity from climate lawsuits.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/exxonmobil-climate-tax/

no lnx

The truth behind ExxonMobil’s claims to support a carbon tax

Elliott Negin and Independent Media Institute October 13, 2021

When then-ExxonMobil lobbyist Keith McCoy conceded in a secretly recorded video in May that the oil giant voiced support for a carbon tax only because it assumed it would never happen, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods said the company was "shocked by these interviews" and stood by its "commitments to working on finding solutions to climate change."

Wood's reaction was reminiscent of Captain Louis Renault feigning surprise to discover gambling at Rick's Café in the 1942 film "Casablanca." After quietly pocketing his winnings, Renault justifies closing down the nightclub by exclaiming, "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"

Woods was shocked? Really? Just one look at his company's financial records would show that despite claiming to endorse a carbon tax—initially in a cynical attempt to derail a cap-and-trade bill that was under consideration in 2009—ExxonMobil has funneled millions of dollars over the last decade to lawmakers who staunchly oppose the idea.

Backing Climate Science Deniers

One tried-and-true way corporations ensure access to Congress is by making campaign contributions. Although there may not be a verifiable quid pro quo, donations guarantee access, and access guarantees influence.

So, given ExxonMobil's professed support for a carbon tax, one might reasonably assume that the company's political action committee (PAC) and employees would back lawmakers who sponsor such legislation and, over time, withdraw their funding for senators and representatives who stand in the way.

In fact, the opposite is true.

During the video interview, McCoy—who at the time was ExxonMobil's senior director of federal relations—compared lobbying Congress with fishing.

"When you have an opportunity to talk to a member of Congress," he said, "I liken it to fishing, right? You know you have bait, you throw that bait out…. And… [then you start to] reel them in…. They're a captive audience. They know they need you. And I need them."

The goal, he explained, is to develop a close relationship with legislative staff. "You want to be able to go to the chief… and say, look, we've got this issue, we need Congressman So-and-So to be able to either introduce this bill, we need him to make a floor statement, we need him to send a letter," he said. "You name it, we've asked for everything."

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Not quite everything. ExxonMobil apparently has not asked for a carbon tax, notwithstanding the fact that the company was one of the founding members of the Climate Leadership Council (CLC), a bipartisan, industry-supported group, which was formed in 2017 to promote a carbon tax, and a year later, the company pledged to give $1 million over a two-year period to Americans for Carbon Dividends(AFCD), the council's lobbying arm. Over the last decade, members of both houses have voted on a handful of carbon tax-related amendments and nonbinding resolutions. In every case, a sizable majority who received donations from ExxonMobil's PAC and employees rejected the idea. For example:

In March 2015, the Senate voted 58 to 42 to pass a budget amendment prohibiting a carbon tax. Thirty of the 40 senators who had received ExxonMobil campaign contributions since 2010, including amendment sponsor Roy Blunt (R-MO), voted in favor of the prohibition.

In June 2016, the House passed a resolution introduced by Steve Scalise (R-LA) stating that a carbon tax "would be detrimental to American families and businesses" by a 237 to 163 margin. Eighty-five percent of the House members who voted for the resolution had received ExxonMobil political donationssince 2013. By contrast, only 26 of the representatives who voted against the resolution—16 percent—had received ExxonMobil money.

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In July 2018, the House passed another Scalise-sponsored resolution asserting that "a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy," this time by a 229 to 180 vote. During the 2018 election cycle, 75 percent of the representatives who gave the resolution a thumbs up received ExxonMobil donations. Only 23 percent of the 180 who voted against it got ExxonMobil funding.

The disparity between ExxonMobil's PAC donations to supporters of the July 2018 Scalise resolution and its opponents is even more telling, given that PACs—which can contribute as much as $10,000 to a candidate per two-year cycle—more accurately represent a company's agenda than that of individual employees. The ExxonMobil PAC contributed more than $935,000 to 74 percent of the resolution's supporters, but only $109,500 to opponents during the 2018 election cycle. Scalise, the resolution's sponsor, and 37 of his 48 resolution cosponsors received ExxonMobil PAC contributions.

The most recent congressional carbon tax vote took place in the Senate in February during a round of votes on the pandemic relief bill. John Hoeven (R-ND) sponsored an amendment that would have prohibited such a tax. It was rejected on a strict party-line vote: All 50 Republican senators voted for the amendment; all 50 Democratic senators voted no.

ExxonMobil PAC donations to those senators are mostly party-line, too. Twenty-seven of the 50 Republicans collectively have received $233,000 during the 2018 and 2020 election cycles. Over that same time frame, the PAC contributed just $62,000 to 11 of the Democrats.

Snubbing Carbon Tax Proponents

In January 2018, ExxonMobil Vice President of Public and Government Affairs Suzanne McCarron reaffirmed the company's support for a carbon tax, the Paris climate agreement and other related climate policies in a blog post on the company's website. ExxonMobil, she maintained, is "committed to being part of the solution."

Nevertheless, during the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, ExxonMobil employees and its PAC donated nearly $834,000 to 28 of the 30 senators and 90 of the 109 representatives currently in Congress who, according to the Center for American Progress, still reject the scientific consensus that global temperatures are rising and that burning fossil fuels is largely to blame. The company's PAC funded 16 of the climate science deniers in the Senate and 81 in the House.

Lawmakers sponsoring carbon tax legislation, meanwhile, have enjoyed considerably less support. Over the last two election cycles, climate science deniers in the 117th Congress received six and a half times more from ExxonMobil than carbon tax proponents.

Two carbon tax bills have been introduced in the Senate this session, both byDemocrats: one sponsored by Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, which has nine cosponsors, the other by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin. Three carbon tax bills have been introduced in the House: one sponsored by Pennsylvania's Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick with one cosponsor, another by Connecticut's Democratic Rep. John Larson with two cosponsors, and a third by Florida's Democratic Rep. Theodore Deutch with 84 cosponsors.

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Since 2017, ExxonMobil employees and the company PAC have donated only $127,692 to these carbon tax proponents: $35,486 to eight of the 11 sponsors and cosponsors in the Senate and $92,206 to 33 of the 90 sponsors and cosponsors in the House. The PAC contributed to only three of the senators and 12 of the representatives.

Despite this decidedly lopsided funding pattern, McCoy insisted during the interview that ExxonMobil wants to work with lawmakers on carbon tax legislation. "Put forth a bill and we'll show you that we'll support that bill, we'll help you work on that bill," he said. But, he added, "Nobody wants to do that because it's not politically expedient to put forth a tax for people, it just isn't."

In fact, a number of lawmakers have "put forth a bill" to establish a carbon tax in successive congressional sessions, but the company has shown no support, and neither McCoy nor ExxonMobil's other in-house lobbyists have broached the topic with members of Congress since 2018—the same year it announced its $1 million donation to the Climate Leadership Council's lobbying arm, AFCD—according to ExxonMobil's quarterly lobbying reports.

Staffers working for Rep. Larson and Sen. Whitehouse, who both have been sponsoring carbon tax legislation for years, recently verified that ExxonMobil has not expressed support for their respective proposals. Larson introduced a bill in 2009, the same year that ExxonMobil announced that it favored the policy, while Whitehouse first sponsored one in 2014 and has reintroduced a version of it in every session since.

Out of frustration, Whitehouse and his fellow bill sponsor, Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, sent a letter to ExxonMobil in August 2016 criticizing the company for its indifference.

"Regarding ExxonMobil's alleged seven years of support for a carbon fee, we've seen no meaningful evidence of that," the senators wrote. "None of the top executives that make up ExxonMobil's management team has expressed interest in meeting with any of us to discuss the Whitehouse-Schatz proposal or any carbon fee legislation."

Five years later, nothing has changed on that front. A Whitehouse spokesperson says his office is not aware of ExxonMobil supporting any carbon pricing legislation, let alone the senator's.

But McCoy's revelations did have consequences: The Climate Leadership Council kicked ExxonMobil out of the organization in August; the Union of Concerned Scientists and other public interest groups cited McCoy's comments in a "friend of the court" brief filed in Minnesota's climate science deception lawsuit against ExxonMobil; and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform asked McCoy to testify about his company's campaign to mislead the public "about the dangers of fossil fuels and their role in causing global climate change."

As for McCoy's job status, an ExxonMobil spokesperson told E&E News in late September that "McCoy no longer works for the company."

If McCoy does wind up testifying before Congress, he would serve as the opening act for a hearing that the Oversight Committee plans to hold on October 28 featuring his former boss Darren Woods and top executives from other major oil and gas companies. Finally, under oath, Woods and his colleagues will have to answer questions about their decades-long effort to block government action on climate.

Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/exxonmobil-is-still-bankrolling-climate-science-deniers/

no lnx

ExxonMobil is still bankrolling climate science deniers

Written by Elliott Negin / Independent Media Institute October 23, 2019

ExxonMobil says it believes “the risk of climate change is real,” and it is “committed to being part of the solution.” The largest investor-owned oil company in the world also says it supports a federal carbon tax and the Paris climate agreement.

Then why, after all these years, is the company still financing advocacy groups, think tanks, and business associations that reject the reality and seriousness of the climate crisis, as well as members of Congress who deny the science and oppose efforts to rein in carbon emissions?

According to the company’s latest grantmaking report, it gave $772,500 to 10 such groups in 2018, which does not include its annual dues to trade groups such as the American Petroleum Institute, which opposes a carbon tax. In addition, ExxonMobil continued to promote gridlock directly on Capitol Hill. Two-thirds of the $1.65 million it spent on congressional election campaigns during the 2017-18 election cycle went to climate science deniers.

Nearly half of ExxonMobil’s 2018 donations to nonprofit denier groups went to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Another 30 percent went to the American Enterprise Institute and the Manhattan Institute, which have been ExxonMobil grantees for 20 years. All told, the company has spent some $37 million since 1998 on a network of denier organizations—a sorry record of support that ranks second only to Charles Koch and his brother, the late David Koch, owners of the coal, oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries.

The shred of good news here is that ExxonMobil’s 2018 denier grant budget was half of what it spent in 2017 and the lowest amount since 2012. But if the company were truly serious about addressing climate change, it would cut off such funding completely. Likewise, it would support federal lawmakers who want to curb carbon emissions, not those standing in the way of government action.

So what did ExxonMobil get for its money in 2018?

Underwriting Climate Denial at the U.S. Chamber

In 2014, ExxonMobil pledged $5 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Capital Campaign over a five-year period on top of its annual dues, despite the lobby group’s history of misrepresenting climate science and the economics of transitioning to clean energy. Last year, the company kicked in $350,000 for the Capital Campaign and another $15,000 for the Chamber’s Corporate Citizenship Center, bringing its total 2018 donation to $365,000.

Two years ago, the Chamber sponsored a widely debunked report that wildly inflated the cost of adhering to the Paris climate agreement to the U.S. economy. President Trump used that report as his primary rationale for refusing to honor the U.S. commitment to the accord.

Earlier this year, however, the Chamber posted a new statement on its website that suggested that the business lobby is softening its position. “We stand with every American seeking a cleaner, stronger environment—for today and tomorrow,” the Chamber now asserts. “Our climate is changing and humans are contributing to these changes. Inaction is simply not an option.” The website also features the Chamber’s definition of an effective climate policy, which it says should include, among other things, “large-scale renewables, energy storage and batteries,” and should “encourage international cooperation.”

Does that mean the Chamber has finally come to its senses? Not quite. It opposed the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which would have reduced coal power plant carbon emissions, and supports the Trump administration’s move to repeal it. And although a Chamber spokesman told Politico in August that it is “absolutely important for the U.S. to remain in the Paris climate agreement,” he added that the “Obama administration’s pledge was unrealistic [and] was going to have a negative impact on our economy. And so we’d like to see that revisited.” In other words, the Chamber would like the United States to remain a party to the agreement so that it can try to weaken the U.S. commitment to it.

Backing Denial at the American Enterprise Institute

The American Enterprise Institute, an 80-year-old, free market think tank in Washington, D.C., has received more money from ExxonMobil than any other climate science denier organization. In 2018, ExxonMobil gave the organization $160,000, bringing its total to $4.65 million since 1998.

Economist Benjamin Zycher, an Enterprise Institute staff member who writes regularly about climate issues, argues that a carbon tax would be “ineffective” and has called the Paris agreement an “absurdity.” He also routinely cites largely debunked papers by John Christy, Judith Curry and other outlier scientists to buttress his attacks on what he calls “climate alarmism.”

Last fall, for example, Zycher took aim at the second volume of the Fourth National Climate Assessment—a periodic, congressionally mandated analysis of peer-reviewed climate science by 13 federal agencies. The report warned that by the end of this century, unchecked climate change could cause tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. The Trump administration issued it the day after Thanksgiving in the hope that it would receive limited attention.

Zycher took issue with the report’s conclusions in a blog post on the think tank’s website, citing “systematic evidence on climate phenomena” that he says the report ignored. His “evidence” included half-truths, cherry-picked facts and fabrications. Contrary to Zycher’s claims, human activity is responsible for more than half of the increase in average global temperatures since 1950; sea level rise has accelerated due to climate change; and although there has been little change in the frequency of hurricanes globally, research suggests there has been an increase in hurricane intensity over the past 40 years.

Zycher also posted a column belittling a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood that charges ExxonMobil with defrauding investors by publicly claiming to incorporate climate risks in its business decisions while downplaying or ignoring them for internal planning purposes. The lawsuit, which went to trial on October 22, alleges that ExxonMobil inflated its value, falsely assuring investors that its oil and gas reserves would not become “stranded assets” that would have to be left in the ground. Zycher accused Underwood of “picking an unpopular target and then trying to find a way to convict it of something,” and suggested that she filed the suit to advance her career.

Financing the Manhattan Institute’s Specious Case Against Renewables

The Manhattan Institute, a New York City-based think tank, received $75,000 from ExxonMobil last year for its Center for Energy Policy. Since 1998, the company has given the Libertarian policy shop more than $1.3 million.

Like the Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute opposes the Paris climate accord. Senior Fellow Oren Cass, who regularly testified before Congress against Obama administration climate efforts, alleges the international agreement is “somewhere between a farce and a fraud.” The think tank is also an outspoken opponent of renewable energy, routinely calling for an end to federal subsidies for wind, solar and electric vehicles. At the same time, it is mum about the significantly bigger subsidies the oil and gas industry has been receiving over the last 100 years.

Cass’s colleague, Senior Fellow Robert Bryce, has been bashing wind power for years and, like President Trump, he wildly overstates its threat to birds. In fact, the top human-caused threats to birds are climate change, buildings, power lines, misapplied pesticides, communications towers, and oil and gas industry fluid waste pits. Bryce never mentions that. It would undermine his bogus argument.

Still another Manhattan Institute senior fellow, Mark P. Mills, wrote an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal in May titled “What if Green Energy Isn’t the Future?” In it, he maintained that, “using wind, solar and batteries as the primary sources of a nation’s energy supply remains far too expensive.” In fact, renewables are now the cheapest type of new electricity generation for more than two-thirds of the world, according to a June report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. By 2030, Bloomberg researchers project, wind and solar will “undercut existing coal and [natural] gas almost everywhere.” Mills also failed to factor in the cost of doing nothing to curb carbon pollution. The top 10 largest climate change-related disasters in 2018 alone cost at least $85 billion in damages.

Aiding and Abetting Congressional Gridlock

On top of the hundreds of thousands of dollars ExxonMobil gave to climate science denier groups last year, the company continued to fund deniers on Capitol Hill. As noted above, 67 percent of the $1.65 million it spent during the2017-18 election cycle—roughly $1.1 million—went to the campaigns of 189 climate science deniers. It then spent$11.15 million in 2018 to lobby lawmakers, more than any other oil and gas company.

One of the most talked-about climate proposals in Congress today is a carbon tax, and despite ExxonMobil’s professed decade-long support for one, it has consistently funded senators and representatives who oppose the idea. Since 2013, there have been at least five nonbinding resolutions in Congress on such a tax. Each time, a majority of ExxonMobil-funded legislators, ranging from 75 percent to 93 percent, voted against it. The most recent example of the company’s upside-down funding priorities is the outcome of a July 2018 nonbinding resolution in the House stating such a tax would be “detrimental” to the U.S. economy. Once again, a majority of ExxonMobil-funded lawmakers favored the resolution, which passed by a 229-to-180 vote. This time, 78 percent of the 174 House members who had received ExxonMobil campaign contributions since 2013 voted for it.

ExxonMobil first announced its support for a carbon tax in 2009 in a cynical attempt to derail a cap-and-trade bill in Congress, and last year, the company announced it would give $1 million over two years to Americans for Carbon Dividends, a political action group created to promote a revenue-neutral carbon tax. The proposal—developed by the Climate Leadership Council, a coalition of corporations, environmental groups and former government officials—would levy a carbon fee starting at $40 a ton in exchange for dropping all “stationary source” (non-transportation) carbon pollution regulations and granting the fossil fuel industry immunity from climate lawsuits.

In a surprise move, however, the Climate Leadership Council and Americans for Carbon Dividends recently deleted the provision shielding the fossil fuel industry from liability, apparently abandoning coalition co-founders BP, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil, which are facing more than a dozen lawsuits for billions of dollars in climate change-related damages. It remains to be seen what ExxonMobil will do now, but based on past experience, the company likely will continue to finance lawmakers who cite fraudulent reports by the groups it funds to make their bogus case that climate change is not a threat. In other words, ExxonMobil will keep bankrolling climate science denial to make sure nothing happens on Capitol Hill.

Author’s note: Besides the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($365,000), American Enterprise Institute ($160,000) and Manhattan Institute ($75,000), ExxonMobil gave grants in 2018 to the following seven climate science denier groups: American Council on Science and Health ($60,000), Center for American and International Law ($12,500), Federalist Society ($10,000), Hoover Institution ($15,000), Mountain States Legal Foundation ($5,000), National Black Chamber of Commerce ($30,000) and the Washington Legal Foundation ($40,000).

Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

This article first appeared on Truthout and was produced in partnership with Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

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https://www.climatedocket.com/2019/05/21/national-association-manufacturers-climate-microsoft/

docket

microsoft is a prominent example of an American company walking a public relations tightrope on climate change. It professes a serious commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, touts its clean energy bonafides and vocally supports the Paris Climate Agreement and the dire need to combat a growing climate crisis. But it also remains a member of a trade group, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), which has worked for decades to delay action on climate change and defend the fossil fuel companies whose products cause it.

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NAM, in fact, has been so proactive in anti-climate action projects that it draws comparisons to its support for the tobacco industry as it faced a liability battle in the 1980s. NAM, along with other trade groups, backed tobacco companies as they faced hundreds of lawsuits 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 climate liability lawsuits.

As then, NAM’s member companies face public pressure for supporting those efforts. Microsoft, along with other companies, including Intel and Proctor and Gamble, told Climate Liability News that they disagree with NAM’s actions and policy positions on climate change.

But they have not ended their memberships. While other climate change-denying groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council have suffered membership losses because companies like Google and Apple felt they could no longer be publicly associated with its tactics, NAM has experienced no such repercussions so far.

“The views expressed by NAM do not reflect Microsoft’s position on climate change,” a Microsoft spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Microsoft is committed to sustainability and addressing climate change. We work with many groups on various technology policy issues and do not expect that any organization’s agenda will align to ours in all policy areas.”

The Trade Group Tango

Whether a company joins—and remains—a member of NAM or any trade group depends on how much it agrees with the association’s activities and how its membership in the association affects its reputation, said Michael Barnett, a professor of management & global business at Rutgers Business School who has studied trade groups.

“[Trade associations] are effective by influencing what others outside the industry think of the industry, like regulators, like customers, like communities,” Barnett said.

Trade groups help shield individual companies from the public relations backlash of lobbying on behalf of their industry. They often work as organizing forces to oppose regulation of industries and to lobby government for favorable laws and policies.

“The member firms want cover, they want that legitimacy, they want an improved reputation, but they don’t want to do those things necessary to gain that,” Barnett said. “It’s sort of like they’ve hired a personal trainer and they want that trainer to say, ‘Eat cake and you’re going to get fit.’”

Sharon Eubanks, a former Department of Justice lawyer who led the government’s racketeering case against the tobacco industry, compared efforts by NAM to defend the fossil fuel industry’s inaction on climate change to efforts by trade groups to back the tobacco companies. She cited the Tobacco Institute and the Center for Tobacco Research, which provided faulty research and inaccurate testimony to support the tobacco industry’s lies about the harms of its product.

“I would say that this group is a little more in your face and direct than the tobacco industry was in what they are doing,” Eubanks said. “They tried to put on a fig leaf, the tobacco industry did, but NAM, there’s no fig leaf—it’s out there.”

NAM has attacked climate scientists, undermined international climate negotiations and worked to delay the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions through the Global Climate Coalition, a fossil fuel front group that operated from 1989 to 2002. NAM and the Global Climate Coalition were so closely intertwined that one recently discovered document instructs members to make dues checks payable to “NAM – Global Climate Coalition.”

More recently, NAM launched its Manufacturers’ Accountability Project to defend big polluters against climate liability suits. Formed in 2017, the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project has attempted to discredit municipalities filing suits against oil companies for the damage they’ve caused to the climate.

Last year NAM launched the Main Street Investors Coalition to fend off shareholder resolutions calling for more transparency and action on climate change.

Why Do NAM’s Members Abide Its Backing of Fossil Fuel Companies?

NAM doesn’t publicly list its members, and companies with executives on NAM’s board include large fossil fuel companies with a clear interest in preventing climate liability suits.

At the same time, other board members come from a wide variety of companies, some which appear to have a strong commitment to protecting the climate and have little or no chance of being named in a climate liability suit, including Pella, Microsoft, Intel, Mueller WP, Volvo, Ball, Proctor and Gamble, Corning and Baker Boy, a North Dakota-based donut chain, among others.

Microsoft, which has recently come under fire for joining the Climate Leadership Council, an industry-backed group advocating for a carbon dividend plan that could do away withclimate liability suits, has tried to back away from NAM’s work without leaving NAM.

Intel is also carefully distancing itself from NAM’s campaigns to delay action on climate change.

Intels positions don’t always align with NAM’s, said William Moss, an Intel spokesperson.

“In the case of climate change, we have raised it directly with NAM, and state in our climate change policy our support for the IPCC and the Paris Agreement, and our own commitment to reducing our carbon footprint,” said Moss, who added that the overall benefits of Intel’s membership in NAM outweigh its differences on issues like climate change.

“In areas where we may have significant differences, we often publish our position separately so our stakeholders know where we stand,” Moss said.

Proctor and Gamble said its NAM membership is aligned with its general business goals and strategies, but the company does not agree with NAM’s position on every issue.

“We also respect and value the views of our shareholders, especially on topics that are of importance to the company,” said a Proctor and Gamble spokesperson in a statement. “The trade associations of which we are members are aware of our policy positions, including our views on climate policies. We are consistent in the positions we share with external stakeholders as well as in our trade association engagement.”

NAM did not respond to a request for comment, but in a radio interview last year, its president, Jay Timmons, claimed NAM’s 250 board members are “unified in their concern about what lawsuits like this will do to manufacturing operations if they are successful,” Timmons said, referring to climate liability suits.

Guy Moos, president ofBaker Boy, said his company remains a member of NAM because of other membership benefits, not its stance on climate issues.

“In North Dakota, we’re probably wired a little differently because the Bakken oil field is a pretty big deal around here and so I personally don’t take a position of anti-fossil fuel,” Moos said.

Barnett said the more trade associations try to serve a narrow focus, the more difficult it is to retain a broad industry base.

After a recent review of its membership in several trade associations, Shell found it had “some misalignment” with NAM’s climate-related policy positions. While the oil giant announced it would not renew its membership in the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, it said it would “continue to engage with [NAM] and closely monitor our alignment on climate-related topics.”

Shell is facing climate liability suits in the U.S. for the damage its products have done to the climate and for failing to adequately plan for and protect its facilities from climate change. Seven environmental and human rights organizations in the Netherlands have filed suit against Shell for failing to align its business model with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Barnett said fossil fuel companies will continue to accrue liability as long as they deny responsibility for climate change.

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ref clc

https://www.climatedocket.com/**2018/10**/09/exxon-carbon-tax-climate-liability/

Savage

Exxon has announced it will pledge $1 million to Americans for Carbon Dividends, an advocacy campaign that backs a carbon tax plan, but one that would be coupled with rollbacks to environmental regulations and ending climate liability suits.

The Baker-Schultz Plan—named for its lead authors, former secretaries of state James A. Baker III and George P. Shultz—proposes a gradually rising carbon tax, with 100 percent of the proceeds paid to Americans in a monthly dividend. It was unveiled last year by theClimate Leadership Council, a nonprofit policy institute founded by author and policy entrepreneur Ted Halstead.

The council’s founding members include Exxon and other oil and corporate giants—among them, BP, Shell, Johnson & Johnson—as well as former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former fed chairmanBen Bernanke.Greg Bertelsen, the council’s senior vice president, called Exxon’s donation a significant step in U.S. climate policy.

“It represents the first time an oil and gas oil major has made a significant contribution in support of a campaign to put a price on carbon,” said Bertelsen, who formerly served as senior director for energy and resources policy for theNational Association of Manufacturers.

In return for what is a modest tax, the Baker-Schultz plan also calls for the rollback of greenhouse gas emissions regulations and an “end to federal and state tort liability for emitters.” That means the federal government would no longer have the ability to regulate climate pollutants and courts would have no role in determining whether industry should pay for impacts already caused by fossil fuel-driven global warming.

Kert Davies, director of the Climate Investigations Center, said it’s significant that when the plan was launched, no corporate members were involved publically.

“The most interesting thing to me is how Exxon has been behind this the whole way but was intentionally hidden from view,” Davies said.

“Are they shy? No, they know the optics,” he added.

Americans For Carbon Dividends isco-chaired by former Senators Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and John Breaux (D-La.), whose lobbying firmwas hiredto promote the plan.And according to itswebsite, its communications is being led by Richard Keil, a former senior media relations advisor for Exxon.Keil is listed as a managing director for Hill+Knowlton, the firm that once represented tobacco companies as they tried to escape liability for the devastating health effects of smoking.

Exxon’s announcement came a day after the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a landmark report warning that climate change is a much more dire and immediate problem than previously thought. In the report, scientists call for “unprecedented” action that would be needed to combat the effects of climate change.

To prevent catastrophic climate change, carbon emissions must be reduced by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050, the report says. The use of renewable energy to generate electricity must increase from about 20 percent today to about 67 percent by 2050. It also calls for a robust carbon tax, large enough to raise the cost of fossil fuels to drive down their use and raise enough money to offset their detrimental impact on the climate.

“A price on carbon is central to prompt mitigation,” said the report’s authors. They estimate that to achieve needed emissions reductions, the price per ton of carbon dioxide pollution must range from $135 to $5,500 in 2030, and from $690 to $27,000 per ton by 2100.

A recent study by the University of Massachusetts found a carbon tax would have to reach$200 a ton to change consumer behavior and to keep low-income consumers from absorbing a disproportionately high amount of the costs.

The Baker-Schulz Plan starts the tax at $40 per metric ton, far below what the studies say would significantly reduce emissions. The plan does not specify how much it will rise or how the increases will be determined.

Bertelsen said that’s a detail that will be worked out over time by the council’s founding members, which in addition to the oil giants includes corporate giants P & G, Johnson & Johnson, Pepsico, and Exelon. Bernanke, Bloomberg and former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitmanare also founding members, along with the environmental organization The Nature Conservancy.

When asked repeatedly whether founding members would reconsider their stance on climate litigation, Bertelsen would only say that the Council is focused on solving the climate problem and transitioning to a low-carbon economy.

Exxon spokesman Scott Silvestri told Bloomberg that applying a uniform cost across the economy is consistent with Exxon’s principles on how to manage the risk of climate change. He said the company has consistently backed a carbon tax that returns proceeds to the public and not the government, but Exxon has also long supported organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council that have lobbied vigorously against carbon taxes of any kind.

Under the plan, U.S. taxpayers would benefit from monthly dividend payments, but none of the proceeds would help cities and states pay the skyrocketing costs of climate mitigation and adaptation.

Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy and chief climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said he remains skeptical and suggested the oil giant lay out a plan for bringing company-wide carbon emissions to net-zero by mid-century. That would be consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement that Exxon also says it supports.

“I’ll take ExxonMobil claims of support for a carbon dividend seriously when it stops providing far larger sums to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other lobbying groups that oppose the same climate policies,” Frumhoff said.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/economist-james-k-boyce-explains-how-to-fight-climate-change-and-rising-income-inequality-in-one-shot/}:

...

Fossil capital is likely to oppose any policies that would sweep its assets into the dustbin of history. The only way to overcome this opposition is to build a broad and deep alliance among everyone who puts the long-term well-being of our children, our grandchildren, and humankind ahead of the short-term greed of those who profit in the fossil-fuel status quo.

But it’s been interesting to see that some energy firms, including ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP, came out in support of theClimate Leadership Council’s (CLC) “conservative case” for carbon dividends.

LP: Is that kind of support a sign that there’s something wrong with the idea of carbon dividends?

JB: It’s important to distinguish the baby from the bathwater. I think there are two specific features of the CLC plan that made it palatable to some oil-and-gas firms. The first is the initial carbon price: $40 per ton of carbon dioxide. This would be enough to spur the shutdown of coal-burning power plants in favor of natural gas-fired plants, expanding the market for gas producers, while not being high enough to make a serious dent in demand for transportation fuels. The plan was vague on how the price would increase over time, but for Big Oil $40 may be just about the sweet spot.

The second inducement was a curious line of legalese inserted in the CLC plan saying that carbon taxes “would make possible an end to federal and state tort liability for emitters.” There is no intrinsic connection whatsoever between a liability waiver and carbon dividends. I can only surmise that this was put in as a carrot for the corporations. If so, and if this was enough to get them to sign on, it reveals just how deep the anxiety runs in boardrooms about the prospect of being held to account for the colossal harm that fossil fuel corporations have inflicted on people and the planet. The precedents of Big Tobacco, the demise of Union Carbide after the Bhopal chemical disaster, and the bankruptcy of Johns-Manville Corporation due to asbestos liability are instructive here. I regard corporate liability as a valuable bargaining tool that should not be relinquished lightly.

In speaking to diverse audiences about carbon dividends, I’ve often been asked, “This seems like a great idea – why haven’t I heard of it before?” I explain that it’s because no one stands to get rich from carbon dividends. No big-money interests are paying anyone to publicize the idea. The only way we will get carbon dividends – and the only way we will see effective solutions to the climate crisis – is for the people to join together and demand them. That is the bottom-line message of the book.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07032019/carbon-tax-proposals-compare-baker-shultz-exxon-conocophillips-ccl-congress

Not long ago, a carbon tax was the untouchable third rail of climate politics.

"We have done extensive polling on carbon tax. It all sucks," John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, wrote to another adviser in a memorable January 2015 email from the Wikileaks stash.

But four years later, amid the political upheaval wrought by President Donald Trump, several carbon tax proposals are getting a serious look on Capitol Hill. Ironically, the president's rejection of climate science and his fossil fuel-focused agenda may have helped usher in an era when carbon taxation is politically thinkable.

One carbon fee-and-dividend plan has already been introduced in Congress and more are expected. Editorial pages and conservative pundits are talking about carbon taxes as a pragmatic way to achieve the goals of the Green New Deal. And the opinion polls look a lot different than the ones that caused Podesta to recoil.

A plurality of Americans—44 percent—say they support a policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by taxing carbon-based fuels, according to a poll conducted last November by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and the Associated Press. (Only 29 percent said they were opposed, while 25 percent were neutral.) A surveyof registered voters by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University found that 58 percent said they would favor a Republican-proposed carbon tax that would return all revenue to households in the form of monthly rebate checks.

More and more states and local governments are jumping in with carbon pricing plans of their own to fill the climate leadership void that Trump has created.Energy companies face the prospect of 50 different regulatory approaches on greenhouse gases in the United States—a powerful incentive for them to seek one uniform, predictable, national approach. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips are among the oil companies backing a campaign to get their favored version of a carbon tax introduced in the Senate this year, one that would also protect them from other climate regulations and lawsuits.

There are significant differences between the carbon tax proposal backed by Big Oil and the approaches backed by environmental activists. And while carbon pricing could help put the U.S. on track to zero emissions by mid-century, experts warn that a poorly designed plan could be too weak to get the job done.

A close look at two economy-wide carbon tax proposals—the oil industry-backed plan, developed by former Republican Secretaries of State James Baker and George Shultz, and legislation backed by a grassroots environmental group, Citizens' Climate Lobby—highlights some of the key questions that policymakers will face as they weigh competing carbon tax plans.

How High a Carbon Tax?

Baker-Shultz proposal:Although its plan has not been formally introduced yet, the framework laid out by the Climate Leadership Council, a coalition of industry and environmental groups that support the Baker-Shultz proposal, would start a carbon tax at about $40 per ton, escalating by 2 to 5 percent annually, and reaching as high as $65 per ton by 2030.

Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act:The bipartisan measure sponsored by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) and Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.) would levy a carbon tax beginning at $15 per ton, escalating by $10 annually, and reaching $115 a ton by 2030. That averages out to a 24 percent annual increase—higher than any other recent climate proposal.

https://www.alternet.org/environment/exxonmobils-support-carbon-tax-total-sham

ExxonMobil executives just had another opportunity to convince skeptics that their support for a carbon tax is genuine.

They blew it.

On July 23, Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL-26) introduced a bill that would place a $24 per ton tax on carbon emissions and dedicate 70 percent of the revenue to rebuilding U.S. infrastructure. ExxonMobil’s reaction? “We appreciate Rep. Curbelo’s effort to help generate a constructive discussion on this important issue” was all a company spokesman was willing to say.

ExxonMobil’s reluctance to seriously engage, however, should not come as a surprise.

Yes, the company has consistently paid lip service to a carbon tax since 2009. And yes, it is a founding member of the Climate Leadership Council—which supports a $40 per ton carbon tax—and it recently endorsed Americans for Carbon Dividends, a new bipartisan lobby group promoting a carbon tax that would return revenues to taxpayers.

But more telling is the fact that the oil giant has never publicly supported a carbon tax bill and consistently funds members of Congress who oppose a carbon tax.

How does that square with the company’s avowed position?

Just say no

It doesn’t.

Curbelo’s bill is hardly the first carbon tax legislation that ExxonMobil has snubbed. When Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA-33) asked ExxonMobil lobbyists to support a carbon tax bill in 2015, they refused. And when Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced the “American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act” in 2016, the company would not endorse their bill or lobby on its behalf.

new group of industry heavyweights, including oil majors Total, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell and BP, have voiced their support for a Republican-led carbon tax and dividend plan. Individual founding members include, Michael Bloomberg, Stephen Hawking and Steven Chu.

The Climate Leadership Council, formed earlier this year to promote a carbon tax as the most effective climate solution, announced its new coalition of "Founding Members" today.

Supporters include companies like Johnson & Johnson and General Motors and NGOs like the Nature Conservancy.

The plan is made up of four parts. As Bloomberg writes:

A carbon tax on fossil-fuel combustion lets energy prices reflect the damage done to the climate from carbon dioxide emissions.
Money raised by the levy is refunded monthly to taxpayers—turning distant climate benefits into immediate cash.
A border tax on goods from countries without a carbon tax ensures that U.S. companies remain competitive.
Finally, the U.S. safely rolls back climate regulations.

The council presented its plan, coauthored by several GOP senior statesmen, to Trump's economic adviser Gary Cohn in February.

For a deeper dive:

New York Times $, WSJ$, Bloomberg, Axios. Commentary: Washington Post, George Shultz and Lawrence Summers op-ed $, FT, Ted Halstead op-ed $

==Bb bs: SEAN MORAN8 Feb 2017 Beltway Republicans, including former Treasury Secretary James Baker, lobby National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn to enact a carbon tax at the White House today. Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner, and Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus are also expected to attend.Other Republican insiders comprise the climate change group. The list includes Hank Paulson, treasury secretary for George W. Bush, Rob Walton former Walmart chairman of the board of directors, and Ted Halstead, founder of the New America Foundation, a Soros related group.The insiders would impose a $40 per ton tax on carbon, and potentially increase it in the future. Conservatives on Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue oppose a carbon tax. President Trump has tweeted that he will not support or endorse a carbon tax: